In other words, yes, experiencing combat deployment is associated with lower marital satisfaction, but this relationship is more pronounced for the first deployment, and experiencing multiple combat deployments is not associated with accumulating decreases in marital satisfaction.
Importantly, the relationship between cumulative combat deployments and marital satisfaction was mostly accounted for by increased combat trauma experienced during deployment and the associated increase in post-traumatic stress symptoms. So, experiencing one or more deployments is associated with decreased marital satisfaction, but that decrease is mostly accounted for by the aftermath of trauma experienced by service members during deployment.
These results highlight several concrete directions for policies and programs aimed at supporting military families facing deployments. First, the initial deployment is a critical period for interventions. Programs that prove effective in buffering couples from any detrimental effects of their initial deployment experiences may set those couples on a path to withstand subsequent deployments more easily.
Second, programs that encourage or facilitate effective coping with trauma service members experienced during deployment may have ripple effects that benefit military families as well. In fact, emphasizing the downstream benefits for their families may be one strategy for encouraging reluctant service members to seek out help in dealing with combat-related trauma. Finally, these results speak to the fact that military marriages that remain intact appear to adapt to the demands of deployment, learning as the months pass—and over repeated deployments—how to prevent the experience from inflicting increasing damage to their relationships.
There is institutional wisdom in these couples. Our Certified Family Law Specialist comes from a military family and has a deep connection to and love for the military service members of San Diego, making her an excellent choice for these cases. Contact our team for specialized, personal counsel when you need a compassionate ally on your side.
Contact our team at today. How Deployment Impacts Military Marriages Despite much of the media portrayals and assumptions by civilians, military marriages are not as negatively impacted by deployment as often depicted.
Plan for the separation : Discuss your deployment during scheduled, quality, alone time with your spouse. Get a sitter if you have children so that you are not distracted.
Of those, were not eligible for matching due to missing data in the Military Service Conscription Register S3 Table. Compared to age- and sex-matched non-deployed comparators, deployed military veterans had higher scores on cognitive ability and psychological assessment S1 Fig , lower prevalence of antidepressant and anxiolytic medication use, as well as lower prevalence of history of self-harm and violent crime convictions S4 Table.
This selection of healthier individuals for military deployment was eliminated by the matching procedure which used all these individual traits as matching factors. Married vs. Married military veterans were also older at deployment than unmarried military veterans mean age 41 vs.
Possibly due to age, married military veterans had higher pre-deployment proportions of registered self-harm 1. There was no difference in deployment duration between married and unmarried deployed military veterans mean 5. Deployed Military Veterans vs. Matched Non-Deployed Comparators Due to the matching procedure, there were no statistically significant differences between the deployed military veterans and the matched non-deployed comparators in any of the matching variables Table 1.
History of healthcare visits listing a psychiatric diagnosis was not a matching factor, but there was no statistically significant difference in this variable between deployed military veterans and matched non-deployed comparators before the matching date.
Deployed military veterans had statistically significantly shorter duration of marriage 8. Duration of marriage was associated with divorce but did not alter the main results when adjusted for in the model adjusted hazard ratio 1. This study investigated the association of deployment to Afghanistan within ISAF and the post-deployment incidence of marriage and divorce among Swedish military veterans.
Previous US studies have found mixed results for the effects of military deployment on divorce. US veterans serving in Vietnam, for example, do not seem to have an increased divorce rate than Americans in general, even though a strong association between PTSD and divorce has been reported in this population. A recent study based on data from the entire US military population from to could not detect any difference in divorce or marriage rates between veterans deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan and a comparison group from the general population matched on age, ethnicity, employment status, and education.
In our study, individuals who went through the selection process for foreign military deployment had considerably better mental health S1 Fig than the general population data not shown.
Irrespective of potential differences in mental health, it is likely that direct comparisons between countries are not straightforward considering the differences between the US studies and the present study in terms of populations and context, especially the work-related benefits associated with marriage for active US service members such as economic supplements for housing and living expenses as well as healthcare coverage for spouses.
To the best of our knowledge, no comparable European studies have yet been published. Meadows et al have suggested that higher divorce rates following foreign military deployment may be caused by traumas and unresolved mental health problems.
Unfortunately, it is difficult to obtain reliable data on alcohol and substance abuse, and alcohol abuse is likely related to mental illness. Another possible explanation could be that several months of work-related absence from home hampers the possibility to nurture an ongoing marriage. Furthermore, some individuals could also decide to serve with the armed forces in order to distance themselves from an already failing marriage.
We ruled out a number of potential mechanisms behind our findings by restricting the cohort of deployed military veterans under investigation. Also, duration of marriage was associated with divorce rate and there were statistically significant differences between deployed military veterans and matched comparators in our study. Adjusting for duration of marriage had, however, only a limited effect on the hazard ratio estimate. Finally, the differences in divorce and marriage rates found between the military veterans and the non-deployed matched comparators from the general population could be driven by personality differences.
The individuals who volunteer to military service in Afghanistan, with all the associated risks and hardships, might have a more adventurous character and be less risk averse than the comparators who chose not to volunteer for foreign military service.
Individuals who are more prone to risk taking may be less interested in as well as less suited for marriage. Hooper et al have proposed that voluntarily entering the military brings together individuals with high risk tolerance, which is desirable for certain military occupations.
One major strength of this study was the possibility to compare deployed military veterans with appropriate individuals from the general population.
A systematic review performed by the RAND Corporation a nonprofit research organization highlighted the need for new studies with suitable control groups in the research field. Another strength was the outcome ascertainment, where the present study had several years of complete follow-up through nationwide registers of marriages and divorces. A limitation of this study was the lack of detailed information about divorce such as marriage quality prior to deployment, the reason for divorce, and the initiator of the divorce.
Another limitation is that we only investigated marriages and divorces, but did not have data on cohabiting men and women who were not married or did not marry. In the deployment data, there was no information regarding combat exposure, neither at the individual nor at the aggregate level, precluding analyses stratified by a factor that has previously been shown to influence marriages.
However, primary care visits resulting in prescriptions were captured via the nationwide Prescribed Drug Register whenever a prescription was filled. The deployed military veterans and their families should be informed prior to deployment that divorce is more common after foreign military deployment than in comparable non-deployed individuals in the general population, at least in a Nordic context.
Future research should try to shed light on the mechanisms behind the higher divorce rate among deployed military veterans, for example by collecting information on the quality of marriages before deployment, and, in the event of a divorce after deployment, information about which partner initiated the divorce and for what reason. Preemptively informing about where to find family therapists when soldiers return from deployment may also be warranted.
Swedish military veterans who served in Afghanistan within ISAF were more likely to divorce and less likely to marry after deployment compared to non-deployed civilian comparators with similar demographic and pre-deployment mental health status.
These findings stand in contrast to many studies with non-deployed comparators among US veterans who served in Vietnam, Afghanistan or Iraq. Browse Subject Areas? Click through the PLOS taxonomy to find articles in your field. Much of the research focuses on deployments relating to divorce rates instead of marital satisfaction.
Military couples may have more incentives to stay in bad marriages compared to civilian couples such as housing allowances and separation pay [1].
Not all deployments are alike but they all do involve separation. Service members can experience combat-related trauma too. In order to understand the relationship between previous combat deployments and current marital satisfaction, the research team at RAND collected data from 1, military families.
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