u/Flimsy_Weekend9907

My boyfriend is joining the Royal Navy and I’m curious about how common cheating actually is during deployments/port visits.

I know cheating is ultimately down to the person, not the job, and if someone’s going to cheat they probably would anywhere. But I’ve seen a lot of stories online about strip clubs, hookups in ports, “what happens on deployment stays on deployment” culture etc.

I’m especially curious about whether there’s actually pressure to join in when groups go out together, even from people who normally wouldn’t. Have any partners or serving/ex-serving people experienced this? Is the internet exaggerating it or is it genuinely common?

Not looking to bash the navy or accuse my boyfriend of anything just trying to get realistic perspectives because social media makes it sound terrifying sometimes.

Hi everyone, i was recently invited to a house party. I was added to a group-chat and i didn’t mention anything to my girlfriend although i was going to before i went. I initially didn’t say anything cause when we’d gone out with our friends before she had been quite clingy but not overly she would just spend some time with me and then also with her friends.

About a week before the party one of her friends was added to the group chat as the girl who was hosting it was open to more people coming.

I thought that if my girlfriend’s friend was in the groupchat she would make my girlfriend aware of me going. Apparently this was not the case.

Fast forward to the night of the party and i still hadn’t mentioned it to my girlfriend. We share our locations so when she had seen that i was at some random house she asked what i was up to. I told her where i was and she got upset with me saying why didn’t i mention anything to her and why i hid it from her. I didn’t want to admit that i felt like she had been too clingy before so i just said that i thought her friend had mentioned it to her as she was in the group chat.

Anyways we’re currently not on speaking terms as she felt like there was more to this especially since i had been in this group chat for a few weeks prior and she also said i had multiple occasions where i could have told her about it or even invited her.

Idk what to do… am i in the wrong?

My boyfriend joined the Navy and I’m struggling to work out whether what I’m feeling is “normal military relationship stress” or if there are underlying relationship issues that the Navy lifestyle is just making more obvious.

I genuinely love him a lot, which is why I almost feel guilty even writing this, because I don’t want to seem unsupportive or like I’m trying to pressure/rush our relationship. We’re still young. But at the same time, I also don’t want to blindly ignore concerns and only think about these things years down the line when bigger commitments (living together/kids etc) are involved.

Before he joined, we already had some issues around communication and emotional effort. For example, he made the decision to join pretty suddenly after we’d already been together over a year, said we’d properly sit down and talk about it, but then never really did. Since then, I feel like our whole relationship revolves around the Navy and his schedule/availability.

I also struggle with trust sometimes. I’ve never caught him physically cheating, but I found Tinder in his deleted apps before and he said it was because his friend used it on his phone. I’ve also found certain things online that made me uncomfortable. What makes it harder is that when I question things or try to communicate worries, he tends to get defensive or annoyed instead of reassuring me calmly, which makes me overthink more.

Another issue is emotional effort/romance. He’s affectionate physically and compliments me etc, but he doesn’t naturally do thoughtful things unless I ask. Even on Valentine’s Day this year, he admitted he didn’t think about doing anything for me at all because it was around his passing out. I know that sounds small, but it hurt because I’ve explained before that little thoughtful gestures mean a lot to me, and I’d already had to practically beg for effort the previous year too.

I think part of my anxiety is also about the future. He wants kids eventually, and I know military families make it work all the time, but I’m also going into a demanding medical career myself. Sometimes I get scared that military life will eventually leave me carrying most of the childcare, household responsibilities and emotional labour alone while also trying to work.

He says that once training is over he should mostly be able to come home at night apart from duty/deployments etc, so in theory we’d still have a fairly “normal” relationship. But then we’ve also spoken about settling down somewhere long term, and I keep thinking about what happens if he gets moved to a completely different base somewhere else in the UK. If we had a house somewhere and he got drafted elsewhere, we could suddenly end up barely seeing each other anyway.

He’s also mentioned me moving around with him if needed, but honestly I think that would stress me out a lot. I don’t want to build my entire life around constantly following somebody else’s career. I’ll have my own career, friends, routines and life too, and I think I’d end up resenting the situation if I felt like I was expected to uproot everything whenever the Navy moved him.

I know support systems/nannies/family help exist, and part of me genuinely likes the idea of being very home/family-oriented one day, but realistically with the economy now I can’t imagine how difficult one-income households might become in the future either.

I think what I’m struggling with most is the feeling that I’m constantly adapting to his life/career while my own emotional needs end up pushed aside. I don’t know whether I’m overthinking and catastrophising because military life is intimidating, or whether these are valid compatibility concerns that I shouldn’t ignore.

I’m not looking for “just break up” comments. I’d genuinely appreciate hearing from people who’ve been in military relationships or recognise this kind of dynamic. How do you tell the difference between military life simply being difficult vs someone genuinely not meeting your emotional needs properly?