Operationalizing deployment history: Three approaches to examining associations with military couples' marital...

Military life, especially deployment, introduces stressors that extend beyond the individual service member, often influencing partners and family members. The spillover-crossover model suggests that work-related stressors can spill over to affect individual well-being and cross over to intimate partners, shaping couple dynamics. However, findings on the relationship between deployment and relationship satisfaction are mixed, perhaps in part because of different ways of measuring deployment history. Using dyadic survey data from 285 U.S.-based military couples with an active-duty service member and their civilian spouse, three separate path models were tested to assess the association between deployment and marital satisfaction with three different operationalizations of deployment history. Associations with other military characteristics, including the number of permanent change of station moves, years of service, and branch were also investigated in these models. Service members who reported at least one combat deployment reported higher marital satisfaction than those who had experienced only non-combat deployments. However, when service members were injured during a combat deployment mission, their spouses reported lower marital satisfaction. Surprisingly, of the other military characteristics examined, more PCS moves were consistently related to greater marital satisfaction. Overall, the results indicated that these military families were largely resilient and successful at navigating the relationship challenges of military life, suggesting a strength-based approach for efforts with military couples. Practical implications are also considered, particularly for families with an injured service member. Limitations and future directions for research are also shared.