Abstract
We evaluated the extent to which military service members’ and their significant others’ coping strategies (i.e., individual use of emotion expression and avoidance) were independently associated with their own—and each other’s—psychological health during reintegration using an actor–partner interdependence model. We simultaneously evaluated actor associations (e.g., associations between service members’ own coping and psychological health) and partner associations (e.g., associations between service members’ coping and their significant others’ psychological health) with a sample of 175 National Guard couples who recently experienced deployment. We further evaluated (1) whether there were interactive associations among partners’ coping strategies and (2) whether service members’ level of combat exposure moderated any of these associations. Results indicated that, for both service members and significant others, psychological health was positively associated with one’s own emotion expression and negatively associated with one’s own avoidance. Moreover, there was a significant partner association between service members’ psychological health and their significant others’ emotion expression but only in the context of high combat exposure. Implications for intervention and prevention efforts are discussed.