Military Couples' Trauma Disclosure: Moderating between Trauma Symptoms and Relationship Quality

Open communication postdeployment has been encouraged for military couples (Allen, Rhoades, Stanley, & Markman, 2011), as trauma symptoms have been found to influence military couples’ marital satisfaction and relationship functioning. Limited research has investigated whether trauma disclosure moderates the association between trauma symptoms and relationship quality. The current study included data from 50 Army couples. Based on a multiple-group actor_partner-interdependence model (APIM), we found that higher levels of trauma symptoms were associated with lower relationship quality for the actors (themselves) and their partners. In addition, trauma disclosure moderated the relationship between partners. Implications for future research with larger samples are discussed.