AIBU to expect my navy husband to wear his wedding ring

[mylaststraw]

Mega pissed to realise (from many photos posted on facebook) that while away from home and living it up with his mates from the ship on their numerous runs ashore he hasn't been wearing his wedding ring. Might not be such a big thing really, but while he has been away for 5 months me and the kids have been struggling with the usual boring stuff , made more difficult by the fact that we moved countries less than a year ago and are only really starting to feel settled. Still haven't got friends or a social life to speak of, kids have had problems at school etc...Meanwhile, we get the rare phone call from him, usually while en route to the pub/bar/restaurant/day out in yet another exotic location. Emails are also rare, usually practical (eg, he asked me to have a look for something he thought he had left behind at home, and wanted to make sure it was there...). We only know what he's been doing by looking at updates on Facebook, having a great time by the looks of things. I realised yesterday that he hadn't got his wedding ring on, checked back in the other photos I can find, and realised he hasn't got it on in any photo. This includes pubs, nightclubs, days out, everything. Including the one of him very drunk in a bar which had poles in the background...?!? He popped up on messenger last night (out at a bar!) and when I asked him he said he had just forgotten to put it back on when leaving the ship. What? Every time?? That excuse can't cover the years worth of photos I looked at...He didn't apologise, but said that as it was obviously important to me he would try and remember to wear it. Wow, thanks! Such consideration!
I'm not complaining at the fact that he's having some time off, I'm sure they all work hard while on board, but it feels like he just about forgets about us while he's away ,and to me the missing ring was dismissive of me and our relationship, especially in the environments he visits. What do you think about it? Would you be annoyed??

FFS, what is wrong with these men??? Posting initially, I was thinking along the lines of no ring = feeling less like an old married guy with kids on a night out... Or not. Sad, sad bastards.

Some men are just wankers.

Another friend of mine was researching her family tree (through one of expensive official methods) and it transpired that her grandfather is actually an ex-soldier who lives in America who had impregnated her grandma on a 3 day trip to England. This gentleman had a wife and family back home and up until this came out his family had no idea he had a child in another country.

The gentleman is now dead but my friend's family are in contact with his family but it has obviously caused huge ripples to them as the wife and children now know their husband/dad slept with another woman many, many years ago whilst they were all at home - and I'm sure there are lots of other women he slept with too, I doubt behaviour like that happens in isolation.

The sad truth is that men in the forces have more opportunity to cheat on their partners than other men may have and although the vast majority of the men wouldn't, there are some that definitely would.

As has been said, if a man will cheat then he will do it whether he's wearing a wedding ring or not, or whether he's in the Forces or not but like I said, men in the Forces who are the sort to cheat on their partners will probably have frequent opportunities to do so. Another poster mentioned the issue of lads egging each other on to do stuff and I can imagine that happens a lot in the Forces too due to it usually being an all male environment - especially on nights out.

When I was seeing the guy in the Marines I really struggled when he went away, even when he went away for a month, it felt like we were strangers when he came back, and it just didn't feel like a real relationship. I appreciate many women can live that way of life but it wasn't for me. On reflection was probably seeing other women anyway alongside me and his wife.

Blimey, what a mess! Hope we never have anything like that to contend with.
I can understand the deployment struggle...I used to find it really difficult emotionally, then had less time to worry when I had 2 kids and work to occupy myself with. I thought we were doing so well by managing independently while he's away...obv given out the wrong impression!

My RN husband had to remove his ring for periscope watch keeping.

You either trust him or you don't....I trust mine, and we are still together 31 years on. Yes, it can be tough, but would you feel the same if he were in a civvy job working away?

I'd definitely be annoyed & I'd do exactly the same as you & scroll through to see the other pics. I'd be hurt and questioning his loyalty.

Probably, if I was feeling forgotten about while he was off having lots of fun, posted on Facebook, with v little email/messaging contact when it was clearly available!

Sorry, last response was to scary...
And I think you hit the nail on the head there makeupbabes, I did feel hurt, then doubly so when his response didn't seem to demonstrate any empathy or understanding of that.

It could also just be that he's a bit self-centred and used to compartmentalising his life into home / work, so it's never really occurred to him that he's being a dick about keeping in contact. If he's not particularly empathetic and doesn't come across as emotionally intelligence maybe it hasn't occurred to him that you're finding things tough at home, especially if you're doing a good job of keeping things running and not placing any demands on him?

Hope you can sit him down and talk to him when he's next home and make him realise how you're feeling - that should be the point where you can gauge whether he's been dishonest or just been a selfish dick.

Goudy My dh is excellent at compartmentalising home and work. When he was at sea/posted abroad/weekending he needed to know I was sorting everything at home, so he could concentrate on his job. He always kept in contact when he could, but the expectation was that they work hard and play hard, but not play away.

scary the playing away aspect is still all conjecture though.

I used to be in the navy and I would be very suspicious of this, most of the guys I was on ship with cheated on their wives whether with girls in ports, on the ship or with prostitutes. The fact that he is not putting his ring back on would ring use alarm bells to me. Sorry.

Tupperware - and I'm guessing none of them thought there was anything wrong with this as long as they didn't get caught! Would be a totally different matter if all those left at home did a similar thing!!
Has anyone been in the situation of finding out, or knowing someone who did? Thanks.

I am in the RN (currently on mat leave with DS aged 4 days) and have served onboard many and various ships.
I am afraid that many service men do genuinely believe that what 'happens on deployment stays on deployment' and agree that some do completely compartmentalise their lives. Yes there are arse holes out there but I am quite certain it is equally easy to cheat in other walks of life! I wouldn't see the not wearing a ring as evidence of this though, as genuinely even as a non engineer it is dangerous to wear a ring onboard and they get trashed by being bashed on hatch covers etc. The emotional distancing is concerning but he maybe using it as a coping mechanism. There is also a massive peer pressure element onboard and I would take what you see on FB etc. with a massive pinch of salt. It is most definitely not cool to be abroad in a beautiful part of the world and say that you would rather be at home and 'spoil' your mates' fun. Also it is REALLY difficult to adjust back to 'civilian relationships' particularly if you are quite senior and are used to people doing what you tell them to and NOT arguing. I would suggest that you sit down and write a letter to him -he obviously doesn't see not wearing a ring as an issue so perhaps lead with how you and the kids feel isolated in a new country perhaps could he make it a regular thing to do a weekly email/phone call home on a set day for the kids so they know he is thinking of them. If he won't do this he IS an arse.

Thanks slackalice, a well balanced judgement which reinforced the possible ( non-cheating) reasons for his behaviour. Makes it easier to think I might be overreacting. I hate being paranoid about this whole thing, I thought I had it beaten years ago! We do need that conversation, although I'm sure he'll think I'm flat out accusing him of cheating (whether he has or he hasn't) and just get super pissed off...

The Armed Forces are a hotbed of infidelity, unfortunately. Absolutely rife, due in large part to the length of deployments abroad. 'Tour' wives are a common phenomenon for the Army/Marines (the latter often had 'winter' wives in Norway when based there). And the Navy has a particularly bad rep in its own way due to the length of time crews are at sea and the opportunities opened up by those periods when ashore abroad.

Op, I think you know what is going on here very well. It's not really about the ring at all it's about the kind of person he is and what he is up to while away from you. Now I think you need to work out what you want from your life. Surely it can't be a life lived like this. Because it sounds dire. I would feel wrenched if I thought my DH was with other woman while away from me. Just that alone (forget the lying and the missing ring) would cut me up. Can you live with this or can't you is the only question you need to ask yourself.

Sounds really tough OP Lots of good advice on here. However I think you were a bit snippy with MGFM whose key difference from most other posters was to be able to offer factual information about conditions and communications facilities onboard. It was a fairly natural assumption that you were talking Royal Navy when this is a UK site and you were clear it was military not merchant navy.

Jessie - yes, lots of good advice, which I am grateful for. I don't think I was snippy with MGFM, apologies to her if it came across as that. My point was that I was concerned about what the 'missing' ring could signify, and was mainly asking for opinions on that. I understand that MGFM (or anyone else) could offer knowledge about phone comms based on which navy he is in, but I am also aware that the more info I offer the more identifiable I and the family are, and as you can imagine, this issue is not one I would want as gossip between friends, colleagues and acquaintances. If I had wanted their involvement I wouldn't be on an anonymous site.
If you read around, you will see that there are posters and other members on here who are not UK based...if MGFM assumed he was RN that's fine, I wasn't having a go!!

Mylaststraw as well as being an RN wife, I was also an RN daughter, and am an RN sister. My db is also somewhere hot, but I would guess in a different place to you, as he is on LFS.

My Dad cheated twice. Once his OW followed him back to the UK after his STANAVFORLANT deployment to Aus and India, and we had a year when he lived in Plymouth with her during the week, and came home to Hampshire at weekends. I was 13 at the time. The second time, he was shagging a different OW under my Mum's roof in Gibraltar. Everyone seemed to have an inkling of this, bar Mum. This time they split up. I was 24. He married the second OW, whose own marriage broke up, as she had always wanted an upgrade to the wardroom, but it didn't do her much good, as Mum's friends closed ranks and invites dried up.

When I say then that I trust dh, I mean it, as he knew the score with my parents, housed Mum when she left Dad, and has never given me cause to doubt him. He knows what the result would be were he ever to cheat. There would be no second chance.

However as dh was a submariner, his opportunities to cheat were non-existent. We have also done years of weekending on the trot, and two years in different countries, so saw each other every six weeks, and I wasn't concerned, as he was working too hard.

By not wearing his wedding ring, your husband does not want women to know he's married.

I don't wear my wedding ring. It has nothing to do with not wanting women to know I'm married.

Had a brief phone call earlier on (while I was cooking for the kids, isn't it always the way)...his ship is in dock, so called us (good) in 'the ten minutes before having to get dressed for an official cocktail party' (bad)...I know they have to do it, not having a go here. Anyhow, he told me he's booked a hotel for the next three nights ashore. Not making it easy to sympathise with him. When asked who he was going with (no-one) or who he was taking back (no-one, he doesn't do that kind of thing). He got pissed off and told me he was tired of being accused of doing something. Actually, I haven't 'accused' him for quite some time (since the possible 'other woman' years ago), I don't think asking in a jokey fashion after he's just finished telling me about the various indiscretions of other shipmates is classed as outright 'accusing'. Maybe I'm wrong? Anyway, reasons for booking the hotel: others have done it at other stops, it's really hot onboard and he would like to sleep in a comfy bed with aircon, he'll have decent WiFi...so he can Skype us. Asked him if he could email me details of the hotel he will be staying at...over two hours ago, nothing yet. Fair enough, he's probably busy at the party...All plausible stuff, but certainly not getting the reassurance I need at the moment. :(