[Jen54]

My husband and I are both in the Airforce, we met when we were stationed in Guam. We were kind of naïve like some Airman can be and got married after only dating for a couple of months. About 4 months into our marriage he decides he no longer loves me and wants to end things before I head out to Korea. I thought he was just scared and worried from all the cheating stories you hear. I fought and fought with him to help make our marriage work but after a while it got exhausting so I signed the divorce papers and just asked him to wait to see if being apart would help. (from my Korean orders we got orders to go to Shaw , his home town, so I figured it would be easier on him if he was home and closer to family and friends; he had 2 months left on Guam)

Anyway about a month after I'm gone he changes his mind and says he missed me so we start to work on things and it honestly seemed better! I get home from my year tour and things went back to the way they were before! I know some of it was my fault because he felt smothered by me, I wanted to make up for the lost time. Now he tells me that he loves me but he's not in love with me and that we're too different for things to ever work. He's no longer affectionate nor does he give compliments like he used too it's really upsetting! He is a great guy and not everything is his fault it's hard being married but when you add on the military it gets pretty stressful!

Anyway sorry this is long but my point is this we've tried marriage counseling and he didn't really try for it to work, should I just suck up my emotional feelings and hope things get better or just realize they won't and move on? We really do not have a lot in common and I'm scared things will honestly get worse from here! Thanks in advance!

[Homegirl 50]

You didn't really know each other to begin with and should not have gotten married. End it. Walk away and don't make this mistake again.

[talaniman]

Yes I would leave this marriage/relationship or whatever it is, completely alone.

[Jen54]

OK we were dating for about 9 months so I probably should have clarified on that in the post it seems like 2 or 3. I agree we might not have known each other as well but we felt it was right at the time. And we've been married for almost 3 years now.

[Homegirl 50]

You still don't have a marriage. It is totally dysfunctional. End it.

[Strength89]

I am dual military. My husband and I too got engaged before our one year anniversary and married right before our two year anniversary. We are approaching our first marriage anniversary and our third year of being together. He is currently in Korea and I am in Washington having left Korea in December 2012. Before we got married, we fought like crazy over our personalities, the way we were raised, our life goals, our morals and just about everything you could think of. He's African-American and I'm Asian; he was raised in TN and I was raised in CA. Our race, religion, and upbringing DID NOT help at all as we were very different as well... not to mention, add the military and yes, it's a lot more stressful. Anyway, despite our differences and our issues, we still got married.

We struggled so much because we were learning how to live together. We were seeing one another as who we are behind closed doors and being together 24/7 basically was tough to adjust to. Three months into our marriage, I thought I made the wrong decision and I thought about divorce. Every time we had a problem, I thought about divorce. One day, I finally realized something and divorce never crossed my mind again.

When I married my husband, I had to get to know him as MY HUSBAND and not my boyfriend. A boyfriend and a husband acts totally different despite being the same person with the same mind! So, instead of treating him like a boyfriend who I could easily walked away from, I started to treat him as my husband--the man I chose to spend my life with, the man I chose to trust and have faith in--that he will make the best decisions for our family, and the man I chose to love through everything and anything!

Our marriage is great despite the distance and our upcoming overlapping deployments. Our marriage is great because we both gave each other the time to find our place in the marriage, to learn to see us as one and not two individuals, to learn the trust one another through all obstacles. We still struggle sometimes with disagreements but it's never anything major like before.

My point is give it another try.

--Have you given him the opportunity to be a husband? (My mother-in-law told me that the best thing a wife can do for her marriage is to trust her husband with whatever decisions he makes for the family whether she thinks it's good or bad because he will learn to have confidence in himself as the man of the house through trial and errors and when he find his place and see himself as a husband and not just a man, he will give back so much more! Run on sentence... whooo!)

--Have you two discussed short term goals (individual goals and family goals?) (My husband and I often discussed our individual goals and family goals to ensure we are supportive and that we are on the same page as far as our marriage goes)

--Who is the screamer in arguments? (I am the screamer as I have the hardest time controlling my emotions. My husband knows this so instead of fighting my fire with a fire of his own. He fights me with water. He calmly sits there and let me get my silly emotions out of the system and when I'm done and all calm, he'll ask for me to sit down and he will share his thoughts. He CHOOSES to be the calm one despite being angry with me because he knows how I am and when he shares his thoughts, he never curses, raises his voice, or accuses me of anything. But, he NEVER lets me walk over him... if he feels like I am, he will stop me from my screaming craziness). If the both of you are screamers in arguments, maybe you can be the calm one to avoid escalating the situation?

As young military couples, marriage isn't easy especially with the stress that comes from our jobs but it's manageable with patience, the willingness to compromise, and the willingness to try and understand.

Good luck!