The Transition System Is Fixing the Wrong Problem
Military resettlement does a lot of things well. There are briefings, courses, CV workshops, job fairs and housing advice. On a logistics level, a leaver today is better supported than ever. So here is the uncomfortable question: if the support is so much better, why do so many capable people still come apart in the first couple of years?
The number that should stop us
In our interview with John, a former RCMO, he cited a figure from his own institutional work: around 51% of military leavers change jobs three to four times in their first two years — a churn he linked directly to homelessness, relationship breakdown and worse. These aren’t people who can’t get a job. They’re people who get a job, and another, and another, and still can’t find solid ground.
That pattern doesn’t describe a skills problem or an employment problem. It describes an identity problem wearing an employment costume.
Everything we offer is external
A serving welfare officer summed up the gap precisely: the resettlement window is all external, and nothing internal. Housing, jobs, CVs, pensions — all the external scaffolding gets addressed. The internal scaffolding — who am I without the uniform, what do I stand for now, where do I belong — gets nothing. And if the internal structure isn’t sorted, behaviour won’t align long enough for any of the external plans to hold.
This is why knowing the system doesn’t protect you. John knew transition better than almost anyone alive and still left, in his words, “confused, and didn’t recover for years.” Institutional knowledge is not immunity.
The fix is earlier, and it’s internal
Ted’s advice from the other side of it was simple: anyone who has served more than three to six years should have a plan — and start it early, not in the final months. The serving welfare officer drew the line even more starkly: engage with the internal work early and transition can be smooth and you flourish; leave it late and you’ll survive, but it’ll only ever be survival.
Survival or flourishing. That’s the real measure — not “did they get a job.” And the difference between the two is identity work that the current system simply doesn’t do.
What good would actually look like
Imagine resettlement that started identity work from day one of service, not the last six months. That treated the family as part of the transition, not a footnote. That measured flourishing, not employment status. None of that requires more money so much as a shift in what we think transition is for.
That shift is the whole premise of Identity Performance Psychology and the AURIS framework — building the internal layer the system keeps leaving out.
If this matches what you saw on your way out — or what you’re watching someone go through now — please share it.
Start the free AURIS 5-Day Reset: aurisidentity.com
More on the framework behind this: Identity Performance Psychology and the AURIS framework.