Military Wives Emotionally Coping During Deployment: Balancing Dependence and Independence

For this study, 13 military wives were interviewed about how they decided what to share and what not to share with their deployed husbands. An inductive, line-by-line analysis revealed a reciprocal and dynamic decision-making process that progressively moved through four thematic internal questions that military wives asked themselves: (1) Can I share this information with my deployed husband? (2) How much of this information do I share with my deployed husband? (3) How do I share this information with my deployed husband? and (4) How did my husband respond? Their husbands’ feedback reciprocally influenced how these military wives decided to disclose stressful information in the future.