Abstract

The reintegration of a spouse who has been deployed can be very stressful on the non-military spouse both during the deployment as well as after their spouse returns home. A major factor that can help or hinder their relationship is the compassion they have for each other. In this study, 15 women spouses provided their perspectives on the compassion they felt for their military spouse and the compassion they experienced from their military spouse. The results indicated that factors such as commitment to the military culture combined with compassion for and experienced compassion from their spouse was related to the stress they felt and the coping mechanisms they used upon their spouses return to the home. Specifically, it was found that the women who reported receiving the least amount of compassion reported the highest level of stress, especially in regard to their place in the home, reemergence of unresolved conflicts, and problems with civilian employment. Those who reported the greatest compassion for their spouse also reported less commitment to the military culture and less need for/use of coping mechanism even though they did not report different levels of reintegration stress, but greater use of alcohol and/or drugs for coping.

Keywords:Spousal compassion; Military reintegration stress; Military culture; Coping styles