Take Time To Grieve The Losses – Tip #5

Everyone loses things on a deployment and it will be important that each person takes time to acknowledge what has been lost and then take some time to grieve it.  For example, both you and the deployed member have lost time together.  You may each have lost the opportunity to share a difficult experience together, celebrations were missed, life altering moments may have been spent apart and you have lost some of your connections with each other.

This does not mean that I think you are all lost to each other or that you can’t reconnect again but in order to move forward with your lives together, you need to grieve what you have lost, talk about the losses and then take time to rebuild your relationship.

Tips:

* Don’t try to rank or compare your losses.  Acknowledge that you both had some

* Talk about how it has made you feel and accept that each of you may feel very differently about losses

* Remember that just because no one died doesn’t mean there aren’t things that you will experience some level of grief over

* Spend time with other people that have been through the same or similar situations and ask them what they did to move forward

* Talk honestly about what you lost and also about what you gained from the absence

* Be patient with eachother and avoid criticizing or judging each other’s feelings

For more information about our tips, resources or books go to: http://www.whileyouwereaway.org

To submit a tip of your own, write to: Megan@whileyouwereaway.org

Filed under: Military Family Support - Tips from the 101 Tips books, Re-integration Tips Tagged: | absence, accepting losses, deployment, grief, military families, re-integration, reunion