Infidelity is for many the ultimate betrayal in a marriage. When it comes to the military marriages it can be especially painful to the servicemember who is often pulled away from their family to fulfill their service obligations. Every single deployment I was on I had a front row seat to a few spouses cheating on their husbands while we were at war. To the servicemember this is unforgiveable as there is an additional layer of trust broken.
“I trusted you to hold down the fort while I was away fighting, and I come home to you cheating!”

The thoughts run through the servicemember’s head.

“I wonder if she was with him that/those time(s) I almost died”
“I bet that’s why she didn’t answer the phone when I got up at 2 AM Iraq time to call her”
“I wonder how much of my additional pay she spent running around with this asshole”

I’ve written about military marriage before (read here: https://helpformen.com/articles/military-marriage) and a lot of the pitfalls that can occur especially with very young and inexperienced people at the helm.

One thing we must realize here is that behind all the patriotism and ideals we have two human beings with uniquely complex psyches, completely capable of awful things, and are flawed individuals in their own right. Now put them combine all the other factors I mentioned in the linked article and it’s no wonder why infidelity is very common in military marriages. I personally know of more than a few women that cheated on their husbands while deployed. Largely these women were good people and good moms. They were often overwhelmed by taking on the role of both mom and dad and assuming all the duties of running a home without her husband. They get lonely, they go out with a few of the other moms after being with the kids alone for months. Some charming funny guy chats them up and starts chipping away at her boundaries until the next thing she knows she’s in bed with him. She often feels a great deal of guilt as she knows her husband is overseas serving in harms way. She typically takes extraordinary precautions to cover up the affair and pretends it never happens. Then one day the husband discovers the affair, and all hell breaks loose.

When you strip away the rage and betrayal that the husband feels due to the circumstances of the affair, you see that it’s no different in perfect principle than any other affair. The service member often feels that their wartime service gave them a false sense of security in the exclusivity of their monogamous relationship.

“She’d never do that to me while I’m serving my country”

I’m sure what I’m about to say is going to be not great to hear but here it is.

It doesn’t matter that you are in the military or in combat. It literally doesn’t matter. No amount of that is going to stop a low boundaries person, a depressed woman that gets swooped on by a dude with game that makes her feel amazing, or a person with a history of infidelity or a wandering eye from committing adultery. Just because you think something should be some way doesn’t mean it works like that. This higher calling of yours and how much she is bought into being military wifey doesn’t affair proof your marriage.

If you have been cheated on while serving my advice is to move on by literally moving on. Turn around and start walking and don’t ever look back at her. Just go dude. Simplify it. She’s human, she made a mistake, and I divorced her. It’s as simple as that when we boil it down to the base elements. I can absolutely understand the betrayal and I’m certainly not trying to downplay your hurt but, I want you to see the larger picture here. You have an opportunity to move on.

What will you do with it?