WAGs: Psychology for the Military Spouse

WAGs is an acronym often used to refer to wives and girlfriends of high-profile sportspersons and film personalities. After all, if people can talk and write about Hollywood wives, Bollywood wives and the likes of Cricketer wives, why can’t we talk about the military wives and shatter the commonly held notion of them being ‘just pretty faces leading luxurious lifestyles’. Military spouses constantly juggle and balance demands of military life with their own aspirations and married life with the soldier. They may serve as critical support to help tide over adversity, stress and trauma in a soldier’s life and also have the potential to be an additional source of stress. Ways in which military spouses navigate and manage their feelings, emotions and behaviour as well as intra-psychic conflict and interpersonal relations borne out of protracted soldier deployment may have a direct impact not just on family functioning, but soldier well being and functional fitness, his decision to continue in the forces or leave. In short, military spouses have a direct impact on soldier performance, morale and motivation, selection, retention and attrition in the Armed Forces. As such, it is incumbent on military leaders to recognise their contribution and make concerted efforts to enhance resilience building among military spouses. It is time that even society at large acknowledge their painstaking efforts of an entire lifetime and strengthen social support, emotional and psychological fitness of military families in the community by providing them a sense of meaningfulness in their commitment to the military. There is a lack of research on military spouses and little awareness of their contribution as the strength behind the soldier in uniform, to the military and the nation. This book is an effort in this direction to provide a better understanding of the military spouse.