Off the Clock With Dr. Emma: My Spouse Is Home From Deployment, but Something’s Not Right
A therapist with deep ties to the military community, Dr. Emma Smith writes a monthly advice column for Military.com to address questions from our readers. Want Dr. Emma to answer your question next month? Submit it using the form at the end of the article.
Dear Dr. Emma,
My spouse is finally home after deployment. This is what we waited for. This is what we pushed through all the hard days for.
But now that he’s here, he can’t seem to settle. He walks around the house. He looks bored. He seems restless, like he’s always waiting for something else.
He tells me he wants to be here. But what the kids and I see is someone who feels halfway gone, like he’d leave again if the chance came up.
I don’t understand it. We made it through so much to get to this point. Why doesn’t being home feel like enough to keep him here?
-- A DisGRUNTled Wife
Dear DisGRUNTled,
Every once in a while, I worry that I’ve become removed from the day-to-day life of the military. But then your letter comes through, and I’m reminded that some experiences are timeless and simply true to the lifestyle. I, too, remember feeling crestfallen as my spouse and friends seemed to transition from grateful-to-be-home to listless-and-bored in less time than it took to unpack the gear that came home with them.
And while I’m going to lay out a number of insights and rationales in the paragraphs to follow, the most important piece -- the TL;DR, if you will -- is this:
What you’re noticing is likely not a failure of love or a lack of commitment to your family or appreciation for being home. And it’s also not your imagination.
Now for the longer version. I’m going to answer this in two parts.
Part 1: Reintegration
If you think about the nature of a deployment, regardless of whether it’s boots on the ground in a foreign territory for combat or advising, on a MEU (Marine Expeditionary Unit) or even on a non-combat rotational deployment, the experience is characterized by a high degree of structure, hierarchy, focus and consequence. A service member’s nervous system calibrates quickly to an environment where every decision matters, vigilance is rewarded and adrenaline combined with a sense of purpose provides the fuel necessary to endure suffering.
Now compare that to home.
Home is different.
Home asks for a completely different set of rules. Home prioritizes presence and belonging, not vigilance. It asks for mental, and even physical, agility to juggle competing priorities and schedules. Intensity is asked to give way to softer focuses such as connection and the mundane routines that keep life humming along. It’s a gear change that doesn’t come easily to a lot of service members. And for those of us left at home, it may be a gear shift we, ourselves, have never had to make, or not to the same degree.
The restlessness you’re observing is likely more of a sign that your husband’s nervous system is still operating in deployment mode. That sense of boredom might actually be dysregulation, meaning his body hasn’t caught up yet. It’s a little like jet lag. You land back home, but your body hasn’t caught up yet. You’re tired at the wrong times. You can’t sleep when you should. Nothing feels quite right, even though you’re in your own bed. The switch to “home” is a process and can take, according to some research, “several months” to complete.
And don’t forget, you and the kids are also going through your own period of re-adjustment. So as much as it might seem like your spouse is returning home to a stable system, the truth is far more complicated. The entire system is learning how to recalibrate together. Fortunately, the military has a lot of resources, from chaplains and Military Family and Life Counseling to family team building activities that can assist during this period. Please use the resources that are designed for you. There is no medal awarded for going through it alone.
Part 2: The Boys
I can say so many things about my own experience with “the boys.” In the best ways, I felt like I’d been gifted this incredible group of little brothers. And at the other end of the spectrum, they had sniper-like precision when it came to demolishing a rare date night with their shenanigans.
In order to fully and accurately answer this part of your question, however, I realized I was missing some critical perspective. So I enlisted the help of a dear friend: an infantry Marine with 22 years of experience and seven deployments, who has, through it all, stayed married and raised a family. He offered invaluable perspective on “the boys,” which I hope you’ll appreciate as much as I did.
“So, what about the boys?” I asked.
I watched him laugh to himself, take a deep breath, and then answer with the slow thoughtfulness of someone trying to distill a lifetime of experience for an outsider.
“Since joining the military, everything he’s been told matters -- and this is important -- are the boys. Deployment is what they prepare and train for. Even the Spartans hung signs alluding to ‘Out this door, nothing,’ meaning that outside of things that are starkly life or death, everything else pales. The boys matter. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t care.
“It doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to be there; it means he was given a very cut-and-dry sense of purpose with no other responsibilities, and then he’s plopped back into a society where none of the responsibilities seem as grave or as dire. Finding his way to settle, while still hoping his most animal days aren’t behind him, takes time.”
And there you have it. Straight from the grunt’s mouth.
So what are families supposed to do about it? Well, my friend and I came up with several things. Before going into them, however, I want to say this clearly: Wanting your spouse to stay connected to the people who helped him survive doesn’t mean accepting a life where his family comes second. Part of reintegration means learning how to belong in both worlds.
- Help your spouse get situated by assigning responsibilities and trusting them to get things done. However they get them done.
- Don’t micromanage or poke at how your spouse does things. Certain tasks must be done a certain way for safety or specific care, but relatively few things fall into those categories.
- Be honest about what you’re noticing. Earlier is better. Just because you’re giving your spouse some room to readjust doesn’t mean you have to wait until frustration turns into resentment to name what you’re seeing. Saying something like, “I notice you seem more at ease with the guys than at home, and I’m trying to understand what that means,” keeps the conversation grounded in observation rather than accusation.
- Trust that your spouse is doing their best and appreciates the trust. The more your spouse feels able to focus attention without the fear of “doing it wrong”, the easier the transition is.
- To whatever extent possible, let the boys come, too. If they’ve been operating as a close knit team for six-plus months, suddenly going at it solo may feel jarring. Some things can be shared (e.g., meals, celebrations, projects) if it works for the family. Inclusion can soften the transition and, at times, even enrich family life. Some of my favorite memories include this expanded cast of characters.
- Set clear boundaries about what stays private. Not every moment needs to be shared with the team. The kids’ bedtime routines, date nights for the two of you, certain weekends, and family activities should be kept just for the family. This isn’t meant to ice out the people your husband feels close to, but rather to make sure that home remains a soft place to land, and not just an extension of work.
Just remember, DisGRUNTled, reintegration is not a commentary on your spouse’s love or loyalty. It’s a long, often unwieldy process of recalibrating purpose, daily rhythm and sense of belonging within a family system that has also changed in your spouse’s absence. If you’re patient with the process and honest about your needs, you’re not asking too much. This is the real work of homecoming.
Off the clock, but always in your corner,
Dr. Emma
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