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Military members are usually briefed or given "re-integration" classes before they depart their duty station on this type of thing. It's one of the ways that the military is trying to take care of the families and cause a lot less stress. Noone can make the member pay attention or make them take the effort to learn what they need to learn. That's why the family must always get them to realise this. One of the biggest things they say in the briefings is that things are not as they were so don't expect them to be. Be it 4 months or a year, things change and people change. Life changes on a second to second basis. The chaplains and life skills people are always trying to teach the members this.

Spouses/partners/significant others are a major part of any military person's life and the military is realizing that. Communications are critical for any relationship to work and both participants have to share what's going on, what's happened and how things are going to work. I know that a lot of lattitude is given for communicating back home especially in the way of electronic communications. Even a line or two every couple days can make a major difference in both lives. With good communications alot of these potential conflicts are resolved before they become an issue. Especially important is the military member's acknowledgement of his/her appreciation of what the spouse has done. Any relationship is a give/take thing. Both have to do it and both have to share. Without that, there won't be much of a relationship.

As for "hitting the ground running", it's very true that the same expectations will be there for them once they return to work but there will be some time given to them to readjust. Usually for a 4 month deployment they are given 2 weeks unchargeable paid leave and for a year gone a month. This is provided by the military to insure that they have some kind of time to re-adjust. How they use this time is important, this is when they are supposed to be learning "how the system works" now. It's the military member's responsibility to do that.