marriage strengthening?
With a joint reserve base in our community, and the largest army base in the U.S. a few hours away, I eagerly searched the Joining Forces site information on marriage strengthening activities for our returning serve members.
I was surprised that no hits were returned for either “marriage” or “divorce.” This past year the Healthy Marriage- Healthy Families Coalition of Tarrant County conducted a marriage strengthening workshop at the Fort Hood base. We have been told that the divorce rate on base approaches 80%. Clearly this contributes to the stresses of returning service members.
We offer a variety of marriage and relationship strengthening workshops in our community. We are ready to provide free programs specifically for returning service members should there be enough interest.
Can you tell me what efforts Joining Forces America is putting into rebuilding the relationships of our service members, and how we can offer more assistance in this area?
Regards
David Taylor
Program Recruiter
Healthy Marriage- Healthy Families Coalition of Tarrant County
1111 West Abram, Suite C
Arlington, Texas 76013
Office Number (817) 275-7576
Fax (817) 276-9916
dtaylor@theparentingcenter.org
http://www.healthymarriagetc.org
October 15th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
Here might be a key about working with military couples and deployments.
Here is a starting point that emerged from my dissertation. My main topic was a comparison of satisfaction in military versus civilian couples at a specific age of life.
As a sidebar, I was curious about the effect of deployment on the couple. I especially focused on the initial separation; mid-deployment meetings; and the return.
Basically: 100% of the men (deployed) and women (stay at home) answered the same way:
What was the worst part of the separation:
Men – when I left
Women – When he returned
When thinking about your spouse, what was the worst part of the separation for him or her.
Men about his spouse – when I left
Women about her spouse – when he returned
Both thought their partner was having exactly the same reaction to the separation and yet they were totally out of synch. And as they sought to work it through, the communication was ineffective due to a fundamental assumption that my partner sees it the same way I do, but will not address it.
It seems to me that that huge gaps in understanding and assumptions creates a considerable gap. That gap needs to be addressed and an understanding of the partner’s experience and point of view before any headway can be made.
I regards to approaches, tools and models: our next step will to develop and make those available here and affiliated with joiningforcesamerica.
If you have ideas, bring them on!
Tx,
Will