Trajectories of romantic partners' social functioning across the military deployment cycle

Research has documented adverse psychiatric effects of wartime deployment on military spouses/partners, yet studies examining partners' quality of life beyond symptomatology are lacking. This study identified trajectories of social functioning among partners of military personnel across an 18-month deployment cycle. National Guard soldiers and their spouses/partners (N = 1,028 dyads) completed assessments 2-5 months predeployment to Kuwait/Iraq or Afghanistan (Time 1), at 4 months (Time 2) and 8 months (Time 3) during deployment, and 2-3 months postdeployment (Time 4). Latent class growth modeling revealed four distinct trajectories among partners: (a) stable high (72.1%), characterized by consistently high social functioning throughout; (b) recovery (13.3%), experiencing deployment-related decline in social functioning followed by postdeployment improvement; (c) stable moderate (12.9%), demonstrating consistently moderate functioning; and (d) declining (1.7%), showing marked decreases in functioning across the cycle. Trajectories were then compared on partner and soldier predeployment characteristics. Compared to the stable high group, stable moderate partners-and their soldiers-reported higher negative emotionality/neuroticism and lower deployment readiness, relationship satisfaction, and social support. Recovery partners differed only in their own higher neuroticism. In contrast, declining partners differed primarily on external factors, reporting more potentially traumatic events, less social support, and being partnered to soldiers with higher neuroticism. Thus, partners of National Guard soldiers follow diverse social adjustment pathways, challenging monolithic assumptions about military family resilience. These findings advance the field's understanding of the variable ways that partners respond to deployment and may be used to optimize delivery of programs targeting different dimensions of military family well-being. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).