According to a new study by RAND Corp., longer and more frequent military deployments to the Middle East are damaging military marriages. U.S. troops are being sent to Iraq and Afghanistan for longer amounts of time and at more frequent intervals. As a result, more and more couples are experiencing marital dissatisfaction and are deciding to call it quits when their spouse gets back to the U.S. after serving abroad.
The new study is considered the largest done on marriages in the military. The RAND Corp. tracked the marriages of more than 460,000 U.S. service members for 10 years, and discovered that the possibility for a divorce increases with each passing month that a spouse is away at war. The study points out that married couple soften have high expectations for their lives together.
A sudden, lengthy military deployment can be extremely damaging to those expectations, and leave couples that were once disillusioned sobered by the realities of life as a military spouse. When things get difficult, some spouses determine that they can't handle it, and they decide to divorce rather than deal with the emotional stress and turmoil.
The study also revealed that long deployments were very hard on marriages that were formed prior to September 11th, 2001. Data shows that one in seven marriages formed prior to the terror attacks eventually failed. This is because military spouses did not have any anticipation that their spouses would be deployed to the Middle East following the attacks. The shocking realization that America would enter into combat in these countries terrified and frustrated spouses.
The divorce rate for military couples who wed after 9/11 was slightly improved, with about one in every eight marriages failing at some point. As the war in Iraq grew more and more intense, deployments grew longer and more frequent. Those in the Army were particularly vulnerable to long deployments. The overall divorce rate in the military moved from 2.6% pre-9/11 to 3.7% post-9/11. The rate dipped slightly last year.
The study reports that the longer the deployment, the greater the risk of divorce. Those that were deployed for a full year had a greater possibility of staying together than those that were deployed for 18 months. This is partially because it is difficult for a spouse to remain faithful for such a lengthy amount of time. Researchers also learned that the risk of divorce is greater in locations where the deployment is more dangerous.
This may be because of the added stress suffered by the spouse at home. Also, if the married service-member that is deployed is a woman, then this increases the potential for divorce. The researchers also learned that women service members have a higher overall divorce rate regardless of whether or not they are deployed. When a combat tour is a factor in a marriage, female service members face a 50% chance that their marriage will fail within the first five years.
This recent study challenges a RAND research paper that was published in 2007 and argued that deployments actually strengthen, rather than weaken, military marriages. If you want more information about military marriages, or if you are a military member that is looking for a local military divorce attorney, then this directory can help you. You will want to make sure to choose an attorney that specializes in military divorce, as these divorces are often conducted differently than your typical divorce is. Military members are allowed certain privileges so that their marriage won't detract from their service to the country. Get started on your military divorce today!