rushing marriage

[paul's_princess]

So ever since Paul found out he was going to be deployed to Iraq possibly followed by Afghanistan, he has been on this marriage kick. He just wants to go from boyfriend/girlfriend to husband/wife and it isn't like he just wants to sign papers, he wants an actually wedding. Family, friends, the whole nine yards. Now the thing is, I love him to death and I want to marry him some day, but I really don't think I can handle being a full time college student with a part time job and plan a wedding, while still trying to be in the loop and/or involved with my friends/groups at school and home. Oh top of everything he wants me to transfer colleges being he's stationed in Washington and he has been trying to get me to move there for the past year but from August to May I’m a student. I'm attending Penn State right now, and just started my second year today, which means I have at least two more years after this one. I like being here and I don’t know how much would transfer and I don’t really know if I’d want to add the paper work and phone calls of transferring on top of everything else. But I guess my real concern about the whole thing is, does all military men rush into it or is it just a defense kind of thing knowing he’s leaving?

[KristiMarie]

egh I dunno what to tell you girl.

JM wanted me to switch and move 22 hours from here to live with him. I said no. were now married, and im here still attending college, he knows when he gets back from Iraq we have about 9 more months apart before Ill move down there. Part of the reason we got married was cause of the school thing. But im going through ROTC, so ill be an officer and hes enlisted. With that situation if we were NOT married before I graduate, technically teh army doesnt have to acknowledge our relationship and never have to let us live togehter. He did push getting married a lot, but i stood my ground. I did sort of just get married the day before he deployed, but we were engaged for almost 6 months and the more i thought about it, the more logical approach it seemed to do. We can always have a wedding with family later. thats not a problem at all, but for me planning a wedding while in nursing school was just too much... im happy with the way we got married, im happy i stood my ground for as long as i did with him, but i could NOT be any happier being his wife.

I think if its causing this much stress, its not worth it. Weddings are supposed to be the happiest day of your life... NOT the most miserable stressful 6 months or however long it is leading up to the wedding, ya know? Talk to him, tell him how you feel, if he cant respect you and your feelings... i dont think now is the right time to get married. He will come back from this deployment, it may be better to wait till hes home if you are this unsure about it!

[Jamie]

agreed with kristi. if it's going to cause this much stress it's not worth it. however i also think if you guys want to get married for all the right reasons, then maybe you should. BUT, do a small court wedding. make it official, and then when things calm down with his deployments and with your school and when you feel you have time to focus on it, plan the wedding! it's not like you can't wait for that.

not all guys in the military want to rush into marriage. i think it's half and half. i know my boyfriend is in NO RUSH to get married because he's seen plenty of his younger friends get married and it not work. mean while there are plenty of marriages that do work out. so i think it's whatever the guys' are surrounded by...you know what i mean?

best of luck to you, and let us know :)

[Christy]

Before Jason deployed, he was all gung ho about getting married, but then when he was gone he changed his mind and we're still sitting here, engaged/not engaged. I wouldn't rush into it, seriously. If might make it worse in the end. I have to say, with everything we are going through now, I am glad we didn't get married, but then again, sometime I wonder if we did get married, would we even be going through it. It's a toss up, my suggestion, think it all the way through before you guys decide.

[Kristi Rae]

a plus to being married is being able to deal with financial issues and all the other fun things that he misses on a deployment that you could help out with! (plus he will make more money if he is married but this should be no major determining factor just a nice bonus!)
a down side to being married you then have to get the military id and get enrolled in to Tricare which is a huge pain in the butt!
If you decide to get married i agree that you should keep it small you have so much on your plate as it is. then when he gets back from the deployment have a combined renewal of vows and a big welcome home party for him!
Moving is nice so you can see him every day but if he is going to be deployed soon and you might not want to stay there while he is gone then dont move yet wait until he comes home from the deployment!

[ReginaCherie]

ok i only read some of the things the other girls said. but i agree with them completly...

they only thing im going to say is if hes deploying dont change schools cause then your stuck a long way from friends and family and he wont be there. i moved in with scott 3 months before he deployed but we are only about 3 hours from where i was living. so just think about it.

[Meredith]

Mike wanted to get married and me to move out here transfer schools the whole 9 yards. But he was supposed to deploy like 3 months after I got here. I agreed to marry him but we set a date for after he got home so it was 2 years before we actually got married and that gave me enough time to finish school.

I think army guys get really lonely sometimes and they don't necessarily rush things but they're just ready for things sooner than others because they've seen a lot more tragic things than most people their own age.

My best advice is to compromise the best you can. If I recall correctly, he's deploying with Mike so that's pretty close, so he's probably feeling a little pressure but there's no reason to rush things. Tell him you're better off at home with family and friends to get you through his deployment and you want to to be with him but you'll take the rest as it comes after he gets back. That will give you a whole year to look into transferring, how many credits you can take with you....all the pros and cons to staying vs moving.

Sometimes they get a little selfish right before they leave, just remind him you need to keep living and be happy while he's gone.

Hope everything works out for you!

[paul's_princess]

Thanks girls! Its nice to know he isn't the only one. I want to say its the deployment but I really don't know. I guess I'll soon be able to figure it out. The only real reason I want to hold off is because if I marry him, he expects me to move in like that day, so pretty much I have to rearrange everything of mine and well rumor has it he's going for more then one deployment so I personally think it is easy just to wait being there is pretty much the rest of my schooling where I can be close to friends and family and be involved verse being somewhere where I have noone. Hopefully things will change...

[Lindsay]

aaron and i went through the same exact thing- before he left he couldnt stop talking about getting married and how we wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. and now, i know he still wants to spend his life with me but he isnt ready for marriage, but we've had a talk and we both agree that we want to wait a bit. truthfully, why rush something so great?
i think your smart to get through school first.

[68WhiskeyWife]

While I don't have this experience personally I think they get scared and think that if they don't marry us before they ship out then they will lose us. Maybe they need something to hold onto and having a wife back home somehow seems better than just a girlfriend. While it doesn't make a lot of sense to us i guess it does to them.