Comments

1
Good grief, Charlie Brown. This is an awful lot of drama for a 5 month relationship. You're very young and have a lot of big commitments already ahead of you. She needs time to see a therapist about her relationship issues. I hate to rain on anyones parade, but I just don't see things coming together anytime soon for you two. Good luck, I think you're both going to need it.
2
Yeah, I got to "it's over" about a third of the way through his letter. You're too young for this amount of brain damage. Move on.
3
Assuming OWP is comfortable with the general drift of Dan's advice, I'd also suggest he take an interest in her profession and career, easing into it without being hovering or oppressive. He only mentions it briefly in passing, and I don't mean to paint with a broad brush, but many individuals on OWP's track have pretty archaic ideas about women's careers--he shouldn't come across as indulgent or humoring her, but in easy conversations learn more about her day-to-day work life, her challenges, frustrations, etc. Her freaking out may in fact be a natural response to heretofore shallow interest or reinforcement on OWP's part. OWP is sufficiently bright--college graduate, commissioned officer--to handle the challenge if he really opens heart and mind and is, if things go well over the next few months, fully open to using whatever wiggle room the military allows him for demonstrating that her career is equally (or more) important.
4
People who are under the age of 25 should basically operate in the "it's not going to work out mode." Between the end of college and a couple of years of working on a career, you and your partner are going to each change dramatically. After 25, not so much.

Learned this the hard way myself. Best advice would be to live your life and look towards getting into serious relationships around age 28.
5
Advice to her, too: she needs to remember that 30 isn't actually the end of the world. Better to meet up and marry someone at 38 than rush into the wrong someone at 30 and splitting (possibly with kids!) in a harsh way at 32.
6
Being married to a soldier ain't easy. I say this as a veteran. If you are on active duty, and moving from base to base, and occasionally being deployed overseas somewhere for months at a time, that adds a mountain of stress and conflict on a spouse that most civilians rarely if ever have to deal with.

A military spouse basically is restricted to careers where they can move every few years, or can telecommute from anywhere in the world. How many good careers can you think of where you can do that easily? Add to that the stress of having a spouse deployed to a war zone for months and not knowing if they will ever return, and if they do, how many limbs might be missing. Add PTSD to look forward to. The divorce rate among military couples is very high, and for good reason.

It's actually good she's thinking seriously about this now, and not just leaping into it with you. If she gives it serious thought (and therapy), and still decides to get serious with you some time later, it has a much higher chance of lasting.
7
Note that the intensity of her reaction indicates a depth of feeling that maybe she's not experienced before.
8
Great advice, but could it also be suggested to OWP to upend his life? If it's worth it to keep up the relationship, I mean.
9
Wow yeah, deep breath here. One of the big flags here for me is that she is out of school (and has been for a while, most likely) and he is still in school. Maybe where he is going is not as stressful as engineering school, but that is a pretty deep gap of life experience. I know I changed a lot that first few years out of school, though part of that may have been getting pinkslipped, and the relationships that might have been OK at 22 would not have survived.

Take a few more deep breaths and ease up on the relationship. I know I am looking at this through the filter of my experiences, but this one really says "we need to grow up a bit more" to me, especially since they might not grow in the same direction.
10
Jeezuz you guys. You're all just speculating based on this letter, and acting like people with actuarial tables -- she's got a career, she's 29, blah blah blah HIGH RISK! JUMP!-- and yeah, the odds are statistically low [given what we know], that this will "work", i.e. last beyond his army stint. But why can't they just enjoy each other and see what happens up until he leaves, as Dan suggests [which contradicts his first line, by the way -- it's not over until it's over, and if it's over, you don't keep seeing each other, casually or not]? I'm 46, i.e., a thousand, and all I keep learning as I decay over here, is that you never really know until you actually know, and if you make a decision based on insecurity -- which is what she's doing -- it'll bite you in the ass with regret and you'll just end up getting back together, but with more pain and insecurity to drag along from having broken up.

Also, it's really hard to find someone you are flat out crazy for, and when you do, training yourself off that person can take a lot longer than 5 months. Might as well see it through. By the time the fork in the road comes along, you'll know a lot more than you do now.
12
a seven year age gap is small change. i think she just wants out and is too chicken shit to dump him.
13
ghassan Odds are OWP can't upend his life for 4 years; at least. It sounds like he is ROTC and odds are he signed a contract for 4 years active 4 years reserve duty in exchange for Uncle Sam paying for collage. He has very reduced control of his life for the next several years.
14
@12: It depends on the 7 years. 62 and 69? I agree. 22 and 29? I strongly disagree.
15
@8 if he's getting out of college, and becoming an officer, I'm guessing he was ROTC. Which means he had a full ride, probably. Which also means he has a contract that he needs to fulfill.

I dunno what the legal and financial ramifications of breaking that contract is, but I'm guessing it might be severe.
16
Moral of the story - far better to rack up student loans than sell the 4 best years of your life to ROTC.
17
@16 Not 4 years, 12, if my experience was any indication.

I was in JROTC in high school and loved it. I had an aptitude for math and science, and my Lt Col urged me to apply for the scholarships, selling it as "4 years for 4 years"; that is, trading a free four years of school for four years of employment afterward. Pretty good deal, right?

It was only when I got the scholarship and got to college that I found out the following: I was expected to spend most of my free time doing various things within the ROTC program, so really that four years would be taken up with the military rather than mainstream college experiences. Then, after the 4 years of active duty was done, there was another 4 years of reserves, during which you can be called to active duty at any time.

Luckily, you can drop the scholarship anytime during the first year with no commitment issues. So I did that and I'm much happier for it.
18
Why don't you just drop your life and stay with her?

If this isn't a viable option for you, then it's not a viable option for you to ask it of her. End of story.
19
What @6 said.

Also this:

Don't talk about the future and don't—don't, for the love of God, DON'T—revisit the idea of her moving "to wherever [you] get stationed." She's nearly 30, OWP, and she has a career.

Is exactly why I understood that as long as I was a soldier, I could not possibly have any kind of long-term relationship with another man.

That's why, if you're interested in helping gay men and lesbians in uniform politically, you'll understand that repealing DADT was just half the battle. DOMA must also be repealed so that same-sex partners willing to make the huge commitment to supporting someone in uniform get the same level of support from the military that spouses do.
20
I'm not familiar with the life of a military spouse or significant other -- everyone who's served in my family got married after their service -- but isn't there also the possibility that she's thinking she'll be in a long-distance relationship with someone who could be killed while serving, officer or no?
21
Dan is correct.
22
Doesn't it seem like putting the genie back in the bottle to go back to a casual, low-stakes relationship?
23
"We had talked very briefly about her moving out to wherever I get stationed..."

And what happens when you get stationed in Afghanistan, was practically guaranteed when you made your commitment to join the Army?

I was in this exact same position 25 years ago, and I doubt human nature has changed much since then: we married, I got sent overseas, and things fell apart fast.

Appreciate your relationship for what it is/was - a great youthful experience, the first of many, and move on.
24
Did I miss the inescapable conclusion that the letter writer was a man? I read this as a situation between two women and had assumed that women also go into the Army as officers after college.
25
@4: It's funny that you should nominate that age as the age of "long-term relationship qualification" or whatever.

Because I just turned 28, as it happens. And my wife (same age) and I have been happily married for almost 5 years now. We were together for 7 years before that (yep, high school sweethearts).

I'm certainly not saying that everybody can aspire to this kind of early success in the realm of relationships. But it does get on my nerves how so many people will assert that people of a certain age are categorically unable to form life-long relationships. Because it happens, and it breaks my heart to think that somebody might abandon a worthwhile, promising relationship based solely on your type of age-ist advice. Sure, people grow up and they change. But sometimes a person is lucky enough to meet, early in life, the person who is a perfect match and will continue to be so.

Don't be such a pessimist, I guess, is what I'm trying to get across here.
26
I agree with Dan.
27
This bit: "well, that makes it sound like the sacrifice will be all hers, if she decides to stay with you, which could prompt her to end things now" is kind of stupid advice because, and I say this as a spouse of a military officer, the sacrifice WILL be all hers, at least when it comes to a career. Depending on what profession she has, her career will definitely suffer if she stays with you. Things that require state by state professional licensing--lawyers, anything medical, teachers--are especially tricky.

Also, I think the downer-ism on young relationships kind of sucks - I started dating my husband when I was seventeen, we're in our thirties now and couldn't be happier.
28
@6, and @23

Thanks for writing as veterans. I was going to speak up as the child of an officer and say what you said, but it has more authority coming from you.

I will add for those who don't know that Army officers generally move stations every two years. This means moving from state to state or even country to country. This is why people are discussing things like professional certifications and the difficulty of her maintaining a professional career.

It was very hard for my sister and I growing up with a Navy officer as a father. This was true even though he worked hard to manage his career in such a way that we moved a minimum of times. Despite the fact that he managed to keep us rooted in a way that is basically impossible for Army members, he was still gone quite a lot during our childhoods. Our working family consisted of the kids and our mom. When he would be home it was never clear to anyone how he fit in. This made no one happy.
29
"You're very young and have ...."

No, at 22, he is a grown man, and soon to be an officer in the United State Army, who may be making life and death decisions under very intense pressure.

My 3 year old niece is very young. Stop infantalizing grown ups.
30
Amazing comments from everyone. I work in international development, which is similar in some ways to the military - but you can at least get out easily. All my colleagues have had to go through this. Some have remained single for years; many work in different countries and see their partner for holidays; many are peripatetic with husband/wife and kids at home. Most have managed to be happy, but all have had to face the fact that a relationship is never enough in itself - both people have to get the chance to do what they really want in life, whether it's a job, a family, or something else entirely.
The most sorted have taken the big relationship decisions with their partners, not on their own. And they haven't had kids - or they've waited till they've found a pattern that works for them.

Personally, I'm glad I went through the pain of a long distance relationship with incompatible careers, because although we couldn't make it work it was the defining relationship of my life, and neither of us would have forgiven ourselves if we hadn't given it our best shot.

The most successful long-distance couple I know have no question at all whether it's going to work out - they've decided that they are going to stay together, and that's that. They are happy when they're together because they don't stress about the future, and when they're not together they live their lives to the full, spend time with friends, and have as much fun as they can.
31
@13 and @15 - thanks, I wondered if such a thing might be the case.
32
I sure hope she takes a serious step back before committing to follow your green ass wherever the Army sends you. New love is understandably intense, but 5 months is no basis for knowing whether you can be happy with someone for a lifetime. I can't see it working unless she's already familiar with military life and the sacrifices it entails, and is totally up for that. After the initial love endorphins have worn off (give it 12-18 months), is love going to get her through living in places she hates, leaving any friends she's made every couple of years, enduring your long absences, worrying about you being killed, dealing with your PTSD, ditching her own career to raise kids, often by herself, who will have their OWN lives upended every couple of years.... should I go on?
I'm not saying it can't ever work; I know some happy military families, where the wives just deal with it all, but I'm sure glad not to be in their shoes. Not to mention that a 22-year-old kid who signed up for the Army while we're currently waging 2-4 wars based on govt. lies doesn't really strike me as marriage material, in terms of maturity, judgement or general cluefulness. But that's just me.
33
You never mention anything about a desire for children, but I wonder where you both stand on that issue... if she wants to have (biological) children at some point, that could be a factor, too.
34
@ 29

Amen to that, I wonder if it's because a lot of people would rather excuse the choices they made during their 20's than take responsibility for them. "Oh shucks, i was only 23, i didn't know myself well enough to make any kind of reasonable choices about relationships and sex. that's why i kept fucking someone who treated me like shit, that's why i wasn't really in love with that person, blah blah blah."

bullshit. you don't have to spend 12 years "finding yourself" before you can make good choices. and there are plenty of 30+ people who continue to make stupid choices.
35
My husband and I started dating about eight months before he left for Air Force Officer Training School. We were long distance for two and a half years before our marriage, and we have been happily married three and a half years. We endured moving to a strange place, my job hunt there, my husband's deployment, and our leap-of-faith move to a new place without jobs when my husband's service commitment was over. It can be done. The separation was hard as hell, and the Army is harder, with lengthier and more dangerous deployments, but there can be a happy outcome out of this. Your girlfriend may be waffling because she really doesn't want to do it, or because she cares so much about you and can't stand the prospect of the separation and unknowns. Talk it out, and good luck.
36
Dump her, you will have multiple options and a wider range of experience. No one is sure someone is right for them at 22 and right about it, they only believe it at the time. By 50 I hope I would be able to make that call without living with someone for a year, but at 22 you do not know what you want yet. Dump her, move on, and enjoy your life, and I thank you for your service to the United States.

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