“My wife’s love language is Quality Time, and I know she hates it when I take work phone calls during our dates. But I have no choice—I took an oath to the military and have to be on call all the time as part of my current assignment.”
You are reading your wife well. It is true that for those who have Quality Time as their love language, they are hurt and annoyed when you divert your attention from your time together to answer a phone call. I understand your commitment to the military. My suggestion would be to look at the phone when it rings, determine if it is a military call or a call from one of your friends unrelated to the military. You answer only the calls related to your military duty, and you do not answer other calls. These will be recorded in your voicemail and you can answer them after the date is over. Many of us are much too glued to our phones. There was a day, you may remember, when we did not have cell phones and our times together at a restaurant were never interrupted by a phone. We seem to have survived rather well in those days. I applaud the convenience of cell phones, but we must make our own rules as to how they will be used so as to enhance our marital relationship, rather than detracting from it.
6. How do we find ways to communicate when we have both changed from long deployments and feel like strangers to each other?
When you first met and started dating, likely neither of you knew each other very well. How did you get to know each other and come to the place where you decided to marry? My guess is that you had many long conversations asking each other questions about their past and present. Essentially, communication is talking and listening. But questions are a key tool to open the heart and mind of the other person. Here are some suggested questions:
1. When you were a child, what kind of relationship did you have with your mother? Father? Brothers or sisters? (Don’t ask all of these in the same conversation.)
2. What could I do to make your life easier?
3. What one thing could I change that would make me a better wife? or, husband?
4. Did you meet any new people at work today?
5. What was the biggest challenge you faced while on duty today?
6. Of all the people you interact with on a regular basis, whom do you like the most and why?
Such questions tend to make it easier for your spouse to respond. Some time ago I wrote a larger collection of such questions in a little booklet entitled 101 Conversation Starters for Couples. You can find it on Amazon or at a local retailer.
The second suggestion is for the two of you to establish a weekly date night in which the two of you go out for dinner, and agree beforehand that each of you will tell one event that was humorous while the two of you were apart, and one event that was very painful while the two of you were apart. Often, those who have been deployed are reluctant to talk about their experiences. But when you limit the conversation to one positive and one negative experience, they are less likely to be overwhelmed. Once your spouse shares the negative event, you may say, “That must have been extremely hard for you.” If they respond, listen carefully and affirm their feelings. “I can see how you would have felt that way. I’m sure that was far more painful than I can imagine.”
My third suggestion is that when you are together you have a daily sharing time in which each of you shares with the other—two things that happened in my life today and how I feel about them. These may be positive experiences or negative experiences. You are sharing events that happen in your life, and you are sharing your emotional response. You are building both intellectual and emotional intimacy.
Building intimacy after long deployments is a slow process. It cannot be rushed. But when you become adept at asking questions, and adept at revealing past experiences with each other, you are building a platform on which you can continue to build intimacy: intellectually, socially, physically, and spiritually.
7. Does combat trauma trump love languages?
“I have PTSD and am completely overwhelmed by the idea of speaking love languages. I have enough to deal with on my own. Can’t I get a break until I feel more up to it?”