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A Close Look at Relationships: Supporting Military Couples

About This Series

Military couples and families experience unique challenges with frequent relocation, deployment, and reintegration. Strong military couple relationships require an investment of time and effort and are vital in maintaining mission and family readiness. This webinar series shares research on the impact of military life on families, as well as tools and resources for service professionals to assist military couples and families in strengthening relationships.

Resources

Download ReTheWe QuickLinksDownload ReTheWe InfographicDownload Millennium Cohort Family Study: The Impact of Military Life Resource List

Webinars

Destigmatizing Help-Seeking for Military Couples

Join this webinar to learn about this interactive campaign initiative designed to provide tools and resources to help rekindle, repair and reset relationships.

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The Relationship Checkup: Support for Military Couples

The Relationship Checkup is a powerful tool used by Military and Family Counseling Program to provide couples with the best available ongoing relationship support helping couples heal, strengthen, and maintain their relationship health

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Millennium Cohort Family Study: The Impact of Military Life

This webinar will share the findings of the Millennium Cohort Family Study which provides an understanding of the military experience and its impact on the health and well-being of Service members and their families.

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Military Children’s Family Relationships

This presentation will focus on evidence about the role of military service in shaping children’s family relationships, how those relationships connect to their well-being and adjustment, and how practitioners can use this evidence to support military families.

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The Relationship Changes of Military Couples During Reintegration

Following their return home from deployment, military couples experience a wide variety of changes in their relationship.  This webinar will explore the findings of an 8-month longitudinal study of 555 military couples during the reintegration period.

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Podcast Episodes

Strengthening Couples’ Relationships – The HRMET (part 2)

This episode centers around the Healthy Relationship and Marriage EducationTraining or HRMET. HRMET was designed to increase child welfare professionals’ access to relationship and marriage education.

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Strengthening Couples’ Relationships – ELEVATE (part 3)

This episode centers around the relationship education curriculum, ELEVATE: Taking Your Relationship to the Next Level.   This curriculum was developed in partnership with Dr. Ted Futris and Dr. Francesca Adler-Baeder (Auburn University) based on the NERMEM model.

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More from the Blog

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Trends in the Relationship Changes of Military Couples During the Reunion Period

The reunion of military couples following deployment is a long-awaited occasion marked by joy, relief, and celebration. However, the reintegration period constitutes a pivotal transition for military couples, and navigating the relationship changes that occur following homecoming can be very challenging.

Relationship Changes of Military Couples During Reintegration

By Alex Hietpas and Lynne Knobloch-Fedders Reunion following deployment is a momentous occasion for military service members and their partners. However, homecoming is only the first day of a long and important transition for military couples, and navigating the relationship changes that occur can be quite challenging.  A recent study…

“It’s Different”: Re-igniting Couples’ Relationships after Deployment 

By Karen Shirer, Ph.D. Summary Reintegration after deployment can pose relationship challenges, but it can also provide opportunities for military couples. Research shows that by focusing on relationship processes post-deployment, couples can strengthen their relationship. Resources for service providers on strengthening military couples' relationships are provided below.  When couples and…

Relationship Education: An Important Tool for Strengthening Military Families

By Karen Shirer, Ph.D. If you were to ask the military families you serve, what is on the top of their minds and causing them great stress, you might hear: "I don’t know if I’m going to get a text message or a call saying — ‘I have to go.’…

Relationship Check-Ups: An Approach to Strengthening Military Families

By Karen Shirer, Ph.D. What makes a couple’s relationship distressed or troubled? This is the question I asked myself as I began to write this recap of a recent OneOp (MFLN) webinar, The Relationship Checkup: Support for Military Couples, by Dr. James Cordova and Kelly Smith. A brief Internet search…

Building Healthy Relationships in Military Families

By Jenny Rea, Ph.D. When asked, “How are you?”; how often have you responded, “I’m good, but I’ve just been so busy”?  It’s easy to get caught up in the busyness of life.  As a helping professional, you are tasked with several work duties each day alongside managing all the…

Supporting Military Couple Relationships

  by Anita Harris Hering In fall of 2020, the Department of Defense, Military Community and Family Policy launched the relationship campaign, Re the We, to help military couples rekindle, retool, and repair their relationships or reset in healthy ways when a relationship ends. Re the We connects military community…

Rekindling Relationships: Facing Challenges for Military Couples

Intimate relationships take work, and it takes both people in a relationship putting in the work to stay resilient and invested in each other. It is challenging enough for civilian couples and even more challenging for military couples. Military couples face challenges related to PCS, deployments, housing, finances, and a…