Marital stress after extended deployment

January 16, 2009 By Claire
Posted in Spouse and Family

Last week I wrote about a strength’s based view of military marriages. I did a pretty extensive search on research around marriage and the military, and of course there was not much that was documented on the characteristics of strong military marriages. One article I came across piqued my interest though, and I set it aside to write about this week.

The article I came across was about a specific intervention used on a small number of military couples who sought counseling after reintegration stress was causing their marriage to suffer. These couples were seen by therapists who used the “Role-Exit” theory to counsel them. The article does not give specifics about the approach, nor does it say exactly how the model was implemented (so to control for variables in the approach). There was definitely not enough participants for any conclusions to be drawn, and the article’s authors never try and say that their work is generalizable outside of the couples who actually participated. I found it interesting because of the model used, and the couples who did participate seemed to find it helpful.

The theory has an interesting background with a very rich history and a good longitudinal follow-up (which is the best in social research, but rare). The article’s authors explain:

Role-exit theory was initially designed and explored by Helen Ebaugh (1977). Role-exit is defined as the “departure from any role that is central to one’s self-identity” (Ebaugh, 1988, p. 149). Ebaugh initially formulated her theory following research done with 57 former nuns who left convent life following Vatican II (Ebaugh, 1977). She followed up this initial research through the study of groups of retirees, recovering addicts, parents who gave up custody of children, and others (Ebaugh, 1988).

Ebaugh was able to categorize the actual stages that a person goes through when they are leaving a particular role they once held. This is very common in a lot of social theories. It is a method of explaining the progression of adjustment and adaptation when people are faced with changes. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross was a pioneer in naming stages of human grief. The US Army has also released developed a similar stage-progression theory around deployment. It can be a very effective tool for understanding where support may be most needed. Usually these stages are not mutually exclusive of one another. Sometimes they can happen simultaneously, and sometimes they can happen in regression as well. I am just clarifying that a theory that uses stages is not arguing that the process for human adjustment is not a linear process that happens in single momentary events. These stages are normally cumulative and may recur in various stages or adjustment (maybe same issue with a new level of understanding).

Role-Exit’s stages are described as:

1. First doubts: Individual experiences doubts about the role occupied.
2. Seeking alternatives: Individual looks outside current role toward other roles.
3. Turning points: Events or behaviors trigger a decision to leave the role.
4. Creating the ex-role: A new identity is created through a new role.

….
The theoretical constructs of disengagement, dis-identification, and re-socialization inherent in Ebaugh’s (1988) stages of role-exit concepts served as the foundation for the counseling interventions designed to assist the couples to regain a sense of balance, cohesion, and comfort in their marital relationships.

The couples who were seen in this program were deployed, on average, 18-months and has more than one deployment during the course of their marriage.

The Role-Exit theory provides an interesting concept of reintegration being a series of readjustment stages for both marriage partners. Husbands who deploy remain as husbands and fathers, but of course during the time of deployment their role as soldier supersedes the role that they play in the home during times when they are not deployed. I think that it is fair to say that this kind of adjustment/readjustment can cause stress during extended periods of training too, albeit the family does not have the complicated stresses that are unique to deployment to a war zone.

The study tried to assess and conclude that the stress the couples were experiencing in the present was linked to the deployment and not to pre-existing marital problems. Here are some of the critical factors that were found in these couples, that seemed to be characteristic of the couples who did the best in working through their problems:

It was further determined by the therapist through interview and discussion that the presence of role issues as a major factor in the marital discord appeared to have developed as a result of the deployment. This was a critical issue because the status of the marriage relationship prior to deployment is a significant component of adjustment following deployment (NHMRC, 2006). Other significant factors to adjustment following deployment include religious beliefs, financial status, effective and frequent communication during deployment, and the ability of the spouse left behind to learn new skills (NHMRC); therefore, these were also carefully assessed. Interestingly enough, the ability to learn new skills also complicated the adjustment process following the deployed spouse’s return to the marital relationship.

So, the challenge for some of the couples was the wife (all of these couples had husbands who served, no female soldiers’ families were in the study) learned new skills and a new role when the husband deployed. She was not trying to replace her husband, but rather sustain the family while her husband was away. She learned a new sense of independence that boosted her self-esteem and made her feel, maybe, more empowered. Then the husband comes back home and there is stress having to exit or leave the new found role on behalf of the wife. The question they found was how do you exit the role and not lose the benefits of holding that role. How can a wife remain independent and able, yet not live as if her soldier is still deployed when he is not!

What I found most interesting is the researchers seemed to believe that the ability of the spouse on the home front to develop new skills is both beneficial and detrimental. It intrigued me because I would have always assumed that the ability to learn new skills would always be beneficial to the family. The detriment was the reluctance to relinquish the new role when the absent spouse returns. When the absent spouse returns he finds that his role has changed in the day to day activities, and the couple’s ability to negotiate those waters are often what make for choppy sailing until compromise, acceptance and some resolve is had.

Another interesting factor found was that all of the couples reported they had a good marriage before deployment and before reintegration stress. The couples who did not do well with Role Exit tended to have poor communication during deployment:

Examination of the factors affecting marital satisfaction following deployment, such as strength of marital status pre-deployment, communication during deployment, religious beliefs, and ability of the spouse left behind to develop new skills and achieve a sense of independence, indicated mixed findings.

For example, all 10 couples indicated a strong marital relationship prior to deployment; yet only 6 of the 10 achieved role-exit success.

Three of the six couples who were successful with this approach stated that communication with their deployed spouse was satisfactory, while three of the successful couples and all four of the unsuccessful couples stated communication as unsatisfactory for various reasons, including technology failure and time differences.

Nine out of the 10 couples described a strong faith and long-standing religious beliefs; the one couple who did not was unsuccessful.

The final element, the ability for the left-behind spouse to learn new skills and achieve a sense of independence, provided the most interesting results in the study. Although this factor was critical in achieving a comfort level of survival during deployment of the spouse, the same factor made it more difficult for the left-behind spouse to abandon the new skill or realign the sense of independence achieved.

This factor alone made the transition to the ex-role and the negotiation of roles more challenging for all 10 of the couples because the left-behind spouse achieved a sense of achievement that boosted self-esteem and a sense of empowerment and pride in the ability to maintain the family while the spouse was deployed. Since all the left-behind spouses were women, this factor might have had greater gender significance than it would have for men. During the intervention process, it was necessary to be careful to not destroy this sense of self and empowerment experienced by the left-behind spouse while assisting in the transition to an ex-role. It appeared in three couples out of the four who were unsuccessful in the treatment process that this factor was the difference in their not achieving success in overcoming the marital discord. The findings overall might have been skewed in that the deployed spouse in all cases was the husband. Future studies that would include deployed wives could result in different outcomes given the gender role differences in the marital relationship.

All in all the write up is very limited because the sample size was so tiny and there was not as much control as would be needed to draw conclusions. The overall theory though, and what we know can cause stress during deployment or extended times of training, makes for a good argument for keeping this theory and approach as something for future consideration.

With all of this in mind, what are some of the most stressful things that you may have been through during reintegration? Did it drive you crazy to see dirty socks on the bathroom floor again, after the honey-moon phase of reuniting was over? What did you do? Have you resolved it, or is there some discord that you have learned to live with?

Tell us about your experience with roles and deployment.

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