When a soldier returns home from active duty, they experience significant changes to their worldview and priorities. These shifts can be challenging for their partner to understand and navigate, but it's essential to work through them together to maintain a healthy relationship. In this article, we will explore how partners can support each other during this process and recalibrate their relationship to meet both parties' needs.
Recalibration is Necessary
The primary goal of recalibration is to adjust the balance between two people who have grown apart due to external factors such as military service. It involves adapting to new circumstances, changing habits, and understanding each other more deeply. This is necessary because when soldiers return home after being away for long periods, they often bring back different values, beliefs, and behaviors that may not align with what their partner has become used to. Partners must acknowledge these differences and find common ground to move forward. Without this approach, relationships can suffer and lead to resentment, distance, or even breakup.
Understand Your Partner's Changes
Before navigating relational recalibration, partners need to understand their loved one's journey while deployed. Soldiers experience various stressors in combat zones that can affect their mental health, including PTSD, depression, anxiety, and trauma. They also develop unique coping mechanisms to deal with these issues and feel more comfortable in dangerous situations.
They may have changed their interests, hobbies, and lifestyle choices while away from home. By acknowledging these changes, partners can better empathize with their soldier and work towards compromise.
Adjust Your Expectations
When returning from deployment, soldiers may struggle with readjustment and find it challenging to fit into civilian life again. To help them through this process, partners should be patient, supportive, and flexible. It's essential to lower expectations of how things will go and focus on small wins rather than trying to force change immediately. This approach helps create a safe space where the soldier feels supported and empowered to make positive changes at their own pace.
Communicate Effectively
Communication is crucial during recalibration because both parties need to express their needs and desires openly and honestly. It's necessary for each person to take turns listening actively without interruptions or judgment. Active listening involves repeating back what the other person says to ensure understanding before responding. When disagreements arise, use "I" statements instead of accusatory language like "you always." or "you never.". Partners must stay calm and avoid escalating conflicts by talking about feelings rather than attacking one another.
Prioritize Intimacy
Soldiers often miss intimate moments with their partner while deployed. As such, rebuilding intimacy is an important part of relational recalibration. This includes physical touch, romantic gestures, and emotional connection that deepens over time. Setting aside dedicated time for these activities shows commitment and affection, which builds trust between partners.
Maintaining healthy habits together - such as exercise, meditation, or therapy - can promote closeness and strengthen the relationship further.
How do partners navigate relational recalibration when soldiers' worldviews and priorities have changed significantly?
Relationships are complex systems that require constant work and adjustments to maintain their equilibrium. When military service members return from deployment, they undergo major life changes that often include shifts in values, beliefs, and priorities (Durbin & Bray, 2018). These changes can lead to discrepancies between expectations held by both parties before and after deployment, which can cause tension and difficulty in navigating relational recalibrations.