It All Began With a Secret Union. I Wish I Hadn’t Settled for Secrecy.

I started writing for the U.S. Army as a civilian when I was 21. I worked alongside a veteran editor, a couple of National Guard soldiers, and a few officers. They all warned me against doing two things: joining the military and falling in love with a soldier.

I did both.

The thing is, I didn’t really consider the man I fell in love with a soldier at first, although he was. We’d known each other since childhood. At 14, we’d shared crushes on each other. He was familiar, and I needed that. I think we both did.

I was finishing up a writing internship at Fort Knox, Kentucky, and he was bound for the 75th Ranger Regiment. Both 21 at the time, we connected over social media, where I shared the stories I wrote about Army officer training.

As he prepared for his first deployment to Afghanistan, I moved to a small town in Texas to take my first journalism job. We leaned on each other through the uncertainty of those months.

When he returned home, he came to visit. Although I had only about $15 to my name after paying my bills each paycheck, I still managed to close the distance between Texas and where he lived in Georgia every couple of weekends. At some point, we decided I’d leave Texas to join him.

I gave up my apartment and the job in the town where I’d dreamed of making a name for myself and rented a room in a house his Army friend owned.

Things were never great. We weren’t good at fighting, but we did it often enough that we should have been.

I’d already given up so much. So I stayed.

 *   *  *

As he readied for his next deployment, he suggested we get married.

There was no official proposal, no ring.

We signed a marriage certificate at the courthouse outside the Army post during my lunch break. I rushed back to the office, where I had an appointment to keep.

We told no one. I convinced myself we’d share the news when we did it “right,” with rings and a ceremony.

My now-husband deployed as scheduled, and I moved again—to his next scheduled duty station. I managed the finances and signed up to receive my new benefits. But none of it felt like it belonged to me.

I walked into a recruiter’s office while he was still deployed. He returned in time to drive me to the bus that would take me to the Military Entrance Processing Station, my last stop before I would begin basic combat training.

 *   *  *

There were red flags. Like the time just after payday, I swiped my debit card for shampoo, cough drops, and a loofah sponge, only to have the charge declined. All our money had been spent—much of it on dinners out and an expensive “boys’ night.”

Shortly after returning home from all my training, we got into a fight in front of friends and coworkers following his reenlistment ceremony.

“It’s a good thing we’re married,” he yelled at one point.

For the first time, the secret was out.

 *   *  *

The fights continued. As he prepared for a temporary duty recruiting assignment in another state, I planned a 19-day trip to visit family before I deployed to the Middle East for nine months.

A few weeks into his temporary assignment, he called me.

“It’s over, isn’t it?” he asked.

“Over?” I wanted a real proposal, a ceremony where we smashed cake in each other’s faces, a honeymoon where we celebrated the start of our life together. Not this.

My secret marriage would end in a secret divorce, one I would manage without the support of my family. Certainly, I couldn’t tell them now. My best friend—one of only a handful of people who’d learned of our marriage during that fight on the beach—helped me move my things into a storage unit days before I left for Kuwait. At least I’d be overseas for the next nine months, I told myself. Time enough to get over it.

The marriage ended as unceremoniously as it had begun. We sat next to each other at the courthouse as the judge called out our names and declared us divorced.

I filed the divorce paperwork right behind the marriage certificate in a manilla file labeled “legal documents” in my filing binder.

A marriage and divorce, all before the age of 30.

 *   *  *

Six years have passed since then—we have been apart as long as we were together. Finally, I am ready to share my experience.

I wish I hadn’t settled for secrecy. I wish I had stood on my own two feet a little longer and not followed a man I didn’t know that well across the country. I wish I’d told my family before signing my name on the marriage certificate.

Secrecy is a heavy load to carry. Unburdening oneself can also help other people.

Maybe if I’d read a story like this, I wouldn’t have felt so alone. Maybe sharing it will help someone else feel less alone if their decision happens to not go as planned and the way out looks daunting. Maybe it will help them find their own voice.

I’ve been told more than once by people around me that I couldn’t possibly understand the struggles military spouses face. I want to tell them the old saying about never knowing someone’s struggles.

Now, I can. And I feel unburdened. Relieved. And ready to finally consider my experience a lesson rather than continue to carry it around alone as a secret.

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This War Horse reflection was written by Noelle Wiehe, edited by Kristin Davis, fact-checked by Jess Rohan, and copy-edited by Mitchell Hansen-Dewar. Abbie Bennett wrote the headlines.

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