Marriage before or after being stationed??

[crystal.claire]

Hey ladies! My boyfriend and I know we want to be married before this year is up, but we have different viewpoints on when exactly that should take place! He is currently in BESS in Connecticut for Subs. He will be done with BESS and A school in approximately 5 months. I would like to marry before he is assigned a duty station to make things easier and that way I can move with him when he goes because all of the proper paperwork would be done by then! He, on the other hand, has been listening to everyone's horror stories in Connecticut of their girlfriends cheating on them or leaving because they can't handle being alone! We've known each other for over three years and have dated for over two of those years. Our relationship is solid and built on a good foundation so that's not my worry at all! I was just wondering if it will really make that much of a difference if we marry after he is stationed. (Besides the Navy paying for me to move) Any and all advice is much appreciated! Thanks :)

[abuon18]

The only concern I can think of is if he gets orders overseas they will be unaccompanied if you're not married & you most likely will not be able to move with him even after you're married, even if you wanted to pay for it yourself. Aside from that there are really no other reasons to get married before-the Navy paying for your move is it. If you are willing to take that cost in yourself if he gets stationed in the US you'll receive all the same benefits regardless of if you get married before or after he gets stationed.

On that note if he is NOT ready to get married DO NOT PUSH HIM. It will only end badly. Seriously. If being on his orders is your only concern then wait it out. Let him be 100% ready. There are A LOT of horror stories in military relationships (not to say there aren't success stories either) and they do scare people. So even though you have a solid relationship and know you want to get married, there is no reason to rush it and put that extra stress on him. He loves you & knows he wants to marry you, he just needs this time extra time for his own reasons.

[crystal.claire]

Thanks for the advice! I haven't brought it up in conversation in weeks because I'm trying not to push him (like you mentioned). I think I've been getting scared because of some of the stories I've read from wives. I think we can cover the cost to move me and then once BAH finally sets in we should be more than fine. I don't think he'll be sent overseas but I've learned to always be prepared! I don't mind waiting if that's what he wants.. I just wanted to be sure there weren't other problems we'd face besides the move! :)

[Anti M]

If he is going subs, we only have a few overseas homeports... Hawaii and Guam, I think.  Not impossible to get a waiver for command sponsorship for those locations.

[abuon18]

You're welcome. No, I can't think of any extra reasons to get married before his orders.... You'll still get the insurance, BAH, access to commissary, base, command support etc no matter when you get married. My husband and I got married in between his orders & we moved ourselves so I definitely recommend saving as much money as possible beforehand. Sometimes BAH does take a few pay cycles to kick in. As soon as you're married he can apply for housing but depending on the wait list, you may need to live in town, so be prepared for that! I am not familiar with BESS school but a lot of schools don't allow students to live off base so even if you got married while he was in school & moved to CT he may not even be able to live with you.... But again I'm not familiar with BESS. I know that my husband's school allowed students to live with their families.

[meagan5220]

I agree do not get married for monetary reasons or benefits. On the other hand, I tell girls this all the time, yes there are horror stories of people cheating, but honestly you know why? Because no one gossips about happy couples. No one is going to brag to your sailor about how their spouse didn't cheat because that's expected! Its not juicy, and  its not scandalous. No one calls their fellow wife after a deployment to talk about how faithful their sailor was all deployment long. Listening to other sailors can be very damaging to a relationship, listening to other wives can be very damaging to a relationship! I actually know a couple that got divorced because sailor A heard from sailor B who heard from his wife, that Sailor A's wife was cheating. So he cheated to get back at her... guess who never cheated in the first place Sailor A's wife, and guess who came home to a pissed off wife that divorced him. Sailor A.

 

Now I will say my husband and I moved our wedding up by 6 weeks because of orders. But only because we already had planned a JOP wedding and found out that he might get orders overseas or I might not get on his orders. Because we didn't understand the whole orders thing before we set the date. I had already turned in my 60 day notice on my house, was graduating and packing to move to live with him after he graduated A school. It ended up working out for the best because I wouldn't have been able to get married the original date we had planned or any of the days he was home on leave. We were also under some false impressions if we didn't get married before his orders were cut. I found out later they were all false. lol but I didn't have this site before we got married. For us it worked out best to get married before the orders were cut. But we were already planning on getting married and I was planning on moving with him, and it was what we were going to do and both of us wanted it :)

[Anti M]

Sometimes one story about a cheating spouse, which may not be true, can turn into six different cheating stories.  The Navy runs on rumors.

[meagan5220]

Exactly. If my husband and I listened to all the cheating stories, I wouldn't even feel safe leaving him around other male sailors alone. lol! Oddly enough, some of the craziest cheating stories I heard was when I was at the gym on the AF base, from some guys that were sitting around chatting! Like the couple that was cheating on each other, with the same woman. lol

[Anti M]

Oh, I knew cheaters.  I dated a few guys who failed to tell me they were married.  I actually insisted my current husband show me his divorce papers!

[meagan5220]

When I was younger I dated a few guys that had girlfriends -_- I would have too! lol!

[EricakK81]

So if ur not married before orders will they pay for the move? We r planning to move his things to my house while on leave between A school and being stationed. But we also wanted to get married right away anyway.

[Anti M]

Orders are issued "accompanied" or "unaccompanied".   There are some places even a married sailor cannot take dependents, but there;s nothing you can do about those few instances.   So yes, a married sailor who receives accompanied orders would have the authorization for a paid move for his dependent.  There is a time frame before when the orders are issued when the detailer is looking to see who is getting orders... married or single sailors.  That's usually (but not always) about four weeks before the orders are sent out.  Now and then verbal orders can be changed, but hard copy orders, very rarely.  Never expect a change.  

Once a sailor is on leave after A school, he has orders in hand, so the official policy is no paid move for the new spouse as those orders are unaccompanied  (there's a few exceptions by individual commands, but no one can count on that).