The Deployment Cycle of Emotions is a topic really close to my heart.
I want to cover it because of how underrepresented the personal experiences of spouses are on the internet. I see a lot of studies with the general outline of the deployment cycle of emotion but there’s something a lot more meaningful about hearing: “Deployment was like this for me” from another spouse.
When you think of post-deployment reuniting, what comes to mind is the photos you’ve seen of military spouses at the airport with homemade signage awaiting their soldier.
Homecoming photos are beautiful and emotional to look at but are also a classic example of the internet and its highlight reel. The entirety of the deployment emotional cycle isn’t captured in one photo.
Everyone’s experience is unique! One spouse may be crying for days when their spouse arrives, another may be stand-offish and angry at their spouse. Both reactions are completely normal.
Hey y’all! If you haven’t been here before, I’m Meghan and this is my blog about military spouse life, finances, marriage, mommy life, and our dream to one day live rural in our home state of Arkansas. Without further ado, let’s talk about deployment cycle of emotions.
There are 7 phases of emotional changes that occur during deployment. I’m telling you because no one told me, and I felt like a freak and a bad wife because I harbored a lot of resentment for my spouse. With our first deployment, we PCSed and my husband deployed about three weeks after reporting for duty at his new company. Because of our quick arrival, I didn’t attend any of the pre-deployment classes spouses are encouraged to go to.
I’m writing this for the spouse who missed those classes and needs to know your emotions are normal and you aren’t alone.
Phase 1 of The Deployment Cycle of Emotions: “Anticipation”
Anticipation speaks for itself. This phase honestly sucks. There’s no other way to describe this except for falling and anticipating the inevitable SMACK that will smush you upon landing. When you get those orders, you brace for impact. It’s likely that date will change, and change again, and change again, so also just “try and stay flexible” while you’re in the middle of a free fall. ‘Kay? ‘Kay.
Just prepare, but don’t set dates. And pack/reorganize/find child-care, but don’t book any flights. Make a plan, but really make three plans; because, it’s likely that none of them will actually be put into use. Cover. Your. Bases.
One of the things that can be so difficult about this phase is watching your husband/spouse get excited. It is hard on your family, but this is what they expected, swore, and want to do in service of their country. This can be difficult to understand, especially if this isn’t your first rodeo with deployment. With the second or third deployment, knowing how it impacts our marriage, I can definitely say that it will be hard to control and suppress my irritation with my husband when his face lights up: because he is leaving us, again.
Being understanding of their mindset is tough, but it’s honestly incredibly important to try and keep your frustration in check. This is what your spouse signed up for, and you signed up for them.
Phase 2: “Detachment and Withdrawal”
After the anticipation, comes the desperate need to cope. This presents in the form of emotional detachment and withdrawal in order to protect yourself from the hurt that inevitably comes with this separation. My husband completely emotionally withdrew about a week and a half before departure.
I’ll never forget being so mad at him for missing the last ultrasound (of our first baby) he had a chance to see before he left. He had to go in for work and of course that’s unavoidable and not his fault. However, my default was to tell him, “Just tell them you can’t be in for one more hour!” His response: “You might as well absorb that I’M GONE. You are on your own so you might as well just get used to it.” This pretty much knocked the air out of my lungs, but he wasn’t wrong.
It’s hard to sympathize, but this insensitivity is their own way of incapacitating their emotions. It’s not that your spouse doesn’t care, it’s that they can’t care.
They can’t take in that they’re missing your first pregnancy and potentially the birth of their first child. You know what you can’t do very well when you’re devastated? Perform well at a job that requires complete self-sacrifice and focus on the mission above all else. Cut the poor guy some slack. He’ll love you again in nine months.
I emotionally withdrew shortly after he did, knowing that if I kept pushing him to be present, I would only wind up putting myself in the direct line of his apathy. So, I just tried to stop caring about what he said, did, and honestly about HIM. This sounds insensitive, but compartmentalizing is a necessity in a marriage where you have long-term separation.
Phase 3 of the Deployment Cycle of Emotions: “Elevated Emotion”
Following detachment, the emotion sneaks in. We can’t keep it at bay forever; only shorten the timeframe in which it affects us. My experience in this phase was unique. I almost can’t write this because it just makes me sick to think about (and not just because I’m pregnant). I had 3 days of absolute misery. The experts define this phase as beginning one to six weeks into the deployment. Wrong for me. I don’t know how long it lasted for my husband, I only witnessed one day of him in this phase.
I drove Matthew to the airport for his deployment. We stopped at Panera on our way to base. I got a bagel with bacon, egg, and cheese. I found that the yolk was completely over-easy (not recommended in pregnancy) when we got back in our vehicle. Suddenly, my husband cared about me for the first time in what felt like weeks.
He bursted back through the door with my order and gave the staff an earful, “My wife’s pregnant you idiot she can’t eat this!” running out of his mouth with unnecessary aggression.
My elevated emotion took on a more embarrassing form as we arrived in the parking lot and I completely flooded our vehicle with tears. I lost control and couldn’t stop. A combustion of pregnancy hormones and straight up, real, actual PANIC. What if they don’t let him come home for the birth of our first baby? I’m not in the 12 weeks safe zone with pregnancy and I’ve had vaginal bleeding, what if I lose the baby and he isn’t here to grieve with me? What if when he comes back and I’m different he doesn’t look at me the same?
The embarrassing, never ending, absolutely OBNOXIOUS volume of tears didn’t stop. People walked by, I cried. He held me, I cried. I drove away, and I kept crying.
I remained in a state of shock for, thankfully, just three more days.
Phase 4 in the Deployment Cycle of Emotions: “New Routines”
After the heightened emotions subside, life levels out. Some articles refer to this as the stabilization phase. Stabilization occurred for me as soon as I got to my parents house because I was thrust into a new environment and it auto-reset my routines.
I had decided that being at a brand new base was probably not the best idea for my first experience with deployment. Sympathy and awe are insufficient terms to explain my feelings for wives who have been in routines with their spouses before they leave. I think going home to be with my family was easier.
Quickly, I adjusted to the new normal, and got used to my new life. I lived for the phone calls and texts and started waking up at 3 am because, that’s when we got to talk the longest.
The stabilization part, where they’re gone, is honestly the easiest part.
Phase 5: “The Home Stretch”
Toward the end of your stabilization phase, you’d start the countdown. This is the moment you’d both been waiting for. It’s almost over. It’s likely you’ll be anxious in the anticipation of your spouses’ return. I was antsy because my husband was returning to a very different version of my body that was nine months ripe with pregnancy and, let’s be honest, 50 pounds heavier.
Primarily though, I was experiencing anxiety over the potential that I might go into labor without him. I started preparing my mom for the potential that it may be she and I in the delivery room. My anxiety over labor without him was something he struggled to sympathize with because he was basically in the biggest crunch time of his whole deployment. He was focused on trying to get all his work squared away and passed on to the next guy who would takeover in his absence.
Matthew compartmentalized his emotions right up until he got on the airplane. He started to fly home and recognized the reality of “I’m about to see my wife.” This timeline of emotions presents differently in both partners. You can’t always expect that your spouse will be in the same phase you are. It’s important to listen and understand each other where you’re at as best as you possibly can.
Deployment Cycle of Emotions Phase 6: “Homecoming”
Some spouses equate homecoming to their first kiss with their spouse. You feel embarrassed, unfamiliar with your spouse. My experience wasn’t exactly that, but it was bizarre to see him again. It was like the US Military just poof-ed him to me. He was gone, then he wasn’t. Even though I had two days of travel time to know he was on his way, it didn’t feel any less sudden when he arrived.
I picked him up from the airport alone and I tried my best to look semi-cute in my huge-ness. Waited forever for him to come out, apparently he had stopped to brush his teeth so I wouldn’t have to smell his 36 hour airport breath. It was a bit like our wedding day, except he was walking toward me. I had anticipated tears but I was smiley from ear to ear. We were so ourselves again we went to our favorite local Vietnamese place for a post-flight celebration.
You stop feeling like yourself without them, but the buzz of homecoming can breathe life back into you.
I hadn’t pursued my hobby of sourdough since he left, but I was happy to pull my hungry starter from the back corner of the fridge and bake for my husband upon his arrival. The sourdough is just one example of something that brings me joy that I let go dormant. I love to cook, but I barely did while he was gone. That initial reconnection with him seemed to immediately bring back old routines.
I’d wager this phenomenon is something many women experience. Depression can creep up unnoticed in their absence and then retreat when they return.
The final stage of the Deployment Cycle of Emotions is: “Reintegration”
Next, we have reintegration. If you have children, just call that reintegration in hard mode. Matthew left, having no children, and returned to a newborn. This is no easy feat. We had major life transitions all at once, and it wasn’t easy. It is very normal to have a bit of a “This is my job and I don’t need you thank you very much!” mindset when it comes to the kids. I’ve noticed this is a heavily covered topic by psychologists who study this transition.
However, it’s very important to not live in this transition. You probably could do it without them, let’s be honest. Many women/single parents make it work. Trust me though, this isn’t where you want to pitch your tent.
When you won’t let them change a diaper because “I don’t need you!” one day you’ll resent them for never changing a diaper.
Try your best to rewire your brain as quickly as you can to prevent your spouse from feeling obsolete. They want to be a necessary part of the home. Don’t make them feel irrelevant.
Something I had to google because I had no idea it could occur is anger at your spouse. I had it, bad. I felt like a freak and an ungrateful wife. He had just given up a lot to provide for me and baby, but I couldn’t help but feel like he abandoned me. None of those cute homecoming pictures tell you that once the air of excitement wears off, you may be angry at them for leaving you in the first place. You may feel like you’re no longer excited to see them and you just want them to go away. I was feeling what happened without the logic of what happened.
It was clear to me that he left me when I was pregnant with his baby; not that he left in service of our family and our country.
There’s no easy way to move on from this. You just have to have those hard conversations of “this is what it felt like,” even though it’s not fun. Talk all your deployment emotions to death with your spouse so you can be conscious of each other’s psyche during this time. If they understand why you’re mad/sad/fill-in-the-blank, they’re less likely to take it personally. Reintegration is all irrational emotion based on the physical experience you just had, completely removed from the why. I know stabilization is a normal phase, just don’t allow your marriage to get defined by your temporary emotions in the long term.
Homecoming is a singular moment that marks a much more difficult experience.
I assumed that the most difficult time is them being gone when in reality, a lot of the women I know compartmentalize during that phase really well. The reintegration almost opens a box of emotion that you’ve stored away the entire duration of the deployment. Remember that every experience is different but every experience is normal! Don’t feel like a freak because you’re mad at your husband for leaving, just know that you aren’t the only one. If you feel abandoned, someone else probably did, too.
I hope that you leave here today feeling encouraged and informed about the phases of deployment and the emotions that can follow it. Visit my homepage for more military spouse content and encouragement! Thank you for stopping by the blog.
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