Ok so Dave IS unmarried all five (six) of the discovery crew are unmarried, it makes sense for the style of mission being 7+ years.
However that just makes the first woman in 2010 all the more confusing- someone said wife in a post a while ago and she’s definitely not. It’s been explained to be that she is just someone he knew this one time ™️ I’m only part way through the first book. I know this will be explained in the future but I remember it being no context
I went into this post fandom-blind and read “discovery” as the ship in the Star Trek show and was very confused as to why a mission of 7+years for a Vulcan-heavy crew would be an especially good idea because of them being unmarried