Vietnam Wives: Facing the Challenges of Life With Veterans Suffering Post-Traumatic Stress

As the children of Vietnam veterans reach the age at which their fathers went overseas, veterans and their families, especially their wives, face new stressors in mid-life. Even twenty-five years after the end of the war, in many families life is still neither easy nor reliable, and the rules continue to change. The recent anniversary of the end of the war in Vietnam has focused attention on the long-term effects of the combat experience. In Vietnam Wives: Facing the Challenges of Life with Veterans Suffering Post-Traumatic Stress, Aphrodite Matsakis revisits the plight of the secondary victims of the war: the wives and children of veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. The book explores the many changes encountered by traumatized veterans and their families as they face the difficult developmental stage of mid-life: retirement, the "empty nest syndrome," becoming grandparents, and, in many cases, separation and divorce. Matsakis deftly leads readers through the process of finding better ways to cope with new challenges and old. She explains post-traumatic stress disorder, its causes, symptoms, and the devastating long-term effects, including domestic violence, substance abuse, and suicidal feelings. To illustrate both problems and solutions, Dr. Matsakis extensively uses interviews with wives of Vietnam veterans who have lived through a variety of experiences. Intended primarily for wives of veterans, but of great interest to their extended families and close friends as well, this book provides compassion and support while pointing the way to recovery from post-traumatic stress.