A Tale of Two Families

Addressing Reintegration Difficulties

To address the intrapersonal threats to successful postdeployment reintegration, various medical and psychotherapeutic interventions have been applied to lessen the degree to which the returning soldier and his or her spouse each bring the deleterious influences of intrapersonal issues to their postdeployment marital relationship. Although too numerous and varied to describe in detail here, those interventions have generally tended to include individual and group counseling and psychotherapy, sometimes in combination with pharmacological treatments aimed at reducing problematic primary and secondary individual responses to trauma occurring as a result of military service and separation (Sundin, Fear, Iversen, Rona, & Wessly, 2010). For the 1 of 10 soldiers who have returned from deployment with serious physical injuries (Pew Research Center, 2011), the interventions have also aimed at helping them and their families deal with the physical and psychological challenges of disability.

Treatment approaches to address the interpersonal stressors of military deployment that threaten successful family reintegration have focused foremost on opening channels of communication between the returning soldier and his or her spouse in order that they can better understand and empathize with each other’s experiences during the period of separation. Marek and D’Aniello (2014) have highlighted the need for couples to gain awareness of postdeployment changes in the utility of communication patterns established during deployment such that the communication patterns can be discarded or revised when they are no longer beneficial to the relationship. Saltzman et al. (2011) have similarly emphasized the importance of helping couples develop and articulate a shared guiding belief system that can enable them to find mutual meaning about the difficult circumstances they have each experienced. Pincus, House, Christenson, and Adler (2001) have pointed to the need for couples to be assisted in establishing collaborative meaning and articulating a common narrative about their life in the military culture and its requirement for danger and separation.

Evident in both the intrapersonal and the interpersonal interventions addressing reintegration has been the goal of increasing soldier and family awareness and understanding of the changes that have occurred on individual and relational levels as a result of the military deployment. Accurate understanding of postdeployment differences in themselves and their relationship is seen as a necessary prerequisite to the couple’s subsequent acceptance of these differences and successful adaptation to them. Accordingly, the research has aimed to identify the individual and relational differences that are be anticipated upon a soldier’s return. Changes in a couple’s roles and responsibilities in the family, sources of personal and social support, and understanding of each other’s experiences account for primary differences can be expected in the relationship following deployment (Chandra et al., 2011), and as noted previously, the differences can be far greater when the returning soldier has experienced physical or psychological injury.

One potential difference that has received little direct attention in the professional literature lies in the view of family commitment held by returning soldiers and their spouses. While spouses at home may anticipate a soldier’s sole commitment to the natural family upon returning from deployment, the soldier may return with a shared commitment to natural family and to a group of comrades in the military unit who, in providing direct support and protection in times of extreme hardship and danger, have become what will hereafter be referred to as a soldier’s “unit family.” It is proposed that achieving a mutual understanding of this new unit family relationship and incorporating it into a couple’s marital and natural family relationship becomes a task that is important and, possibly, essential to successful family reintegration after deployment.

The “Unit Family”

Brothers One

After all the battles are fought and done, no matter who they say has lost or won, from torturous trials soldiers endure, a kinship evolves devoid of a cure…a brotherhood rising out of great need to help a buddy should he suffer or bleed. Bonding occurs only soldiers can know when answering the call, “To war you must go.” No matter the arena or the battle flag’s hue, each war has united our bravest and true determined to fight to the death if they must to protect one another with honor and trust. After all, the battles…now over and done, have merged them together into Brothers One…(Meek, 2013, p. 1).

The preceding poem speaks to the uniquely intense and enduring bond that can develop among military personnel. The significance of a soldier’s relationships with military comrades is often equated to that of his or her relationships with family members, and consequently, family connotations have historically been applied in describing various aspects of military relationships (Ringel & Brandell, 2012). In portraying Henry V’s speech to the English army before the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, William Shakespeare referred to the troops as a “band of brothers” who would be able to boast each year about their fighting that day (Shakespeare & Kemble, 1971, p. 70). That historical reference to the family-like bond among solders has endured as indicated by its becoming the title of Ambrose’s (1992) bestseller, Band of Brothers, E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne: From Normandy to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest and the book’s subsequent adaptation into the 2001 miniseries Band of Brothers on Home Box Office television (Hanks & Spielberg, 2001). Recruits have frequently referred to the noncommissioned officers directly responsible for their basic military training (e.g., drill sergeants, drill instructors, company commanders, etc.) as being “surrogate parents” (Hanks & Spielberg, 2001, p. 45) who modeled and firmly taught them the discipline they would need in order to survive and succeed in combat (Longley, 2015). Historically, the common reference to fellow soldiers as “mates” in the Australian military indicated a relationship defined as being deeper than just friendship, in that it implies a mutual sense of shared struggle, unyielding trust, and commitment to unconditional sacrifice including one’s life if necessary (Lindsay, 2013). The perception of military relationships as a close variation in natural family relationships is illustrated explicitly in the following statement by one solder about the death of a friend in combat: “I cannot accept that I will not see him again. I saw my buddy as a family member in another form, and therefore I cannot accept that he is not with me” (Laron, 2009 as cited in Ringel & Brandell, 2012, p. 142). The power of military camaraderie was made similarly poignant in a speech to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints Annual Veterans Day program in 2012 by decorated Vietnam veteran and proponent of veteran’s issues, Frans VandenBroek, when he said “There is no greater bond than between men in combat together” (VandenBroek, 2013, pp. 1–2). He added that the bond is one that is often difficult for others who have not shared the experience to understand.

Thus, it seems that before and during military deployment, soldiers can become part of a system of people and experiences in their assigned unit that may rival the importance of relationships and experiences within their natural family system at home. In fact, this unit family system shares powerful similarities with the returning soldier’s natural family system.

The Natural and Unit Family Systems

A soldier’s natural family and unit family can both be defined as living systems in that they (a) consist of a collection of multiple individuals, (b) who have joined together as a network for a specific purpose, and (c) whose relationships with one another are stable and enduring for a specified amount of time (Buckley, 1967). Natural family systems form when individual adults enter into a committed relationship, often for the purpose of having and rearing children. A soldier’s unit family system forms when individual soldiers are assigned to a specified group for the purpose of a military mission. Natural family members are related to one another through formal and informal vows of commitment and through shared bloodlines with their children. The members of a soldier’s unit family are related to one another through formal vows to faithfully discharge their duties to support and defend the country (Oath of Office/Oath of Enlistment) and through less formal (but no less important) bonds of comradery and shared (often adverse) experience. Natural families endure for a period defined by having members living who possess the original members’ shared bloodline and name. Minimally, a soldier’s unit family endures for the defined length of a unit’s specified mission, but it may often continue across multiple missions and beyond deployment for a much longer period.

The structural components of soldiers’ natural and unit family systems also bear some striking similarities. In general, all living systems include a hierarchical structure that defines the level of power and influence held by individual members; a number of smaller subsystems, each of which makes a distinct contribution to the function of the system unit as a whole; and specific rules of engagement for maintaining the boundaries among the various subsystem components and between the larger system and its external environment (Nichols, 2016). In natural families, the hierarchical structure is characteristically comprised of parents at the top and having the most influence on family function, with children having varying lesser degrees of influence based upon their chronological age (Nichols). In a soldier’s unit family, the hierarchical structure is more formally defined, with commissioned officers holding more power than noncommissioned officers, noncommissioned officers holding more power than enlisted personnel, and the specific levels of influence within each group varying depending upon rank (Schading, Schading, & Holeman, 2006).

In natural families, there are three primary subsystems: the spousal subsystem that provides the family system with stability and models of intimacy and commitment, the parental subsystem that provides guidance and limit setting to children, and the sibling subsystem that affords children their first lessons in social interaction (Nichols, 2016). In a soldier’s unit family, the primary subsystems include the commissioned officers who provide the greater system with mission planning, organization, and leadership of the noncommissioned officers; the noncommissioned officers who provide the system with training and leadership of enlisted personnel in the execution of the mission; and the enlisted personnel who execute assigned tasks related to mission implementation (Schading et al., 2006).

In natural families, boundaries between individuals, subsystems, and the system and its environment are established through spoken and unspoken rules of engagement that define the nature and content of information that is appropriate to be shared among various internal system components and with parties outside the system (Nichols, 2016). Boundaries in a soldier’s unit family are similarly but far more explicitly defined in strict rules of conduct that govern the nature of permissible interactions between soldiers of different ranks as well as between soldiers and the civilian population (Schading et al., 2006).

Prior to deployment, soldiers have often relied upon their natural families to be their primary sources of support, security, and identity; relationships among natural family members have been described as being the most powerful, durable, reciprocal, multigenerational, and persistent of all relationships (Goldenberg, Goldenberg & Stanton, 2017). However, during deployment, a soldier’s reliance on the natural family as a source of security, support, and even identity may necessarily shift away from natural family to the members of the unit family on whom his or her safety and very survival in combat may have come to depend. Following deployment, returning soldiers may face the challenges of managing membership in two complex and powerful family systems, each with its own unique priorities, rules of engagement, and demands for the soldier’s attention and participation that may not always be compatible.

Natural and Unit Family Conflicts

Foremost among the challenges of membership in two family systems may be that of satisfying competing demands for loyalty to both. By definition, loyalty implies “faithfulness to something to which one is bound by pledge or duty” (Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of Synonyms, 1984). While the definition does not exclude the possibility of a solder being loyal to two both his or her natural and unit families, the task is made difficult by the fact that each family has previously enjoyed the soldier’s undivided loyalty, and anything less may be perceived as a loss. This sense of loss may be particularly true for members of the natural family who likely anticipated a postdeployment return to their previous place of being the soldier’s primary and singular focus of concern and source of support. However, in returning to their natural families, unit members may likewise feel a loss of immediate access to members of their unit family who shared and may best understand the complex and often painful experiences that occurred during deployment. If the loss of a returning soldier’s undivided concern is viewed as disloyalty by members of his or her natural family, unit family, or both, the soldier is faced with a dilemma, whereby attempts to satisfy the demands of membership in one family will be construed as infidelity by the other. Central among the competing unit–natural family demands are those for a soldier’s time, affection, and honesty/secrecy.

Time

It stands to reason that returning soldiers’ natural family members would desire and even expect the soldiers to want to “make up for lost time” by spending as much nonwork time with them as possible. However, for the soldiers, spending all free time with their natural families denies them the opportunity to invest any time in maintaining close unit family friendships they have formed while deployed and requires them to essentially abandon relationships with those individuals who may best able to understand and empathize with the experiences that have been encountered during and even after deployment. Following deployment, natural families need the returning soldier’s presence in order to restore a sense of stability and normalcy in their lives, whereas unit members may need each other’s presence in order to be able to process the deployment experience with those who shared the burdens of the experience and who best understand their magnitude and significance (Mitchell, Gallaway, Millikan, & Bell, 2012). Conflict is inevitable if members of either family are not aware and respectful of these competing needs.

Affection

As discussed previously, the strong bonds that can develop among members of a military unit who have faced extreme adversity together during deployment may be difficult to understand by others who have not shared the unit’s experience. The development of family-like affection among members of a unit family does not necessarily constitute a threat to the affectional bonds between a soldier and his or her spouse and natural family system, but it does require the soldier, the natural family, and the unit family to all make room for a sharing of affection that was not required prior to deployment. Conflicts are likely among the soldier and both families if the expressions of care and affection by the soldier toward members of one system are perceived by members of the other system as expressions of unfaithfulness or abandonment.

Honesty/Secrecy

Honesty has shown to be a critical factor in the success of couple’s relationships, and the presence of secrets between couples has been associated with greater dissatisfaction and conflict (Aldeis & Afifi, 2015). Honesty in disclosure that may have been enjoyed between a soldier and a spouse prior to deployment can be threatened postdeployment for several reasons. First, the soldier may have received classified information while deployed that cannot be shared. Second, the soldier may choose to withhold the sharing of experiences that occurred during deployment that might be misunderstood or disturbing to a spouse or family members if revealed. Third, the soldier may simply not want or safely be able to revisit deployment experiences that were particularly traumatic or troubling out of the context in which they occurred. Unable or unwilling to process certain deployment experiences with natural family members, the soldier may understandably need to turn to members of the unit family for support, an action that, unfortunately, may be viewed by natural family members, and particularly the spouse, as devaluing the importance of the natural family and marital relationship in favor of the unit family.

Although conflicts arising from a soldier’s postdeployment attempts to merge two competing support systems are understandable and even anticipated, the conflicts may nonetheless pose a threat to successful reintegration at home after deployment. To date, no preventive or remedial clinical strategies have been developed to address this threat specifically. However, several strategies identified in the family therapy literature for addressing the challenges of family blending following death or divorce or remarriage appear to have particular applicability.

Supporting Natural–Unit Family Blending

While members of natural families can rely on well-established and time-tested relational rules and norms, blended families must hurriedly devise their own. In doing so, blended families often lack awareness of the unique structural challenges of merging two family systems and, consequently, know little about what problems to expect or how to face those problems when they occur (Hurwitz, 1997). This may account for why over 60% of blended natural families are reported to end in failure (Coleman, Ganong, & Fine, 2000). Counseling interventions for intact nuclear families often do not apply to blended families (Kumar, 2017). With that in mind, Gonzalez (2009) has identified a sequence of four focal areas to be attended to in family counseling that are aimed specifically at facilitating more successful family blending by lessening the element of unwanted surprise and preparing families for the challenges that can be anticipated. The four-stage sequence includes a counselor’s focus on (a) discovery (helping members acquire specific information about each other), (b) education (helping members anticipate the unique challenges of family merger), (c) parental unification (helping parents establish collaborative parenting practices), and (d) family unification (helping members establish effective day-to-day rules of engagement that support the merger). With two modifications, the model appears to have particular applicability to the task of natural–unit family blending. The first modification involves eliminating the parental unification stage, since parenting of stepchildren is not a relevant issue in the natural–unit family blending context. The second modification involves placing education stage before the discovery stage in the intervention sequence given that mutual understanding of existence, nature, and significance of the unit family and potential need for family system blending is likely to be a necessary prerequisite to any commitment by a soldier and spouse to engage in the family blending process. A suggested application of the modified three-stage counseling intervention for assisting in natural–unit family blending follows.

Stage 1: Education

In the blending of two natural families, education refers to a counselor teaching the merging families to identify in advance the challenges they can expect in their merger (Gonzalez, 2009). This educational process is of critical importance in a counselor’s work with a returning soldier and his or her spouse because neither soldier nor spouse is likely to have previously anticipated or fully understand the emergence of the unit family and the need for natural–unit family blending. Educating about the complexities and potential challenges of merging family systems is, thus, suggested as the necessary first focal area in the counseling sequence applied to military couples. Initially, in the education process, the counselor can introduce the couple to the concept of the unit family, its structural similarity to a natural family, its vital role in the soldier’s life during deployment, and its significance as a factor in the soldier’s family reintegration process. Next, the counselor can assist the couple in identifying and examining the potential for competing natural and unit family demands for the returning soldier’s loyalty, time, affection, and honesty (or secrecy). The goal in this phase of the counseling sequence is not to resolve the natural–unit family conflicts but, rather, to bring them into the foreground and remove the element of surprise. By doing so, the counselor can help the couple realize they are not alone and unique in their relational struggles and that such struggles are common whenever two family systems attempt to merge. The couple can also be made aware that problems occurring in blended families are not insurmountable, and if appropriate strategies are followed, the prospect of overcoming those problems is greatly enhanced (Zeleznikow & Zeleznikow, 2015).

Stage 2: Discovery

Discovery in a family counseling context refers to the members of two merging families getting to know specific information about each another. Gonzales (2009) has suggested that discovery may be the task most critical to the success of the merging process, citing Shalay and Brownlee who concluded that failing to understand the complexities of new relationships puts newly blended families at greater risk for dissolution. Gonzales noted that recently blended families lack “the luxury of time” (p. 151) which, in traditional families, allows family members to develop relationships with each other gradually through trial, error, and observation. He therefore recommended that active steps be taken in counseling to facilitate communication and bonding among the members of merging families prior to or at least early in the merging process.

Applying this recommendation to natural–unit family blending, a counselor can begin by facilitating in-session communication between a returning soldier and spouse about the various members of the unit family and the nature and significance of their relationship with the soldier during deployment. This discussion would address (but would not be limited to) topics such as various unit members’ names, occupational specialties likes, dislikes, habits, and the unique role each played in the soldier’s life during deployment. Next would be discussion regarding the nature and significance of the marital and natural family relationship for both soldier and spouse during the deployment period. This discussion would focus on the couple’s importance to each other during the deployment as well as on the demands that separation has placed on their relationship. Through open dialogue in counseling, it is hoped that the soldier and spouse can come to better understand and articulate their unique experience of the deployment and, as a result, that they will be able accept the other’s experience in ways that are not perceived as threatening or diminishing.

In addition to opportunity for dialogue, the discovery phase of counseling may include activities intended to promote unit and natural family bonding by connecting members of both families in shared activities that are positive and enjoyable. Eckler (1988) has suggested that the success of family blending hinges on the development of positive relational bonds between members of both blending families. The specific nature of bonding activities between a soldier’s natural and unit family members must be tailored to family preferences but will generally include the involvement of select unit family members in natural family activities and the involvement of natural family members in social functions of various unit members or the unit as a whole. By encouraging mutual involvement in such activities, the counselor can help members of both families dispel preconceived notions of each other as intrusive and/or threatening and, instead, come to see each other as new and valued members of each other’s social support system.

Stage 3: Family Unification

While the first two stages in the counseling sequence involve helping family members understand and bond with each other, the family unification stage addresses the more pragmatic structural changes that are needed to effectively merge two families into one (Gonzales, 2009). In this stage of work to facilitate natural–unit family blending, the primary goal of a counselor is to assist a couple in negotiating mutually acceptable day-to-day rules of engagement between the natural and the unit families. The work is, in effect, an effort to establish clear behavioral boundaries between the two families in order to minimize conflicts resulting from unintentional boundary crossings by the returning soldier in terms of the amounts and nature of time, affection, and honesty (or secrecy) that are to be shared with each family.

Specifically, the counselor can assist the couple in negotiating specific rules regarding the times the soldier can be expected to spend with the unit family, the times he or she can be expected to spend with the natural family, and the times direct interaction between members of both families can be expected to occur. In rule-setting related to the soldier’s sharing of affection and loyalty with the unit family, the couple can be encouraged to identify and agree on key events and rituals in the life of the unit (e.g., reunions, ceremonies, etc.) and those in the lives of specific unit family members (e.g., birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, etc.) that warrant the soldier’s (and, possibly, the spouse’s and natural family’s) participation as well as the key events and rituals in the life of the natural family that are considered sacred and that are not subject to interruption or intrusion by members of the unit family. Rules regarding honesty and secret keeping can similarly be discussed in an effort to clearly identify the boundaries of classified unit information that cannot be shared with natural family members, potentially painful or disturbing information about the deployment that the soldier is not yet able to share in the natural family context, and information about natural family members, relationships, and activities that is not to be shared with unit family members.

Given the aforementioned finding that the presence of secrets in marital relationships is associated with greater conflict in those relationships, Gonzales (2009) has recommended the establishment of a regular time for the status of the unit–natural family relationship to be revisited and reviewed. Regular meetings between soldier and spouse can be used to examine and revise the rules of the blended family relationship as needed to keep them viable and address conflicts and to expand to the greatest extent possible the boundaries of information that can be openly shared in the couple’s relationship.

Concluding Thoughts

No two families are exactly alike, and the emergence of a unit family during a soldier’s deployment does not guarantee that there will be problems in postdeployment reintegration. At the same time, it is clear that the blending of two natural family systems is a challenging task with a high risk of failure. This article has suggested that the nature and significance of relationships developed among members of a military unit during deployment can share enough similarities with relationships among members of natural families that the challenges of family system blending need to be considered in understanding and promoting successful postdeployment family reintegration. The article has also drawn from existing family therapy literature to offer a model for counselors to apply in their efforts to assist military couples in successfully navigating the complexities of the unit–natural family blending process. However, current understanding of unit family influence on the reintegration process will benefit from future research.

Inquiry into the influence of culture and gender on the significance of the unit family to a returning soldier is needed in order to prevent an inaccurate, “color blind,” view of the natural–unit family blending phenomenon. Examination of potential differences in unit family influence on couples with and without children, during combat and noncombat deployments, and through the course of multiple deployments will similarly help to ensure that our view of unit–natural family blending is not an overly narrow one. Continued research efforts to fill the gaps in our understanding of the challenges of family system merger will aid in the development of more effective couple and family counseling interventions to prevent and resolve problems related to the blending in the context of both natural and military unit families. In the meantime, it is hoped that the information that has been provided here will serve as a useful first step in helping couples and families (and the counselors who work with them) to better understand, prevent, and resolve potential conflicts in unit–natural family blending and, consequently, enable them to enjoy the support of two families as they proceed through other challenging aspects of post deployment reintegration.