When Your Partner Comes Home: How to Reconnect After Deployment, Travel, or Other Time Apart

When your partner’s been away—whether for military deployment, long work travel, or anything else—life at home adapts. You figure out a new normal, even if it’s exhausting. And then, just when you’ve found your footing, they come home... and the transition isn’t always as joyful (or seamless) as you hoped.

Today, I’m answering a listener question about how to navigate the messy, emotional shift from solo parenting back to partnership—and how to help your kids adjust too.

Even if deployment isn’t part of your story, chances are you’ll face a family transition like this someday. Maybe it’s work travel. A kid leaving (or returning) from college. An aging parent moving in. Anytime the players in your daily life change, the routines, roles, and emotions have to be renegotiated—and it almost never happens automatically.

Inside this episode, I’ll share:

• How to name the transition out loud (and why that matters so much)
• The surprising trick that helps kids adjust to new family rhythms
• Practical strategies for rebalancing parenting duties without resentment
• Why emotional disconnection during transitions is normal—and how to move through it
• How to be gentle with yourself when the switch from “alone” to “together” feels harder than you expected

Transitions are hard—but they’re also a chance to build something even stronger. Let’s work through it together.

If you want to stay connected between episodes, make sure you’re on my email list—where I share thoughts, updates, and behind-the-scenes moments I don’t always talk about on the podcast. This is also where you can submit your own question for the show, or send me a note to let me know what's on your mind (yes, it's really me on the other end!)

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🎙 Tune in next week for real-life relationship questions, insight that builds empathy, and practical steps to create happier, healthier relationships.

Disclaimer: while this podcast sounds like therapy, it is not actually therapy nor is it a substitute for therapy, and while I am a therapist, I am not YOUR therapist. Please be entertained and encouraged, and seek appropriate mental health support from a licensed therapist in your community, if necessary.

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