Military Nesties
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Re: Question
This is so naive! C'mon!
What if, God forbid, he gets injured or passes away and you are a young mother with no credit history, no job history, no education, and mouths to feed?!
The economy is tough, what if he can only find a job delivering pizza and it doesn't cover the bills?!
You are not ready to be married and have kids when your Plan B is running back to mommy and daddy when things get rough.
Exactly. You just proved my point. "This won't happen to me!!!". Who the fvck gets married thinking "Well, I believe in divorce so it's totally cool if that's where we end up". NOBODY WANTS TO GET A DIVORCE YOU DUMB, DUMB, GIRL!
And OF COURSE your husband PLANS on working after he gets out...a lot of people in today's economy PLAN to work and WANT to work but THEY CAN'T FIND A JOB! What if that happens to him?!?!?! What is his MOS in the Army? Please answer this question.
And naive statement number 3 of your 3 statement response "we'll just have mommy and daddy help us until we can support ourselves". You are CLEARLY too young to be married if you keep mommy and daddy as a back-up plan to financially support you and your oh so mature husband. GET. A. CLUE.
My blood is boiling over these posts...oh my lordddd.
You know, it's really not hard to balance school, work, and household stuff if you have a husband who pulls his weight around the house and doesn't think his contribution to the family ends at his paycheck.
ETA: Why is it that the silly girls who are so smug about not believing in divorce always marry the first schmuck they dated at Bumblefuck Junior High?
Okay, you really are just too immature and naive to be married. Good luck with a 30% APR and no job!
You and your husband's line of thinking just does not compute for me. He would rather move himself, his wife and possible children back into his parents' home instead of having his able-bodied wife watch a few children or run a cash register at Target for a few days a week because having you work is a hit to his masculinity and proof that he's unable to support his family?
My brain just exploded. Sweet Jesus you are like living on another planet or something.
Where are you from? And, again, what is your husband's MOS?
Jesus, Mary and Joseph! You are seriously the most naive little girl I have ever come across. Let me tell you a story.
I got married at 18. He was 21. Things were GREAT for about a year. Then I got pregnant and had a baby. And he went out all the time and I was stuck at home with a colicky baby who never slept while he was cheating on me and never talking to me. And then he hit me. And I stayed with him because I had no back up plan.
And so here I am, en route to divorce (and guess what, I didn't believe in divorce either) and trying to keep my kid from growing up with his douchebag father. I'm also going to school, working full time, and *gasp* my house is clean!
Learn to be your own person. You never know what the future will bring or what you'll have to deal with.
I said the same thing about my uber Catholic husband.
She's plugging her ears singing "lalala" b/c this could NEVER happen to her.
Having one sexual partner does not make you immune from extra-marital affairs!
Based on your logic that means anyone who has had more than one sexual partner in their lifetime is bound to sleep with anything that crosses their path. Does this apply to widows/widowers as well?
I'd also like to know why you're so judgmental of the unwed, young mothers on Baby-Gaga.
You have a lot of opinions on things (although I doubt they're your own) and you know what they say about opinions being like a-holes...everyone has one and they stink.
*popping out of lurkdom*
Troll or no troll, thank you for helping me pass the time at this useless job I go to because I am a failure in life, and unmarried. I'm not against marrying young. I'm against willfully refraining from developing any sort of marketable skill whatsover.
Am I the only one who is hearing future welfare case all over this? My taxes will be supporting you later in your life, my dear child. Now would be your chance to make sure that doesn't happen, and this is what you're (re:your husband) is choosing. Shame on you.
*scampers off to admire sookie's trophy**
I don't think you're in any position to be giving advice on this topic.
Divorce is only for Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.
Click me, click me!
I think she's in the perfect position, not necessarily to be giving advice, but definitely to share what she's going through. She's not at the point of hindsight being 20/20, but she's actually in the shiznit right now and she's very much in pain.
Isn't that just the sad, sick reality of the state of this country? Ugh. You are probably right on with this one.
PS O/T but do the Mac users know how to highlight something and make it bold on here? I highlight and click bold and nothing happens (hence deleting Lucyboo's whole response except for what I originally wanted to bold)..new to the Mac world over here..
The reason you're getting so much backlash about being young and married is because you're making yourself sound like a COMPLETE idiot.
These women are TRYING to give you very sound advice, but you're letting it go right over your head. They're telling you to just give your marriage time to be simply that, a marriage... not a highschool relationship. The first year of marriage is the most trying, it's where you actually have to learn how to be with eachother and learn how to handle those curveballs life throws your way....
ESPECIALLY as a military spouse.
DH and I have been married since we were 18...
And due to medical reasons we were told babies were a "now or never" type thing for us and had our first at 20.
My Husband missed the birth of our first child, barely made it home in time for the 2nd, and spends more time away from home than in it. I am soley responsible for our girls 90% of the time. I handle all our finances (even though right now we live off his income) and you know what... I'm getting ready to take night classes to become a medical coder.
When I first got married I wanted to be a preschool teacher, so I did for two years... and realized it wasn't for me. So much changes between 18 and 20... and so on.
I love my daughters, I love being with them....
But there is so much more I want to do. I want them to realize that they didn't hinder me from being successful, but instead motivated me to better my life.
I wish we could have waited a little longer for babies, but life doesn't go according to plan.
You have a lot of growing up to do.
Highlight it and press Command and B and the same time.
1.) Re: Glitter. You're the getting the response that you are from the glitter because most of the women here see that in and of itself as a completely superficial form of "support." The type of support that members of the military need doesn't have a whole lot to do with glitter stickers, car magnets, camo purses or dog tag necklaces. Not that you have all those things, those are just examples.
2.) Why is age such a problem? In response to the person who said that nobody here judges the age of marriage by itself, I actually do. In fact I've already done it more than once this week and it's only Tuesday. And all of the same goes for adding children to the mix so soon as well.
Honestly, most 18 year olds do not have the life experience or maturity level to dive into marriage and children easily. The fact that you dismiss and refuse to consider everything everyone is saying to you is evidence that you lack both maturity and perspective. That means that you are ill-equipped to deal with real life.
That you claim to have been "with" your DH since 6th grade is concerning. I know that you misinterpreted some other comments about this as meaning that you should have slept around first, but that's not the case. What you've told us means that you have been attached to him at the hip for so long that you probably don't even have a strong image of who you are as a person. As an individual. This is a potentially very dangerous thing.
3.) You are completely dependent on others. Not just a little or mostly or a lot, completely. This is usually only the case with children. As children grow and become adults they learn how to take care of themselves. You are missing an essential part of the skill-set that adults in this country are expected to have. You readily admit to having no idea whatsoever about your finances or bills. Someone takes care of all of that for you and you have no intention whatsoever of learning. That non-intention is that part that bothers me. Even if you never have to create your own budget, you should still know how. Why would you want to potentially become a burden on others simply because you are lacking knowledge about your own financial life?
4.) You don't think for yourself. Every indication that you've made has been that you do the things you do because that's how the generations before you did it and they're "okay." To a certain extent you're right, the generations before you did things this way, and they've managed to make it work. But that doesn't mean that this is the best way or the only way for you. As others have mentioned, times are changing and sometimes traditions need tweaking. Are you willing to examine why this might be the case? Not every marriage that started at 17 and ended at death was in the best interest of the people involved.
My grandparents got married at the ages of 17 and 21. They had 8 kids, were involved in the community and are still together today. They don't believe in divorce, but that doesn't mean that they're in a good situation. At the tender age of 80 my grandfather recently racked up a police record for domestic abuse. I honestly don't have the heart to explain the whole situation to you.
Further, nobody in their right mind gets married while expecting to get divorced. It takes two people to make a marriage, and if one of them wakes up one day and decides they no longer wish to be married, what is the other spouse to do? If your only answer to that is that that's not what you "expect" or "think" is happening, then you're just being stubborn and sticking your head in the sand.
5.) Nobody here is promising that your husband will absolutely divorce, cheat on, abuse you or die. They're merely pointing out that you have no backup plan and refuse to admit that any of those could ever happen to you. That's why you're being called naive.
So if it makes you feel better, here is a situation that could happen without anything extraordinary taking place. Your husband is in the military. That means that he could be given orders to move overseas. If they are accompanied orders, what will you do? A good, supportive wife would try to go with him. But then what happens when he gets deployed from that location and you're left to take care of yourself and your household? What if he is sent on many short missions, say only a week at a time but several of them in a short period of time? You need a plan. Are you going to buy plane tickets for your parents or your in-laws and have them come take care of you? Will you go home and live with them for a while? Will you suck it up and figure out how to care for yourself in his absence?
Going back to the extraordinary here, are you aware of the potential challenges that you would face if you were to suddenly find yourself with three little kids to care for and no more husband? Do you know what a credit rating is and what it's important? Do you have the skills to manage money? What if such a thing happens later in life when your parents and in-laws are no longer around? Do you know how social security works? Do you know what a beneficiary is with regard to retirement benefits? Does your husband have a will? Are all of his affairs in order so that you would be taken care of?
6.) How do you literally and actually plan not to go out of your mind with boredom? As others have mentioned, you could experience unexpected fertility problems that would delay or possibly change your family plans. What do you plan to do with yourself every day after your house is clean? If you have running water, indoor plumbing, store bought clothes and access to a washing machine, it will not take all day long to care for your home. You need friends. You needs interests. You need hobbies. You need to define yourself and develop an identity. Doing so will also make you a better wife. If your husband comes home from from work and asks you how your day was, you're not going to want to respond that you did laundry, mopped the floor and then spend the remainder of the day watching a spider crawl up the wall.
7.) Don't get pregnant yet. Have your husband take you to a nearby animal shelter. Adopt a dog.
8.) A word about what this all is here. You think that all the responses are so negative, that everyone is attacking you for doing what you think is "right." This is a community. And a military one at that. In the short time that I've been around the military community I've discovered that the people are very much like an extended family. Nobody is sitting here typing out all this advice to you for shiits and giggles, or because they want to make you cry. They're doing it because they're concerned about you. The LEAST you can do is spend some quality time taking people's concerns under consideration.
I just dont think you're real.
I mean, there is just no way women (ahem, girls) ACTUALLY think this way in the year 2011. I have really no problem with women who stay at home; I dont really care all that much about beebees getting married. I do have a problem with children having children. Considering the term "adolescence" is being applied to people up until the age 21, yes, you are an adolescent.
There is no way you can POSSIBLY have stuck your head SO far in the sand as to not give a crap about protecting yourself in case something happens to your husband, and not be able to support yourself if you need to. I dont really want to hear about how your family will take care of things- what happens when YH gets stationed in Korea and you are there with him and something happens where YOU need to handle it? Daddy is not in Korea, and you need to be an "adult" and take care of your own shvt.
There just cant be females in this day and age that truly believe they dont need to know their household income because "their husband takes care of things"
People like you just cant exist... I'm in denial, because it truly makes me concerned for your future and your children.
I changed my name
I don't mind if you want to debate whether this particular poster is real or not. However, repeating the bolded above to yourself isn't going to make it true. There are still, even in these United States of America, young girls who come of age thinking this way and in a lot of other disturbing ways.
The most that we can hope for, if this one is real, is that she will be lucky and never actually have to deal with any of hardships that anybody has discussed.
um...
i am being facetious, not actually trying to convince myself of anything. thanks though.
I changed my name
Nobody is saying that being married to your DH is wrong or bad. What's done is done, you are married. The concern here stems from emotions related to your limited view of life. As a married couple, you and your DH need to develop your own solid back-up plan that does not include either set of parents. If you are grown-up enough to be married, you need to be responsible enough to stand on your own, without the emotional, financial or spiritual propping-up from mom and dad.
I have zero problems with people who get married young. I do, however, have a big problem with people who get married when they are not ready, or for the wrong reasons. I got married just days after turning 21-- older than many of my friends in the military lifestyle, but MUCH younger than anyone I know in the civilian one. I do not think that young marriages cannot last, or that people are ridiculous for having babies young; I have a problem with the young girls who marry at 18 because they can't stand the long distance anymore, or because they don't want to go to college, or don't want to get a job, so hey, why not? Or because they feel like they "have" to, or for any other reason than they love their husband, they are ready, and they are mature enough to fully understand and handle all of the responsibilities and hardships that come along with marriage.
So many young girls are getting married, foregoing college or job experience, popping out a few babies, and then finding out later that they married the wrong guy. Where is that leaving them? No job, no money, no experience, and multiple mouths to feed. Like it or not, divorces DO happen, and many of these 18-year-old girls who are fresh out of high school and living out their fairytale fantasies just don't get that. Oftentimes they don't make their own lives apart from their husbands. I've seen too many girls get married after they graduate high school and then try for a baby because they are bored (and yes, I've had multiple women tell me they were "lonely" and that is why they got pregnant). That just breaks my heart. I think of who I was (or thought I was) at 18, and all the things I've experienced between then and now, and I just get sad for those people who don't get to experiment and change like I did. I don't get the rush. I've been with the same man since I was 16 years old, but I COULD NOT have been married to him at 18. I just couldn't have!
THIS! Nothing churns my butter more than hearing about a "grown" married couple who still has mommy and daddy paying their phone bill, or other random expenses. If you cannot do those things on your own, you have NO BUSINESS being married, and I don't care WHAT the situation is. Seriously, it makes no sense.