Just because the title has Marines in it does not mean this only happens to service members. Please realize that this could happen to any man regardless of job.

I've never posted on reddit or really spent a lot of time on this site to begin with. But if this even resonates with one man It was well worth it.

I joined the Marines directly out of high school out of fear that I wasn't mature enough to take college seriously and saw it as a way to mature and become self-sufficient. Scored pretty high on my ASVAB and Mother begged me not to go into a combat arms MOS out of fear of losing her oldest son. (This will come into play later on).

Fast forward to 2015 when I met my future ex-wife. We had our fair share of issues and fights but nothing extremely terrible that couldn't be fixed with a simple conversation or time. We eventually got married in late 2018 and that is when everything really took a turn downhill. Ended up with orders to the Pentagon to work for HQMC. The move was beyond hell. and when we finally settled into our new home was exactly when I had a gut feeling It was doomed.

The verbal abuse was beyond intolerable to the point I didn't want to come home from work. From me not being able to do anything correct around the house to playing to many video games with my younger brothers. (I helped raise them with my mother since my father wasn't in the picture). She knew she could get away with it because I didn't want to hear her scream anymore.

She also knew that if I acted up and she went to my chain of command they would always side with the spouse, so my back was in a corner. She would also throw stuff at me and even punched my computer I had built that cost me quite a decent amount. She would get under my skin by telling me that I wasn't a real Marine due to the fact that my job wasn't infantry. (My mos was Intelligence)

She would always want to go to bars, but I knew that she didn't have the self-discipline or maturity to know when enough is enough and would end up picking fights with grown men that I would have to defuse. Keep in mind that I am about 5'9 200 pounds at the time and would go to the gym about six days a week as well as compete in power lifting competitions so I was by no means small. That did not stop her from putting her hands on me especially when drunk.

She would use no sex as a punishment if I basically didn't do exactly what she said so I got to the point where my life was work, gym, video games, and sleep. My mom was going through chemotherapy for cervical cancer at the time, so I decided to take two weeks leave to go help take care of my little brothers while my mom was going to Chemo.

I didn't return any calls and I didn't respond to any of the super verbally abusive texts that were sent my way. My brain had shut off and I knew that I deserved better. I came back from leave and as she is screaming at the top of her lungs about our two dogs, I looked at her and said the magic words "I want a divorce."

If your wife is verbally antagonizing you, please do not fall in the trap. Once you put your hands on her or say something over the line or even close it is game over for you and you have now given her the power to ruin your life.

Divorce was finalized in early 2020 and my mother's cancer is in remission and as of today I am out of the Marines after eight years and living a happy life with my girlfriend of three years with a nice civilian job. I was away from home, so I had no family members to help me in person during my divorce. Best advice I can give is continue to push on because once you allow that darkness to swallow you, she has won.