Relational Maintenance during Military Deployment: Perspectives of Wives of Deployed US Soldiers

Abstract

This manuscript is one of many in a special issue of the Journal of Applied Communication Research on “Communication and Distance,” Volume 38, No. 1.

Deployment-based separations, during which military spouses' communication is limited and their uncertainty heightened, present numerous challenges to spouses' enactment of relational maintenance. To better understand how partners maintain relationships during deployment, this study analyzes interviews with 33 wives of deployed US service members. Content analysis yielded 24 forms of relational maintenance. Results also indicated factors that potentially shape and complicate maintenance performance, such as restrictions on the amount, timing, and content of communication. Rather than demonstrating universally effective patterns of maintenance, results suggest that spouses enact maintenance commensurate with their individual needs and resources. The author speculates that during deployment separations, spouses potentially negotiate an interplay in their relational maintenance between, on the one hand, careful planning and, on the other hand, creative improvisation.

Keywords:

• Relationship Maintenance
• Interpersonal Communication
• Relational Cognition
• Marriage
• Long-distance Relating

Acknowledgements

A previous version of this manuscript was presented at the 2007 meeting of the International Communication Association, San Francisco. The author expresses gratitude to Dan Steinberg, Shuangyue Zhang, Laura Crum, Carissa Dunlap, and the student assistants at Ohio State for their assistance in this research.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Andy J. Merolla

Andy J. Merolla is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO