Today during our Wives of Faith meeting, one of our wives shared her concern about how things will be after her husband comes home from his deployment which isn’t too far away.

It’s been said that the transition after deployment can be even harder than the actual deployment. Though your couple status hasn’t changed, you have been living separate lives. He’s been living in a war zone – working long days, focused on his mission and keeping himself and his fellow soldiers safe and alive. You’ve been at home – also working long days, focused on keeping your home and family going and doing everything you can to support your husband while he’s been away.

We can be tempted to fall into the trap of playing the “Who Had it Worse” game. But it’s not so much about who has had it worse – the challenges are just different.

If you are about to experience a homecoming, or maybe you’re dealing with the transition right now, here are a few things to think about that may help you and your family have the best experience possible as you reunite.

Talk before he’s home. The communication needs to happen before he gets off the plane and walks in the door and sees that you’ve rearranged the living room furniture and the dog’s food bowl is in a different spot then where it was before he left. Talk about things that have changed, talk about how each of you have changed. Talk about your expectations – does he have visions of just lying around for a couple of weeks doing nothing? If he’s Guard/Reserve, are you hoping he’ll take time to spend with the family before hurrying off to resume his civilian job responsibilities? If you have kids, talk about parenting roles and any concerns you may have about your children.

Keep your expectations low. We all can find ourselves dreaming and romanticizing about those first few weeks that our husbands will return. If we’re not careful, we can turn those dreams into fairy tales with no chance of matching reality and offering a whole lot of potential for disappointment. Because the reality is that it will take time for your husband to adjust to being back home. When my husband returned from his first deployment, I realized that while his deployment was over, mine wasn’t. That’s because Cliff needed time to decompress and just relax. And as much as I was looking forward to help around the house and with our son, I had to recognize what he needed – and that was time to adjust and feel at home again.

Be willing to sit. Resist the voice inside your head which is running an on-going to do list of everything that needs to be done around the house and with the kids and take some time just to be with your husband. Men and women have such different perspectives and needs as it is, but deployment and the transition after deployment can seriously heighten those differences. You may find it frustrating that all he wants to do is sit, and have you sit with him. But he hasn’t had a chance just to sit in a long time. And even if he has been able to have a little downtime while overseas, it’s a different version – “relaxation” does not happen in a war zone.  So be willing to put aside your to-do list for just a little while and instead, enjoy just being. Being a couple, being a family, being together.

Bringing the war home. Every service member will have a different experience during their time overseas. Some will have seen serious combat. Others will not. But everyone will have a certain amount of adjustments to make. It may take time to adjust to sleeping in a quiet house with no helicopters flying overhead. Loud noises or sudden movements may spook him. This is normal and should gradually subside.

Wives can make mistakes if we’re not careful – we can assume the absolute worst, that our husbands are coming home just shells of their former selves, with no real basis for believing that, and drive our husbands and ourselves crazy looking for signs of PTSD or TBI, or we can go the other extreme, thinking that they will be exactly the way they were before they left and ignoring any signs that may appear.

When War Comes Home is a great resource for any military wife who wants to arm herself with information and knowledge of how to help her husband sort through the emotions and conflicts of coming home from war.  The book can walk you through what to know and what to look for should your husband be experiencing serious symptoms or signs of PTSD.

Be patient with the “new normal.” Resist wishing that everything will go back to being the same before your husband left. After all, if your husband hadn’t left for a year, would he necessarily be the exact same person one year later? Of course not. Whatever experiences life brought his way would change him or grow him. He wouldn’t be the same. Neither would you. So expecting everything to return to the way it was before the deployment doesn’t make a whole lot of sense either. He’s changed. You’ve changed. And now it’s time for you both to figure out how to move forward together with those changes.

It takes time. It’s not easy. But you’re also not alone. Pray for your husband daily and for your family, and ask God to help bring the two of you back together and help you to be closer than ever.

What other thoughts do you have about the transition after deployment? What’s been your experience? What is your advice to others? Let’s share and get some discussion going on this important topic.

Popularity: 4% [?]