u/ExtentPuzzleheaded69

Link to original post: https://www.reddit.com/r/relationships/s/Xoo0elqSDC

(TL;DR from original post-my boyfriend of six years wants to join the military after failing out of nursing school, even though he has known since early in our relationship that it’s a hard dealbreaker for me due to past experiences from growing up in that situation. we had aligned future plans until now and I feel hurt that he’s making such a major life decision without us being on the same page. I’m struggling with whether holding that boundary makes me reasonable or if I’m the one throwing away this relationship/ wondering if it is salvageable at all.)

Well, unfortunately I have an update, and it wasn’t the one I was planning to give. Sometimes the trash ends up taking itself out.

Sunday night, he was planning to make his final decision. We met for the weekend to have one final good day together in case everything ended. At one point he opened up his computer, just to work on something, and his computer connected to my wifi and started to sync to the cloud/his phone. Ding after ding on his computer went off and he was trying to move the computer out of my view. I look over and it is Hinge verification codes. Obviously it all went down after that with a lot of questioning but I essentially found out he has been using 3+ dating apps consistently since the day he originally moved away for nursing school.

8 months of downloading apps, deleting them on the drive up to see me, and redownloading on the drive back home. There were dozens of texts on his computer from multiple women, and they made me so unbelievably sick to see. I genuinely haven’t been able to fully process it. 6 years down the drain, and not one conversation towards me that he ever felt any way in this relationship to want to end it. He says he doesn’t know why he did it (or just doesn’t want to tell me), and I don’t think ill ever fully understand how you could do something like that for so long and not feel guilty.

I told him I needed a day to think about it and sent him to go stay anywhere but my house for the night. I met up with him the next day and ended it. I don’t think he thought I had the guts to do it, and I didn’t either. After the time apart, he actually realized the significance of what he had done, so at least I had the peace of mind for how horrible he felt when I left him.

Awful update for me, but I guess it was going to end either way. At least it wasn’t something I would always contemplate being the right choice or not. Wish for good luck in my future, entering back into the single world :/. Does anyone that has gone through this have any specific advice that would be helpful ?

Link to original post - https://www.reddit.com/r/relationship\_advice/s/7btOJveyqR

(TL;DR from original post-my boyfriend of six years wants to join the military after failing out of nursing school, even though he has known since early in our relationship that it’s a hard dealbreaker for me due to past experiences from growing up in that situation. we had aligned future plans until now and I feel hurt that he’s making such a major life decision without us being on the same page. I’m struggling with whether holding that boundary makes me reasonable or if I’m the one throwing away this relationship/ wondering if it is salvageable at all.)

Well, unfortunately I have an update, and it wasn’t the one I was planning to give. Sometimes the trash ends up taking itself out.

Sunday night, he was planning to make his final decision. We met for the weekend to have one final good day together in case everything ended. At one point he opened up his computer, just to work on something, and his computer connected to my wifi and started to sync to the cloud/his phone. Ding after ding on his computer went off and he was trying to move the computer out of my view. I look over and it is Hinge verification codes. Obviously it all went down after that with a lot of questioning but I essentially found out he has been using 3+ dating apps consistently since the day he originally moved away for nursing school.

8 months of downloading apps, deleting them on the drive up to see me, and redownloading on the drive back home. There were dozens of texts on his computer from multiple women, and they made me so unbelievably sick to see. I genuinely haven’t been able to fully process it. 6 years down the drain, and not one conversation towards me that he ever felt any way in this relationship to want to end it. He says he doesn’t know why he did it (or just doesn’t want to tell me), and I don’t think ill ever fully understand how you could do something like that for so long and not feel guilty.

I told him I needed a day to think about it and sent him to go stay anywhere but my house for the night. I met up with him the next day and ended it. I don’t think he thought I had the guts to do it, and I didn’t either. After the time apart, he actually realized the significance of what he had done, so at least I had the peace of mind for how horrible he felt when I left him.

Awful update for me, but I guess it was going to end either way. At least it wasn’t something I would always contemplate being the right choice or not. Wish for good luck in my future, entering back into the single world :/. Does anyone that has gone through this have any specific advice that would be helpful ?

TL;DR -my boyfriend of six years wants to join the military after failing out of nursing school, even though he has known since early in our relationship that it’s a hard dealbreaker for me due to past experiences from growing up in that situation. we had aligned future plans until now and I feel hurt that he’s making such a major life decision without us being on the same page. I’m struggling with whether holding that boundary makes me reasonable or if I’m the one throwing away this relationship/ wondering if it is salvageable at all.

For a little context, we have been together for 6 years, and have had a pretty cohesively aligned life path up to this point. I am in my final year of med school, set to graduate with my doctorate soon, and potentially pursue residency. We planned to both graduate college, and move to a mutually agreed state to start a family. 

I have a pretty rough personal history with the military. I grew up in a military family, and while I respect what my parent did to provide the life they did for us, the trauma of certain things I experienced growing up had set a pretty firm boundary for me - I will not let myself be in a situation where my children grow up in the way that I did. My boyfriend has always been aware of this. He learned pretty early in our relationship the baggage that I carried surrounding this matter, and my viewpoint of the situation.

My boyfriend was in school to be an RN, and failed multiple classes last semester. He was given the opportunity to retake the classes he failed and continue with the program. However, at the end of this semester he failed classes again, and now would have to fully restart after a year waiting period at a new university to continue with this path. This is not the first time the military has come up, as it did the first time he failed out of school, but we had a discussion about how I would unfortunately not be able to be with him if he pursued this, and he decided to return back to school for the second year.

He keeps insisting that this is his “best option”. That he would only sign for a couple years and that everything will be fine. My argument back has been that this is his easiest option, and the one that requires the least amount of planning or thought on his behalf. He is well aware of my boundaries, and claims that he does not want to lose me, but is not willing to try any other path to avoid this. I worry that he thinks that I will not stand my ground, and that I will end up staying with him, and every time I think of that possibility I just see a child version of myself in my head begging me to leave.

Regardless of all this, I don't want to leave him, I just don't want him to choose this path. He has been looking online at reddit threads asking questions about what the military would entail, and the information he is relaying to me is not correct. When I tell him the truth, also confirmed by my parents, he thinks I am just arguing and telling him what he does not want to hear to convince him out of it. The more I argue, the further he is convinced of his decision.

I guess I just need some advice, I don't know why someone would choose something like this, knowing the consequences, when it doesn't even benefit the life goals he is planning. He is fully convinced he can walk into a recruiter office and make them give him a 6 figure job and just work for however long he wants and quit when he feels satisfied (???).  Regardless, it just doesn't feel “fair” that we are not moving as a team to make this decision, and that if I stayed, I would be throwing away everything that I have worked for with nothing in return.

I just don't really know what to do in this situation. He has to make his decision in less than a month, and it pains me to know that we could lose everything over this while feeling like I have no say in it. I feel guilty, and I go back and forth on whether I’m the one throwing the relationship away instead of him.

At the same time, I feel like if I had only brought up my concerns now, it would be unfair to him, but this is something he has known about for over 5 years. He fully understood what this decision would mean for our relationship long before it became a real possibility. I think part of what hurts is feeling like he either expects me to eventually change my mind, or has already accepted that he may lose me over this and sees it as unavoidable.
I love him deeply and don’t want to leave him, but I also don’t know how to ignore a boundary that exists because of experiences that shaped my entire childhood. My friend told me to ask Reddit for some outside perspective, so here I am.

TL;DR -my boyfriend of six years wants to join the military after failing out of nursing school, even though he has known since early in our relationship that it’s a hard dealbreaker for me due to past experiences from growing up in that situation. we had aligned future plans until now and I feel hurt that he’s making such a major life decision without us being on the same page. I’m struggling with whether holding that boundary makes me reasonable or if I’m the one throwing away this relationship/ wondering if it is salvageable at all.

For a little context, we have been together for 6 years, and have had a pretty cohesively aligned life path up to this point. I am in my final year of med school, set to graduate with my doctorate soon, and potentially pursue residency. We planned to both graduate college, and move to a mutually agreed state to start a family. 

I have a pretty rough personal history with the military. I grew up in a military family, and while I respect what my parent did to provide the life they did for us, the trauma of certain things I experienced growing up had set a pretty firm boundary for me - I will not let myself be in a situation where my children grow up in the way that I did. My boyfriend has always been aware of this. He learned pretty early in our relationship the baggage that I carried surrounding this matter, and my viewpoint of the situation.

My boyfriend was in school to be an RN, and failed multiple classes last semester. He was given the opportunity to retake the classes he failed and continue with the program. However, at the end of this semester he failed classes again, and now would have to fully restart after a year waiting period at a new university to continue with this path. This is not the first time the military has come up, as it did the first time he failed out of school, but we had a discussion about how I would unfortunately not be able to be with him if he pursued this, and he decided to return back to school for the second year.

He keeps insisting that this is his “best option”. That he would only sign for a couple years and that everything will be fine. My argument back has been that this is his easiest option, and the one that requires the least amount of planning or thought on his behalf. He is well aware of my boundaries, and claims that he does not want to lose me, but is not willing to try any other path to avoid this. I worry that he thinks that I will not stand my ground, and that I will end up staying with him, and every time I think of that possibility I just see a child version of myself in my head begging me to leave.

Regardless of all this, I don't want to leave him, I just don't want him to choose this path. He has been looking online at reddit threads asking questions about what the military would entail, and the information he is relaying to me is not correct. When I tell him the truth, also confirmed by my parents, he thinks I am just arguing and telling him what he does not want to hear to convince him out of it. The more I argue, the further he is convinced of his decision.

I guess I just need some advice, I don't know why someone would choose something like this, knowing the consequences, when it doesn't even benefit the life goals he is planning. He is fully convinced he can walk into a recruiter office and make them give him a 6 figure job and just work for however long he wants and quit when he feels satisfied (???).  Regardless, it just doesn't feel “fair” that we are not moving as a team to make this decision, and that if I stayed, I would be throwing away everything that I have worked for with nothing in return.

I just don't really know what to do in this situation. He has to make his decision in less than a month, and it pains me to know that we could lose everything over this while feeling like I have no say in it. I feel guilty, and I go back and forth on whether I’m the one throwing the relationship away instead of him.

At the same time, I feel like if I had only brought up my concerns now, it would be unfair to him, but this is something he has known about for over 5 years. He fully understood what this decision would mean for our relationship long before it became a real possibility. I think part of what hurts is feeling like he either expects me to eventually change my mind, or has already accepted that he may lose me over this and sees it as unavoidable.
I love him deeply and don’t want to leave him, but I also don’t know how to ignore a boundary that exists because of experiences that shaped my entire childhood. My friend told me to ask Reddit for some outside perspective, so here I am.