Relationship Dynamics: Divorce, Deployment, and Remarriage

Episode Summary of “Relationship Dynamics: Divorce, Deployment, and Remarriage”

Welcome back to The Communicate & Connect Podcast for Military Relationships with your host, Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky. In today’s episode, “Relationship Dynamics: Divorce, Deployment, and Remarriage,” we tackle the tough transitions that many military families face. Dr. Polinsky delves into the emotional journey of losing significant relationships, the complexities of establishing a new normal, and the challenging yet vital process of starting over.

Drawing on her personal experiences and professional expertise, she covers everything from the pain of breakups and the loneliness of deployment to the adjustments required for remarriage and single parenthood. We’ll explore practical strategies like creating meaningful rituals and maintaining routines to help you and your family navigate these life changes. Whether you’re dealing with a recent separation, preparing for a deployment, or contemplating remarriage, this episode offers valuable insights and actionable advice to help you move forward. Tune in, subscribe, and don’t forget to check out our show notes for additional resources. Let’s get started!

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Episode Transcript for “Relationship Dynamics: Divorce, Deployment, and Remarriage”

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:00:01]:
This podcast is sponsored by Communicate and Connect Counseling, where we have a team of therapists who provide individual couples and family therapy services, all tailored to meet the needs of military and veteran families. To learn more about our services, visit www.connecticateandconnect.com.

Welcome to the Communicate and Connect podcast for Military Relationships with your host, Elizabeth Polinsky, a military marriage counselor. If this is your first time listening to the Communicate and Connect podcast, please take a second to go, rate, review and subscribe to make sure you get all our future episodes. We also really want to know what it is you love about our podcast.

And if for some reason you’re not loving it, we want to know that too, because we’re committed to providing the best quality content to help you improve your relationships. This is episode six, Relationship Dynamics, Divorce, Deployment, and Remarrying. So to start off this episode, I just wanted to really take a second to talk about how a lot of us have to restart over again in life.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:01:34]:
We lose the relationships sometimes. These are the most important relationships we’ve ever had, the best relationships. And it can be so painful. And I can really, really relate to this. I was engaged twice before my current, before my spouse, and I lost both of them. And even looking back, I guess, like, looking back now, they’re still painful. Those two people were very, very important to me. And several years later, I can maybe say there were some positives that we didn’t stay together or that I grew as a person.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:02:19]:
I most certainly did grow as a person. I think pain either swallows you up or it forces you to grow. And thank God that I had therapists to help me grow instead of getting swallowed by that pain. But both of them were excruciating.

And to feel like you found your person, are planning out a life with them, and to have that come crashing down and to have it come crashing down so quickly and for a lot of people, you don’t have any say in the matter, no choice. The other person kind of unilaterally decides that they’re just over, it’s out, they’re done, they’re out. And that can be so, so, so painful. In one of the relationships that I had, I gave up my job in my career for them.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:03:10]:
And that was really hard. And it’s hard when you have given up other important parts of your life to prioritize your partner and then they leave. That is so infuriating and frustrating. And I know other people can relate to this, especially if they are, you know, military spouses or have been in military relationships. The second one, the second fiance that I had, I moved across the country for both of these relationships. I made huge, drastic life changes to prioritize and invest in the relationships. And both times they ended. And each time that they ended, I had to create an entirely new life for myself.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:03:53]:
I had to create new friendships. Oftentimes I had to, like, kind of redo my career in some ways. Sometimes I had to move. I had to discover a whole new normal. And I didn’t have kids at that time. But if you have had to start over after a relationship or start over due to a deployment and you have kids, the difficulty of that could be multiplied by at least 10, if not more.

The difficulty of having to restart your life and create a new normal is so hard on its own. And then you add in kids, and you’re also helping your kids start a whole new life while dealing with your ex.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:04:39]:
It’s a lot. It’s a lot. And so I wanted to really take a moment to talk about how to. How to start over and how to kind of move. Move through that transition. So there are a few different types of transitions that are. Are common. So divorce is a really common one.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:05:03]:
Breakups, any type of divorce, separation breakup is a huge transition. And it’s. What’s challenging is that you’re losing someone who’s so important to you, someone who maybe meant the world. Sometimes this was your safe place, the person that you thought you could go to for comfort. Sometimes it was the dream that you had for your future. And to have that sort of crashing down around you is. There’s just so much grief with that. You also have transitions that are related to moves.

Military and career moves; challenges, widowhood impact.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:05:41]:
So if you are in the military, you know what I mean? But when I say moves, if you’re a military spouse, it can be very challenging to move around with your spouse. And then also there are times where you move because one partner got a cool job somewhere and you want to be supportive of that. And so you. You move to further your partner’s career.

And sometimes that’s not related to the military, but you might still move, move to help out their career. Widowhood. If your spouse or your partner dies, this can be very, very painful. I had friend who, you know, their partner went to the store just to, like, grab something small.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:06:28]:
I don’t know, maybe it was like milk or something. I don’t actually know what he went to grab, but he just like left the house, like just normally and didn’t come back home. And later she found out that he had died. He had been hit by a car. It’s hard to. Hard to imagine something like that happening. But at the same time, things like this, they happen every day and there’s no way to prevent them or to control them. But at any point in time, our loved ones could be taken from us and they could die and we could all of a sudden be alone.

Single parenthood: Transitioning and embracing new relationships.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:07:06]:
Whether you went through a breakup or a divorce or whether your partner died, if you’re moving into single parenthood, this is a really big transition that requires a whole new normal. Also, if you get remarried sometimes, you know, I tend to think that everybody deserves to be loved. And so if you are a single parent, way to go. My mom was a single parent and I have mad respect for all the single parents out there. I really hope that one day you have a very fulfilling relationship if you are a single parent.

And so if you decide to remarry or if you, even if you don’t get married in like a legal sense, if you partner with someone again in a significant way, that could require creating a whole new normal and a transition. A transition not just for you, but also a transition for your kids. And if you’re, if your new partner has kids from a previous relationship, that’s, you know, everybody’s transitioning.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:08:12]:
Military specific ones. I’ve had so many couples who are long distance. Some of them, some of the couples that I’ve worked with, both of them have been military and they can’t always co locate together. So sometimes couples who are the military together, they get stationed in different places and they’re far away and they may be separated for several years.

My spouse and I, we were long distance for a while just because of trying to protect my career. He was, we didn’t know how long he would be somewhere and so I didn’t leave my job when I wasn’t sure if he would still be. Be in Virginia very long. And so we were long distance for over a year, I want to say almost a year and a half.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:09:03]:
And that was very, very challenging. And other couples do this too. They’re not sure if they’re ready to get married, if they’re ready to move across the country for someone. And so they stay long distance. Very common with the military. If you do move with your partner and go wherever they go, the moves, each move is a transition. Deployment is a huge transition. It’s very, very hard.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:09:29]:
There’s like a pretty intense loneliness and uncertainty and it takes a while to like, get in the flow of things. And then, and then you’re so excited when they come back. But when, when your partner comes back from deployment, then it’s a whole new transition to get used to them back in the house. Especially if they had an extended deployment and they were gone for a really long time. If you or your partner experience trauma, this is a big, big challenge.

So I’ve worked with a lot of people who experienced military sexual trauma where they were assaulted while they were serving their country. And both in terms of it being an individual transition, of learning how to heal and cope after something so horrific has happened to you, that’s pretty huge. But it’s also, it’s also challenging for the family and for, you know, a partner who wants to be supportive and isn’t really sure how they can help.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:10:31]:
And sometimes sex has a whole new meaning after something like that. And it’s not always just, it’s not just military sexual trauma. I guess that’s what I’ve worked with the most often. But I’ve worked with a lot of people who had PTSD just from kind of the violence and the life threatening experiences that they faced while being deployed. That has just as much of an impact on individuals and families as military sexual trauma does. So both are very challenging.

What are some of the typical challenges if you faced any of these transitions? What are some of the challenges? One is brand new roles. New roles and expectations for what you’re supposed to do, what your partner is supposed to do, what your kids are supposed to do, who you interact with.

Co-parenting challenges: transitions, stress, role changes.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:11:22]:
If you’re co parenting, there’s new roles like what am I responsible for versus what is my ex responsible for? As we are trying to co parent our children, you could have. So you probably are going to have stress if you are going through a life transition of any kind. But you know, changing jobs, that is pretty stressful. Maybe you really loved the job that you left behind and now you’ve moved and there aren’t great job opportunities or it’s not like your dream job or you know, it just, you know, sometimes is, is not as great as where you were before you could have financial stress.

Moving is challenging, it’s expensive. And if you had a house and you had to sell it, or if you have to buy a new house, all of these things, they add up. And then obviously like maybe limited social support. When you have these transitions, whether it’s a divorce or a move or your partner dying, any of these types of things, your social group changes.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:12:31]:
Who is a close friend might change. And having to start over with creating new friendships is really hard. Trying to get to know people from the very beginning. As you spend more time in one place and as you invest your life in one location at one job, you develop relationships with people that can be very, very meaningful. A lot of people talk about their work environment as a family. And when you have to move, you may lose that family. If your partner was in the military and you guys get divorced, you may lose that sort of family feeling that you had. So these are some of the typical challenges.

Kids experience stress from family changes, need support.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:13:14]:
Kids can have some challenges too. Any type of big separation, like if you as the parents are having stress in your relationship or because just life stress, your kids are going to pick up on that and they’re going to start feeling stressed because you’re stressed. Sometimes will have more anxiety or depression problems after a big change. They sometimes act out and get into trouble more, which is really just a result of this type of transition that’s happening in the family. Kids can sometimes become quiet and perfect.

So if you think your kid is so mature and they’re having, you know, they’re handling the transition so well, I would be very suspicious of that. And I would probably get them in therapy because if they’re acting out and they’re. Or they’re angry or if they’re clearly having more depression and anxiety or nightmares, those are signs that most people would say, okay, maybe my kid might need a little extra support from a therapist during this time.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:14:23]:
But the kids that get quiet and they become kind of perfect and they seem mature and like they’re handling everything really well. Those kids often get overlooked by schools, parents, medical professionals, because they don’t look like any. They don’t look like they’re struggling or they have any problems going on.

But kids shouldn’t be too mature for their age. And if they look like they’re handling it with so much maturity, then therapy can probably help. Usually that sense of quiet, perfect maturity is actually a sign of anxiety and stress. So these are some typical challenges. So so far we’ve covered types of transitions and types of challenges, both for the adult and for kids.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:15:16]:
Now what do you do if you have been going through a variety of transitions or you see one coming up soon, or, you know, you want to take a preventative approach or a retroactive approach. What are some things? So number one is you gotta create a new normal. And there are two ways. There are rituals and routines. So a ritual is something that is pretty significant. It’s like a ceremony. Like weddings are rituals, graduations are rituals, birthdays are. And having like a birthday party, those are rituals.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:15:55]:
They’re ways that we as, as a family or as a society that we celebrate big milestones and we celebrate life changes through rituals. And so I’m thinking of Lord of the Rings. This image always comes to my mind whenever I’m talking about rituals where at the end of the first movie in the Fellowship of the Ring and Boromir dies and they give him this funeral inside of the boat and they send it off in the water.

That is a ritual. It’s a way that we mark the transition of someone’s death. And so rituals can help people kind of process the grief. And it’s sort of like a symbol of moving on to the next thing. And so rituals can be very, very helpful.

Create meaningful, personalized rituals for life transitions.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:16:45]:
If you see people like burning old letters from ex lovers or people burning pictures or the gifts that they gave them, those are rituals. And so think about what types of rituals you want to have as a family. They don’t always have to be, you know, death related. Like in the Boromir Lord of the Rings example.

A ritual, a ritual could be something more positive, like how are we going to say goodbye to our old home? You could also develop a ritual for each time you move into a new house. So I’m just kind of going with moves like assuming you got your military family and you’re moving kind of frequently, you can have a saying goodbye to that town and that home ritual. And you could have a sort of like a saying hello and settling into and building a new type of ritual. There could be a ritual for right before deployment and there could be one for coming home from deployment.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:17:50]:
If you went through a divorce or a breakup or a death, you will want to think about new rituals. I think sometimes after a big change like that, you know, parents, they want to maintain the same sort of rituals that they had when they were still together with their, with their ex or when they, when their partner had, was still alive.

And so maybe they always had brunch on Sundays, Sunday brunch, maybe that was a family tradition. Family traditions are types of rituals. So maybe that was a ritual that they had when they were still married or when their spouse was still alive. Those can be helpful. It’s perfectly fine to keep some of those traditions going, but you need to create new ones. You want to make it, it’s going to help you and it’s going to help your kids.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:18:45]:
And you want to make it kind of like a clear distinction that we’re starting this new phase in this new chapter of our life. And while it’s okay. To have some things that we remember from our old life. We really. You want to be intentional about creating rituals that show this is part of our new life together.

Maybe you keep Sunday brunch, or maybe you do Sunday brunch once a month, but then maybe you add in a new ritual of Friday movie nights or Friday night bowling night, family bowling night, something like that. That can be a new pattern that you guys develop that says, this is what we do as a family. So that’s a little bit about rituals.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:19:31]:
Routines are kind of like rituals, but they don’t always have the same meaning. So routines are more like, this is when we all wake up and this, you know, and you brush your teeth, and then you shower, and then you get ready for school. And then. And once while you’re getting ready for school, I make your lunchbox, and then you run out the door and you go to school. That is a routine.

Then there’s like a coming home routine of, how are we gonna do dinner? Who’s cooking? And how’s homework gonna get done? There’s a bedtime routine. So these are as kind of like the schedule or the itinerary for the day for getting going or ending the day. Routines could also be like when we go grocery shopping and things like that.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:20:17]:
But for a routine, if you’re going through a transition, routines often get dropped. So maybe people are no longer going to bed at a regular time, and they stay up watching TV for hours and hours, and they’re going to bed at like 2am they aren’t cooking as much because of the transition. And so now there’s not food available for them to take to school and so. Or to work.

And so then they end up eating out more. And that’s like how a routine gets disrupted. And it’s okay if that’s what you decide is your new routine, but what you really want is to be intentional with you and with your kids about what’s the routine going to be. And even though you’re going through this transition, you want to maintain that routine.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:21:08]:
And so I can tell you, like, if I think about me personally, the times when I lost both of my fiances, I no longer went to bed at a normal time. I was waking up at weird times. I wasn’t cooking. I wasn’t eating very much. My whole schedule changed because the transition, like, really shook me. And this is. This is really common for a lot of people. And so as much as possible, you want to decide what your routine is going to be and stick to that routine.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:21:41]:
And that can help you through the transition and get to a new normal again. So routines and rituals are both very important. Anytime you’re creating a new normal, if your transition is a divorce or a separation, or if you’re a single parent and you’re ready to get back into dating scene, the next thing that’s going to help you is figuring out how to pick a better partner in the future.

There are two parts to this. So I’m definitely not saying it’s. It’s all your partner’s fault and that you, you definitely have responsibility for how your previous relationship went. There are maybe some cases where it is your partner’s fault, but most of the time, it really is. You know, it takes to tango.

Recognize and change patterns in partner selection.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:22:28]:
And there are times where there are situational circumstances that maybe caused what you’re going through. But regardless, you want to think really hard about what has your pattern been about choosing partners in the past? Are there common threads to how you met those partners, to how you started dating, Common personality traits? What was your criteria for picking partners in the past and how did those relationships develop? What were the patterns?

Because if you can recognize your pattern in choosing a partner and informing romantic relationships, by noticing that pattern and changing that pattern, you can increase the likelihood of your. Of your future relationships growing a little bit better. The other part of that is where therapy can really help. Because outside of recognizing the pattern of choosing a partner, sometimes we all have patterns of how we interact with our partners.

And so, for example, sometimes it’s that you always need to be in charge or are always the responsible one making things happen. So if you are kind of like the leader in all your past relationships, that’s a pattern that you have that you bring to the relationships. And it may also be related to how you pick partners.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:23:54]:
Maybe you’re picking people who are more followers because you’re a leader. And so by changing that up and experimenting more with picking people that you don’t have to lead or be responsible for as much that could help you as you pick future partners. It could also go the other way.

Maybe you’ve always picked very assertive people or very outgoing, extroverted people where you could sort of take a backseat and let them kind of run the show. Well, then you might want to work with the therapist to try to be a little more assertive. See if you can take more of a lead in relationships or be more of an equal in a relationship relationship, or intentionally pick partners that aren’t giving you like equal say.

There are lots of ways that people go about choosing partners and how they consistently bring themselves to relationships that could be talked about for many, many hours. But the point is you got to be kind of self reflective about what have the patterns been and try to change the patterns.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:25:03]:
And a therapist could be helpful for that. Let me summarize. Transitions are hard on everyone and there are a lot of different types of transitions and there are a lot of challenges that come with them. But the important thing is to create a new normal. And that new normal is often by maintaining a routine and creating new traditions and new rituals.

And if you are starting to think about dating again, then you want to be intentional about thinking about what were the patterns of your previous relationships. Both the patterns of the types of partners you picked, the patterns of how you picked them, the patterns of how those relationships progressed, and the patterns of how you interacted in those relationships. And by thinking about those patterns gives you a chance to think about what do you really want in a relationship moving forward.

Choose a new tradition for relationship enhancement.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:25:57]:
Do you want those same patterns or do you want to change it up? And so your challenge is to decide on one new tradition or ritual that can be part of your new normal. So that is your action plan for today for this episode is decide on one thing, one tradition or one ritual that can be part of your new normal and go start making it happen.

I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. If so, please take a second to go, rate, review and subscribe so you get all of our future episodes. Make sure to check out the show notes to sign up for our free 10 week relationship email course. This email course is really designed for people who are maybe having trouble with communication or connection in their relationship and helping them develop some quick wins right away to start improving it.

While I am a therapist, this podcast is for educational purposes only and is not considered therapy and it should also not be a replacement for therapy. If you think you need a professional of any kind, you should definitely go find one.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:27:25]:
Until next time.