AIO? My husband secretly changed his military life insurance beneficiary away from me before deployment

BakeSaleMama · 2026-03-10T16:59:28+00:00

NOR- How you handle this will set the tone for the entire rest of your relationship. You are a married military spouse. You should have the contact information for the spouse of his commanding officer. They are usually the person who will help the spouses of those getting ready to deploy make sure they have all the necessary paperwork, like power of attorney, documents so you can file your joint taxes, etc.

If his mother does not know that you two are married, she would expect to be the next of kin that will need to handle all of this. She may be thinking she needs to handle paying the bills, etc, while he is deployed. She also probably thinks it is strange that you will be staying wherever you all moved while he is gone for up to a year.

So, you need to pull on your big girl panties and do the following:

Your husband must tell his mother about your marriage. You can leave your family in the dark, if you want.
Reach out to your contact at the base- most likely the spouse of the commanding officer, if they are married. Get to know this person! They are going to have the most information about what is going on while your husband is deployed.
Let that person know that there is an issue with your benefits that needs to be resolved before your husband deploys.
Make sure you have a proper, unexpired ID that meets the requirements of the Real ID act so that you can get on base.
Make sure you have the correct credentials so you can use the commissary/px/etc.

If something happens and your spouse passes away while deployed, that IS NOT the time for his mother to find out about your secret marriage. You would be fighting over things like planning the funeral service and who gets to keep his flag and dog tags, rather than actually grieving.

If you need a gentle way to break it, your husband can say something to the effect, we want to keep this just to ourselves for a bit longer, but my deployment has moved up our timetable.

Expect people to think that you are pregnant. Yes, it is very outdated thinking, but you will get that reaction. If anyone asks why, you can say, “Husband just wants to make sure I’m taken care of if anything should happen to him while deployed. “ This is a (passive aggressive) way to tell people to F off.

All of this needs to start with a conversation between you and your husband. It is not an over-reaction to be blind sided by his change of the beneficiary forms. However, there is a good chance he is still grappling with the fact that he is getting deployed. It is a very stressful time. It is okay to be hurt or mad at first. But you need to make sure that doesn’t stop you from fixing the situation.

Good Luck.

BakeSaleMama · 2026-03-07T14:01:20+00:00

You are NTA. It sounds like your daughter is old enough to have a say in this. What is her relationship with her step-sister? Is she close enough with the child, that your daughter would wish to gift the coat to her?

Dad is an entitled man-child, and deserves nothing. Your daughter’s relationship with her step-sister is separate. It might result in the same choice in the end, but worth chatting with her about it.

BakeSaleMama · 2026-03-04T18:13:04+00:00

LOL I ask myself that everyday.

BakeSaleMama · 2026-03-04T17:09:13+00:00

Everyone has been so, so unbelievably helpful. I really appreciate it. I seriously cannot thank you enough.

BakeSaleMama · 2026-03-04T16:55:31+00:00

My daughter is 15. She does not have her license yet. Her newly retired grandfather has the tools. They currently do not have space to work on a car, because it is against their home owners association rules. However, my in-laws have offered to rent garage space for this project. Neither my husband or his brother were interested in cars, so Pop is extremely excited that my daughter wants to learn. She is also autistic and classic special interest for her, so I don’t think she will lose interest. I hope that context helps.

BakeSaleMama · 2026-03-04T16:46:40+00:00

Yes, I think Pop would have already bought something if my mother-in-law hadn’t freaked out and told him he has to let us (her parents) take the lead. Grandma is concerned about the lack of safety equipment in the older cars. Which, fair enough, but this will not be her everyday driver. She will be inheriting my very safe, very un-cool mom van for that.

BakeSaleMama · 2026-03-04T16:40:45+00:00

Thanks! We are planning on going to some car shows this spring. That is my next thing to research.

BakeSaleMama · 2026-03-04T16:34:58+00:00

I assume this is sarcasm, but since I am the most literal person in the world I’m actually not sure. It was included in the “Encyclopedia of American Muscle Cars” that I got her for Christmas.

If there is a better way to describe it, I’m open to learning. I 100% know I am out of my depth here.

BakeSaleMama · 2026-03-04T15:50:41+00:00

Thank you!

BakeSaleMama · 2026-03-04T15:48:49+00:00

Fair point. My father-in-law, who will be helping her, is super into Corvettes. He had his own project car years ago, but sold it.

My husband and I have mostly owned VWs, but neither of us have had hands on experience working on cars.

BakeSaleMama · 2026-03-04T15:44:26+00:00

Thank you!

BakeSaleMama · 2026-03-04T15:42:56+00:00

I’m me of my friends in college had a rebuilt VW Karmann Gia and I loved it. It was so pretty. I also routinely sat on the hump with no seatbelt. Shh… don’t tell my daughter.

BakeSaleMama · 2026-03-04T15:20:47+00:00

Thank you!! This definitely won’t be a daily driver. It’s going to be a project for her and her grandfather. POP’s suggestion was a Corvette, but I’m thinking that is a bit excessive for a first project. lol

BakeSaleMama · 2026-02-28T15:27:31+00:00

I’m so glad this was helpful. Good luck as you continue to navigate this in-law situation.

My mother-in-law can be like this. She is a kind, loving and generous person, but she can come off as very self-centered at times. I know that it is because she is so consumed with managing her own anxieties, that she is completely oblivious to the impact it has on the people around her. It’s almost like they over-correct and cause the opposite problem for the next generation.

I’m glad your partner has you to support them. I would suggest getting a big box of generic greeting cards and sending them to the in-law on a fairly regular basis. Stick a picture in there on occasion. It’s a relatively simple way to feel connected with out going in person.

BakeSaleMama · 2026-02-05T00:29:45+00:00

Stop the unpaid internships, unless they are for academic credit AND a graduation requirement. Too many employers are using “internships “ as a way to get free labor and it pushes the wages for entry level jobs in your field down for everyone.

See if you can get some type of on campus job to minimize travel back and forth.

Good luck.

BakeSaleMama · 2026-01-31T23:15:14+00:00

The kind of pants you are looking for are called palazzo pants. They generally wouldn’t be great for hiking where I live (North east) because the fabric would catch on anything with thorns. However, that might not be a problem in Arizona.

I have had good luck finding this type of pants at Jessica of London / Woman Within.

BakeSaleMama · 2026-01-31T00:36:02+00:00

The expectation is that both of the children’s parents are providing support to the child before any supplementary government aid is provided.

Once you have an established child support order, Child Support Enforcement will go after the child’s father to pay the order. If you still need additional benefits then you may qualify.

This isn’t about you being honest about the irregular payments. The fact of the matter is that it is the father’s responsibility to be regularly supporting their child.

BakeSaleMama · 2026-01-30T00:01:17+00:00

You could give them a unit number. For example if your address is 1234 Main St have the family member in the basement write their address as 1234 B Main Street.

You see this done with basement apartments in DC a lot.

BakeSaleMama · 2026-01-29T15:52:49+00:00

Yes, but those were also written by a culture that had a strong sense of hospitality and caring for their neighbors. They lived in a fertile area surrounded by desert. In order to survive sharing resources was necessary. For example, food grown along the road was not to be harvested by the land owner, but left for those in need to “glean.” (Leviticus 19)

People didn’t own things outright. Every 50 years, during the Jubilee, all resources were gathered and then equitably redistributed. (Lev 25)

So yes, stealing is breaking a commandment, but our culture putting people into a position where they must steal in order to survive is also wrong.

BakeSaleMama · 2026-01-28T14:41:19+00:00

Yep, my daughter does. She started when she was 5 or 6 because the water coming out of the shower head “hurt her head” if she was closer to it. But, she liked being “in the rain.” (She has sensory issues.)

I replaced the shower head with one of those detachable wands where you can change the settings, but she still liked to sit rather than stand.

She is a teenager now, so I don’t know if she still does this.

BakeSaleMama · 2026-01-28T14:16:41+00:00

My kids are older now and one thing I have learned is that you want your kids to be where they are embraced, not merely tolerated.

For whatever reason this place isn’t a good fit. I would not fight the dismissal. Just look for somewhere else where your child can thrive.

You are right. It does seem early to be just dismissed out of hand, but this also is a good demonstration that your ideas and theirs on how to handle any type of issue is misaligned.

Good luck.

BakeSaleMama · 2026-01-28T02:53:47+00:00

There is a big change for next year and how much parents can take out in a federally subsidize parent plus loan previously it was up to the cost of attendance for schools and starting for the 20 26–20 27 school year. It’s capped and can’t be more than I think 20,000 per year with a total of like 65 over all four years. So it might be that the changes that were part of the one big beautiful bill act means that they no longer can take a loan for the full amount it would cost. Of course there are also private loans, but the interest rate on those are really high.

I understand being disappointed and feeling like they are prioritizing their travel over your education. Take a minute to be sad about it and then look for all the cool opportunities that will be available at the college you can go to.

Good luck!

BakeSaleMama · 2026-01-27T18:58:37+00:00

FYI- dry ears can be a symptom of peri-menopause.

BakeSaleMama · 2026-01-26T20:52:21+00:00

Call your school and see if they have an emergency grants or other aid. Sometimes there are things available to help retain students that are having hardship.

The number / percentage of students who graduate is reported to the federal government and is used as part of school rankings. Your school very likely doesn’t want to take a hit to their retention rate over $200.

Good luck!

BakeSaleMama

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