I've been considering applying for an air contract with the goal of becoming a pilot. This may sound kinda weird for such a young guy, but down the road I'm looking to find a serious relationship that will eventually lead to marriage and kids. I wonder what the odds of being able to have a normal marriage are. I'd like my wife to be able to have a regular job involving whatever she majored in. I wonder if moving from base to base will keep her from being able to and consequently cause strife in our marriage. Then there is the factor of being away on deployment for months at a time. How do you deal with it? How often do you see marriages fall apart, whether it be due to adultery or any other reason. I want to be a marine aviator, but i don't want to have to give up my chances at happiness outside of work. thanks for any info.
You can have a happy marriage and a wife who works. Just how smoothly it will work, with regard to her career, depends a lot on what she does. Teachers, for example, seem to do well with the moving because it is a skill that is needed everywhere. A lawyer might have a more difficult time since bar admission would be a factor, and a partner-track career probably wouldn't be in the cards for someone who moves frequently.
Military spouse-hood certainly isn't for everyone, but the same oculd be said for policitian's spouse, or CEO's spouse, or non-profit directors spouse, etc. It will be up to her to decide if it is something she can handle, and up to you to be clear about what she will be in for so that she can make a decently informed decision. Anyone particularly needy or clingy isn't going to do well, but I'm not sure why a man would want a woman like that anyway. Your milage may vary.
Yes, there is infidelity (from both the delployed spouse and the one at home). But it certainly isn't everyone, and hell, there is infidelity in a lot of non-military marriages.
Deployments suck for all parties. But you get through it and you find ways to cope. They do cause marriages to end, but in my experience, most of the time, those marriages weren't aprticualrly solid anyway. Sure, they might have managed to make it without the strains of the military, but I think the only relationships that deployments cause to end are the borderline ones. The others either succeed, or would have ended eventually anyway.
Joining the military certainly won't mean "giving up [your] chances of happiness outside of work." There are challenges, but it is so doable and as long as you and your potnetial partners are upfront with each other of what is involved and expected, it can and does work just fine.