TPC-Journal-V4-Issue2

The Professional Counselor \Volume 4, Issue 2 127 what it will mean to share a home again after becoming more independent. This experience of boundary ambi- guity can be very confusing for wives who recognize that their husbands are physically present, but who are still transitioning toward psychological acceptance that he is present. Role ambiguity may increase if the couple is not comfortable communicating with each other regarding roles, responsibilities and needs. Simultaneously, a soldier may feel disconnected and unaware of how to reengage without interfering with the family’s new roles. Thus, helping professionals must be prepared to work with the couple on strengthening basic communication skills and nurturing a climate that facilitates safe and transparent information exchange. Future research could evaluate the experiences of deployed husbands in terms of understanding how the distress level of their stay-behind wives impacts their duties while deployed. Such research might have national security implications. In addition, future research could examine deployments of 6 months or more regarding the struggles, challenges, resiliency, social and psychological effects, educational outcomes, parenting styles, and attachment of the deployed husbands, the stay-behind wives, and their children. One particular variable that may moderate the relationship between duration of deployment and psychologi- cal distress is the stay-behind wife’s social support system. Larsen and Kia-Keating (2010) found that a social support system significantly aided resiliency for stay-behind wives who experienced a military deployment. Furthermore, a wife’s well-being was positively impacted by having a mentor who had previously experienced a deployment herself (Larsen & Kia-Keating, 2010). This brings up an interesting perception of what social sup- port may be necessary for a military wife. Whereas some social support indices examine tangible support (i.e., someone to help around the house), the stay-behind wife may need a social support that relies more on reducing emotional stress. Future research could qualitatively explore the social support construct further by interviewing stay-behind wives and identifying the indices of social support that they deem important in terms of reducing stress dur- ing the post-deployment period. Such a qualitative process could then lead to the quantitative development of a more valid measure of social support necessary to reduce stress for stay-behind military wives, and therefore indirectly for their deployed husbands. Perhaps such a study could examine whether social support serves as a moderating or mediating influence on the relationship between deployment length and psychological distress of stay-behind wives. Such research could have both positive and negative implications for their families, the military, and society at large, as American society depends greatly on its military for national security. Conflict of Interest and Funding Disclosure The author reported no conflict of interest or funding contributions for the development of this manuscript. References Ainsworth, M. D. S., & Bell, S. M. (1970). Attachment, exploration, and separation: Illustrated by the behavior of one- year-olds in a strange situation. Child Development , 41 , 49–67. Barker, L. H., & Berry, K. D. (2009). Developmental issues impacting military families with young children during single and multiple deployments. Military Medicine , 174 , 1033–1040. Basham, K. (2008). Homecoming as safe haven or the new front: Attachment and detachment in military couples. Clinical