A lot has been written about the enormous adjustment that wounded and maimed servicemen face in coming home to their families. Seldom mentioned is the fact that their wives often walk on eggshells. In the course of their arduous physical recovery, more than a few wounded vets create marriages that are rife with resentment, anger, and emotional abuse.
In many respects the wounded servicemen I have treated share the same characteristics of chronically resentful, angry, or emotionally abusive men in general. They feel inadequate, unlovable, and riddled with self-criticism, which invariably mutates into criticism of their wives and children. They manage noxious states of jealousy and shame by alternately withdrawing from and controlling their loved ones, oblivious to the fear of harm, isolation, and deprivation their behavior invokes in the most important people in their lives.
But wounded vets differ from most men with chronic resentment, anger, or emotionally abusive tendencies in an important way. Civilians with similar emotional regulation problems will say that they want compassion from their partners, usually meaning that they want a free pass for their angry outbursts, cold shoulders, and controlling behaviors. Although receiving compassion is empowering to them, they have a hard time giving it or even seeing loved ones apart from their own emotional reactions. Treatment consists primarily of helping them regulate the shame and guilt that makes them perceive compassion for loved ones as powerlessness.
Wounded vets, on the other hand, are more likely to perceive the emotional support of their partners as pity or condescension and react negatively to sincere gestures of compassion. (See the difference between pity and compassion.) Yet they more easily feel compassion for their wives, as long their wives don't try to reciprocate. They see giving compassion as empowering and receiving it as powerlessness.
Wounded vets who are resentful, angry, or abusive, like their civilian counterparts, must learn to regulate guilt and shame to feel the true power of giving and receiving compassion. Once they learn this essential skill to convert self-obsessed feelings into pro-social emotions, they no longer deny their loved ones the healing power of receiving and giving compassion.
A personal difference for me in working with wounded vets was the inspiration I felt in watching them recover. With courage that surpassed any they could have shown in combat, these young men came to understand that losing a limb could not diminish their core value or their innate capacity for love and compassion, as they struggled to become the husbands they had wanted to be before their service.
