So I think my FI may be having a hard time readjusting to civilian life, or something like it. He was active duty before we started dating for about 9 years, but we met a few months after he got out. Since then, he's been a reservist and is making use of his GI Bill. We started dating almost four years ago and have been engaged since last July. We actually met in school, and when we first met he seemed very excited about being in school even though I guess you could say he wasn't a traditional student. Since then he has changed his major several times and has done everything from sociology to education to audio production to web development and tons of stuff in between. I kind of considered that normal, because really, it is hard to decide what you want to do with the rest of your life, you know? Well, he is getting to the point now that his GI Bill is just about up, and because of his frequent program changes he is at best only about 3/4 of the way through a bachelor's degree. To me, that isn't a huge deal because we can find other ways for him to pay for school.
For about the past month though it seems like he is going through some kind of slump and honestly I am unsure of how to handle it. He keeps saying things like, "I feel like I have no direction/purpose" or "I feel like everything I do is a waste of time," or his latest is, "I wish I was back in Iraq because at least there I had a mission." He has even gone as far as to say he wanted to see if he could VOLUNTEER to be deployed. Okay, whoa. And now he talks about wanting to go active again. That certainly was not in our plans (he planned on not enlisting again after this enlistment was up) and honestly, I would say no if I felt like I could. I don't feel like it is a likely scenario, because it doesn't seem like the Army isn't trying to enlist a bunch of people right now, but this is really out of the ordinary for him. Generally he is all about talking about how he dislikes the Army, regrets ever joining and how it basically goes against his personal ethics so you can see why him suddenly flipping and saying he would reenlist is so strange. We've talked about it and all he can say is that he really is missing the structure right now. I've tried to make our lived a little more structured and organized since then, but it doesn't seem to be helping. As much as him and I have discussed it, I almost feel helpless about it at this point and I don't know what do do for him right now, which is just about the worst feeling in the world. Is this something any of you have been through? Any advice?
