Publication year
2015
Citation Title
Military wives emotionally coping during deployment: Balancing dependence and independence
Journal Name
The American Journal of Family Therapy
Journal Volume
43
Issue Number
3
Page Numbers
282-295
DOI
10.1080/01926187.2015.1034633
Summary
Individuals who experience the deployment of a spouse often encounter certain difficulties and develop coping strategies to deal with those difficulties. This qualitative study explored how military wives' coping mechanisms were related to their emotional connection with their deployed husbands. The findings demonstrated the use of three distinct types of coping mechanisms during deployment that affected the wives' emotional wellbeing.
Key Findings
In general, military wives developed three coping strategies to endure the times their husbands were deployed.
One coping strategy was to attempt to maintain an unrealistic closeness to their husbands, which sacrificed spouses’ own emotional well-being.
Distancing themselves from their deployed husbands was a coping strategy that led to preserving their emotional well-being.
Another coping strategy that involved connecting emotionally with their deployed husbands strengthened their own emotional well-being.
Implications for Program Leaders
Provide support groups for people with deployed spouses to increase social connections
Offer workshops to increase skills that can strengthen couples’ bonds to enhance emotional connection between spouses prior to deployment
Create opportunities for civilians and military spouses who are experiencing deployment to volunteer together to enhance community connections
Implications for Policy Makers
Continue to support the development of programs that increase awareness of deployed military spouses’ experiences to increase engagement with community during deployment
Recommend that Service members engage in activities to maintain relationships throughout their deployment
Encourage education for professionals on how to best help military spouses develop healthy coping strategies to protect their emotional well being
Methods
The participants were recruited through online message boards or by word of mouth through hospitals, churches, schools, and family therapists.
Qualitative data was gathered through 55 to 75 minute face-to-face interviews, which were then transcribed to aid in data analysis.
Researchers coded the transcripts to analyze major themes throughout the interviews.
Participants
The researchers recruited 12 military wives and one military fianc_e who had husbands who were deployed in the last three years in the Navy, Army, or Marines.
The mean age of the women was 34 years old. They had been married on average 11 years.
The sample included ten White women, one Asian American woman, and two women who identified as multi-racial.
Limitations
There was a small sample size that lacked ethnic diversity and did not represent all military branches; this would make it difficult to generalize to other populations.
The study did not include both spouses so only one perspective was considered.
The study only included female partners of deployed male partners, which limits the generalizability to families with different structures such as same sex marriages.
Avenues for Future Research
Examine how coping strategies change over time by following spouses through multiple deployments
Explore the coping strategies of both spouses during a deployment
Conduct studies that include partners in different structured families such as those in dual military couples
Focus
Multiple Branches
Target Population
Population Focus
Military Component
Abstract
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.
Abstract Document
PRTW Document
Attach