I was married with a 2-year-old daughter when I went into OCS. Thanks to a broken foot, that turned into a 6 month stay away from home. I was married through flight school and am still happily married today (though my daughter is now 5). I also had a lot of friends that were married and had kids.
The point is, it can be done. If you wait around for a convenient time to get married, it isn't going to come. Marriage, by definition, is never convenient. Much less so in the military. You're trying to take two completely different lives and turn them into one. It's tough. There are times when the strain is awesome and you wonder how you're going to do it. Whether or not the time is right for you is something only you know. I don't agree at all with the ones on here that say to refer to her as your "future-ex". Maybe it was like that for them, but that doesn't make it a universal truth. If that's your attitude, you're likely to wake up one day and realize that you're that creepy middle-aged guy still hanging out in college bars trying to hit on girls young enough to be your daughters and reliving glory days that happened when the other bar patrons were in diapers.
Some advice, though:
Make sure that she knows what she's getting into. You are about to embark on a very long and stressful time in your life. You won't always be there for her. Like SuperStallion said, if she's at all clingy or requires constant attention, it will make for an extremely painful time.
Also (and this is just me) make sure that she can take care of herself. I don't just mean not being clingy. Eventually you may have kids. What we do is inherently dangerous (as I was sharply reminded of yesterday). You don't want to marry someone with 20 hours of community college and no useful skills. If something happens to you, you want to know that she can continue to live and support your kids, if applicable. Sure SGLI is a lot of money, but it's amazing how fast someone can burn through that much money if they're not careful. Just my two cents. Take it for what it's worth.
Finally, she has to be willing to accept the fact that your schedule is never predictable. During flight school you won't know until the evening what time you'll have to go in the next day. Later on, it only gets worse. One of the squadrons that shares a flight-line with us was supposed to deploy this summer. They found out a few weeks ago that they were deploying sooner. They left last week for a 6-9 (they don't know exactly) month deployment. Again, if she doesn't think that she can handle that or if you don't think she can then you should maybe go your seperate ways. As I said before, I have a lot of friends it has worked out for, but I also know from many others that having an unsupportive spouse WILL make your life in the military unbearable.
The point is, it can be done. If you wait around for a convenient time to get married, it isn't going to come. Marriage, by definition, is never convenient. Much less so in the military. You're trying to take two completely different lives and turn them into one. It's tough. There are times when the strain is awesome and you wonder how you're going to do it. Whether or not the time is right for you is something only you know. I don't agree at all with the ones on here that say to refer to her as your "future-ex". Maybe it was like that for them, but that doesn't make it a universal truth. If that's your attitude, you're likely to wake up one day and realize that you're that creepy middle-aged guy still hanging out in college bars trying to hit on girls young enough to be your daughters and reliving glory days that happened when the other bar patrons were in diapers.
Some advice, though:
Make sure that she knows what she's getting into. You are about to embark on a very long and stressful time in your life. You won't always be there for her. Like SuperStallion said, if she's at all clingy or requires constant attention, it will make for an extremely painful time.
Also (and this is just me) make sure that she can take care of herself. I don't just mean not being clingy. Eventually you may have kids. What we do is inherently dangerous (as I was sharply reminded of yesterday). You don't want to marry someone with 20 hours of community college and no useful skills. If something happens to you, you want to know that she can continue to live and support your kids, if applicable. Sure SGLI is a lot of money, but it's amazing how fast someone can burn through that much money if they're not careful. Just my two cents. Take it for what it's worth.
Finally, she has to be willing to accept the fact that your schedule is never predictable. During flight school you won't know until the evening what time you'll have to go in the next day. Later on, it only gets worse. One of the squadrons that shares a flight-line with us was supposed to deploy this summer. They found out a few weeks ago that they were deploying sooner. They left last week for a 6-9 (they don't know exactly) month deployment. Again, if she doesn't think that she can handle that or if you don't think she can then you should maybe go your seperate ways. As I said before, I have a lot of friends it has worked out for, but I also know from many others that having an unsupportive spouse WILL make your life in the military unbearable.
2. That he did have 4 years enlisted before we met to "get it out of system". And he certainly did!!! lol. He experienced everything that he could, and so once we met and settled down, he wanst interested in being a drunk whore anymore. Because he already had been. Its got to be hard on these young guys when they are the only one married, and on port call in Australia all his friends are having the time of their lives and he has to go back to the boat to write to his wife.......
