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There are outside and external pressures placed on military families, especially on those service men who experience combat. Combat changes people. People have different capacities to adjust to those changes. As a former Marine and a counselor, I have to say we have not yet fully learned how to prepare these men for reentry into non-combat roles. For those who have difficulty making adjustment, it can be a major stresser in marriage.
Having said that,I don't think the military pressures destroy marriages. My experience with families indicates that it is not the external forces that bring down marriages, but what it is the failure of one or both partners to bring full commitment to the relationship. Said another way, it is not what happens around the partnership rather what the partners bring to the partnership.
Military marriages can and have worked. In my family and my wife's family, There are many who served in WWII and Korea, B-17 pilots and navigators, and infantrymen, both officers and enlisted. In no case can I find a marriage among them that fell apart because of military experience. The same is true for me and my two brothers. Dianna and I have been married for 48 years now.
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