Internet-based Spousal Communication during Deployment: Does it Increase Post-deployment Marital Satisfaction?

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore the question: Is a service member's post-deployment marital satisfaction correlated with frequency and mode of communication during deployment? This study used an anonymous exploratory design with a sample of 119 Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) or Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) married veterans. Service members who communicated daily during deployment with their spouses had higher marital satisfaction scores than those who communicated less than once per week. Additionally, participants who used US mail had the highest marital satisfaction scores compared to telephone and internet-based communication. This study expands the overwhelmingly qualitative current literature to include quantitative analysis of this topic. This study also depicts the veterans' experiences since many of the previous studies of this topic used samples of spouses.In the present wars, Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), military personnel have the most modern forms of communication at their fingertips. Whereas in previous wars US mail was the only mode of communication, service members now can communicate with their loved ones over such media as telephone, email, instant messenger/message board, video, and webcam (Merolla, 2010), increasing frequency and immediacy of communication. Access to much of the modes of Ponder, Aguirre/INTERNET-BASED SPOUSAL COMMUNICATION DURING DEPLOYMENT 217 communication is provided by the military with non-profits assisting with items such as telephone calling cards and cell phones. Little is known about the impact that these additional communication modes have on the marital relationship after deployment. The purpose of the current study is to determine if a service member's post-deployment marital satisfaction is correlated with the frequency and mode of communication during deployment. Theoretical FrameworkMany theories exist about marital satisfaction covering a broad spectrum of aspects that impact satisfaction including employment, communication, adoption, and stress. For the purposes of this study, the two theories discussed are related to stressful events and are focused on the uniqueness of the military couples' experiences. A long-standing theory of marital satisfaction in the face of life-stressors is Hill's (1958) ABC-X Model in which he attempted to address how (A) an event or stressor and (B) the family's resources or strengths led to (C) how the family attached meaning to the event and whether they enter or avert (X) crisis. This theory has been thoroughly tested and revised (e.g., Boss, 2002;Lavee, McCubbin, & Patterson, 1985;McCubbin & McCubbin, 1991) with more recent work focusing on the theory's application to the military marriage. Most recently, Boss (2002) expanded on the ABC-X Model by proposing internal and external contexts. The internal context includes things the family has control over and can change such as the structural, psychological, and philosophical domains. The external context includes things the famil...

Intimate Partner Communication From the War Zone: A Prospective Study of Relationship Functioning, Communication Frequency, and Combat Effectiveness

“…Traditional communication methods of phone calls and letters were used less frequently. This finding appears to differ somewhat from that of Ponder and Aguirre (), who reported that 24% of their postdeployment sample of OIF or OEF veterans identified the telephone as their primary mode of communication home and 20% identified the U.S. mail while deployed. Participants in the Ponder and Aguirre study averaged 10 years older than participants in the current study (36 vs. 26 years), and this demographic difference may contribute to differences in communication preferences between the two samples.…”

“…Over the past several years, a number of published articles have focused directly or in part on home‐front communications from the deployed setting (American Psychological Association, ; Carter et al., ; Durham, ; Greene, Buckman, Dandeker, & Greenberg, ; Merolla, ; Ponder & Aguirre, ; Watson‐Wiens & Boss, ). The authors’ commentaries on the implications of war‐time communication advances have voiced similar themes and have been based mostly on qualitative interviews and anecdotal reports.…”

“…Research on the effects of the deployment cycle on military families extends back more Few studies have set out to systematically assess these competing potential effects. One study (Ponder & Aguirre, 2012) examined the relation between marital satisfaction and frequency of various types of communication during deployment. Participants were 119 married veterans of the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan recruited by posting a link to the study on national military Web sites.…”

Spousal Communication During Military Deployments

“…Service members deployed to Sinai in 1995 rated letters highly for showing support, exchanging general information, staying in touch, and sharing feelings (Schumm et al, 2004). Similarly, Ponder and Aguirre (2012) reported that frequency of letter writing was more predictive of postdeployment relationship satisfaction than frequency of communication by any other medium. Contrary to their hypothesis, this was even the at UNIV REGINA LIBRARY on June 4, 2016 jfi.sagepub.com Downloaded from case when comparing letters with the synchronous, media-rich webcam communication.…”

Examining Multiple Rhythms of Military and Veteran Family Life

“…Consistent communication during deployment has also been shown to ease postdeployment transitions for both partners (Rossetto, ) and service members (Ponder & Aguirre, ). These findings support the notion that consistent communication helps sustain satisfying relationships (Stafford, ).…”