Trajectories of relational turbulence and affectionate communication across the post-deployment transition

ABSTRACT

Affectionate communication may play a key role in how military couples navigate the transition from deployment to reintegration. Informed by relational turbulence theory, this study considered how the trajectory of relational turbulence experienced by military couples over time predicted their verbal and nonverbal expressions of affection. Online self-report data were gathered from 268 U.S. military couples across eight months beginning at homecoming. Relational turbulence increased over time and affectionate communication decreased over time. Also as predicted, the trajectory of increasing relational turbulence corresponded with greater declines in verbal and nonverbal expressions of affection. These results advance relational turbulence theory, illuminate the trajectory of affectionate communication over time, and inform ways to assist military couples upon reunion after deployment.

KEYWORDS:

• Affectionate communication
• deployment
• military couples
• reintegration after deployment
• relational turbulence

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs through the Military Operational Medicine Research Program (Award W81XWH-14-2-0131). The U.S. Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity, 820 Chandler Street, Fort Detrick, MD 21702-5014, was the awarding and administering acquisition office. Opinions, interpretations, conclusions, and recommendations are those of the authors and are not necessarily endorsed by the U.S. Department of Defense. The authors are grateful to Bryan Abendschein, Erin Basinger, Daniel Byrne, Hallie Davis, Dale Erdmier, Kelly McAninch, Matthew Muscatella, Joseph Olsen, Matthew Pasquini, Laura Saldivar, Claudia Szczepaniak, and Sylvie Xiaowei Zhuang.

Notes

1 This paper is part of a series of reports from a larger project funded by the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs through the Military Operational Medicine Research Program (Award W81XWH-14-2-0131). Success in recruiting allowed us to more than double our original target sample size from 250 military couples to 555 military couples. We designed the project such that the full sample of 555 military couples provided data essential to the project aims, but the first half of the sample (N = 268 military couples) and the second half of the sample (N = 287 military couples) provided data for different secondary variables of interest.

Previous results from the project suggest that military couples acclimate to pragmatic changes in their living situation over time, but they also encounter relationship issues as the transition progresses. Regarding adjusting to new routines, data from the full sample (N = 555 military couples) documented a decline in people’s symptoms of general anxiety (Knobloch, Knobloch-Fedders, et al., 2018) and their difficulty with reintegration (Knobloch et al., 2019) over time. Regarding relationship challenges, findings from the full sample showed that military couples report the most positive changes to their relationship early in the transition (Knobloch-Fedders et al., 2020), and data from the second half of the sample (N = 287 military couples) revealed an increase in people’s relational uncertainty over time (Knobloch et al., 2021). Here, we draw on data from the first half of the sample (N = 268 military couples) to test hypotheses predicting an increase in relational turbulence and a decrease in affectionate communication over time. The overarching storyline of findings from the project, although complex, are theoretically reasonable given both the pragmatic and relational components of the post-deployment transition (Bowling & Sherman, 2008; Pincus et al., 2001).

2 We report McDonald’s (1999) omega (ω) as an estimate of reliability given its advantages over Cronbach’s α (Goodboy & Martin, 2020).

3 We also conducted subsidiary analyses to examine the robustness of the link between relational turbulence and affectionate communication in the broader context of this program of research (see Note 1). In particular, we examined a series of two-part final conditional models covarying the other substantive variables from prior quantitative papers: (a) communication during deployment and symptoms of anxiety (from Knobloch, Knobloch-Fedders, et al., 2018) and (b) posttraumatic stress symptoms, reunion uncertainty, reintegration interference from a partner, and reintegration difficulty (from Knobloch et al., 2019). Results were virtually identical to those reported in Table 4 (contact the first author for details).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs through the Military Operational Medicine Research Program (Award W81XWH-14-2-0131).