Military Marriages Words to Live By

These are things I wish I'd either known or done before I was married in the military.  By saying this, I admit that I followed mostly none of these:

1. Never give her a reason to mistrust you.  Don't even take the chance of a mis-perceived operational necessity such as shared sleeping quarters to surprise her.
2. Corrolary - Always make sure she knows who you work with.  If going out for a beer with the guys includes a ravishingly beautiful brunette hardbody in your squad, make sure she knows her beforehand. Failure to do this may tend to get your belongings thrown out into the yard between the hours of 10 PM and 2 AM.
3. Corrolary - If you're working late, make sure it's not alone with said brunette.  If you have to work alone with a member of the opposite sex, if at all possible, take your work home and do it at the kitchen table where your wife can see you.
4. If you're a one income family, budget her expenses before you budget your own.
5. If you're a two income family, her money is not your money, but your money is probably shared.
6. Always have money she doesn't know about and can't get to.  I once met a retired sergeant major who spent seven years in a Vietnamese POW camp who came back to an empty apartment, no money in his accounts, and nothing but the uniform on his back.
7. Corollary - Giving her General Power of Attorney when you deploy is a good way to come back from deployment penniless and several tens of thousands in debt.
8. Always be honest with her.  If your orders are for a 179 to 364 day deployment, tell her you'll be gone a year.  If you're not there on day 180 after you told her you'd be gone 6 months, you're in deep kimchi.
9. "You knew I was a soldier when you married me" is probably not a good thing to say when trying to end an argument.
10. If you're a dual military couple, make sure you're in separate units.  You may worship the ground she walks on, but spending almost every waking hour together for several years would wear Ward and June Cleaver out.
11. Corollary - If you outrank your spouse, it never gets mentioned at home.
12. Corollary - If you outrank your spouse, do anything you have to in order to avoid being their supervisor.  Nothing says marital bliss like putting your blushing bride on KP duty, or even worse, giving her a counseling statement because she's taking advantage of being the mother of the team leader's eldest son.
13. You may be the most bad ass mother in the valley when you're at work, but when you get home, put on your apron and do some housework.  "I make the money, you clean the house" is a really good way to find yourself sleeping in your shelter half in the back yard.