Long Distance Military and Civilian Relationships: Women’s Perceptions of the Impact of Communication Technology and Military Culture

This qualitative study investigates military female partners’ perceptions of communication technologies during long-distance relationships, contrasted with civilians’ experiences. Military female partners in this sample included both female civilians and female military members whose male partners were deployed for wartime military-related service. Purposive iterative sampling of military cases and contrast civilian cases were done of women prior to and after current cyberspace-based communication technologies became widely available. Post-1980s’ predeployment expectations of communication frequency and dependability were commonly not met. Pre-1980s’ expectations were more aligned with reality, although not necessarily less stressful. Perspectives of military partners across eras suggested that weaknesses/gaps in communication pose higher risk to relationship resilience for younger military partners and those more distal from military culture and support services.