He was in love with her, had been seeing her for a year and a half, and knew her kids, her mother, the way she took her coffee in the morning. Rose was devastated. Not only was her husband a cheater, but he had fallen in love with someone else, someone he had been seeing when he was supposed to be on training missions, supposed to be in the field, supposed to be with Rose. He even spoke with this woman about his relationship with Rose, detailing their most private moments via email. It was a betrayal in the most heinous of ways, and it wasn’t Rose’s last.
If this weren’t tragic enough — Rose gave up an almost six-figure job, friends and community in Hawaii to join her husband in Japan where he could leave her as soon as her household goods arrived. But what followed was almost worse. The decisions facing Rose were awful, at best. Should she turn her husband in for infidelity and report him to his command? The woman he was cheating with was married to an enlisted Marine and he was an Officer. If she did that, what repercussions would she face?
What about him and his 12-year career? Was it worth sacrificing everything they had built over wounded pride? The jury of her peers was divided. Some told her his job was unrelated, not to report him out of spite, even if that would mean she would get up to a third of his pay and benefits — enough to start the new life she needed. Others, myself included, told her to send him packing, that if she didn’t, it was likely his pathology would prevent him from giving her a dime, whether she needed it or not. Turning him in was the only way for her to get what she deserved out of a horrific situation. She was stranded in Japan, after all.
To top it off, the military would not move any of her things unless he signed the divorce papers and ordered them sent to her new home of record, something in his newfound love-induced coma he wasn’t willing to do. So she moved back across the world to the east coast of the United States, and waited for either the military or her soon-to-be ex-husband to send her the household goods she needed to survive. It took almost a year, and her ex-husband (who we took to calling her ex-hole), never paid her a dime. She was left by her husband, her community of spouses and severed from the only world she knew as an adult.
Whatever led her to leave his career intact, I don’t know. I think she was so devastated that she just wanted to be rid of him as soon as possible and so cut any ties that might hinder that process. I cannot say that I blame her, but her story raises questions.
What should spouses do?
This isn’t a subject anyone wants to talk about — up there along with service members being killed in action or getting separated under less-than-honorable circumstances. Still, it affects every third military couple. Often times we hear about spouses cheating when their active duty members are away on deployments or long training stints, but what happens when the roles are reversed? What support is there for the spouse? Too many times, they remain quiet, despite knowing of their spouse’s infidelity because they don’t want to lose their way of life as well. Should they have to? I wish I had all the answers, wish I’d had them when Rose was going through her divorce. I don’t, but maybe that in itself is telling. Maybe it’s time we started asking questions and demanding answers so more spouses aren’t left behind by the only family they know.
Maybe it’s time we lift the veil of propriety and start being honest.
