Who are the ultimate Karens?
We’ve all heard of neighbor Karens, mall Karens, and mom Karens—but they’ve got nothing on these military wives. These Karens are their own special breed. Some have an unearned sense of entitlement, while others have a treasure trove of dark secrets they hide from their military spouses. Sit down, strap in, and prepare to get enraged at their ridiculous antics.
1. Not A Good Enough Reason
I once pulled over the same lady on three separate occasions for speeding in a school zone. I was trying to be nice the first two times and let her off the hook, but she started bawling the third time and I lost my patience. She kept sobbing, saying her husband was deployed. I let her keep doing this for a couple of minutes while I was writing everything she said in my notes.
It felt like a Hot Fuzz moment. I finally asked how her husband being deployed was relevant to her speeding in a school zone and then she just stared at me. Like she couldn't believe I would question it. She got quiet afterward and I handed her the ticket and walked away without saying anything else.
2. Crazy For Love
I worked as an employee with the Marines. Got a call that the spouse of one of the officers was in the hospital. The details sounded horrific.
Her place on base housing had gotten broken into, the nine-month pregnant spouse was beaten and taken by ambulance to the hospital. The assault caused a miscarriage. I was devastated and went to the hospital with several officers in the Marine’s chain of command. But I had no idea what I was in for.
One of the nurses tending to her looked me in the eye and said, "I am very interested in how this is going to play out". I was so confused. The nine-month pregnant assault victim was given an ultrasound and blood work performed upon being admitted to the hospital. That’s when the truth came out.
She hadn’t been pregnant. She wasn’t violated. Her "due date" was the next day and she’s been faking the pregnancy the whole time. She beat herself up and made up the story resulting in miscarriage as a way to cover up the nine months of lying to her husband about being pregnant.
I’ve never seen this level of crazy until three months later when said Marine reunited with the crazy girl even after all that.
3. Mine, All Mine
I'm not a service member but my brother was. He passed in 2011. At the funeral, it turned into an utter disaster. His wife screamed at my mother and told us all to sit in the back because she was more important. For eight years now she has run around various news outlets and government agencies demanding more free gold star wife stuff.
To date, she has been given two houses, six figures worth of stipends, and multiple televised recognitions. She knew my brother for a total of two years but they were barely together from the first date to his passing. She acts like his family doesn't exist and she squashes any attempt by the rest of us to receive any sort of recognition.
She has alienated all of the other gold star wives in her support circle and constantly belittles other fallen servicepeople. The last thing he said about her, about two weeks before he passed, was that when he returns to the states he's fixing his mistake and divorcing her for being "a real piece of trash".
4. Not Sticking Around
I was a standing gate guard in Washington DC. An officer's wife drives through the gate and presents her ID. I wave her through. She doesn't move, asking me if I forgot something. I said no, I didn't believe I did. She said I forgot to salute her, pointing to the blue sticker on her windshield (which means I should salute to the officer).
I leaned close to her windshield and saluted the sticker, wishing it a good afternoon. I got removed from that duty.
5. Learning A Lot Of New Things Today
A friend of mine came home one day early from a year-long deployment. He walked in to see his wife was busy getting it on with another guy on the couch. In the bedroom, he discovered a baby she had never mentioned, fathered by yet a third guy.
6. Playing The Long Game
My Sergeant’s wife still needed to become an official citizen. When we deployed, she got detained selling drinks to an underage/undercover officer. So while we're deployed, my Sergeant and most of my command are spending extra time and effort trying to fight the court system in the US and keep them from deporting her back to Mexico, due to her now being charged plus also overstaying her work visa.
So my command and the Sergeant fight and eventually win. The wife gets to stay in the country and gets to become a citizen. Fast forward two months and it turns out his wife's brother is not actually her brother but her boyfriend and my Sergeant’s daughter has been calling her own father "uncle" for a few years.
The wife's family apparently knew that the daughter belonged to the boyfriend who was also in the country unlawfully and just never said anything so that the daughter would be claimed by my Sergeant and be considered a US citizen and it would help the wife get citizenship. Now this woman, her boyfriend, and her entire family were in on a plan to help the wife get citizenship through an active duty Marine.
I'm not saying I think they planned the conception or anything, but an opportunity arose and they took it. In my book, they are all human scum and I hope the daughter never learns about any of this. My Sergeant eventually, and still is, in deep denial about the daughter now being his and believes his wife simply cheated on him.
He forgave her and they are still married eight years later.
7. You Get What You Give
This guy’s wife left him and moved in with her boyfriend off base while he was deployed. She got knocked up. Since they were still married, she was still going to the base for medical care. Their divorce wasn't final by her due date, so she still got to go on base and deliver. But the guy got his revenge in the end.
Her soon-to-be ex-husband had his buddies in security forces put a security flag on his soon-to-be ex-wife's boyfriend. The boyfriend couldn't be on base for the birth of his child.
8. I’ve Got A New Family Now
This guy came back from a 15-month tour in Iraq. His platoon sergeant went home to find another man living in his house, with his wife and kids. His kids (toddlers) were calling the guy daddy. When he walked in, his wife just bluntly annihilated him.
She basically said, "Yeah. I want a divorce. I'm with him now". The worst part was the platoon sergeant and new daddy kind of worked together, but he was one of the few who stayed behind for clerical stuff while the rest deployed. The husband initially threatened to take the kids and kick the wife out onto the street, which he definitely had grounds to do.
9. Whine And Dine
I worked in Postal in Italy. There are so many wives that come in screaming that their husband is a Captain/General, whatever, so you totally need to let her mail vino to her friends in the states. Sure, lady. I'll totally break federal law because you are married to one of two dozen Captains sitting in this base.
They scream louder when I explained that it was against the law. This happened at least twice a week. Couldn't get out of Italy fast enough.
10. Top Notch Security Measures
One evening, while I was on staff duty, my (then wife) decided that I was cheating on her and not, in fact, at work. I was totally at work, nor had I ever cheated on her. So she texts me and says, "I’m going to go to the barracks to sleep with the first soldier I see". I was so checked out of the relationship at this point that I was just waiting to get out to leave her.
I didn’t bother responding. It backfired on her in the best way possible. She showed up at the barracks and got turned away because she used her dependent ID to try to check into the barracks but couldn’t tell them who she was there to visit.
11. Mismatched From The Start
This guy I knew, I’ll call him Niles. He was one of our junior Marines and was worthless from day one. The dude smoked a pack a day and never passed an annual fitness test as far as I know. Physically and mentally weak, lived in off-base housing with his wife. The story we got was that his lady was literally puking in the toilet he proposed to her in between volleys and she said yes.
They went through with it. This dude would have some of the platoon over to his apartment on the weekends to do some drinking and hanging out. I never went, mostly because I was very hard on him during the workday being as how I was this chucklehead’s team leader.
I heard from multiple sources that every party went pretty much the same way. They would all start drinking, Niles would drink, pass out, and then his wife would pick 1-3 other guys there and let them have their way with her. You get only the classiest of people in the Marine infantry.
12. Too Much Power In One Woman
A guy in my shop (Air Force) deployed to Iraq for four and a half months. Before he left, he signed over general power of attorney to his wife. While he was gone, she started sleeping with another guy in our shop, then signed the divorce paperwork as his power of attorney and his rights to see his kids, as well as draining his bank account.
She went to live with the other guy in my shop and his friend off base. They were both detained for check fraud when trying to pass off a check that was the roommate’s. The guy she divorced eventually got full custody of the kids and the other guy in my shop got kicked out of the Air Force.
She actively worked to ruin his life when all he did was love his kids and get deployed to Iraq.
Don't give anyone general power of attorney, ever. I don't care how much you trust them or how much you think they love you. Don't do it. You can give them specialized power of attorney that only allows them to handle your affairs that you very specifically need them to handle.
13. A Case Of Mistaken Identity
When my wife and I first moved in on base we had a neighbor that was super friendly. This woman told us she had cancer so her brother was staying with her to take care of her. We think nothing of it. A few months later, they moved out to live off base. Normal thing, so no reason to be skeptical.
Fast forward a few months and I'm shoveling the driveway and a guy from next door comes over to say hi. I say hi and welcome him as a new neighbor. But no, he’s not a new neighbor, he’s had that house for a couple of years. I got confused and asked about the woman who had moved out recently. That's when I learned the dark truth.
He told me that woman was his wife, the brother was her lover, she didn’t have cancer, and she spent all his money on Farmville then moved out with everything they owned.
14. That’s A No-No
I saw a newer airman with no belt on. I asked, "Why don't you have a belt?" He said he can't afford one, so I give him $5 and tell him to go get a belt. A few weeks later I see him at Ruby Tuesday cleaning tables. I ask around and apparently, his wife was growing weed in base housing and he got kicked out of the Army. He swore he didn't know what she was doing.
15. The Math Doesn’t Add Up
I got back from an eight-month deployment. Welp, my buddy’s wife was six months pregnant......
16. V For Vendetta
I had a friend in the platoon. His wife falsely accused her ex-boyfriend, also in the army, of assault. She went as far as stabbing a mattress to set him up. The dude spends weeks behind bars being cleared of all charges. When it comes to light that she was vindictive, she only goes more crazy.
One night, she handed her baby over to a friend while she watched a movie. My platoon mate, whose baby it was, went to check on the baby and saw it was missing. It prompted the first amber alert in Alaska history. When all was said and done, she tried to pin it on the ex AGAIN as another act of vengeance, even though she knew darn well what the story was.
I can only imagine what the poor dude was thinking when officers came to him with this. He was very quickly eliminated as a subject and they figured out that the baby was safe rather quickly.
17. Unloading On Her
Let me preface this by saying a solid 99.99% of spouses I encountered were delightful. Yet, the awful ones are burned in my memory. The following conversation occurred not so long ago at camp. A dependent was unloading boxes of what I assume were girl scout cookies. She turned her attention to me as I walked by.
Her: "Hey there! Give us a hand". Me: "Excuse me ma'am, but who are you?" Her: "My husband is a gunny, and I just told you to help me!" Me: "Oh...actually ma'am, you have no authority on board this installation. Your spouse's rank is irrelevant".
Her: "Excuse me?!?" Me: "I said you don't have any authority here. I don't care what rank your husband is?" Her: "Oh Marine, you sure you want to play this game?" Me: "It's not a game ma'am. Have a good day".
I began to walk away. Her: "I'm gonna find your command and tell them how disrespectful you were!" Me: "That's your choice ma'am. If you reach them, tell them I told you to go screw yourself too". Her: "Excuse me?!?!" Me: "I said go screw yourself!" I caught a little heat for cursing loudly, but that was about it.
18. Winging It
I was a witness to one of my guys’ weddings. It was a typical GI Joe wedding in that it took place mid-day, at a Wings ‘n Things, during the lucky bride’s lunch break. The mother of the bride owned said Wings ‘n Things but refused to attend the ceremony despite being at work that day. It was pretty amazing.
19. Blink And You’ll Miss It
I got restationed back in the states from Germany. No problem, I flew my German girlfriend over and we ended up getting married in the days that followed. This turned out to be a huge mistake. She went back to Germany four days later and I never saw her again. Good times.
20. Not My Problem
An army wife was partying over on the wrong side of the base. I don't remember if her husband was enlisted or an officer, but she belonged on the opposite side. While driving (after partying) back home, she ran over a member of the base who was passed out on the road. (It happens. It's like college sometimes on a base.)
She only called 9-1-1 SEVERAL HOURS LATER to say she "thinks she ran over a bag of trash in the road" at 1 am, on a part of the base that had nothing but living quarters. When they brought him in, he was making the most god-awful noises I've ever heard a human make. He lived and kept his limbs. She went behind bars for a hit-and-run.
Her husband found out. He was, you guessed it, overseas.
21. I Think I’m Staying
My grandfather was stationed in Germany where he met my grandmother. They got married in Germany and she moved back to the States with him, where his family was absolutely not very happy about it. His mother actually offered to buy him a brand new car if he married "a nice American woman instead".
Obviously, my grandma wasn't too happy about that and decided the best course of action was to have a second wedding in the US to prove she wasn't going anywhere. They were married 55 years and she's still living in the original family home, she really didn't go anywhere.
22. Ruin My Life, Why Don’t You
So I was assigned to Pensacola for some training. I wasn't going to be there long and shouldn't have dated. 21-year-old me was stupid. I met a girl off base and we started to date. She loved that I was in service while constantly saying she didn't like army guys. It should have been a red flag.
She literally pretended to be the perfect girlfriend. Whatever hobby I mentioned, she said, "Oh my God, I'm into that too!" She did everything possible to act like we were a perfect match. She even said she worked as a FEMA office manager when I told her I joined because I like to help people. Four months go by and I get orders to New Mexico.
I mention that I have to go soon (she knew I was just there temporarily), and she starts hinting at wanting to go with me. Thinking I'm in a really good relationship, I agree. I have never made a worse mistake. We get to New Mexico and I rent us a place. I was actually supposed to live on base in dorms for about a year until I ranked up to Senior Airman.
Things between us go downhill immediately after moving into our place. She suddenly didn't enjoy doing anything I did and had a really bad attitude. She said it was just nerves from moving so far. Fast forward two months and I'm getting reamed out by my Captain for living off base without authorization. I explain my situation and he said to send her back or get married.
Yup, you guessed it. Got married. We were married for nine years. She was a miserable witch the whole time. Refused to get a job, so I had to 100% support her. This is where it all started to unravel. Turns out she really couldn't get a job because she just had a GED and her only work experience was as a receptionist for maintenance at a trailer park.
She lied about the FEMA job. But that wasn’t all. Right before our nine-year mark, she begs me to get out of service so we can move back to Florida. Her grandmother passed and she said we had to take care of her grandfather. Stupidly, I did it. We get to Florida and her grandfather is fine. We only saw him a handful of times over the course of two years.
Eventually, I catch on that she’s been cheating on me and I throw her stuff out of my house and she moves in with her boyfriend. Apparently, she wanted to go back to Florida because there were some guys there she wanted to hook up with. I initiated a divorce and she wouldn't cooperate. She kept breaking into my house with her boyfriend and looting my place.
I'd bring home groceries and they'd be gone the next time I left the house. The authorities wouldn't do anything because we were married, and the same with the landlord. I decided to move and she caught wind. I'm at school and she clears my house out. I go to her place to confront her and she calls the authorities.
Now I get accused of burglary and battery and the officers believe her because the sociopath can cry on command. I end up getting a plea deal. My lawyer convinced me to take it. But then the shocker dropped. During the process, I find out she was never lawfully married to me. She was (and still is) married to someone up in Michigan.
She had me take care of her for nearly a decade, while miserable the whole time, and she heavily utilized her medical benefits from being a military dependent…and she was never actually my wife. My Probation Officer felt bad and I was able to get off my probation at a year and five months.
The charges were lessened so they could be sealed and eventually expunged. She literally has suffered ZERO consequences for what is basically bigamy and more. Florida won't help because they said New Mexico has jurisdiction. New Mexico won't do anything because she is out of state.
23. Two Isn’t Better Than One
I knew a military couple who shaved all of their kids’ heads, even the girls, and named them stuff like Manson, Lewellyn, Satan, etc. They were devil worshippers and came in all of the time saying they were being tormented for their religious beliefs. They planned on sacrificing the 7th child to Satan or something.
We called CPS and their kids were taken away. Then the husband was put in the brig short term to await some court proceedings. He did an "invisibility spell" and got caught lifting lots of expensive electronic equipment from the comm schools. The wife came in threatening to take her own life, telling me I "had to" get her husband out.
It was sad, because SHE was really sick. Her husband was just a jerk and a loser. But man, they made a pair. And those poor kids.
24. Be Careful What You Wish For
My friend Robert was a bummy, slobby-looking guy who was always on the receiving end of jokes and pretty much only survived training because he was a nice guy. So as lazy as he was, most airmen would cover for him. Being a genuinely nice guy goes a long way.
Robert had an unusually hot wife, which completely surprised everyone that ever saw them together and we all assumed that he was packing some real heat or that she wasn't a shallow jerk like the rest of us.
I'm not sure how this was arranged, but Robert had a best friend who I'll call Greg, and one day after a few beers, Robert decides it would be real cool if Greg slept with his wife and let him watch. Greg is objectively a better-looking guy, by the way, and it happens.
This happens a few more times…until one of the times, the wife finishes up with Greg and tells her husband, Robert that she no longer wants anything to do with him, she wants to be with Greg. This made him very upset. And why do I know all of this?
Because Robert came into our squadron and had a mental breakdown and told all of us. I was there trying to get some leave paperwork signed, he straight up told this entire story to all of our leadership and finished it off with a demand that Greg be punished.
Greg obviously wasn't punished but was asked to stop, which I'm sure he didn't.
25. Cut And Run
My brother is in the Air Force. He went to work one day, had a normal day, then came home. When he arrives home, his wife's car is gone. He thinks nothing of it. He goes into the house, and it’s a disaster—clothes strewn everywhere, appliances in weird piles all around the house, and a bunch of stuff is missing (washer, dryer, fridge, light bulbs, their bed, couch, etc etc). But it got scarier.
Most terrifying of all is that their son is also missing, along with a bunch of his stuff. He starts to freak out, because there's no note about it ANYWHERE. He tries to call his wife, but her phone is off. He tries to get a hold of his wife's family, but nobody answers. He calls mutual friends, but nobody has any idea.
He then calls the authorities and reports that they've been kidnapped and states that her car is missing, and thus it must have been stolen during the kidnapping (remember this part, it comes up again in the future). Officers come out and take a statement…and then she finally calls him while they are still there.
She tells him that she's staying with her family and that they are getting a divorce. She also has a restraining order on him, as she has told a judge that he is violent. He is not, and she later admitted she felt bad about lying, but she wanted custody and her lawyer advised her to say that.
This woman knew when he would come home, and waited 45 minutes until after the fact to call him and let him know his life has been screwed. Their son is fine. He relaxes as much as he can, but she has really screwed him here. The restraining order gets him in trouble with his boss, and he's messed up for a while by how bad he was blindsided.
Keep in mind, this brother of mine served three tours in the Middle East. This shook him up more than that ever did. Anyway, everything is "okay" at least. A few days go by, and they start working with lawyers to solve everything. Well, guess what? Remember when he reported that her vehicle was missing/stolen? The worst happens.
She used that in their custody battle as evidence that he was malicious and vindictive because he did it "to cause her trouble with the law, and to scare her". The judge ends up siding with her and punishing my brother for filing a bogus report when he thought they had been kidnapped. No joke.
My brother's lawyer was a buffoon and the wife came from a family with money who got her good lawyers. She took him to the cleaners and got everything she wanted...even the very house she abandoned when she left him. She didn't move into the house though, she just evicted my brother and then sold it months later for much less than it was worth.
It took him years to recover mentally and financially. He's out of service now (20 years in, retired) and getting his civilian life on track. He has a great relationship with his son, and his ex-wife continues to be a constant source of pain and misery. My brother handles it like a champ though, because (as he puts it) "No matter how horrible and demanding she is, he has faced far worse".
My brother is an absolute legend. His life has been full of ups and downs (more downs than ups), but he still keeps going. I respect him more than anyone else out there, and without a doubt, he is my hero. Love that dude.
26. All Downhill From Here
A buddy of mine at school had met a younger Mexican girl, fell in love, and wanted to provide a better life for her than he was able to at the time. He had been in the Coast Guard and re-joined. He had the first pick of where he was going to be stationed next because he’d already had prior service and had been on a ship for years.
The school was about five months long. While he was there, his wife decided to join too without telling him. They were from South Texas, and he had the choice to be stationed in Galveston, not far from both of their families. But, she ends up getting stationed in Oregon, on land. The closest place they could get him to where she was stationed was Seattle, also on land, but he obviously wanted to be close to her so that’s where he opted to choose.
However, within a couple of weeks of graduation, she also gets transferred to Seattle, so it looks like things might be okay after all…until the day of graduation when they tell him they have changed his orders and he will be stationed on a polar ice breaker, which would be leaving the week he gets to his new unit.
The ship was set to literally make a trip around the world and he’d be gone for seven months or so. He finds out while off the southern coast of South America that she had been kicked out of the Coast Guard for using substances and for cheating with a guy she was stationed with. She was now working as a dancer in a club as well.
Were there red flags before they got married? I’m not sure, but it didn’t seem that way before she joined. He was a nice and really good dude. Weird turn of events in such a short time.
27. A Raw Deal
My best mate in the Army married a girl he just met, and then deployed. BIG MISTAKE. While he was gone, she kept begging him for money to buy everything that she needed to set up house when he got back. When his tour ended the girl was genuinely angry and wanted to know how soon he was deploying again.
After some days of heated discussion, the absolutely bizarre truth came out. It turned out that she expected he would die in combat. She told him that her, her family, and her boyfriend were "counting on the money". He was an Aircraft Tech and never left the airport. He threw her out and told her they were getting divorced, and she offered up her sister as a replacement.
28. A Bad Apple
So, I was Air National Guard for nine years. There was a girl who enlisted at about the same time I did. In those nine years before I got out, she had been married and divorced three times. She wasn't even 30. I believe her marriages went Marine, Navy, Army.
Her rationale each time was that it was the guy's fault. Apparently, if someone keeps picking a rotten apple and taking a bite, you don't blame the apple.
29. A Little Too Forgiving
We had a particularly worthless piece of garbage in my unit, let's call him Warren for sake of the story. Warren was the single stupidest man I have ever met in my entire life, bar none. Absolutely awful Marine who could legitimately barely tie his shoes. The fact that this dude had passed through the recruiters, boot camp, and everything else was a pox on the name of the Marine Corps in my opinion.
This dude got married before we left for our first tour. It took her about three days to send him pictures of her cheating on him. She proceeded to get knocked up during one of these trysts that she was holding at their base housing regularly. She found out which one of the dudes was the father and had him move into their house.
When Warren returned from deployment, he proceeded to forgive her and continue to let her baby daddy live in the house with them. That went on for a couple of months until the dude beat him up and they called up to get him out of there.
30. Men Can Be Karens Too
I was in the Navy and my husband was a civilian. We married young, like most service members do, at 19. We grew up in the same city and dated for several years. I thought I knew the guy inside and out. He had some anger issues but nothing out of the ordinary for a 19-year-old dude. I deployed soon after marrying. Almost immediately that's when things changed.
Some other base wife told him that I cheating on him, which I was not. He got heavily into substances and absolutely trashed my house. He sold everything and drained my account (thousands of dollars in deployment money gone). Then he left base, never to return. My two dogs were left in the house, did more and more damage, and were taken to the humane society where I paid hundreds to get them back.
He hung out with a Japanese girl off base until my return. They got pregnant, then he started to follow me and threaten me. Anyways, we got divorced and his psycho mother continued to threaten me for several years. Overall very fun experience, would rate 4/10.
31. It’s A Long Way Down
Navy, F-18 squadron deployed around 2010. A few months in, our powerplants night shift supervisor (a woman) starts sleeping with a male maintenance control Chief. They were on the same shift. Despite both being married, neither of them remotely try to fly under the radar. Night shift maintenance goes to absolute heck.
Powerplants and maintenance control on nights clash every single night. All maintenance slows to a snail’s pace, and mistakes happen left and right due to a breakdown in communication and command. It all directly affects the day shift, our flight schedule, scheduled exercises, and the mission.
Folks report it via every available channel, but nothing comes of it. Finally, dozens of folks write the Inspector General. Investigators arrive and start interviewing folks on day one. No one holds any punches because screw those two. That same day, they decide to stop by the woman’s room to interview her while she's off-shift.
Surprise, they catch her in bed with ANOTHER night shift maintenance control Chief, who is also married. All three were knowingly participating in this messed-up little love triangle.
The powerplant's supervisor, who was only recently advanced promoted, gets busted down and placed on restriction. One Chief has just enough time for early retirement. The other Chief gets screwed by his own ambition and drive.
He made Chief early in his career, nowhere near eligible for early retirement. He gets busted down too, welcome back to the fleet, dude. But the story doesn't stop here. The woman, who is now also restricted, manages to gain access to Facebook. She starts posting pity stuff and sending messages to folks in the squadron who never liked her to begin with.
They report her. A second investigation ensues. Turns out, she started sleeping with the guy supervising the restriction barracks. She gets busted down again to Airman. Gets even more time of half-month’s pay, restriction, and extra punitive days. Gets kicked out right after. She leaves with the nickname "Rings and Rank". Always had a real hard time understanding any of it considering she was not remotely attractive and excessively overweight.
32. Plot Twist
This happened in 2004 when we got back from the Iraq invasion and such. We had just hit Bangor Maine and some Vets had cell phones that were donated for us to call and tell our loved ones that we were just hours from a reunion. This Sergeant called his wife. Whole deployment no issues, all is good...or so he thought.
We hear a string of cursing like only an infantryman could, and this cell goes flying like a scud across the terminal. So apparently, she decided to wait until he was just a few hours from home after a year of combat to say she was divorcing him, she had left him negative a few hundred in the bank account, and what she didn’t throw out was now in a couple of trash bags in his truck, unlocked, in the barracks parking lot.
He was remarried within two months. There were no classy winners or losers in this story.
33. Don’t Be Like Andy
It's not too often I get to tell this tale, but hear ye hear ye children. Today is the day I tell the parable of Andy and why you should really take advice. Andy and I both joined up to be nuclear propulsion plant technicians in the Navy in late 2012. Now, surprising fact about navy nukes—we're usually pretty awkward.
We come in all different flavors of awkward, not just the "this guy can't talk to people" type. Andy was one of those special types of awkward where he wouldn't stop talking to you. Andy had zero problems being social! However, he was a pretty short guy with a flair for the dramatic and had about as much impulse control as he did inches.
Andy's general routine was, as far as I could tell, hang around dating sites and try to hang out with anyone that had a woman in their friend group. This was back in 2013, so Tinder didn't exist in full force quite yet. Andy went out every weekend and tried his best. He failed, and failed, and failed again.
One weekend, about…oh, maybe eight months since basic training, Andy met this girl. We'll call her Becky. I didn't think anything of it at first. I was happy for him! We agreed to go on a double date with my at-the-time girlfriend (now wife). We all go out to some hookah bar in downtown Charleston. That's when I met Becky.
Becky was a fiery girl. She had about six inches in height on Andy and was...well, loud. Very loud. She talked a lot, cursed a lot, and had a long history of dating servicemen. In fact, the night before we all went out together, she broke up with her Marine boyfriend. My girlfriend and I thought it was a slip of the tongue when she said it.
Nope. She had just broken up with that guy to go on a date with Andy. That really is where it should've ended, but it didn't. Fast forward four weeks. Andy and Becky have been nigh inseparable and Andy decided that he wanted to get married. I tried to talk him out of it. So did his other friends. So did his Chief. So did the Master Chief in charge of that Chief.
It turns out though, guys, they can't stop you from marrying someone if you really want to. So Andy got married. He and Becky moved into on-base housing and...well, surprise surprise, things weren't great. There were a lot of arguments that continued to escalate in both volume and length.
Neighbors would call the base authorities to get them to settle down. Eventually, six weeks pass and I see Andy in the galley on base. "Andy, what are you doing here? You can go eat dinner at your house, man". "Uh... I'm living back in the barracks". "Huh? Why?" "Becky and I are getting divorced". I wish this was the end of the story, but it turns out things were worse than I originally knew.
Remember how Andy was kind of short and scrawny and Becky...well, wasn't? Turns out, that's a great recipe for physical attacks when your spouse is already crazy. Becky would regularly hit him during arguments. She also cheated on him, with her cousin, during a trip to New York. Perhaps the worst part of it all was that because they were getting divorced in South Carolina, they needed to wait a year before they could actually file for divorce.
During that entire time, Andy had to provide for her as his spouse. He paid for that nice house on base that she just brought dudes over to constantly. She also destroyed that house before she left, which Andy was ultimately held responsible for. Andy spent 14 months in South Carolina getting divorced for about 10 weeks of getting laid. Don't be like Andy.
34. Welp, That Didn’t Last Long
I attended a friend's wedding while I was in the Marines; he was another Marine in my unit. I drove out two hours from base for the wedding. The wedding goes well. He finds the bride lighting up during the reception. Any other time it wouldn't be a big deal, but in the army substances are a big no-no. Also, she had hidden it from him the entire relationship.
Best not to find out there are secrets being kept from you on your wedding day. This was all two months before a one-year deployment to Iraq. Needless to say, they were getting divorced before we made it back stateside.
35. Don’t Mess With Me Or Mine
This was back in the early 90s when my husband was stationed at Bragg. He goes over to a good friend’s house for drinking and cards. I stayed home with the kids because I couldn’t stand the friend’s wife. Turned out I was right, this woman proved herself to be a monster. So, my husband, his friend, his friend’s wife, and two of her friends are all sitting around drinking and playing cards.
The friend gets called in because they need a jumpmaster. He kind of knew it was coming so he wasn’t drinking at all that evening. My husband at this point has had a few too many and can’t drive home because we live a bit from Bragg. No problem, the friend tells him to hang out and clean up to drive, and off he goes.
My husband, the guy’s wife, and her friends continue to play cards, but now my husband is drinking coffee. A few hours later, one of the friends leaves, the other needs a ride home. My husband offers to drive since he’s pretty much substance-free now. Friend’s wife offers to drive with them, so that my husband isn’t alone with her friend, who is unmarried, and, according to wife, a little "loose".
Right. Next morning, after I’m done yelling because he walked in the house at 5 am after leaving for a few beers at 7 pm the night before, he informs me of what happened and then tells me that one of the women told him "I know you’re married, but I’d love to lock you in a room for two hours".
He refused to tell me which one said it, so I go to his friend’s wife, not thinking it’s her, and proceed to tell her what I’m going to do to her friend if I find out which one it is. It was six years later, after my husband got out, that I found out it was his friend’s wife. I also found out that she was sleeping with anyone in uniform the minute her husband was out the door.
No, my husband didn’t take her up on her offer, he just thanked her for the "compliment". About five years ago he met up with that friend again, who had divorced the woman, and he told him what had happened. When my husband apologized for not letting the guy know, his friend told him not to worry about it.
Apparently, my husband was the only one of this guy’s friends to turn her down. I saw a lot of that stuff going on when we lived on Bragg and off, but this was the one time another dependent messed with my own family.
36. Always Hard To Get The Timing Right
While delivering our fourth baby at an army hospital, we were talking to one of the nurses about infidelity and crazy things she had witnessed. She told us about a woman coming in with her husband for a C-Section that was not scheduled. The woman insisted that she was scheduled for a C-section that day.
They did an ultrasound and found that she was three months pregnant, not nine months pregnant. Her reasoning was chilling. She was willing to deliver a baby six months early so it would appear the conception lined up with her husband’s mid-tour leave.
37. Be A Jerk For No Reason, Great Idea
I was on guard duty. An old Jeep Cherokee with an officer’s decal comes through. I come to attention and render the proper salute. This woman returns a two-handed salute, basically mocking me, my service, my country, and my etiquette. I figure that she’s an idiot, doesn’t know any better, etc.
A couple of days later, the same car with the wife and the active-duty husband comes through. I salute—and the reply made my blood boil. He too does the two-handed salute in return. Alright, whatever, be a jerk. A few hours later, as a chow relief, I’m on the gate when the same car comes through again. I just wave it through without saluting.
The car comes to a halt and the window rolls down. The officer asks why I didn’t render proper honors to a superior officer. I told him that I did not appreciate having my salutes getting mocked by him and his wife. I volunteered that I would be more than willing to go on report and submit my statement to his commanding officer as well as the base commander.
Then I saluted the blue decal and told them to move along, they were holding up traffic. From then on, whenever either of them came through the gate, I made it a point to slightly bend at the waist to salute the decal on the bumper. Just my little way to remind them that they were being jerks to someone who was just doing their job.
38. Not Up To Dress Code
I had a Sergeant in Korea marry a VERY trashy lady. It was so messed up seeing her at formal functions. All of us in Class As and her dressing like Peggy Bundy. Her "name" was Tiger.
39. Here For A Naughty Time
I was in the Officer Club in Okinawa around 2012 or so. In walk at least six women in racy, cut-off shorts versions of flight suits that were bright orange. I was pretty confused until my Marine friend told me that meant their husbands were deployed and they were looking for a good time. Apparently, it was an open secret.
40. A Nasty Surprise
I knew a guy who got home from sea a day early back when there was no email or phones to call home and let wives know they were in early. He found a different car in his driveway and someone else in his wife. He kicked his wife, undressed, out on the front lawn and then proceeded to beat seven levels of heck out of the guy.
He spent two months in Club Ed for assault but he said it was worth it.
41. Where There’s Smoke…
I was pretty naive and got maneuvered into a couple of bad situations. The weirdest was when I was out drinking with a colleague. He got very intoxicated, and, out of the blue started berating me for trying to sleep with his wife. I did not want to sleep with his wife, and was not trying to. Noped out of there.
But later that night, the wife showed up at my apartment, ostensibly to "apologize".
42. There’s Bad Parenting, And Then There’s This
Air Force and Navy Veteran here, and I'm a Marine Wife. The worst thing I ever experienced was the passing of a beautiful five-month-old baby girl. The Sergeant and his wife were serious gamers. The wife also suffered from mental health issues. Both were weird and ignorant. Nothing prepared me for what they did.
The wife was tired of the baby crying and not sleeping. So, she propped a bottle on a pillow, used more pillows to cushion her, and left her in the master bedroom while she and the hubby gamed. The little girl suffocated. Neither parent checked on her for 12+ hours. They said they thought she was sleeping.
They found her, left her for several more hours, and made a failed attempt to resuscitate her while they were on the phone with 9-1-1. They're so stupid, the authorities shared with me that rigor mortis had already set in and it looked as if the baby had been gone more than 24 hours.
The parents went back to gaming because they wanted to finish their match or whatever. The mother showed zero remorse. However, she was completely fascinated with how popular she was becoming on social media. So much so that she was super giddy with her local fame and said her kid dying was worth the fame and GoFundMe.
The Marine was indifferent to the whole thing.
43. Both Sides Now
My brother-in-law married a woman he chatted to online for a few weeks when he was 19, then he had to go to Iraq. A month after he left, she told him that he got her pregnant. He comes home after six months, then she has the baby...the baby definitely is not his.
Fast forward 10 years. He's married to an awesome chick we all like. She works a job and takes care of everything around the house. He cheats on her with an 18-year-old girl who worked at Sonic. She catches him and leaves for a weekend to go stay with her sister to figure out what to do.
He puts all her stuff in cardboard boxes out under the carport and moves in the new girl.
44. Too Much Attention All At Once
I was at Officer Candidate School with an Army-hot blonde. She was a deployment 9/10 and everybody hit on her. She was drowning in attention, but it was all for naught because she was married to a green beret or something. Well, all that attention finally got to her and she started sleeping with the cadets.
About 3/4 of the way through the course she started to put on a little weight and it sure seemed like her belly was growing faster than the rest of her. About four weeks before graduation it came out that she was, in fact, pregnant with who knows baby. Not long after graduation, I heard that her marriage did not survive the encounter.
45. All For You
One of my friends in the Corps was a first-term sergeant who HATED every minute he was in uniform. However, he re-enlisted so his wife could go to school. Left for deployment after reenlistment, came back to a divorce and a drained bank account.
46. Sweeping It Under The Rug
I was stationed at Fort Knox, Kentucky in the late 80s. An officer’s child turned up missing. Darn near every solider on Ft. Knox was looking for this kid. We looked for days. The kid never turns up. I leave, and move on. Several years later I'm sent back to Fort Knox.
Out of the blue, a bunch of activity is happening at a park several miles away. It got heartbreaking in an instant. The little girl turned up, and it turns out that the man’s wife, the girl’s stepmom, offed the girl. But that’s not all. The soldier came home, found out, and hid the body in the park.
The whole case was solved because the older sister of the girl was starting to get worried she was next. Told a teacher who got the authorities involved. That is the worst I've heard of, over 20+ years in the Army.
47. Looking For A Fight
I got accosted by an army Karen at a Home Depot parking lot because I parked in "her" space. I parked in a Veterans spot at Home Depot. I am a veteran, I had my two toddlers with me, and the spot was next to a cart stall. As I am pulling my kids out of the car, this lady walks up to me and starts asking me questions.
Simple stuff, nothing out of the ordinary, but I had a bad feeling and leave my kids in the car to be safe. She then starts asking about my veteran status, which was weird, but again not bad. I told her "I’m a Sergeant" etc and tell her about my brigade. Her response floored me. "Well, my husband’s a Lieutenant Colonel, which means he’s a higher rank. So you should give me your spot".
I was dumbfounded. I told her to pound sand, to which she wanted my information, rank, name etc. So I said, "Yeah sure, and I’ll make sure to give you the spot next time". But that wasn’t the end of the story.
No joke, three days later, I get a call from my commanding officer. He puts me through to this woman’s husband. "I wanted to apologize for my spouse’s behavior the other day. I jokingly told her she could parade up and down the street ordering other men to do things, and I had no idea she would take it literally. I’m sorry this happened and I hope we can put this behind us".
I accepted his apology, because up to this point, no Commanding Officer has ever apologized for their actions. Chillest Lieutenant Colonel ever.
48. Dependapotamus To The Rescue
I've been living in Japan for a little over two years with my husband. He was born here and we decided to move to his hometown. It's a small city, but there's enough to do without getting bored. I'd describe us as an AMWF couple (Asian man, white female for those who don't know). It's not so common in Western countries, and it can feel like we are some rare shiny Pokémon as AMWF in rural Japan.
Lots of staring, an occasional secret picture, or even small chats if an old lady is brave enough to approach us. It can feel uncomfortable eating at a restaurant because kids will turn around in their seats and stare at us the whole time with an open fish mouth. Coincidentally, there's a small US base located in this city. The closer you are downtown, the more American families you see.
I'm constantly mistaken for being in the armed forces by Americans and Japanese, which is understandable. Besides myself, I only know five other mixed marriages here. It's always locals who ask about my "American husband" when I'm out alone, which I respond in Japanese "Watashi no otto wa nihonjin desu. Koko ni sunde imasu" (My husband is Japanese and I live here) or something along those lines.
Americans never ask about my marriage as they assume my spouse is American. When we are together in public, we do abnormal couples behavior such as holding hands—honestly, this is abnormal, I’m not being sarcastic. Couples here rarely hold hands in public, let alone say "I love you". We don't go downtown too often since it's all pay to park and it's a nightmare to find a place.
Anyway, it was a beautiful warm day for the first time in months, and we decided to battle for a spot and walk around the shops. The crowd was heavy since the weather was great and winter was ending. The season for new American families to move here just finished, so I'm sure this was many people's first time leisurely walking and shopping outside.
We find a parking spot and made our way to the outside shops. Of course, we are holding hands and casually talking and laughing. Then it begins. "WOW". I hear this from an American woman about 10 feet behind us. You should know that a Japanese stereotype against Americans is that we are rude and obnoxiously loud.
And this "wow" was loud enough for me to turn my head around at the noise. She was with two other moms who had like, three kids each. They were staring at me, but perhaps we just accidentally had eye contact at the right time. "Seriously, another little homewrecker is doing this in PUBLIC?" Chill woman, you're so loud even I can hear you.
We find a table nearby at the Starbucks outside. We are enjoying our drinks when the same group of women approached us with their strollers in tow. They definitely had some sort of purpose with something to say to us. But the words out of her mouth shocked me. Let's call her Onna (woman in Japanese).
Onna: "Excuse me, but you need to keep whatever you're doing in your messed-up home. Doing that in public in front of families to see is disgusting and immoral. My kids don't need to see such a bad display of marriage". I'm SO confused, as was my husband who can speak English. Who knew drinking coffee outside was against humanity and marriage? Then it became all too clear.
Me: "I'm sorry? What...did we do?" Onna: "You know exactly what you're doing". *She points to my wedding ring* Me: "No, I don't."... Onna: "Good lord, does your husband know about this? Is he on a ship right now? That's soooo like a dependapotamus!" Her friends laugh. In case you don't know the lingo, a dependapotamus is slang for a base wife who stays at home all day, doesn't clean, uses their spouse as an ATM, and looks like Jabba the Hut. At that moment, it dawns on me.
She thinks I'm a base spouse and I'm cheating on my American husband! I started laughing because she's suggesting I'm cheating on my husband…with my husband! Me: "This IS my spouse. I'm actually not part of the Armed Forces and have a Japanese visa". Onna looks at my significant other up and down. The two women behind her apologize, but the Onna didn't believe it.
Onna: "No one would voluntarily WANT to live in this little town. Nice lie, but you're not representing our community. You make all of us wives look bad! Who is your husband and what's his rank? Also, I need to know your dependent ID. MY husband is a high rank so he'll make sure your husband is aware of your infidelity". She pulls out her phone to probably type my response.
I'm offended since this is actually a nice place to live and very open to foreigners. Me: "Look, my husband's name is Rei (not his real name; I don't want to reveal personal info) and he's sitting right here. I'm not going to show you my ID since I don't have one, and you're not the authorities. As proof, you can obviously see our wedding bands match, and here's a picture".
I show her my phone screen, which is of us in traditional Japanese clothes on our wedding day. Her eyes became huge at the picture. Her two friends and their spawn have already started walking away. Then it ratcheted up. Onna: "Why are you in a relationship with HIM? You should be in a normal relationship and start having a family with American kids".
She says some other statements which I'd consider against the Asian race. It's so ironic because we are in JAPAN, and she's fussing about me being married to a Japanese man. My husband has been quiet throughout the whole exchange and says to me we should go. I agree and stood up.
Me: "STOP. The things you are saying are extremely offensive. I was part of the base community myself some years ago and what you're doing is against spousal conduct". She smirked. "Go ahead and tell people what I did, then. My high-ranking husband is an E-7, and everything will be swept under the rug no matter what happens. You can't touch me". So that's what I did.
Note, this is a small community. Someone does something minor and it's talked about between wives like chickens. So later that day, I run into my friend who works on the base and she's well known in the community for being one of the main event coordinators. I don't miss this chance to comply with Onna's demand and explain to my friend about the exchange and how it made my husband extremely uncomfortable with her remarks.
She asked me if this person looked like so and so, to which I said yes. My friend rolls her eyes. Friend: "She just arrived a couple of months ago and is already causing problems with rumors and drama. I'll make sure what she said is passed on". It's been half a year later and I didn't hear anything about Onna again since I distanced myself from making base friends here.
I've only been in my new city for a little over two years and experienced more drama from those families than I have my whole high school career. That is, until now. Last week, I ran into my friend, who's getting ready to leave back to the United States.
We had a little discussion about her moving and my family planning, and then she dropped a shocker. Friend: "Do you remember Onna, who accused you of cheating on your non-existent base spouse and called your husband an awful name?" Me: "Of course! I haven't heard anything from her since".
Friend: "Well, I mentioned we were already having problems with her not long after she got here. I told my boss that there's a person who was bothering and threatening civilians and asking for IDs, which isn't allowed for someone with her status".
"My boss was extremely interested after I mentioned her name because Onna was scheduled for an interview in my department! I suggested we look at her social media accounts from her past behavior, because we don't tolerate that stuff. It was easy to find her Twitter and Facebook, particularly Facebook since we have many mutual friends. It was SHOCKING".
"While she set her Facebook to private, her Twitter was littered with malicious tweets and retweets. She made it very clear that she 'wants to see her current city burn to the ground' and 'why would anyone want to learn Japanese since it sounds terrible'. We printed some of the more extreme things she posted and we still invited her to the interview"".
Oh, and did I mention my boss is JAPANESE?!! So she comes into the interview, which I was part of. I asked three good things about her, to which she says 'dependent, gets things done, and friendly'. My boss just looked at her for a second before he pulled out her Tweets and asked her to explain how she can actually serve the local community if she hates it so much".
"Onna was FLOORED and said someone hacked into her account, despite there being at least three years of slanderous tweets. We thanked her for coming and said we can't accept an employee with this conduct. As far as I know, she's still not working because some spouses found her Twitter not long after the interview and it was shared in all departments. No one will touch her application now".
Me: "So all of this was discovered because I told you about her accusations?" Friend: "Yes! Oh, and she's kind of an outcast socially right now because she cheated on her husband a couple of months ago". There you have it folks. Because one person couldn't mind their own business, they lost a potential job and had their social media exposed. Super ironic since she became the dependapotamus and adulterer—the same thing she was accusing ME of.
49. The Man Of The House
When my mother-in-law (who was a military spouse) gave birth to my now-wife, she was advised to make a sandwich or two...in case her husband got hungry while she was delivering her child. Her husband did not attend the delivery, so all she had in the delivery room was a drill Sergeant yelling at her to push.
When she got home, the father had his car engine disassembled on the table. He asked whether she’d had a boy or girl, got told "girl", said "oh" and went back to his engine. He really wanted a boy to carry on the family name, but when, in an attempt to save the relationship, they had a boy together, he moved out shortly afterward and never (or rarely) spoke to the son again.
The son changed his last name to his mother’s name as soon as he legally could.
50. The Punishment Doesn’t Match The Offense
A friend in my unit walked in on his wife cheating on him with someone else from our unit. They separate, she moves in with the other guy and leaves the unit. Eight months later, we return from a deployment, and my friend goes on one date with a girl. The consequences were brutal.
His soon-to-be ex-wife finds out and calls the Sergeant to charge him with adultery. He gets taken down a rank—the other guy only got switched to a different unit.
51. Too Little, Too Late
I once watched a grown man get screamed at over the phone because he missed calling his unemployed, useless waste-of-skin of a military wife for her daily noon wake-up call by 15 minutes.
Sources: Reddit, ,
