Back from the Front: Combat Stress, Love and the Family

by Aphrodite Matsakis, Ph.D.

Available from The Sidran Institute 200 East Joppa Road, Suite 207 Baltimore, MD 21280-3107  

(410) 825 8889    sidran@sidran.org       www.sidran.org

 

To write about the combat veteran is to write about fortitude, dedication, selflessness, and experiences unfathomable to those who have never known the indescribable horrors of war. To write about you – the veteran’s spouse or partner – is to write about another kind of loyalty and perseverance, and yet another kind of pain and sadness.

The trauma of war can affect not only the warriors, but their partners and children as well. Often it is you, the veteran’s partner, who helps sustain the veteran during their depressions, anxiety attacks, and post-traumatic reactions; and you, and perhaps you alone, who has sustained your veteran’s will to live during their most anguished moments. Unfortunately, some veterans vent their anger (at themselves or at others whom they felt betrayed them) on the people they love and who love them the most – their partners and children.

The purpose of this book is to help you (and your veteran) better understand combat trauma and its possible effects on intimate relationships and family life and to guide you to resources that can help strengthen every member of your family. The beginning chapters provide basic information about combat trauma and how it can lead to depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and other forms of emotional pain. The remaining chapters focus on some of the most common problems confronting families of combat veterans: emotional numbing, sexual difficulties, anger, and guilt.         

There are also chapters on family violence, children, women veterans and military couples and sections on how to cope with anger and depression, how to find helpful organizations and books, and how to communicate effectively on difficult issues.

In addition to describing the tensions that can result from combat trauma, this book emphasizes the many ways a veteran’s war experiences can help enrich their family. Just as one part of your family cannot suffer without that suffering affecting the entire unit, if your veteran has grown emotionally (or spiritually) as the result of combat, their growth can influence and inspire you and other family members. Keep in mind that the turmoil you and your veteran are experiencing can lay the foundation for a more meaningful relationship and for an improved outlook on life.  

This book is based on the available research on the impact of combat trauma on family life and on some thirty years of clinical experience with veterans (male and female) and their partners and children.

 Table of Contents

What It’s Like to Love a Combat Vet: Five Women Tell Their Stories

1. What is Combat Trauma?

2. Common Traumatic Reactions:

Post-traumatic Stress and other Anxiety Disorders, Dissociation, Depression, and Somatization

3. Questions and Answers about Combat Trauma

A. How many veterans really suffer from symptoms of combat trauma?

B. What effect can combat experience have on symptoms of combat trauma?

C. What effect can the atmosphere at home have on veterans?

D. How might war affect veterans spiritually and morally?

E. Why are some veterans more affected by combat than others?

F. How can war affect veterans physically?

G. How can war affect veterans’ ways of thinking? (Military Mind-Sets:  Perfectionism, All-or-Nothing Thinking. Denial of Personal Difficulties)

H. What are some of the positive benefits of combat duty?

4. Emotional Distancing

5. Combat Stress and Sex

6. Anger, Grief and Guilt

7. The Reality of Multiple Roles

8. Battered Women

9. Women Veterans

10. Military Couples

11. Combat Stress and Children