<p>Hi everyone. A big drama has erupted in my house, and I am not allowed to talk about it with anyone because it is supposed to be a secret, so I thought I would post about it here to get it off my chest. I had a big post written, but I guess I’ll just start with the basics.</p>
<p>By the sounds of it, next month my recently 18 year old sister is running away to get married to a marine-- she started seeing him the week before he left and has only spent three weeks collectively actually WITH him, the rest of the time he was out of state with little to no access to a means to communicate with her. He left in August.</p>
<p>My parents don’t pay for college, but they had the money set aside for her community college to start her off. She says she doesn’t need college, marine will take care of her. She is moving across the country to live on base with him, but he is being deployed soon and then she’ll be alone. All the family and friends are in MI, she’ll be in CA. She’s never worked a real job, never lived on her own, never had to pay a bill-- never even seen a bill. Only just got her drivers license, doesn’t own a car. Has no idea how insurance works or how much things cost. Has never been in a healthy relationship, has never been in a relationship and not cheated. Two years ago she was committed to a mental hospital for a suicide attempt, and this past fall she was sexually assaulted and now she has PTSD. And she thinks it’s just going to be totally easy to move to California and take care of herself. The boy is SLIGHTLY more mature, as soldiers tend to be, but he is still only 19 years old.</p>
<p>I am pretending to be happy for her because I am told that is the right thing to do and because it is none of my business. It just makes me sick to my stomach. In this house, once you get married you can’t come back-- especially if there are kids in the picture. She will be completely on her own with no education and no home to come back to if this goes south. I feel like she’s ****ing her life away to play house. She has no idea what marriage even is, what it even means to be in a REAL relationship. I just can’t believe she’s doing this. They plan to have a court house ceremony within the next month or so, and then have a big wedding after he gets out of the service-- yeah right! Like anyone’s going to come to a wedding for a couple that’s already been married for five years. She is completely deluded.</p>
<p>I don’t know how we as a family are supposed to get through this. There is no getting through to her, she has a complete romeo-and-juliet complex about the whole thing-- because being married to a soldier and giving up everything for your man is just oh so romantic. It’s ridiculous, and there’s nothing anyone can do but sit back and watch her do this.</p>
<p>I just wanted to vent I guess, I know it’s none of my business and I can’t let on that I feel this way, but it’s hard not being allowed to talk to anyone about it. The whole family, myself included, took part in raising this one-- she was the baby of the family, and now this is what it has all come down to and there seems to be no way we can help her. We can’t talk her out of it, and once she’s in California there will only be so much we can do to support her. It’s never been more clear just how much growing up she still has to do, and just how much support she still needs, but she’s walking away. I guess I just have to learn how to disengage.</p>