The 7 Emotional Cycles of Deployment

[trystinn]

Despite the many who claim otherwise, the military spouse leads a
different life from most. This harsh truth becomes most evident when your
family prepares for a deployment. A deployment is a scary, emotional, yet
liberating journey for the spouse left behind to take care of a home,
finances, and a family.

There are 7 identifiable stages that the majority of military spouses
go through.

"1. Pre-Deployment: Anticipation of Loss (6 weeks prior)
Your spouse is working late to ready the unit and you are left at home
knowing he or she will be leaving. You are moody and depressed, and
this causes friction between you and your spouse. You are a tight little
ball of stress and anxiety, and hate yourself for feeling this way. You
and your spouse are at each other's throats even when you know in your
heart you should be cherishing each day left together.
Whether you're a man or a woman, it is PMS multiplied by a factor of
deployment.

2. Pre-Deployment: Detachment and Withdrawal (1 week prior)
As the final week before deployment approaches, all those feelings you
have had for weeks rise to a peak. You can think of a million and one
final thing to do before the deployment, but can find neither time nor
energy to complete even the smallest tasks. All the arguing has taken
its toll on your level of intimacy. You appear to have lost all interest
in physical contact with your spouse and have more interest in actually
sleeping between the sheets than anything else. You distance yourself
from your spouse without consciously knowing it.
These emotional times happen. The important thing to remember is that
you are human. We all want the final weeks before a deployment to be
perfect, but life seems to throw us a different fate. But the closer you
come to understanding each cycle and its inevitable side effects, the
closer you come to changing certain aspects of your life. If there is
time, take part in some of the services offered to you on base. There are
always people on base who can assist you. Reach out to your unit
chaplain for guidance and support.

3. During Deployment: Emotional Disorganization (2 - 3 weeks)
After your spouse leaves and all the initial tears have been shed, you
wake up. The house is all yours. Even if you have children, it is
yours. You can stay up late, eat cookies in bed, and watch your favorite TV
channels all day without a single complaint from anyone. It's almost
like a vacation.
This is a fun time; a chance to do all those things you didn't have
time to do before. There are no uniforms to wash, no entertaining, and no
work-related phone calls in the middle of the night. Relief!
The first few weeks have flown by. All that time you thought you would
be crying, you were enjoying yourself. Then you look at the unmown
lawn, the pile of clothes in the hamper, the refrigerator with only ice
cream and diet cola inside, the stack of bills on the desk, the car that
needs an oil change, tune-up, and car wash, etc. Then guilt sets in.
Here you are having a grand time while your spouse is possibly in harm's
way and you seem to have lost sight of your household responsibilities.
You sit in a heap on the floor in the kitchen and sob. You suddenly
feel alone.

4. During Deployment: Recovery and Stabilization (3 - 4 weeks) Your two
favorite words! By this time, you have probably heard from your spouse
via e-mail or telephone. The phone calls and e-mail inspire you to find
strength you never knew you had. You take on all your newfound
responsibilities with passion. You are now able to fix that broken dryer; you
bake cookies and write letters. You make Martha Stewart look like she
hasn't a clue. This time is an opportunity that is truly a gift of the
military lifestyle. During this time, you will discover your
independence, your abilities, and your enduring strength.

5. During Deployment: Anticipation of Homecoming (4 - 6 weeks before
reunion) The few weeks before the deployment comes to an end, there is
excitement, along with questions. You fear your newfound independence will
vanish once your spouse steps through the front door. You wonder what
changes will happen and where your marriage will fit into the equation.
You are happy your spouse will be home soon, but there is much concern
about the homecoming. There may be only sporadic phone calls or e-mail,
leaving you too much time to worry about the future. You begin to do
things just to keep your mind occupied. You clean like mad. You organize
financial papers, get the budget back into shape, get the kids ready
for school, and juggle doctor appointments and soccer practice. The
final days before homecoming are full of phone calls to other spouses, to
the Ombudsmen, and to the party stores. Decorations and signs are made
and you are giddy with excitement and anticipation.

6. After Deployment: Renegotiation of the Marriage Contract (2 - 4 weeks
after reunion) After the initial joy of having your spouse home,
reality sets in. Changes need to be made to the lifestyle you had just become
used to, and they are not easy. You feel stifled, at first, over the
loss of your independence, but the feeling will pass in time, with some
adjustments. Communicate openly with your spouse about your needs and
wants, and use any marital services available on base that can help you
both reconnect after your time apart. In time, loving intimacy returns
and you find a way to work together again as a team.

7. After Deployment: Reintegration and Stabilization (6 - 12 weeks)
Breathe a sigh of relief-stability has returned. By the time the first
couple of months post-deployment have passed, you and your spouse have
hammered out the details of your marriage. You are used to having him or her
home and actually enjoy the fact that they still hog all the blankets
in bed.
You feel relief knowing you are not solely responsible for the
household chores anymore. Knowing you can fix the dryer by yourself is
liberating, but not having to fix it is another story. It is on one of those
days that you glance at your spouse sitting beside you on the sofa,
reading the paper, and suddenly all you can remember about the deployment
was being in his or her arms the day they left. It feels like it was
yesterday."

Comments

[unique-thesame.livejournal.com]

I've read these before, and I still say that in a lot of ways I had it easy when Jason deployed. He only got 4 days notice, and he was on the base 3 of those days, so we only had one day to spend together. I hated it, I still hold a grudge against the marine corps for it, but it was easier for me in the long run because we didn't go through all the different stages preparing for it.
When he came "home" it was back to base as an NCO, so weekends home were few and far between, then he was off to school. He's just now finally making his way home to actually BE at home for the first time in over 2 years. Now we get to deal with all the post deployment stresses, and throw moving into the mix!

[wastedmouthfull.livejournal.com]

Yeah that would have pissed me off.

[badseed1980.livejournal.com]

*adds to memories, for the next time*

EDIT: OK, took the time to read through them now. I'm not exactly sure how much I will identify with these. Partly because I'm not on a base, partly because I'm not (yet) a spouse, partly because they seem to be geared towards homemakers, partly because I have no kids, and partly because I'm poly and will not be completely partnerless with my primary partner gone for a deployment.

But yeah, I do see some things that I recognize: the anxiety, the sudden realization that "all my time is my own to do with as I choose now", the getting used to having your partner there all the time...yeah, I do get those.

[wastedmouthfull.livejournal.com]

I was a girlfriend/fiance when my Husband got deployed for six months.
It was hard because I did not get this information to start with, when you are a spouse you have other people going through the same thing at the same time and there is some communication with these people.
When you are not a part of it you dont understand why as a strong woman you are going through the stages, you do not realy understand that there is stages.
Thank the gods for Trysts Husband who sat me down and said ok this is what it is.
looking back on this conversation later when My Husband and i were kind of getting back to a routine I know that knowing what the score was saved our relationship.

[badseed1980.livejournal.com]

I think a further complication for me last time was the fact that we came within inches of breaking up just before he left, for reasons completely unrelated to the deployment, then had to work on fixing those while thousands of miles apart! So the deployment itself was only a small part of the problem.

[wastedmouthfull.livejournal.com]

yeah that could make things a lot harder to deal with.

[brock-tn.livejournal.com]

An excellent piece. Like badseed1980, I think I will add it to my memories where it can be easily found again.

Unfortunately, there are some exceptions to this process. When I deployed to a combat zone for the first time, for the 1983 intervention in Grenada, I was in the NCO Academy at Fort Bragg when we were alerted, and all of Stages 1 and 2 got compressed into a single 30-second telephone call snatched between trips from the barracks to my VW Rabbit. And I didn't see or speak to lark_tn for another eleven days, until they sent our brigade back.

Fortunately for you, the Navy seldom deploys like that.

[wastedmouthfull.livejournal.com]

Army> special forces?

[brock-tn.livejournal.com]

Army, Infantry NCO, 82d Airborne Div.

Of course, lark_tn has been at pains to point out that I have been deployed further away from home, at more risk, for longer periods, as an Army civil service employee, than I ever was while in uniform.