Indeed, the Army does not officially recognize the girlfriends or significant others of Army soldiers. However, you only have to be “just” a girlfriend if you want to be.
As the girlfriend or fiancee of a soldier, you need support and information as well. It’s important that you feel supported so you can continue to support your soldier.
Official Support Groups
Even as a girlfriend, you can generally still participate in the family readiness group and receive updates if your soldier passes along your contact information to the group.
You can usually attend meetings and events the same as any soldier’s wife. This is a great way to stay connected to your soldier and meet others who understand the situation, especially during deployment.
If you live close enough to where he is stationed to attend events, I highly recommend you at least try it out and see how it goes.
Note that there are some exceptions, such as special operation units, but most units welcome anyone who supports the soldier.
Online Support Groups
Reach out to other Army girlfriends online to form your support group.
There are many groups online and you can certainly find groups on social media to join. This is a good way to meet other girlfriends and fiancees and provide support to each other.
Not to mention, there is plenty of information about the Army lifestyle to learn. Approach it as a learning opportunity and you will be ahead of the curve when you marry your soldier.
Living with Your Soldier
Indeed, you will not be allowed to live on post as an Army girlfriend. Your soldier will not be authorized to have on-post housing until you are married.
However, nothing stops you from moving to where he is stationed. You can just as easily rent an apartment in the same city as you can where you currently live. You don’t have to have a long-distance relationship unless you choose to have one.
Even though the Army may not officially recognize your relationship, your soldier does. And that is all that matters in the end.
Be proud to be dating a soldier who is serving our country, and don’t let your marital status keep you from supporting him and reaching out for support from other Army family members.
I have to agree! Stateside, you CAN easily get involved in unit activities and more and more units are encouraging your involvement.
I would also like to quickly mention something about wanting to go overseas with your BF. Sadly, I have to discourage that. First, you’ll only have your tourist passport and can stay only three months at most. Second, your BF will not get extra money (or housing), so you don’t want to be totally dependent on him….you won’t even be able to go on base unless he signs you in and out every time….and driver’s license, etc….even spouses who are not sponsored would have trouble living overseas (and wouldn’t have any of these privileges either).
BUT, with that being said, being apart will be a good test for your love (we have a lot more deployments these days)….and, thank God for Skype, Vonage, Facebook, etc….much easier than the old days!
So if your husband gets stationed overseas, you dont get the priveleges?
hello, i read the advice that you gave to the girl with the BF going overseas, and I was wondering since you are an army wife that has been through the good and bad, maybe you can help me.
i was dating a guy that was in the army and trying out for the special forces, everthing was fantastic for the duration of the relation until the stress of the SF tryout started getting to him, and then he broke up with me, because he feared that he could not balance a relationship with the program he is going into. it been a month now that i have not seen or heard from him, and i texted him yesterday but did not get a reply from him…i am very heart broken, and i just need advice on what to do? is this a common occurance with military relationships? We both care about each other alot.
what do i do!! Help!
I do think it’s somewhat common for them to pull away during tough training situations or deployments. But if the relationship is real, they will often come back. Just continue to try to support him.
I am glad that there are possibilities for involvement for Army girlfriends nowadays… however those are only available to women in the States. I myself happen to be of the species “Army girlfriend”, but I am not a US citizen or living in the US. So apart from online communities, there are not many options to find support open to me, and to be honest, not being a US citizen, I don’t feel very welcome even online. This is the first time I actually voice anything on the topic anywhere 🙂
I have to agree with Life Lessons. Following your guy to another state might be doable for US citizens, maybe, but following him to another country is really difficult. Especially when you figure the unpredictability of the Army. We almost did that, me joining him where he is stationed, and then he got notified, out of nowhere, that they are getting moved in a few weeks. All plans had to be cancelled. Then plans changed again, and it turned out he won’t be moved. It was a useful, if very disappointing lesson – you cannot make plans in the Army, and if you are, well, “just a girlfriend”, the Army won’t figure you in its plans. It’s just the way it is. Plus, unless you can find a way to bring some money to the table too, without the additional pay given to command-sponsored families, soldier pay would really not get you far. So in the end, as much as we wanted to be together, we had to face the reality – without a wedding band and Army okay, it is just too risky to drop your life to follow your soldier.
That doesn’t mean don’t do it. If I had the opportunity right now… I am not sure whether I would not take it anyway. But I would take it knowing the risks, at least. And this time, I know how to evaluate a realistic opportunity as opposed to a “romantic” one.
So is an army fiance pretty much the same thing as an army girlfriend?
As far as the Army is concerned, yes. As far as I’m concerned, no.
Hi
I’m hoping to GOD someone can help me here. My fiance is finishing up AIT at Ft Lee VA. we know when he’ll graduate, however we don’t know where his first duty station will be yet. We’re hoping to get married this summer, that way we can move to his first duty station together, however we’re worried about making plans for the wedding since we don’t know where he’ll be or what he’ll be doing yet. Should we set a date and hope the army lets him have leave? should we wait until he gets his orders and hope the site and caterer we chose is still available for the date they give us? PLEASE help me! Being away from him this long is killing me and if he gets stationed somewhere far away and i can’t be with him, i’m going to hate it. i want to be his wife, because the relationship with his parents is sketchy at best so if something happens, i’m screwed, i won’t even be able to see him. PLEASE help!
My boyfriend is in the reserves and we started dating not long after he got back from AIT. From the beginning he said he was interested in joining SF but I didn’t think much of it because I thought it was just going to be a summer fling. Now after almost a year I am very in love and can not see myself giving him up. We haven’t been together excessively long and are still very young. We are no where near talking about forever but I still feel like an important part of his life. I am just really struggling with how much to say about my feelings about him joining special forces. I am very insistent that I don’t want him to give up his dreams, but at the same time I do not know that I am strong enough. I want to be supportive and it is killing me that I am feeling this but I don’t know how to encourage him and still be true to my own feelings.
What are the motions one must go through to marry an enlisted soldier? Can we go to a courthouse and elope? What kind of paperwork is necessary to fill out for our union to be considered official in the eyes of the Army? We are currently on opposite ends of the country, once married, would the Army help me relocate to be with my Soldier? Everyone I have to talk to was either married before their Soldier enlisted or they are from a different country and also married a US Soldier before enlistment and their circumstances are completely different from mine. We’ve been together for 8 years, with a year break when I moved to Anchorage and we’ve both realized with our time apart that we want to be in each others lives. I’m scared and feel completely alone, especially since my Soldier is 3000 miles away from me. Any input or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Liz
my fiance is currently in AIT he was set to graduate in january or febuary not sure, but for some reason he hasnt. he says they keep looseing his paper work, but i am friends with several of the men that he was supposed to graduate with they say that they arent looseing his paper work it is because he is on profile but, he says he isnt? and i honestly dont know much about the military so i was wondering if you could help me understand the situation and maybe figure things out alittle bit?
i would GREATLY appreciate it,
-Savannah
Hi everyone, I am a Army GF from NZ and i to am wondering if i am doing the right thing? But i love him and i jst want him home here in NZ but oh well the saying goes ‘money talks’. I have just been notified that if i want to have my BF home i have to pay $3500US too get him home and now i’m confused, is this right is this how its suppose to work out??
my boyfriend is a US army captain in afghanistan while i live in the philippines. he’ll be 45 while i’ll be 43 this year. it’s tough maintaining a long-distance relationship, given the irregularity of his schedule: he could just be on the base for a whole week, and then be gone for 4 to 5 weeks with no communication.
we love each other, but he won’t marry me until he finishes his tour of duty in 2015. he tells me that if another decent guy comes up to propose, i should marry that guy — AND THEN in the same breath, he goes, he wishes i don’t meet anyone else. he thinks it’s unfair to tie me down to him while he’s on active-duty in a combat-zone, given the big possibility that he could die any time.
how do i make him realize that i’m up to the demands of becoming an army wife?
P.S. he’s a widower — his wife and son died in the tragic 9/11. he’s also an orphan and has no family — he grew up in an orphanage run by priests. i’m the closest thing he has right now to family and friend.
Hi Stacy, I am the fiance of a soldier. He is getting cold feet as the big day approaches. His ex-wife left him during a deployment, and he sees other soldiers in failing marriages. How can I ease his fears?