Marriage and Redeployment
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Combat trauma and issues for reintegrating your marriage
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| Supporting Military Marriages |
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Redeployment requires adjustments to marital relationships. Both spouses change. Life in a combat zone often requires adjustment to one's nervous system with signs of intrusive memories like flashbacks and nightmares; avoidance and emotional numbing such as avoiding activities you once enjoyed, feeling emotionally numb (like your don't care anymore), and difficulty maintaining close relationships; anxiety and increased emotional arousal including trouble sleeping, irritibility and anger, self-destructive behavior such as drinking too much, startle reaction and seeing and hearing things that aren't there. Anger frequently becomes a regulator for emotional closeness. Soldiers often feel more at home with their comrades whom they served with than with family members. They may spend hours on computer games and computer internet activities as a means of escaping from the demands of life.
From a neurological perspective the brain adjusts to a survival mode. The brain learns to be on the alert continually (active amygdala). The thinking part of the brain (prefrontal cortex) shuts down; and the ability to process thinking and feeling is diminished (anterior cingulate) leaving the soldier with the survival mode of impulsively reacting without thinking. This works very well in the combat zone but creates difficulty with life back in the "world." Attempts to get him/her to talk increases anxiety and are frequently met with anger and the soldier's disengagement to spend time alone or with buddies where they don't have to work at getting along with you.
All of this is part of the challenge in making marriages improve after redeployment home. Soldier Center provides couple retreats, marital therapy, and individual therapy for soldiers and spouses to reclaim their lives and relationships following redeployment home and the attempted reintegration of marriage and family relationships.
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Soldier Center
915 Tiny Town Road
Clarksville, TN 37042
(931) 553-6981
Email: HurleyEC@gmail.com
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