by Renee Grimes

Created on: February 28, 2007   Last Updated: April 23, 2007

I was seventeen years old, the summer between my junior and senior year of high school, when I met him. He was "The One" He was also in the Marine Corps, stationed about six hours away from me. We dated for about 6 months, with him making the six hour drive to see me, and the six hour drive back to Base, every weekend. Then soon after 9-11 he was deployed, for 3 months. As soon as he got back, we were married. I had one month of high school left, I finished high school, got my diploma, and moved with my husband to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. We had to get to know each other all over again, from when he was deployed, and we had to get to know each other from moving in together as husband and wife. We were both really young. As it turns out, he wasn't the one. You always find out things about each other that you didn't know, and do not particularly like after you move in together; after you get married.

These days it doesn't seem like anything is out of the ordinary when you see young people that have been married and divorced and working on their second divorce. I am 23, this April will be five years since I got married. I have been separated for 3 years. As it happens the military pays you more money, when you're married, my husband doesn't want to get divorced. I have been trying to get divorced for 3 years, and every time I get everything going, he gets deployed, and is protected under the Sailor Soldier Relief Act.

Now that you've heard my story. Jumping into a marriage shows that you have a lot of faith, a lot of faith in love, faith in each other, faith in marriage, but it also shows lack of thinking things through. It takes five minutes to get married, and in my case it looks like it is going to take five years to get divorced. Then you have credit problems, because no matter what, divorce is horrible for your credit, making you pay higher interest rates on any loans, line of credit, or anything you need a good credit score to get. Then, if you have children in that marriage, you're fighting for custody of your children, even with no children, you're fighting for custody of YOUR THINGS.

I am not saying that all marriages fail, that have been jumped into, but statistically, that's the norm.

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