Here I am writing this at 11:00 after a long day (11 hours) of work and a half a pan of toffee bars. I may not be drunk for this Half Drunk Challenge but I sure am loopy! My topic today? Navy Marriage on my Base.
My husband and I are based on a training command, a very nice one too. The men and women here are studying to run the nuclear reactors on submarines and aircraft carriers around the world. It is a great and important job and with any important job comes money. I’m pretty sure that most of my neighbors would tell you we aren’t rolling in money but we are fortunate that we have skipped a few ranks and received some nice bonuses.
It isn’t at a cost though, our husbands (I say husbands but wives too!) are gone all the time even though this is a shore duty. For the first 9-12 month, they are at school 40 hours and studying up to 30 additional hours. Then the last 6 months, they work in a sub and work 7 days 2 off, all 12 hour shifts at random times. I’ll be sure to take some of that bonus money, that we don’t get til most of the schools are complete, to buy my son a Daddy Doll!
Anyway, my ramblings aren’t about the hours my husband is gone or anything like that, it is actually about the housewives in my area. My good friend and I have always thought that the women on our base are intriguing. The average age of the women on base (on the training command, not the entire base) is 19. There are several 17, 18 and 19 year old women who, after graduating high school, come to visit their boyfriends here and then decide it would be easiest to just marry their sailor.
Why not? Free BAH and decent housing, free health care, money for food and money in general. Since their now husband makes way more money then their previous job at the carwash, they can sit at home in their free house and play with the adorable puppy they bought until they convince there 19 year old husband that he wants a baby. They don’t even have to work. Who works? Seriously!
You can always tell when these young couples get their bonuses too because they go buy brand new sports cars, boats or ATVs. Right around power school (the second phase of school) the wives are starting to show off their now pregnant belly. The husband, typically older, soon turns 21 and wants to go out all the time. What is the 20 year old to do? Surely she won’t go out with her 7 month pregnant belly! No, she just bitches about her husband going out on facebook. If it is a really hormonal night, she might throw is clothes in the lawn and threaten to leave him. If it isn’t too hormonal of a night, she may offer to pick him up at 2 when the bars close. Of course when she pulls up in the brand new sports car, she surely will be pissed when she sees her husband flirting with a version of her non-pregnant self. Why would the hormone driving male not be turned on by the 7 month pregnant wife who persuaded him to have the baby even though they blew all their money on the previously mentioned sports car and they both just want to get wasted on days off!
The baby comes right when prototype starts (the last phase with the crazy hours) and things just go to hell. The baby cries and the woman thinks that her husband is required to help during the day, even if he just worked a 12 hour shift overnight. When he doesn’t help, more facebook bitching. Nothing like build a marriage by bashing your husband to all his peers and their wives. All the sleep deprived ness leads to the eventual collapse of any sort of marriage this couple was striving for. She moves home or just runs out on him. Sometimes they try to make it work but lots of time it ends in divorce. The one year marriage.
It is sad and disgusting all at the same time. I am not an old married woman, I’m 24 married to my 25 year old husband and we have been married for 3 years this December. I am not a pro at marriage nor do I claim to be. I was married to my husband before we made a baby. We dated for years before we were married. We went to college and learned how to party BEFORE we got married and had a baby. Our marriage was first for a while. Then we focused on the baby for a while before the Navy. We love all the perks the Navy provides us but it is hard.
Everyday, I am fortunate that my husband and I were able to create the tools we needed to build a strong foundation for a marriage. When we added the stress of a child and then the Navy, we were strong. Neither of us think of divorce as an option and we have a united front that the teens who marry, birth a baby and divorce all while here completely ruin the sanctity of marriage. I truly am a lucky lady!
*I was going to post this anonymously on the Momalom site but decided to be brave and post it. Start a discussion or not. Write or don’t. But check out some other interesting writings of bravery here!
