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Abstract
Military life presents numerous sources of stress for members of the military and their spouses or partners. Military-related stressors include deployments in which military members are away for long periods and their spouses/partners are responsible for taking care of everything at home; combat-related psychopathology (e.g., PTSD); frequent relocation within the U.S. or overseas, resulting in spouses/partners having to leave friends, jobs, and community ties; isolation; financial problems; and infidelity or sexual jealousy during periods of separation. Multiple studies have focused on perpetrator characteristics as risk factors for military-related intimate partner violence (IPV). In this study, we explored situational stressors experienced by spouses/partners and how those stressors relate to IPV and other types of relationship conflict.
Participants were 178 spouses or partners of active-duty U.S. military members or veterans who had been on active duty during the relationship. They were recruited from online platforms (e.g., subreddits such as r/MilitarySpouse and r/Army; Facebook groups/pages such as the Fort Bragg community page) and snowball sampling. The anonymous online survey included scales and open-ended questions about stressors related to military life and whether these stressors had caused relationship conflict, emotional abuse/coercive control, or physical or sexual violence. Responses were coded using thematic analysis that was initially inductive. As themes emerged, analysis morphed into theoretical coding as participant responses aligned with existing theories of power and control within IPV research, namely the Power and Control Wheel.
Three major themes emerged in data analysis: (a) Individual Power and Control, which represented individual perpetrator behaviors that solidified power and control; (b) Institutional Power and Control, which represented the ways that the military as an institution facilitated greater power and control for military members and that participants felt “controlled” by the military, and (b) Situational Stressors, which represented aspects of military life that caused relationship stress or conflict and were not related to solidifying power and control within the relationship. Themes in individuals’ reasons for considering leaving or barriers to help-seeking were also discussed. These results build on current theoretical frameworks of violence typologies, namely situational couple violence and coercive and controlling violence. Results demonstrate the importance moving beyond individual perpetrator behaviors and instead examining the role of the military as an institution in the lives of IPV victims in future study.
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