When Melissa Wilson lost her husband Special Forces Master Sgt Kenny Wilson in the line of duty, she was left utterly bereft and a widow at the age of just 35.
She could never have imagined that an archaic military rule would mean she would be asked to choose between his legacy and her life moving forward without him.
That's because Wilson was one of the 30,000 military widows who face losing financial benefits their spouses earned if they remarry before the age of 55.
On average, the loss of Dependency and Indemnity Compensation (DIC) equates to around $1,600 a month which many families rely on to support themselves in the wake of their loss. Surviving spouses also risk losing VA home loan benefits and access to their Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP), a pension-style plan which veterans actively pay into.
Wilson ultimately made the tough decision to forgo her benefits after she met a new partner and they began fostering a medically vulnerable girl.
Remarriage was out of the question until they were told they would need to be wed in order to adopt their foster daughter.
'I never planned to get married again ever,' Wilson told the Daily Mail. 'People sometimes get confused and will say like my ex-husband, but he's not my ex-husband. He's my late husband and he will always be my husband and so that was just a really difficult thing for me to do.
'But also, we both really wanted to be our daughter's parents and so we decided to get remarried and just forfeit those benefits.'
Military widow Anita Sullivan, pictured with her late husband and their three children, is campaigning for a change to survivor benefits which penalize surviving spouses who remarry before age 55
Wilson and her new partner tied the knot and went on to adopt a second child. While she has no regrets about her choice, she is passionate about ensuring other surviving spouses aren't put in such a difficult position.
'It just kind of feels like by taking the benefits away, it's like saying that he no longer matters or he's no longer important,' Wilson said of her late husband.
'I just think it it's important for everyone to remember like just because widows choose to move forward with their lives, it doesn't mean we're moving on. We never move on. We always miss them.'
'But there are widows who are widowed at 20. And you know, if you're 20 and you don't have any education and you never had a job and you have two young children, asking you to wait until you're 55 to get remarried, that seems like a punishment,' she added.
Wilson has now teamed up with The Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS) and other military widows to push for a change to the rules through the Love Lives On Act, which would drop the age requirement for remarriage.
Among those backing the bill is Sophia Sullivan, 11, who was just four when she lost her father, US Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Michael Sullivan, in 2019.
She has since appeared on the Hill to campaign for a change which would allow her mother to marry her fiancé without repercussions, formally recognizing the man who helped raise her as her step-dad.
'She always says it's like the government is knocking on your door and saying choose between happiness and love or your benefits and how unfair she feels that is,' her mom Anita Sullivan told the Daily Mail.
Sullivan's daughter Sophia, 11, is among those pushing legislators for the rule change so that her mom's fiancé can legally become part of the family without financial repercussions
'Her perspective is one of a child who sees it so simply and clearly that there's just unfairness there and that there's no reason besides an arbitrary number.'
The bill was introduced in early June under the broader Take Care of America’s Veterans Act, a landmark legislative package designed to strengthen financial security, health care access and support services for veterans which already has bi-partisan support.
'These laws were written in a time when women couldn't own property or a credit card or a mortgage,' TAPS' Director of government and legislation Ashlynne Haycock-Lohmann explained.
'It was a very different time and that a surviving spouse in the 50s and 60s primarily either moved back home with their family or they remarried right away because that's those were the options.'
'Being a single mother wasn't necessarily a viable option for most people when these laws came into place. The world is a very different place than it is now,' she added.
Sullivan was aged 42 when she lost her husband and became a single mom to their three children.
The couple had met while Sullivan was interning on a naval base in Jacksonville, Florida and married following a whirlwind romance, starting a union that lasted almost 19 years until Michael's death.
Sullivan lost her husband US Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Michael Sullivan, 39, in 2019, when she was aged 42
The Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS) and other military widows to campaign for changes to the rules
Since then, Sullivan has relied heavily on the $1650-a-month she is entitled to thanks to her late husband's sacrifice.
'Our spouses believed that they would be taken care of, that is a key component of military service,' she told the Daily Mail.
'They have been told when they sign up, they've been told throughout their military careers that if something happens to them, their families will be taken care of. And there's never a conversation in that that says unless they remarry.'
So when John Morance, another military man, blew into her life, Sullivan didn't even consider the prospect of romance.
'After about six months, it became very clear that we were more than just friends. We we had not seen each other again but every day of talking had just made it clear that we had become each other's person.'
Three years later, Morantz popped the question to a thrilled Sullivan, who had been yearning to give her family the traditional security offered by marriage.
But her joy, already bittersweet, was soon dampened by the reality of her situation.
'There's always part of me that that balances joy and grief,' Sullivan said. 'There's never a part of me that moves on as as some believe.'
Ashlynne Haycock-Lohmann dismissed the current rules around remarriage as archaic and arbitrary
'There was some of the the sadness of what wasn't, combined with the joy of what was. Some sadness of what should be able to be, we should be able to bring our family and friends together and celebrate this beautiful time in our lives and we can't do that,' she continued.
'We haven't ever been able to truly celebrate an engagement because it hasn't moved into a wedding planning or an engagement because we haven't been able to even say when we would be married someday.'
Still, she is confident that it won't be long before she can walk down the aisle and credits the work of TAPS with helping her remain positive.
'It will come one day regardless. And we know that there's momentum on the side of Love Lives On right now,' she said.
'We're going to to keep at it. I I don't believe it's going to take until I'm 55. I believe fully that this is going to pass sooner than that.'
'We're going to continue with the stories of survivors and the stories of children who are impacted that helps people understand that this is this is not just numbers on a page. This is real life,' she concluded.
The Daily Mail has contacted the Department for Veteran Affairs for comment.
