Abstract
A burgeoning body of research on the relationship maintenance of military couples over the past two decades suggests the time is right to organize, assimilate, and critique the literature. We conducted a systematic review informed by the integrative model of relationship maintenance that considered issues of intersectionality. Our literature search identified 81 relevant journal articles representing 62 unique samples. With respect to theory, 59.3% of the journal articles employed one or more formal theoretical frameworks. In terms of research design, 88.7% of the studies focused on the U.S. military, 83.9% of the studies recruited convenience samples, 54.8% of the studies utilized quantitative methods, and 30.6% of the studies collected longitudinal data. Among the studies reporting sample demographics, 96.8% of participants were married, 77.2% of participants identified as non-Hispanic White, and only one same-sex relationship was represented. Our narrative synthesis integrated findings about relationship maintenance from studies examining (a) relationship maintenance overtly, (b) communicating to stay connected across the deployment cycle, (c) disclosure and protective buffering, (d) support from a partner, (e) dyadic coping, and (f) caregiving and accommodating a partner’s symptoms. We interpret our results with an eye toward advancing theory, research, and practice.
Keywords
Military service as a way of life is vastly different around the world because both violence and military expenditures are unevenly distributed between countries (Lopes de Silva et al., 2021; Pettersson et al., 2021). For example, some countries are entangled in long wars (e.g., Afghanistan, Syria) compared to others in the midst of relative peace (e.g., Iceland, New Zealand; Institute for Economics and Peace, 2021). Some countries rely on a volunteer force (e.g., Ecuador, United States) compared to others utilizing conscription (e.g., Mozambique, Morocco) or requiring military service of all citizens (e.g., Israel, North Korea; DeSilver, 2019). Despite the heterogeneity of military experiences worldwide, a unifying premise is that military personnel across the globe are valued, appreciated, and supported by those who love them.
Serving in the military can have considerable ramifications for how couples negotiate their relationship (e.g., Lundquist & Xu, 2014; MacDermid Wadsworth & Riggs, 2014; Yablonsky et al., 2016). For example, military service can require total allegiance to the mission, dangerous working conditions, long periods of separation, frequent relocations, diminished employment for civilian spouses, significant stress, and extensive uncertainty (e.g., Knobloch & Wehrman, 2014; Lara-Cinisomo et al., 2019; Lundquist & Xu, 2014; Manser, 2020; Meadows, Tanielian, & Karney, 2016) that can contribute to relationship problems. On the other hand, military service can provide opportunities for education, career skills acquisition for the service member, economic gain, domestic and international travel, and personal growth (e.g., Burland & Lundquist, 2013; Mullet et al., 2021) that can bolster relationship quality. Both the military and the family vie for people’s time and compel them to balance competing demands (Ledberg & Ruffa, 2020). All of these factors can complicate the ability of military couples to preserve their bond over time.
Relationship maintenance, which refers to the activities that partners use to preserve or enhance their relationship (see Ogolsky & Monk, 2020), has been an emerging topic in the study of military couples over the past two decades (e.g., Maguire et al., 2013; Marini et al., 2016; Merolla, 2010). We believe the time is right to synthesize research on relationship maintenance among military couples in an effort to make three contributions to the literature. First, we attend to the presence or absence of conceptual frameworks guiding work on the topic to help coordinate theory development into the future (e.g., Castro & Sullivan, 2018; Totenhagen & Albright, 2018). Second, we consider the diversity or lack of diversity in research methods and samples of participants to help identify voices underrepresented in the literature (e.g., Fiori & Rauer, 2020; Gaines & Ferenczi, 2020). Third, because relationship maintenance is a potentially modifiable skill (e.g., Vennum et al., 2020), we take stock of the literature to help inform education, prevention, and intervention efforts designed to enhance both individual well-being and dyadic well-being. Accordingly, our goal is to systematically review and critique the literature on relationship maintenance among military couples.
Defining relationship maintenance
The term relationship maintenance is broad and expansive (see Lydon & Quinn, 2013), and demarcating its boundaries within the field of relationship science is a challenging task (Ogolsky & Monk, 2020; Ogolsky et al., 2017; Stafford, 2020). A variety of cognitive appraisals and especially communication behaviors function as relationship maintenance, including interacting positively, communicating openly, offering assurances of commitment, interacting with social network members, and sharing tasks (Stafford & Canary, 1991). The study of relationship maintenance is governed by assumptions such as (a) a variety of forces operate to keep relationships together and push them apart, (b) dyadic well-being deteriorates in the absence of relationship maintenance, (c) multiple relationship maintenance behaviors can be enacted in combination, and (d) attempts to maintain relationships can be strategic or routine and interactive or non-interactive (Stafford, 2005, 2020).
To provide conceptual clarity on the assortment of behaviors that qualify as relationship maintenance, Ogolsky et al. (2017) proposed an integrative model of relationship maintenance based on a systematic review of 1,149 journal articles focused on people’s attempts to preserve or enhance an intimate relationship (see Figure 1). The model contains a pair of core ideas. A first core idea is that two primary motives underlie relationship maintenance. Relationship enhancement involves promoting positive experiences (e.g., affirmation, gratitude). Threat mitigation involves guarding against harmful forces, such as conflict, transgressions, and alternative partners. Whereas behaviors motivated by relationship enhancement tend to be employed across a variety of situations, activities motivated by threat mitigation tend to be situation-specific. Ogolsky et al.’s (2017) integrative model of relationship maintenance. Note. From “Relationship Maintenance: A Review of Research on Romantic Relationships” by B. C. Ogolsky, J. K. Monk, T. M. Rice, J. C. Theisen, and C. R. Maniotes, 2017, Journal of Family Theory & Review, 9(3), p. 277 (https://doi.org/10.1111/jftr.12205). Copyright 2017 by John Wiley and Sons. Reprinted with permission.
The model’s second core idea is that relationship maintenance activities stemming from both motives can be enacted by individuals or within interactions between partners (Ogolsky et al., 2017; see Figure 1). Individual strategies originate within one partner and are not necessarily tied to the other person’s behavior. In contrast, interactive strategies are either performed in response to the other person’s behavior or enacted jointly by both partners. Crossing the two motives for relationship maintenance with the two types of enactment results in four kinds of activities: (a) relationship-enhancing individual strategies (e.g., generosity, partner focused prayer), (b) relationship-enhancing interactive strategies (e.g., social support, joint leisure time), (c) threat-mitigating individual strategies (e.g., derogation of alternatives, positive illusions), and (d) threat-mitigating interactive strategies (e.g., conflict management, forgiveness). Despite the conceptual usefulness of such categories, the model recognizes that delineating the strategies in practice is not straightforward. For example, partners can utilize physical affection to enhance the relationship (e.g., ignite passion) or mitigate threat (e.g., fend off alternative partners) depending on the context and motives (Ogolsky & Monk, 2020). Although the integrative model stops short of theorizing about when and why people enact various relationship maintenance strategies, it offers a helpful framework for organizing the literature.
Relationship maintenance is widely considered a universal aspect of interpersonal relating (Ogolsky & Monk, 2020), but it can vary across social identities such as race, class, gender, age, and culture (Fiori & Rauer, 2020; Gaines & Ferenczi, 2020; Rauer & Proulx, 2020), which suggests the value of an intersectionality approach. Intersectionality is the study and critique of how a person’s lived experiences are shaped by the interplay between multiple social identities and systems of marginalization (Buchanan & Wiklund, 2021; Crenshaw, 1991; Curtis et al., 2020). Intersectionality, originating from Black feminist thought, evaluates the dynamics of privilege and oppression with a commitment to social justice (Collins & Bilge, 2020; Cooke & Few-Demo, 2022; Few-Demo & Allen, 2020). At its core, intersectionality proposes that individuals possess diverse, overlapping, and often contradictory social identities that shape how they navigate the world (Few-Demo, 2014). It emphasizes moving beyond binary categories of social identity to analyze the intersection of race, class, gender, age, culture, sexual orientation, ability, geographic location, and historical context, among other social identities (Grzanka et al., 2020). It also invites careful consideration of the infrastructures of power that promote some voices and silence others (Buchanan & Wiklund, 2021).
Social identities and power structures matter with respect to the frequency, behaviors, meanings, and outcomes of relationship maintenance. For example, women may enact more and different relationship maintenance behaviors than men (for review, see Fiori & Rauer, 2020), and people from Western countries may utilize different relationship maintenance behaviors than individuals from Eastern countries (for review, see Gaines & Ferenczi, 2020). Relationship maintenance also may have diverse meanings across cultural groups. People from Western countries who perceive their relationship as less equitable tend to perform fewer relationship maintenance behaviors, but such equity norms do not seem to extend to people from Eastern countries (Gaines & Ferenczi, 2020). With respect to outcomes, relationship maintenance activities may have differential effects on dyadic functioning across social cohorts (for reviews, see Fiori & Rauer, 2020; Gaines & Ferenczi, 2020). Women’s relationship satisfaction, for example, is more strongly associated with relationship maintenance behaviors than men’s relationship satisfaction (Ogolsky & Bowers, 2013). In sum, the relevance of social identities and power structures to relationship maintenance spotlights the utility of an intersectionality lens for understanding how people work to preserve and enhance relationships.
The experiences of military couples, too, hinge on social identities and power structures (McClendon et al., 2021; Monk et al., 2020). For instance, service members may encounter stressors applicable to military life coupled with other social identities that subject them to marginalization. Non-white military personnel may be disproportionally likely to serve in combat situations (Dohrenwend et al., 2008), and experiencing racial discrimination may exacerbate post-traumatic stress symptoms (McClendon et al., 2021). Military families of color report coping with racism in promotion decisions, being the target of racial slurs in the workplace, and feeling harassed in both military and civilian communities (Bergman et al., 2012; Blue Star Families, 2022). Such findings underscore the importance of attending to issues of intersectionality when examining the relationship maintenance processes at work among military couples.
We draw on the integrative model of relationship maintenance (Ogolsky & Monk, 2020; Ogolsky et al., 2017) to inform our systematic review of research on how military couples maintain their relationships. We structure our review around three objectives. First, to take stock of where the literature stands regarding theoretical, methodological, and participant diversity, we work to quantify the prominent theories, research designs, sampling strategies, and intersectional identities that are represented. Second, guided by the integrative model (Ogolsky et al., 2017), we narratively synthesize the literature according to relationship maintenance activity while attending to relationship-enhancing motives versus threat-mitigating motives and individual versus interactive strategies. Finally, to illuminate the knowledge base, we strive to distill the major findings emerging from the data. Accomplishing these objectives may help advance theory, assimilate research, and shape guidelines for practice.
Method
We conducted our systematic review in five steps following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA). First, we collaborated with a health sciences librarian to conduct a literature search for research on relationship maintenance among military couples (see Figure 2). Our team searched three electronic databases (PsycINFO, PubMed, and Web of Science) in September of 2021 for work published from 2002 to the present. The search parameters were limited to journal articles published in English, focused on currently serving military personnel affiliated with any country, and targeting couple relationships of all types (e.g., married, dating, cohabitating, same-sex). The health sciences librarian refined the search terms by examining database thesauri, pilot search results, and sample journal articles. PRISMA diagram.
Our search strategy combined three categories of terms following the general structure of couple relationship AND military AND relationship maintenance. We cast a broad net for the latter category by utilizing the 29 additional search terms for relationship maintenance identified by Ogolsky et al. (2017). Title, abstract, and subject search terms included (a) couple/s OR partner/s OR spouse/s OR wife/ves OR husband/s OR romantic OR marriage OR marital; AND (b) “service member/s” OR “military population/s” OR “active duty” OR “reserve component” OR “reserve member/s” OR reservist/s OR “military personnel” OR Army OR Navy OR “Air Force” OR “Marine Corps” OR Marines OR “National Guard” OR “military family/ies” OR “military couple/s” OR “military partner/s” OR “military spouse/s” OR “military wife/ves” OR “military husband/s;” AND (c) “relationship maintenance” OR “relational maintenance” OR “relationship maintenance strategy measure” OR “relational maintenance behavior measure” OR positivity OR openness OR assurances OR “social networks” OR “shared/ing tasks” OR “joint activities” OR “relationship thinking” OR “positive illusions” OR “derogation of alternatives” OR sacrifice OR “transformation of motivation” OR accommodation OR forgiveness OR networks OR attributions OR “problem solving” OR “social support” OR “conflict management” OR advice OR humor OR leisure OR “self-disclosure” OR facilitation OR coping OR responsiveness OR “benevolent cognition” OR generosity OR gratitude OR “relationship talk” OR “relationship work” OR “partner focused prayer” OR “relationship goals” OR “expressing affection” OR “relationship flourishing” OR “perspective taking.” The search generated 437 journal articles after removing duplicates (total = 703; PsycINFO = 204, PubMed = 265, Web of Science = 234).
A second step involved compiling the journal articles relevant to relationship maintenance (see Figure 2). The first author made an initial pass through the titles and abstracts of the 437 journal articles to eliminate irrelevant work (e.g., articles without empirical data, research on non-partnered individuals, work privileging veterans instead of currently serving military personnel, tests of interventions). This initial pass screened out 333 journal articles. Then, the first and second authors made a second pass through the titles, abstracts, and full texts of the remaining 104 journal articles. They retained 65 journal articles that fulfilled the inclusion criteria and eliminated 39 journal articles for one or more of the following reasons: (a) the research investigated support across people’s social networks instead of from a partner specifically (n = 22), (b) the research examined individual coping strategies instead of dyadic coping (n = 14), (c) the research considered communication between partners in general instead of relationship maintenance specifically (n = 3), and/or (d) the research did not consider a relationship maintenance activity (n = 8).
In a third step, we searched for other relevant studies using a pair of supplemental search strategies (see Figure 2). First, we repeated the title and keyword searches in the Military REACH Library hosted by Auburn University (https://militaryreach.auburn.edu), which resulted in 15 additional journal articles to consider. Second, we scanned the reference lists of the journal articles for other relevant studies, which identified six additional journal articles to examine. Screening the 21 additional journal articles by title, abstract, and full text revealed that 16 journal articles met the inclusion criteria; the other five journal articles were eliminated because (a) the research examined individual coping strategies instead of dyadic coping (n = 2), (b) the research considered communication between partners in general instead of relationship maintenance specifically (n = 1), and/or (c) the research focused on veterans instead of currently serving military personnel (n = 2). Adding the 16 journal articles to the 65 journal articles retrieved from the PsycINFO, PubMed, and Web of Science databases brought the final total to 81 journal articles included our systematic review.
Fourth, we finalized the corpus of journal articles for analysis (see Figure 2). We examined the 81 journal articles to identify (a) papers reporting multiple studies, and (b) groups of journal articles drawing on data from the same sample. No multi-study papers were apparent, but of the 81 journal articles, 62 papers (76.5%) reported a unique sample and 19 papers (23.5%) reported additional analyses from a sample already in the corpus.
A fifth step involved data extraction and analysis. The first and second authors coded the 81 journal articles for five conceptual and methodological features: (a) the formal theory or theories employed (if any), (b) the research design (qualitative or quantitative or mixed methods), (c) the sample size, (d) the sampling strategy (convenience or random), and (e) the type of data (cross-sectional or longitudinal). They also recorded nine characteristics of the sample: (a) the country of military affiliation, (b) the branch of military affiliation, (c) whether the study reported data from individuals or couples, (d) whether the study collected data directly from service members or relied exclusively on reports from partners, (e) the percentage of men versus women service members, (f) the rank of service members denoted by the percentage of enlisted versus officers, (g) the racial/ethnic composition of the sample, (h) the percentage of married participants, and (i) the percentage of participants involved in a same-sex versus cross-sex relationship.
Our positionality as authors provides a backdrop for understanding how we approached issues of intersectionality. Our team represents an early-career academic (Monk), a middle-career academic (Knobloch), and a late-career academic (MacDermid Wadsworth). Our doctoral degrees represent the academic disciplines of communication (Knobloch) and human development and family science (Monk and MacDermid Wadsworth). We are citizens of the U.S. (Knobloch, Monk, and MacDermid Wadsworth) and Canada (MacDermid Wadsworth). All of us are White and married to different-gender partners. We are civilians who have not served in our country’s military, so we lack personal experience with military life. On the other hand, we have professional experience conducting research on military couples, particularly communication across the deployment cycle (Knobloch), relational dynamics in the context of traumatic stress (Monk), and the interplay between military work conditions and family life (MacDermid Wadsworth). We also are deeply committed to translating data into practice, particularly evaluating care for combat trauma (Knobloch), assessing interventions for military and veteran couples (Monk), and leading a research institute on military and veteran families (MacDermid Wadsworth). Despite our research experience and commitments, we acknowledge that our understanding of military life is constrained by our membership in the civilian community.
Results
Quantitative synthesis
Characteristics of theories and methods
Results indicated that 48 of the 81 journal articles (59.3%) drew on one or more formal theoretical frameworks to guide hypotheses and/or research questions. Theories appearing frequently included attachment theory (e.g., Borelli et al., 2013; Riggs et al., 2020), cognitive-behavioral interpersonal theory (e.g., Kenny et al., 2021), the couple adaptation to traumatic stress model (e.g., Summers et al., 2017; Zamir et al., 2020), the emotional cycle of deployment model (e.g., Long, 2021), family stress theories (e.g., Karakurt et al., 2013; O’Neal et al., 2018), family systems theory (e.g., Larsen et al., 2015), and relational turbulence theory (e.g., Knobloch, Basinger, & Theiss, 2018). The remaining 33 papers (40.7%) did not explicitly incorporate a formal theory.
Within the subset of 62 journal articles reporting unique samples, 27 studies (43.5%) relied on qualitative methods, 34 studies (54.8%) utilized quantitative methods, and one study (1.6%) employed mixed methods (see Supplemental Table 1). Approximately 80,000 participants were represented. The median sample size was 22 participants for qualitative studies (range = 9 to 236, M = 35.58, SD = 45.46) and 447 participants for quantitative studies (range = 64 to 22,150, M = 2,331.47, SD = 4,643.66). Most recruitment was convenience sampling (52 studies; 83.9%) compared to random or stratified random sampling (10 studies; 16.1%). Most studies collected cross-sectional data (43 studies; 69.4%) compared to longitudinal data (19 studies; 30.6%).
Characteristics of samples
The majority of studies reported data from participants affiliated with the U.S. military (55; 88.7%) within the subset of 62 journal articles reporting unique samples (see Supplemental Table 1). Other studies enrolled participants affiliated with the United Kingdom (3; 4.8%), Canada (1; 1.6%), Italy (1; 1.6%), the Netherlands (1; 1.6%), or Portugal (1; 1.6%). The proportion of studies including participants from various branches and components of military service was 53.2% Army, 22.6% Navy, 37.1% Air Force, 27.4% Marine Corps, and 46.8% National Guard or Reserves (but note that not every branch or component of military service exists in every country studied).
Again within the subset of journal articles reporting unique samples, most studies collected data from individuals (37; 59.7%) compared to couples (20; 32.3%) or a combination of both individuals and couples (5; 8.1%). More than half of the studies (39; 62.9%) collected data directly from service members; the rest gathered data exclusively from spouses or partners (23; 37.1%). Among the 39 studies that enrolled military personnel, 89.1% of participants were male service members and 10.9% of participants were female service members. Only 17 of the 39 studies that enrolled military personnel reported rank (43.6%); 76.4% of service members were enlisted and 23.6% of service members were officers.
More than one-third of the studies containing a unique sample did not specify the race or ethnicity of their participants (21; 33.9%). All of the 41 studies (66.1%) that included racial/ethnic data focused on the U.S. military. The reporting standards were largely uneven, with some studies providing full information and others collapsing across racial and ethnic groups, so we aggregated across the uneven reporting standards to create two racialized categories. Results showed that 77.2% of participants identified as non-Hispanic White, and 22.8% identified as Black, African, or African American; Hispanic or Latino/a; Asian or Asian American; Indigenous, Native Peoples, or Native American; or biracial, multiracial, or other. Most participants were married (96.8%) within the 55 studies (88.7%) reporting marital status. A total of 39 studies (62.9%) reported whether participants were involved in a cross-sex or same-sex relationship. Within those studies, only one same-sex couple was represented.
Narrative synthesis
Coding the studies into mutually exclusive categories by relationship maintenance activity was not feasible because many studies attended to multiple and overlapping strategies, so we worked to complement the quantitative synthesis by constructing a narrative synthesis of research investigating relationship maintenance among military couples. We informally grouped the studies according to relationship maintenance activity and drafted a subsection integrating the results for the most prominent activities. We interpreted the findings with an eye toward research design, country of military affiliation, and issues of intersectionality. We also incorporated supplemental scholarship to round out the claims as necessary. The six subsections, in order, synthesize studies focused on (a) relationship maintenance explicitly, (b) communicating to stay connected across the deployment cycle, (c) disclosure and protective buffering, (d) support from a partner, (e) dyadic coping, and (f) caregiving and accommodating a partner’s symptoms.
Research overtly referencing relationship maintenance
The domain of research overtly referencing relationship maintenance contained three studies that adopted an expansive view by attending to a diverse array of strategies. For example, a seminal qualitative investigation of relationship maintenance among military couples was conducted by Merolla (2010), who asked 33 wives of deployed U.S. service members to describe ways they maintain a sense of connection in their relationship while separated. Merolla (2010) used inductive methods to derive three supraordinate categories encompassing the lower-level relationship maintenance strategies reported by wives. Intrapersonal maintenance indexed behaviors conducted independently from a partner (26% of the 505 behaviors identified). Nine relationship maintenance strategies included (a) engaging in sensory experiences (e.g., wearing dog tags, listening to special songs), (b) thinking and reminiscing positively (e.g., reflecting on treasured memories), (c) focusing on self (e.g., developing new hobbies, cultivating personal growth), (d) praying, (e) reflecting on perceived advantages (e.g., counting blessings), (f) journaling, (g) imagining interaction with a partner (e.g., daydreaming, talking to a picture of the service member), (h) thinking about the future (e.g., anticipating reunion, planning family vacations), and (i) visiting special locations. These strategies encompass both relationship-enhancing and threat-mitigating behaviors according to Ogolsky et al.’s (2017) integrative model of relationship maintenance, but they all involve individual action.
Mediated partner interaction was a second supraordinate category that entailed exchanges between partners (55% of the behaviors). Ten lower-level relationship maintenance behaviors included (a) utilizing a specific communication channel (e.g., phone, letters, e-mail, video conversations), (b) debriefing talk (e.g., updating each other on the news of the day), (c) avoiding topics (e.g., steering clear of challenging issues), (d) expressing affection and intimacy, (e) constructing communication routines (e.g., setting aside regular time to stay in touch), (f) planning for the future, (g) discussing topics openly and honestly, (h) reassuring each other of well-being, (i) maintaining positivity (e.g., using humor, staying optimistic), and (j) faith talk (e.g., discussing religious beliefs). All of these strategies fall under the guise of interactive behaviors according to Ogolsky et al.’s (2017) integrative model.
Social network maintenance, a final supraordinate category, comprised five relationship maintenance strategies (19% of the behaviors). They were (a) receiving support from family, peer, and community sources, (b) talking with others about the service member, (c) spending time with social network members as a distraction, (d) caring for children as a reminder of the service member, and (e) participating in military family support services. Not all of these categories focus on the couple relationship directly, so they represent a slight departure from Ogolsky et al.’s (2017) integrative model, but participants reported that interacting with social network members helped support the couple’s relationship during deployment.
Seeking to build on Merolla’s (2010) seminal findings, Maguire et al. (2013) employed a similar research design to examine the relationship maintenance strategies that 50 U.S. Army and Army National Guard wives used to stay connected before, during, and after deployment. They identified an additional intrapersonal relationship maintenance behavior that involved changing pace (e.g., cognitions or behaviors that attempt to slow down or speed up time). Maguire et al. (2013) also distinguished additional partner interaction behaviors: (a) engaging in joint tasks and problem solving (e.g., coordinating home repairs, collaborating on parenting activities), (b) giving and receiving support, (c) spending time together, (d) offering assurances of commitment, (e) embracing distance from the partner (e.g., using time apart to heal from prior hurts), and (f) secluding as a couple (e.g., taking time away from social networks).
Beyond delineating additional relationship maintenance strategies, Maguire et al. (2013) noted that some of the reports of relationship maintenance led to unintended consequences. A relationship maintenance paradox occurs when people’s attempt to preserve or improve their relationship does not function as they anticipated. Four such paradoxes emerged in Maguire et al.’s (2013) data: (a) violated expectations, when relationship maintenance attempts did not produce the desired connection to a partner (39%), (b) trade-offs, when relationship maintenance attempts escalated stress (25%), (c) technical difficulties, when relationship maintenance attempts were thwarted by equipment malfunctions or accessibility issues (19%), and (d) overload, when relationship maintenance attempts resulted in too much connection between partners or too much information (17%). A key idea from Maguire et al.’s (2013) analysis is that relationship maintenance strategies are not universally effective, and even people’s best attempts can fail to bring partners together.
We located only one quantitative study in the military context that collected data using an established measure of relationship maintenance strategies. Theiss and Knobloch (2014) asked 235 recently-reunited U.S. service members and partners to report on their relationship maintenance during reunion after deployment. Individuals reported markedly high levels of assurances (e.g., saying “I love you” to a partner), openness (e.g., talking candidly about feelings), and constructive conflict management (e.g., apologizing when wrong), but returning service members reported using less openness than partners. People who engaged in more relationship maintenance behaviors were more satisfied with their relationship, but they reported enacting less of all three relationship maintenance behaviors the longer they had been reunited. These quantitative findings, together with the qualitative results, confirm that relationship maintenance strategies are relevant across the cycle of deployment and reunion.
The three studies overtly investigating relationship maintenance among military couples are unique among those that surfaced in our literature review because they examine a heterogeneous assortment of behaviors enacted by service members and their partners (Maguire et al., 2013; Merolla, 2010; Theiss & Knobloch, 2014). Consider a pair of take-away points. First, the findings demonstrate the relevance of intrapersonal, interpersonal, and social network approaches to engaging in relationship maintenance among military couples. Second, the results showcase the diversity and interconnectedness of relationship maintenance activities. An implication of this latter point is that the studies examining relationship maintenance comprehensively share conceptual overlap with the five remaining clusters of empirical work examining a specific relationship maintenance activity. We next turn our attention to the research targeting those more focused behaviors: (a) communicating to stay connected across the deployment cycle, (b) disclosure and protective buffering, (c) support from a partner, (d) dyadic coping, and (e) caregiving and accommodating a partner’s symptoms.
Research on communicating to stay connected across the deployment cycle
Communicating to maintain relationships, which involves exchanging verbal and nonverbal messages to preserve or enhance a relationship (e.g., Stafford, 2020), is an interactive relationship maintenance activity that can stem from relationship-enhancing or threat-mitigating motives (Ogolsky et al., 2017). Most research on the topic has focused on one or more phases of the deployment cycle (Wilson & Murray, 2016; Yablonsky et al., 2016). During the preparation period before deployment, military couples may grapple with how to communicatively manage uncertainty about when the departure will occur, what deployment will be like, and how they will maintain their relationship (Larsen et al., 2015; Long, 2021; Sahlstein et al., 2009). For example, interviews with British Army wives revealed that they experience ambiguity about taking control of the household in preparation for departure while the service member is still present (Long, 2021). Another tension involves negotiating conflicting desires to spend quality time together to preserve closeness, on one hand, versus emotionally distancing oneself to protect against upcoming heartache, on the other hand (Bóia et al., 2018; Cafferky et al., 2022; Larsen et al., 2015). Both Portuguese military wives (Bóia et al., 2018) and U.S. military wives (Cafferky et al., 2022) report feeling torn between engaging in relationship maintenance during the pre-deployment stage versus disengaging from the relationship, but wives who privilege connection may handle the departure more effectively (Cafferky et al., 2022). Such findings suggest that military couples preparing for deployment face communication challenges such as managing uncertainty and navigating competing desires between relationship preservation and self protection.
Deployment itself presents military couples with choices about how to communicate to stay in touch (Balderrama-Durbin et al., 2018; Cigrang et al., 2014; Wilson & Murray, 2016), including finding ways to involve service members in family life despite the distance (Marini et al., 2016; Strong & Lee, 2017; Yablonsky et al., 2016) and to handle conflicting needs to build connection versus forge independence (Sahlstein et al., 2009). Qualitative studies indicate that service members and at-home partners identify online communication and social media platforms as both helpful and unhelpful for maintaining relationships during deployment (Blow et al., 2021; Larsen et al., 2015; Messecar, 2017; Rea et al., 2015). Military couples report that technologically mediated communication channels are valuable for facilitating real-time conversation, updating each other on everyday events, sharing pictures, and feeling reassured about the partner’s safety (Bóia et al., 2018; Larsen et al., 2015; Rea et al., 2015), but on the other hand, mediated interaction can be distressing if missed contact sparks worry (Ross et al., 2021), the service member feels helpless to assist with problems at home (Messecar, 2017; Strong & Lee, 2017), or the at-home partner inadvertently witnesses warfighting during a real-time conversation (Larsen et al., 2015; Messecar, 2017). Structural barriers such as unreliable technology or communication outages at the base can hamper communication as well (Blow et al., 2021). Accordingly, military couples may be less inclined to talk about their problems during deployment than share news of the day or express affection (e.g., Carter et al., 2018; Messecar, 2017; Rossetto, 2013).
Quantitative research has taken up questions about the rewards and costs of communication channels during deployment as well (e.g., Balderrama-Durbin et al., 2018; Carter et al., 2011; Carter et al., 2018). In a study involving 2,230 U.S. active duty spouses of all branches, spouses who reported that their service member communicated frequently with them during deployment using asynchronous channels (i.e., delayed modes such as email and letters) reported better psychological and marital well-being (Meek et al., 2019). On the other hand, at-home spouses reported that synchronous channels (i.e., interactive modes such as phone calls and video conversations) were helpful only up to a point, possibly because a moderate amount of real-time interaction during deployment reflects an optimal balance between closeness and autonomy (Meek et al., 2019). Given the pros and cons of communicating using delayed versus interactive modes during deployment, particular topics may be better suited to certain channels. In terms of synchronous channels, for example, expressing affection corresponds with more relationship satisfaction among U.S. Army couples, but talking about problems corresponds with less relationship satisfaction (Carter et al., 2018). Such findings suggest that communicating to maintain relationships during deployment may require strategic matching of topics to channels.
The quality of communication during deployment, more than its frequency, may help shape outcomes both during deployment (Sigelman et al., 2019) and upon reunion (Mallonee et al., 2020; Richardson et al., 2020). For example, Sigelman et al. (2019) reported that U.S. military couples who experienced more positive and less negative emotions after communicating during deployment reported better individual and dyadic well-being. Balderrama-Durbin et al. (2018) found that retrospective reports of the frequency of communication between U.S. Army National Guard couples during deployment was largely uncorrelated with their concurrent reports of mental health and relationship functioning upon reunion, but military personnel viewed expressing affection as an especially beneficial topic of conversation, and at-home partners viewed problem-solving as an especially beneficial topic. Similarly, Knobloch, Knobloch-Fedders, and Yorgason (2018) observed that U.S. military couples’ retrospective reports of communication frequency during deployment were unrelated to their symptoms of generalized anxiety during the post-deployment transition, but their retrospective reports of both constructive and destructive communication during deployment corresponded with an accelerated decline in generalized anxiety during the months after homecoming. These results underscore the importance of the tone and content of communication over sheer frequency.
Communicating effectively during the transition from deployment to reintegration poses unique challenges (Yablonsky et al., 2016). Interactive relationship maintenance tasks upon homecoming include navigating awkwardness, reestablishing a connection, being responsive to a partner’s needs, and deciding how much information to share about the time apart (Kelly et al., 2014; Melvin et al., 2015; Sahlstein et al., 2009). Interviews with U.S. National Guard female service members highlight the utility of breaking down emotional barriers between partners upon reunion (Kelly et al., 2014), and interviews with U.S. Army couples emphasize the relationship maintenance strategy of carving out quality time together to share activities as a way of resuming friendship (Melvin et al., 2015). With respect to quality time together, U.S. military couples report that engaging in joint leisure activities after homecoming is helpful for aiding relaxation, facilitating communication, alleviating stress, and fostering a connection between partners (Chandler et al., 2018). More generally, a study of spouses of returning Dutch military personnel found that positive communication upon reunion corresponds with more relationship satisfaction (Andres, 2014), which accentuates the value of constructive communication patterns for dyadic well-being upon reunion following deployment.
A relationship maintenance task with special relevance to the transition from deployment to reintegration involves communicating to re-establish roles, responsibilities, and daily activities (Faber et al., 2008; Kelly et al., 2014; Marnocha, 2012; Messecar, 2017). Both Portuguese military wives (Bóia et al., 2018) and U.S. service members and at-home partners (Knobloch & Theiss, 2012) describe the need to redistribute household chores and responsibilities after deployment is over. U.S. military couples also report that communication is more effortful after deployment compared to before deployment (Knobloch et al., 2016), possibly because of the need to recalibrate expectations and everyday routines. Weaving together a new normal may be especially difficult if returning service members feel detached from the family system by the discovery that their roles were absorbed by other family members (Long, 2021; Marini et al., 2016). In fact, returning U.S. service members who report interference from their partner in resuming everyday activities communicate less openly and more aggressively with their partner (Theiss & Knobloch, 2013). These results, viewed as a set, spotlight communication about reorganizing daily routines and everyday responsibilities as a key activity for maintaining relationships during the transition from deployment to reintegration.
Research on disclosure and protective buffering
Military couples engage in disclosure when they share information about their thoughts, feelings, and experiences with a partner (e.g., Balderrama-Durbin et al., 2013; Knobloch & Basinger, 2021; Monk & Nelson Goff, 2014). Disclosure can be useful as a relationship maintenance strategy for strengthening intimacy, facilitating cognitive processing, building solidarity, and enhancing understanding between partners (e.g., Balderrama-Durbin et al., 2013; Summers et al., 2017). Of course, disclosing effectively hinges on the communication skills, motivations, and privacy boundaries of speakers and listeners, and disclosure in the service of relationship maintenance can backfire if met with rejection, suspicion, or unsupportiveness (e.g., Rossetto, 2015b; Rossetto & Owlett, 2022; Sahlstein et al., 2009). According to the classification logic of the integrative model (Ogolsky et al., 2017), disclosure is an interactive relationship maintenance strategy that can be motivated by the desire to enhance the relationship or to mitigate threats.
A number of studies have conceptualized disclosure among military couples as a relationship-enhancing activity that can furnish both individual and dyadic benefits (Campbell & Renshaw, 2013; Monk & Nelson Goff, 2014; Summers et al., 2017). Findings show that U.S. service members who feel comfortable disclosing their deployment and combat-related experiences to their partner report less symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD; Balderrama-Durbin et al., 2013), particularly emotional numbing (Campbell & Renshaw, 2013); they also report less relationship distress (Balderrama-Durbin et al., 2013), more relationship satisfaction (Campbell & Renshaw, 2013; Knobloch & Basinger, 2021), and better family reintegration after deployment (Balderrama-Durbin et al., 2015). Moreover, the willingness of service members to disclose may mediate the negative association between (a) their perceived support from a partner and their relationship distress (Balderrama-Durbin et al., 2013), (b) their emotional numbing symptoms and their relationship satisfaction (Campbell & Renshaw, 2013), and (c) their depressive symptoms and their relationship satisfaction (Knobloch & Basinger, 2021). Taken together, these results suggest that a service member’s disclosures may defend against the harmful effects of deployment on relationship well-being (Balderrama-Durbin et al., 2013; Campbell & Renshaw, 2013).
In contrast to research examining disclosure as a way for military couples to enhance their relationship, other work highlights people’s decisions to refrain from disclosure as a threat-mitigating relationship maintenance strategy. Individuals engage in protective buffering when they purposefully withhold information or deny problems out of a desire to shield a partner from distress (Carter, Renshaw, Allen, et al., 2020; Joseph & Afifi, 2010; Rossetto, 2013). Protective buffering can be motivated to keep conversations upbeat, avoid distracting the service member from the mission, sidestep the delivery of bad news, circumvent having to think about traumatic experiences, and/or forestall conflict (Carter, Renshaw, Allen, et al., 2020; Carter, Renshaw, Curby, et al., 2020; Joseph & Afifi, 2010; Marini et al., 2016; Nelson Goff et al., 2014). Consistent with this logic, military wives are more likely to engage in protective buffering if they believe their deployed spouse is working in dangerous conditions (Joseph & Afifi, 2010).
Protective buffering appears to be quite common during deployment. A sample of 54 U.S. military couples showed that approximately 98% of service members (Carter, Renshaw, Curby, et al., 2020) and 96% of at-home partners (Carter, Renshaw, Allen, et al., 2020) reported avoiding topics and working to keep discussions positive during the separation to protect their partner from worry. Although some findings suggest that protective buffering by service members may be useful for safeguarding at-home partners from strain during deployment (Carter, Renshaw, Curby, et al., 2020), protective buffering also comes with considerable costs. When service members engage in more protective buffering during deployment, they report experiencing more distress (Carter, Renshaw, Curby, et al., 2020). Similarly, when at-home partners engage in more protective buffering during deployment, they report experiencing more physical and mental health problems (Joseph & Afifi, 2010), and both service members and at-home partners report experiencing more distress and less marital satisfaction (Carter, Renshaw, Allen, et al., 2020). Such findings imply that protective buffering, when used as a relationship maintenance strategy, may be counterproductive.
Research on support from a partner
Social support refers to the behaviors individuals enact with the goal of helping someone who needs assistance (Rossetto, 2015b). Support provided by a partner, in particular, is an interactive relationship-enhancing strategy according to the integrative model of relationship maintenance (Ogolsky et al., 2017). Types of support include instrumental, informational, emotional, esteem, and social network (Knobloch, Basinger, & Theiss, 2018; Rossetto, 2015b; Rossetto & Owlett, 2022). Military couples separated during deployment can help each other by providing instrumental support (i.e., tangible aid), informational support (i.e., factual assistance), emotional support (i.e., displays of concern), esteem support (i.e., validation), and social network support (i.e., connecting the partner with others who can help; Knobloch, Basinger, & Theiss, 2018; Rossetto, 2015b). Although people can offer assistance with the best of intentions, social support attempts within both civilian couples and military couples can fail if the recipient appraises the support as (a) unresponsive to the recipient’s needs, (b) offered by someone without firsthand experience with the stressor, (c) disconfirming of the recipient’s identity, and/or (d) escalating the burden of the stressor (e.g., Maisel & Gable, 2009; Rossetto, 2015b).
Both qualitative and quantitative data underscore the helpfulness of support from a partner. According to qualitative findings, British military wives report that support from their partner is essential for dealing with the loneliness of relocating as a family overseas (Blakely et al., 2014), and U.S. military wives identify informational support in the form of advice and guidance from the service member as particularly helpful during deployment (Rossetto, 2015b). Quantitative studies show that U.S. Air Force personnel who receive more support from their partner experience less difficulty with family reintegration after deployment (Balderrma-Durbin et al., 2015). Similarly, U.S. service members and at-home partners recently reunited after deployment who report receiving more support from their partner characterize their relationship as less turbulent (Knobloch, Basinger, & Theiss, 2018). Such findings suggest that military spouses can be an important source of support for each other.
Two diary studies conducted with U.S. service members emphasize how daily support from a partner can be helpful for both individuals and relationships. In terms of personal benefits, Carter et al. (2019) found that on days when partners offered support to a service member or veteran with PTSD symptoms, partners reported a same-day increase in their own positive affect and a same-day decrease in their own negative affect. In other words, offering support can be personally rewarding for helpers. In terms of relational benefits, Wilson et al. (2018) observed that at-home partners felt more connected to their service member during deployment (a) when they reported receiving higher levels of support from their service member overall, (b) on days when they reported giving more support than average to their service member by phone, and (c) on days when they reported receiving more support than average from their service member by video call. In sum, military couples can benefit both personally and relationally from supporting each other in everyday ways.
Several investigations have evaluated support from a partner alongside other sources of support available to military couples. For example, research shows that U.S. Air Force personnel who experienced deployment-related stressors were buffered somewhat from depressive symptoms (Welsh et al., 2015) and posttraumatic stress symptoms (Olson et al., 2018) if they reported high levels of support from their partner; similar buffering effects on depressive symptoms were apparent for support received from unit leadership and neighbors (Welsh et al., 2015). The value of different sources of support may vary across the deployment cycle. In a cross-sectional study involving 639 spouses of members of the Canadian Armed Forces, Skomorovsky (2014) found that support from friends and family members mattered more for protecting the psychological well-being of spouses during deployment than support from the service member, but support from family, friends, and the service member all protected the psychological well-being of spouses after reunion following deployment. Skomorovsky’s (2014) quantitative results resonate with Karakurt et al.’s (2013) qualitative findings from a series of interviews with U.S. Army reservist couples conducted longitudinally during the year following homecoming. Couples reported that they relied on support from family members, friends, co-workers, and unit personnel more than support from each other during deployment, but they gradually turned back to each other as their primary source of support in the months after reunion. Taken together, the data from all three studies imply that relationship maintenance via a partner’s support is especially valuable during reintegration after deployment.
Research on dyadic coping
Coping refers to people’s attempts to manage stress (e.g., Randall & Messerschmitt-Coen, 2020). Coping strategies can be distinguished according to whether they reflect attempts to solve the problem or manage emotions; they also can be distinguished based on whether they are enacted by individuals or coordinated between people (e.g., Afifi et al., 2020; Randall & Messerschmitt-Coen, 2020; Rossetto, 2015a). Dyadic coping occurs when partners work together to address a problem (Randall & Messerschmitt-Coen, 2020). Dyadic coping shares some similarities with communal coping (Afifi et al., 2020), but dyadic coping is limited to coordination between two people, whereas communal coping can encompass coordination across social networks (cf. Afifi et al., 2020; Randall & Messerschmitt-Coen, 2020).
Dyadic coping can be conceptualized as a relationship maintenance strategy that partners jointly enact to manage stress (Ogolsky et al., 2017; Randall & Messerschmitt-Coen, 2020). Viewed in that light, dyadic coping is a relationship maintenance strategy geared toward mitigating the threat posed by the stressor, and it is interactive because it requires cooperation between partners (Ogolsky et al., 2017). Ample research shows that individually-focused coping strategies are important for dealing with the demands of military life (e.g., Cafferky & Shi, 2015; Rossetto, 2015a; Wheeler & Torres Stone, 2010), but we attend exclusively to dyadic coping strategies given our focus on relationship maintenance.
A number of qualitative studies have sought to investigate how at-home partners cope with the demands of deployment. A major coping strategy visible from these investigations is people’s desire to stay connected to the service member, which closely resembles research examining communication as relationship maintenance. Wives of U.S. Army National Guard service members interviewed by Wheeler and Torres Stone (2010), spouses of U.S. National Guard and Reserve personnel interviewed by Lapp et al. (2010), wives of U.S. Army reservists interviewed by Marnocha (2012), wives of U.S. Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps service members interviewed by Rossetto (2013), and wives of Italian soldiers interviewed by Zamperini et al. (2016) all pointed to the value of communicating with a service member to cope with deployment stress. Participants also emphasized how anxiety-provoking it is to wait to hear from a partner (Lapp et al., 2010; Zamperini et al., 2016) and how helpful communication technology is for maintaining a connection (Lapp et al., 2010; Rossetto, 2013; Wheeler & Torres Stone, 2010). In sum, working to stay in touch during deployment is a coping strategy that involves relationship maintenance.
Companion papers by Rossetto (2013, 2015a) drill down into the link between coping and relationship maintenance during deployment more explicitly. Rossetto (2013, 2015a) conducted interviews with 26 partners of deployed U.S. military personnel about how they worked with their service member to cope with the stressors of deployment. Participants noted three categories of joint action (Rossetto, 2013). Mediated interpersonal interaction (such as talking, reading, playing games, and shopping together by phone or online) helped military couples stay close, stay optimistic, and stay united against the unpleasant realities of deployment. Choosing open communication (such as talking about challenging topics) functioned to enhance closeness, provide an outlet for the service member to process deployment experiences, and pave the way for an easier reunion. Restricting open communication (such as withholding sensitive information) allowed military couples to avoid unnecessary worry and keep the service member focused on the mission. These findings highlight the merits of attending to the ownership, functions, and outcomes of the coping strategies military couples use to deal with the stress of deployment (Rossetto, 2015a).
A coping paradox occurs when people’s attempt to cope with stress generates outcomes that contradict their expectations (Maguire & Sahlstein Parcell, 2015). By interviewing U.S. Army and Army National Guard wives whose husbands recently returned from deployment, Maguire and Sahlstein Parcell (2015) identified six coping paradoxes consisting of a particular stressor coupled with a specific strategy. Three stressor/strategy combinations produced dilemmas, defined as situations in which communicators need to manage potentially competing purposes, meanings, and outcomes (Peck & Sahlstein Parcell, 2021; Wilson et al., 2015). The three dilemmas were (a) avoidance before impending loss (e.g., emotionally distancing oneself to protect from the pain of imminent separation), (b) release of emotions generated communication problems (e.g., venting feelings led to difficulty instead of catharsis), and (c) maintaining the relationship required considerable work (e.g., trying to sustain intimacy felt like a chore). Three other stressor/strategy combinations were tied explicitly to deployment: (a) providing support led to emotional contagion (e.g., working to help other military wives resulted in toxic spillover), (b) seeking support provoked social network stress (e.g., asking for help led to problems with extended family members, friends, and neighbors), and (c) attempts to stay busy led to overscheduling (e.g., trying to occupy oneself resulted in too many activities). Using a similar research design, Cafferky and Shi (2015) observed that partners and financées of deployed U.S. service members experienced dilemmas from coping in ways that (a) pursued unrealistic closeness to the service member but forfeited their own needs, (b) pushed the service member away but protected their own well-being, and (c) drew strength from their emotional connection to the service member but cultivated their own autonomy. Identifying such paradoxes is important for helping military couples prepare for situations in which coping attempts may backfire.
Some quantitative studies have taken a different approach by investigating relationship maintenance-related predictors of how well military couples cope with the demands of military life. Westhuis et al. (2006) drew on data from the 2001 Survey of U.S. Army families, completed by a stratified random sample of more than 6,500 wives, to evaluate racial and ethnic differences in the ability to cope with a military lifestyle. Their results indicated that marital problems during the past 6 months were negatively associated with coping efficacy for non-Hispanic White wives but not African American or Hispanic wives. Adopting a more micro view, Lucier-Greer et al. (2020) examined features of conversation between 234 U.S. military couples. Their data showed that service members and spouses who reported engaging in more marital warmth during conversation experienced fewer challenges coping with military life. Whereas the qualitative studies spotlight relationship maintenance strategies as an aspect of coping, the quantitative studies by Westhuis et al. (2006) and Lucier-Greer et al. (2020) consider relationship maintenance behaviors as antecedents of people’s ability to cope with military life.
Research on caregiving and accommodating a partner’s symptoms
Caregiving is providing short-term or long-term assistance to someone who requires help meeting basic needs (e.g., Thandi et al., 2016). Military service puts individuals at risk of harm to both their physical health and their mental health, so caregiving is a devastating byproduct of military service for some military couples (Allen et al., 2021; Thandi et al., 2016). Caregiving was not salient in Ogolsky et al.’s (2017) integrative model of relationship maintenance, but commensurate with the dangers of military service, our literature search revealed several studies that examined caregiving as an interactive relationship maintenance activity motivated by threat mitigation. In describing the transition to caregiving after traumatic brain injury, U.S. military couples reported working to manage expectations for each other, negotiate conflict, and build new routines (Hyatt et al., 2015). Similarly, spouses caring for wounded or sick United Kingdom military personnel depicted more frequent arguments, greater communication challenges, and diminished physical intimacy (Thandi et al., 2016). These studies, and others like them, showcase how relationship maintenance can be manifest in caregiving among military couples.
Strategically yielding to a partner’s PTSD symptoms is a related relationship maintenance activity applicable to military couples that was not apparent in Ogosky et al.’s (2017) review of research on civilian couples. Accommodating a partner’s PTSD symptoms refers to the adjustments individuals make in response to a partner’s PTSD symptoms to minimize conflict and distress (Campbell et al., 2017). Partner accommodation includes behaviors such as (a) avoiding people, places, activities, topics, and situations likely to make a partner uncomfortable; (b) steering clear when a partner is angry; (c) making excuses for a partner’s behavior; (d) walking on eggshells around a partner; and (d) completing tasks for a partner who is having trouble concentrating (Campbell et al., 2017; see also Chandler et al., 2018). People’s motivations for accommodating include (a) a desire to promote positive relationship outcomes, (b) a sense of duty, (c) a desire to help the service member recover, (d) a desire to avoid conflict, and (e) a sense of helplessness or not knowing what else to do (Renshaw et al., 2020). Viewed through the lens of Ogolsky et al.’s (2017) integrative model of relationship maintenance, these reasons for partner accommodation reflect mostly threat-mitigating motives.
Although individuals may accommodate a partner’s PTSD symptoms in an effort to maintain their relationship, in actuality, such behaviors may be maladaptive (Monson et al., 2010). Partner accommodation may inadvertently perpetuate PTSD symptoms over time by diminishing the service member’s opportunities to learn, grow, and work toward healing (Allen et al., 2021; Monson et al., 2010). Cross-sectional findings show that both service members and partners report that a partner’s accommodation corresponds with greater PTSD symptoms for service members, more depressive symptoms and hostility for both partners, and less marital satisfaction for both partners (Kenny et al., 2021). Longitudinal results demonstrate that a service member’s PTSD symptoms predict a partner’s subsequent accommodation both on the following day over a 2-week period (Campbell et al., 2017) and 6 months into the future over an 18-month period (Allen et al., 2021). In other words, even well-intentioned relationship maintenance processes of accommodation may exacerbate mental health challenges among military couples.
General discussion
Research on military couples and families has a long history in the field of relationship science, with seminal conceptual frameworks such as family stress theory (Hill, 1949) and ambiguous loss (Boss, 1977) originating in a military context. More recently, the past two decades have seen a rapid acceleration in both basic and applied research sparked by frequent deployments of military forces to conflicts throughout the world (e.g., Pettersson et al., 2021). The exponential growth in research on how military couples preserve their relationship provided a timely opportunity to organize, synthesize, and evaluate the literature.
We divide the discussion of our results into four subsections. First, we consider the implications of our quantitative synthesis for the study of relationship maintenance among military couples. Then, we summarize major themes from our narrative synthesis. After describing some of the interventions targeting relationship maintenance available to military couples, we conclude by highlighting limitations and directions for future research.
Implications of the quantitative synthesis
Our quantitative synthesis sheds light on the theories and research designs valued in the literature. The most popular theories among the subset of studies that explicitly employed a formal theoretical framework (59.3%) stem from a variety of academic disciplines. For example, the emotional cycle of deployment model hails from the field of military psychiatry (e.g., Long, 2021), family stress theories and family systems theory hail from the fields of sociology and family science (e.g., Chandler et al., 2018; McCoy et al., 2021), and relational turbulence theory hails from the field of communication (e.g., Knobloch, Basinger, & Theiss, 2018). With respect to research designs, our findings showed a relatively even distribution between qualitative methods (43.5%) and quantitative methods (54.8%), but less admirable was the preponderance of individuals (59.7%) over couples (32.3%), convenience sampling (83.9%) over random or stratified random sampling (16.1%), and cross-sectional data (69.4%) over longitudinal data (30.6%). Although relying on individuals, convenience sampling, and cross-sectional data is understandable given the significant barriers to recruiting military couples (e.g., Cozza et al., 2018), the upshot is that the literature may not accurately reflect the composition and development of the military population at large.
Our results suggest major shortcomings involving diversity and intersectionality within the study of relationship maintenance among military couples. A diversity lens emphasizes the representativeness of samples, and an intersectionality lens accentuates the multiple social identities, particularly race (Cooke & Few-Demo, 2022; Few-Demo & Allen, 2020), that are intertwined with varying degrees of privilege and oppression from institutional structures (e.g., Buchanan & Wiklund, 2021; Collins & Bilge, 2020). Viewed through a diversity lens, our findings indicate that the research landscape is dominated by the vantage point of the U.S. military: Only 11.3% of the studies reported data from other countries (i.e., the United Kingdom, Canada, Italy, the Netherlands, and Portugal). The overwhelmingly U.S.-centric nature of the literature leaves gaping holes in knowledge about how military couples around the world negotiate relationship maintenance. Viewed through an intersectionality lens, our results show a lack of attention to global perspectives and corresponding systems of power. Such limited consideration of worldwide military service hinders the investigation of relationship maintenance among military couples at the nexus of race, class, gender, age, sexual orientation, ability, or any other layer of social identity. Intersectionality is more than simply comparing the outcomes of diverse groups but also requires attending to social justice (Buchanan & Wiklund, 2021; Few-Demo & Allen, 2020); the current scarcity in the international diversity of work on military couples hampers those efforts.
Insufficient data on marginalized populations may obscure claims about both diversity and intersectionality. The U.S. military, for example, is growing in racial and gender diversity (e.g., Barroso, 2019), but research falls well short of showcasing that diversity. On a surface level, a sizeable group of studies did not gather data directly from service members themselves (37.1%), did not report the racial/ethnic background of their sample (33.9%), or did not report the marital status of participants (11.3%). On a deeper level, the literature is based on samples of male service members (89.1%) over female service members (10.9%), non-Hispanic White participants (77.2%) over other racialized groups (22.8%), and married individuals (96.8%) over non-married individuals (3.2%). In addition, only one study in the corpus of 81 journal articles pursued substantive research questions involving race/ethnicity. The lack of attention to diversity in most samples, coupled with the relative absence of research on relationship maintenance that considers questions about power structures and multiple marginalized identities, underscore how much work remains to promote inclusivity in the literature. Such findings also suggest that the rising prominence of intersectionality within the social sciences (Curtis et al., 2020; Grzanka et al., 2020) has not yet taken root in the study of relationship maintenance among military couples.
A microcosm of the lack of attention to issues of diversity and intersectionality is visible in the exclusion of same-sex relationships. Of the 62 journal articles reporting unique samples, representing more than 80,000 participants, only a single same-sex relationship was explicitly included. The research published during the first decade of our review period reflects that homosexuality was an exclusion criterion for U.S. military service until the repeal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy in 2010, but power inequity and stigma persist (Alford & Lee, 2016; Van Gilder, 2017), and research conducted on same-sex military couples since then has not attended to the dynamics of relationship maintenance. To what extent do same-sex military couples enact the unique relationship maintenance behaviors utilized by same-sex civilian couples (e.g., promoting equity between partners, being out as a couple, establishing a united front against stressors; Ogolsky et al., 2017)? How are the relationship maintenance behaviors of same-sex military couples of color shaped by both heterosexism and racism (e.g., Ogolsky et al., 2017)? Not only does the absence of data render the experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) service members invisible, but it also forfeits the opportunity to pursue questions of intersectionality involving any other social identity paired with an LGBTQ identity.
Women and men, too, differ in the form and function of relationship maintenance behaviors (Fiori & Rauer, 2020). The study metrics showed that 62.9% gathered data directly from military personnel, and of those studies, 10.9% of participants were female service members and 89.1% were male service members. With respect to content, the literature emphasizes traditional sex roles via the responsibility of civilian wives to maintain family connections at home while service member husbands focus on the pragmatic tasks of preparing for deployment, executing the mission, and re-acclimating afterward (e.g., Larsen et al., 2015; Long, 2021; Marnocha, 2012). Such limited research on female military members precludes a comprehensive understanding of cohorts such as service member wives, civilian husbands, and dual-career military couples from diverse racial and cultural backgrounds (e.g., Lufkin, 2017; Southwell & MacDermid Wadsworth, 2016). More broadly, it hampers insight into how military service intersects with gender identity to shape relationship maintenance processes.
Implications of the narrative synthesis
Our literature search revealed only a handful of journal articles investigating relationship maintenance explicitly (n = 3), but a wealth of journal articles examining a specific activity serving a relationship maintenance function (n = 78). The research landscape involving military couples mirrors on a smaller scale what Ogolsky et al. (2017) documented with respect to the relationship maintenance literature as a whole: It is a robust body of work conducted under the guise of many monikers. Viewed in its broadest sense, the study of relationship maintenance is the investigation of how people preserve and enhance closeness between relationship initiation and relationship termination (Ogolsky & Monk, 2020), which by definition encompasses a kaleidoscope of constructs. Our narrative synthesis highlighted clusters of research focused on communicating to stay in touch across the deployment cycle, disclosure and protective buffering, support from a partner, dyadic coping, and caregiving and accommodating a partner’s symptoms. Virtually all of the studies privileged people’s interactive behaviors rather than individually-enacted behaviors. Research on relationship-enhancing versus threat-mitigating behaviors was more evenly split, but a distinct majority focused on the former compared to the latter. As a whole, our findings imply that the study of relationship maintenance among military couples has a decidedly interactive and constructive bent.
An intriguing aspect of our narrative synthesis involves the relationship maintenance activities that materialized with special relevance to the military context. Several activities were more prominent in our findings compared to Ogolsky et al.’s (2017) review of work on relationship maintenance as a whole. Research on disclosure and protective buffering accentuates the push/pull tension military couples face between sharing sensitive thoughts, feelings, symptoms, and experiences to stay connected versus safeguarding privacy, restricting the release of private information, and limiting trauma spillover (Balderrama-Durbin et al., 2013; Carter, Renshaw, Curby, et al., 2020; Joseph & Afifi, 2010; Sahlstein et al., 2009). The inherent conflict between openness and closedness may be magnified during deployment, when service members may be powerless to help, at-home partners may fear endangering the service member’s safety by disrupting focus, and both partners may be reluctant to worry each other needlessly (Carter, Renshaw, Allen, et al., 2020, Carter, Renshaw, Curby, et al., 2020; Joseph & Afifi, 2010), but withholding information to protect a partner may be harmful in the long run (Carter, Renshaw, Allen, et al., 2020).
Caregiving and accommodating a partner’s symptoms are other examples of relationship maintenance activities particularly germane to military life given the reality that service members may sustain injuries to their physical health and/or mental health in the line of duty (Allen et al., 2021; Thandi et al., 2016). Injuries, wounds, and symptoms were not search terms in our investigation, but our results identified a cluster of studies that illustrate how caregiving and accommodating a partner’s symptoms can function as relationship maintenance. Traumatic brain injury (Hyatt et al., 2015) and PTSD (Campbell et al., 2017) are examples of health problems that call for a partner’s caregiving and accommodation. On a broader level, our findings speak to the importance of contextualizing the study of relationship maintenance with respect to the population of interest. We see utility in attending not only to relationship maintenance processes relevant to all relationships, but also to specific relationship maintenance processes that arise from the particular needs, exigencies, and constraints of specialized cohorts.
Also notable is the list of relationship maintenance activities not apparent in the literature on military couples compared to the literature on civilian couples. Our results, viewed alongside Ogolsky et al.’s (2017) review of research on civilian couples, illuminate a variety of relationship maintenance activities overlooked thus far in scholarship on military couples. Constructs largely absent from work on relationship maintenance among military couples include derogation of alternatives, positive illusions and idealizations, attributions, forgiveness, sacrifice, facilitation, relationship thinking, generosity, gratitude, partner focused prayer, relationship talk, humor, and joint leisure and shared activities. We leave it to future research to examine whether those relationship maintenance activities are less relevant in the military context, whether they serve a different function for military couples compared to civilian couples, or whether they simply have been neglected to date. Ample opportunities exist for scholars to advance the literature by considering how understudied relationship maintenance activities play out among military couples around the world.
Most generally, synthesizing the literature across relationship maintenance activities reveals a trio of cross-cutting themes. First, research showcases how people’s attempts to preserve or enhance interpersonal ties work in concert rather than in isolation. Although our review artificially divided the literature by relationship maintenance activity, qualitative findings make it clear that overlapping activities are more likely. For instance, communicating to stay connected across the deployment cycle shares close ties with disclosure and protective buffering (Marini et al., 2016; Messecar, 2017; Nelson Goff et al., 2014), and dyadic coping shares close ties with supporting a partner, caregiving, and accommodating a partner’s symptoms (Chandler et al., 2018; Karakurt et al., 2013; Rossetto, 2013). A second cross-cutting theme involves the degree of effort required by various relationship maintenance activities. Whereas some relationship maintenance activities may involve considerable work and exertion, such as protective buffering (Carter, Renshaw, Allen, et al., 2020; Carter, Renshaw, Curby, et al., 2020), caregiving (Thandi et al., 2016), and accommodating a partner’s symptoms (Renshaw et al., 2020), other relationship maintenance activities may be less laborious and more enjoyable, such as upbeat conversations (Maguire et al., 2013; Merolla, 2010), joint leisure pursuits (Chandler et al., 2018), and quality time together (Melvin et al., 2015). A third cross-cutting theme that stands out in our narrative synthesis deals with the paradoxes and dilemmas of relationship maintenance, which occur when military couples are caught between potentially competing desires, meanings, and outcomes (e.g., Peck & Sahlstein Parcell, 2021; Wilson et al., 2015). Despite the best of intentions, military couples may encounter social support attempts that go awry (Peck & Sahlstein Parcell, 2021; Rossetto, 2015b), coping behaviors that backfire (Maguire & Sahlstein Parcell, 2015), and accommodation efforts that crystalize rather than alleviate symptoms (Allen et al., 2021). We offer the cross-cutting themes of activity blends, effort, and paradox as potential jumping-off points for advancing theorizing about relationship maintenance among military couples.
Interventions addressing relationship maintenance among military couples
Programs for building proficiency in relationship maintenance are of special interest to military community stakeholders and policymakers given that relationship maintenance skills can be taught and learned (e.g., Vennum et al., 2020). An assortment of interventions for military couples target relationship preservation, connection, and enrichment (for reviews of programs offered around the world, see Bakhurst, Loew, et al., 2017; Fertout et al., 2011; Monk et al., 2018). Some programs seek to foster relationship maintenance processes as a primary goal; others seek to alleviate a health problem but include secondary content designed to promote relationship maintenance in the face of adversity. An example of the former category is PREP for Strong Bonds (Prevention and Relationship Education Program) adapted for use by the U.S. Army Chaplain Corps (Allen et al., 2017). PREP for Strong Bonds is a psychoeducational workshop that covers topics such as relationship maintenance during deployment, communication, affect management, quality time together, and sexuality. The Families OverComing Under Stress (FOCUS) program is a preventative family-oriented program offered at U.S. military installations both domestic and abroad (Lester et al., 2016). Provider-led sessions consider topics such as communication skill-building, emotion regulation, and problem-solving. Couple CARE in Uniform (Couple Commitment and Relationship Enhancement) is a self-directed relationship education program for Australian military couples designed to be completed at home (Bakhurst, Loew, et al., 2017, Bakhurst, McGuire, et al., 2017). Six sessions delivered using DVDs and guidebooks, along with coaching calls, emphasize topics such as communicating during separations, supporting a partner, and maintaining an emotional connection. A year-long telephone support group intervention for U.S. military spouses relies on a low-cost, low-technology mode of delivery to help U.S. military spouses navigate reunion after deployment (Nichols et al., 2013). Curriculum topics include communication skills, coping strategies, and ways to enhance intimacy. All four programs show efficacy for fostering relationship maintenance skills and preserving relationship well-being among military couples (Allen et al., 2017; Bakhurst, McGuire, et al., 2017; Lester et al., 2016; Nichols et al., 2013).
Other interventions include content on relationship maintenance in the service of treating a physical or mental health problem. For example, the Couples HOPES (Helping Overcome PTSD and Enhance Satisfaction) program is an online guided intervention for PTSD offered to military and veteran couples in Canada (Fitzpatrick et al., 2021). It relies on video content, practical exercises, and weekly coaching meetings to address topics such as communication skills, conflict management, and self-disclosure. Another example is a program offering cognitive-behavioral conjoint therapy for PTSD (CBCT for PTSD) to U.S. military couples in an intensive weekend format (Fredman et al., 2021). It includes sessions devoted to problem-solving, conflict management, self-disclosure, and dyadic coping. The Partners Connect program is a four-session, online intervention that targets problematic alcohol use among U.S. military couples (Osilla et al., 2018). It utilizes video content, audio recordings, storytelling vignettes, and personalized feedback to teach communication skills, communication barriers, motivations for alcohol use, and alternatives to drinking. Recent data suggest that all three programs may be useful for teaching military couples how to preserve closeness and maintain their relationship in the wake of a physical or mental health problem (Fitzpatrick et al., 2021; Fredman et al., 2021; Osilla et al., 2018). Ensuring widespread access to such interventions is a key task moving forward.
Limitations and directions for future research
Our systematic review is limited in a variety of ways. Perhaps most obviously, we cast a wide net while searching for studies to include in our analysis, but the conceptual boundaries delineating relationship maintenance activities are fuzzy at best (Ogolsky et al., 2017). The lack of definitive search terms made retrieving the relevant literature considerably more complex, so our coverage may be incomplete. Second, although we sought to include research on military couples around the world, our efforts were constrained by the necessity of limiting our search to journal articles published in English. A third limitation is that our claims about diversity and intersectionality were hampered by the large number of studies that did not report complete demographic information. Missing data were especially prominent for the rank of service members (43.6%), the race/ethnicity of participants (33.9%), and people’s involvement in a same-sex versus cross-sex relationship (37.1%). An unfortunate consequence of the incomplete reporting of demographic data, for example, is having to collapse race/ethnicity into binary categories. This practice can reify White people as the standard of comparison and perpetuate inequity by emphasizing racialized groups versus racist systems (Williams, 2019).
Beyond the directions for future research already mentioned, we see the need for a greater reliance on theory (see Castro & Sullivan, 2018). Because the study of military couples is situated squarely in an applied context, a natural tendency of researchers, practitioners, and funders is to approach the topic with a focus on pragmatic concerns. We applaud work with an applied orientation, and at the same time, we echo recent reminders that theory-driven research on military families is essential for identifying foundational processes, organizing findings, and scaffolding knowledge (e.g., Totenhagen & Albright, 2018). Advancing theory about military couples is a tricky business: Indiscriminately applying general theories of interpersonal relationships may neglect the richness of military life, but narrowly applying theories exclusively tailored to military couples may limit generalizability (Knobloch & Wehrman, 2014). A further complication is that some conceptual frameworks developed directly for military couples, such as the emotional cycle of deployment model (Pincus et al., 2001), have not been subject to systematic empirical testing. We see value in a middle-ground approach that centralizes theory-building and theory-testing efforts with an eye toward developing guidelines for practice.
At a broader level, we advocate for research on military couples that transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries. Ideally, relationship science is an interdisciplinary endeavor (Reis & Mizrahi, 2018), but our review revealed several academic silos lodged in the research terrain. Social scientists of all stripes have much to say about relationship processes, and the study of military couples is greatly enriched by the inclusion of interdisciplinary voices (e.g., Meadows, Griffin, et al., 2016; U.S. National Academies, 2019). We look forward to the cross-pollination of ideas emanating from interdisciplinary teams studying military couples.
We also encourage a more systematic focus on issues of diversity and intersectionality. Our review of the literature on relationship maintenance among military couples hints at many directions for future research informed by intersectionality. For example, how do military expectations about rank, race, and gender (e.g., Kelty et al., 2010) shape the relationship maintenance behaviors enacted by young adult enlisted and officer military personnel? How do perceived norms about military masculinity and the warrior ethos (e.g., Abraham et al., 2017) perpetuate systems of privilege and oppression among biracial military couples making decisions to disclose to each other versus engage in protective buffering? How do social inequalities in the military function to perpetuate military sexual trauma (e.g., Paulson et al., 2022) and govern people’s ability to maintain relationships in healthy ways after victimization? How do interlocking power structures constrain the resources partners have at their disposal when caregiving for a wounded service member over time (e.g., Rylee et al., 2019)? How do racial, economic, and geographic inequalities among military couples impact their capacity to access interventions that build relationship maintenance skills (e.g., Bakhurst, Loew, et al., 2017; Mancini et al., 2020)? The ultimate goal of studies pursuing these research questions, if conducted in the spirit of social justice that undergirds intersectionality (e.g., Buchanan & Wiklund, 2021; Grzanka et al., 2020), would be to generate evidence-based policies and practices that contest marginalization both within and outside the military.
A final recommendation for future research takes our review full circle to where it began: We call for a greater appreciation of the breadth and depth of military life across the globe. Macro factors such as a country’s political environment, financial support for the military, and regulations involving volunteer versus conscripted military service are likely to have profound effects on the more micro relationship processes occurring between partners (e.g., Ledberg & Ruffa, 2020). Yet, these international macro factors are rarely studied in concert with military couples hailing from diverse locations around the world. We eagerly await the day when the study of military couples is populated by a robust body of transnational scholarship.
Supplemental Material
Supplemental Material - Relationship maintenance among military couples
Supplemental Material for Relationship maintenance among military couples by Leanne K. Knobloch, J Kale Monk, and Shelley M. MacDermid Wadsworth in Journal of Social and Personal Relationships
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to Rebecca Graves, TeKisha Rice, Rosie Shrout, and Dana Weiser.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported in part by the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs through the U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command (Award W81XWH2120005). The U.S. Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity, 820 Chandler Street, Fort Detrick, MD 21702-5014, was the awarding and administering acquisition office. Opinions, interpretations, conclusions, and recommendations are those of the authors and are not necessarily endorsed by the U.S. Department of Defense. Research reported in this publication also was supported in part by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of the National Institutes of Health under award number R01HD09137301.
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