Long Military Marriage: How Did You Do That?

Have you been married more than 15 years? And you (or your spouse) are still in the military? How did you do that? The world wants to know.

Most of what we know about military marriage was discovered by surveying military members who have been married less than five years. On one hand, this is a good idea -- marriages are most susceptible to divorce in the early years. It is good to know what causes young couples to break up.

On the other hand, we don’t know what causes military couples to stay together. We don’t know what you fight about. We don’t know how you divide up the housework. We don’t know how you deal with all those deployments and moves. We don’t know if you are happy. We don’t know how you did that.

That is why I decided to do my master’s thesis on long military marriages. I want to identify some of the attitudes and behaviors that help keep military marriages together. If you would like to participate, please take this 10-minute survey online at Survey Monkey. You will be asked some quick questions about your attitudes toward work and family life. Easy!

Some survey participants will also be asked to give a phone interview that will not last longer than 30 minutes. During the interview, participants and their spouses will be asked open-ended questions about their marriage, their work force participation and their deployment cycle. 

That is the part I am really looking forward to doing. I find that military people surprise, enlighten and educate me in ways books never do. An interview gives researchers the kind of rich detail that really tells the “how” of military life.

If you are an active-duty servicemember married more than 15 years, you and your spouse have managed to do something that we all strive to achieve. Help the next generation by sharing your experiences in this project by taking this survey now.

Servicemember:  https://www.s urveymonkey.com/s/milmarriagesm

Spouse:  https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/milmarriagespouse