A life can change with a phone call, a plane ticket or a knock at the door.

For someone married to, engaged to or seriously involved with a person in the military, extreme transitions in lifestyle happen at a moment’s notice. A phone call or a knock at the door can mean the unthinkable for the partner of a soldier.

The University of North Carolina and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences examined medical records of 250,000 women married to active-duty soldiers. The study found that women whose husbands were deployed from one to 11 months were more likely to suffer from depressive disorders, sleep disorders, anxiety and acute stress reaction and adjustment disorders.

This study demonstrates that the burden of deployment can severely affect partners as well as soldiers. Having the tools and the ability to manage the stress and emotions of deployment is crucial to overcoming psychological and physical obstacles.

Staci Chiomento, a military spouse for eight years, and a former soldier, recalls the moment when representatives of the U.S. Army knocked on her door to inform her that her husband had been killed in action in Iraq.