Military life can be stressful. Multiple deployments can especially put a strain on the family relationships of military personnel. It is hard to be separated from your loved ones for such a long time due to deployment, and this can generate hard feelings on both sides. The military parent may feel some anxiety and regret about leaving his or her loved ones to perform his or her military duty, and the stay at home parent may feel abandoned or unloved. These feelings can grow over time and can cause many military marriages to dissolve.
In the past five years, the divorce rate has been consistently rising among all branches of the armed forces. Military officials are quick to point out that military divorce rates are simply following the general trend of high divorce rates in society as whole. Some recent estimates suggest that upwards of fifty percent of marriages end up in divorce. But a recent study indicates that individuals with high stress occupations, such as military personnel, or policemen and women, are more likely to get a divorce than their civilian counterparts. This is in part due to the stress than often accompanies a high risk job, like being the military. So military families have to take extra care to cultivate their familial relationships so that the love and mutual respect they feel for one another can survive and extended deployment.
Many branches of the armed forces are taking active steps to strengthen family relationships in an attempt to improve morale by limiting the number of divorces in military families. Some branches of the armed forces have started to offer support groups, outreach programs, and weekend retreats designed to help military families overcome the many hardships that accompany military life.