For those who are or were married during your time in service, how has marriage supported and sustained you?

PO3 Phyllis Maynard I refused to get married while on active duty. I saw too may problems with married guys because of deployments and other responsibilities that come with military life. My future father in law (Navy Veteran) told me I was making the right decision also.

Married right out of Officers' Training School. i know I would not have made the service a career if I hadn't been married to my spouse...he has always been supportive...even when we were in head to head competition.

I wrote a long response, and deleted it. Kathy and I grew stronger because of our marriage while in the Army. And we took those skills into Civilian life, which had way less complications than the Military Did...and no unexpected separations caused by TDY or Deployment. Young marriages especially if you live on Post, have pitfalls that Civilian Spouses just don't deal with. Not the least of which is that there are 25,000 men of varying sizes and shapes that just want to get in your pants...once. You can resist one or two, but the chances of one of those Soldiers being someone you actually would have dated when single...goes way up. And then, time, opportunity, and nature take a shot. It ain't easy.
But I have to say, marriages that thrive in the Military are some of the strongest marriages you will ever see.