Cochise Military Divorce Lawyer: Legal Solutions for Military Divorce Cases

Helping Service Members Navigate a Complex Divorce Process

Serving in the military requires sacrifice from the service member and their spouse and children. Over time, the challenges of serving in the military can take a toll on a relationship, and service members have the highest divorce rate of any profession. While it is true that outside pressures and difficulties can also play a role in a couple’s decision to get divorced, being part of the military makes the dissolution of a marriage more complicated. While many of the same choices will need to be made as a civilian couple, some specific rules and guidelines apply only to military divorces that both parties must be aware of.

If you or your spouse is an active-duty service member, you need an attorney with military divorce experience to help you navigate the process. At Arizona Family Law Attorneys, we understand what a difficult decision it can be to end your marriage, and we’re here to make the legal process as easy and stress-free as possible.

What Qualifies as a Military Divorce?

Anyone who is an active-duty service member or is married to one meets the requirements for a military divorce. Service members from all of the United States Armed Services (Army, Navy, Marines, among others) branches qualify, including the Reserves and National Guard.

Because the military has its own guidelines and processes for divorce, these cases are more complicated than civilian divorces. The process and settlement must abide by both federal and state laws, which can change how things like child custody, spousal support, and asset division work.

If you believe you need a military divorce, it’s essential to talk with an experienced attorney as soon as possible. They can help you understand the unique laws that apply and ensure you know what you’re entitled to and how to ensure you get a fair settlement.

What Is Covered in a Divorce Settlement?

The divorce terms differ because each couple has different needs, assets, and circumstances. However, the main factors in a divorce remain the same — even for military divorce.

Property Division

The main task of the divorce process is to separate the couple’s finances, including assets and debt. According to Arizona law, the divorce settlement must include a fair division of the assets and debt. Arizona is also a community property state, which means there are specific rules for how marital property is defined and divided. Military divorces must also consider military benefits in this process.

Child Custody

If the marriage resulted in children, child custody must be determined. This includes legal custody (known as “legal decision-making”) and physical custody (known as “parenting time”), which is more commonly called parenting time. The parent with legal custody has decision-making power, which can be either a shared or sole arrangement.

Shared legal custody means that the parents have equal decision-making power and must agree on significant decisions or go back to court to have a judge decide. Sole legal custody means that one parent can make decisions independently without consulting the other parent. While the courts generally want to award shared legal custody, it’s common for sole custody to happen in military divorces to ensure there are no interruptions in the child’s care if the service member parent isn’t available.

Child Support

If children are involved, child support will also need to be decided. If there is a sole custody arrangement, it is likely that the parent with the lesser amount of parenting time will be ordered to pay child support to the parent with the higher amount of parenting time. The amount of the support payments depends on several factors, including the income of both parties.

Spousal Maintenance

In Arizona, spousal maintenance may be ordered to ensure the party with a lower income or earning potential has the money they need to get on steady financial footing after the divorce. Spousal maintenance is often ordered for a limited period until the receiving party can get a job, increase their income, or become more financially stable.

What Are the Main Differences Between a Civilian Divorce and a Military Divorce?

While much of the process and considerations are the same for a civilian divorce and a military divorce, some specific aspects to be aware of can impact divorce proceedings, the division of assets, and how spousal maintenance and child support are calculated.

Servicemembers Civil Relief Act

In general, when one spouse files for divorce, the other spouse is officially served, and then they have a limited amount of time to respond. If the other spouse doesn’t file their response within the allotted timeframe, the first spouse can get a default judgment. However, this doesn’t apply to service members who are on active duty.
The Servicemembers Civil Relief Act allows service members on active duty to pause the divorce proceedings if their active duty status keeps them from being available. This pause is usually for 90 days. This rule can also apply to some post-decree issues, such as changes in custody or child support. In some cases, you can appoint an attorney to appear on your behalf.

Division of Assets

When you’re doing the property division, there are several military “rules” to be aware of when it comes to whether you are eligible to receive part of your service member spouse’s retirement or other military benefits. These rules include:

10/10: If the service member has at least 10 years of service, and the couple was married for at least 10 years, the civilian spouse is eligible for direct access to their portion of the service member’s military benefits
20/20/20: If the couple was married for at least 20 years, the service member has at least 20 years of service, and the marriage and time of service overlapped for at least 20 years, the civilian spouse may keep their TRICARE coverage and qualifies for some other benefits, such as access to the military post exchange
20/20/15: This is very similar to the 20/20/20 rules, except in this case, the marriage and time of service must only overlap for a minimum of 15 years. While civilian spouses are not eligible for the post exchange or commissary, they can keep TRICARE for one year after the divorce is official.

Adjusting to life after the military can be tricky, even for civilian spouses. Understanding what benefits you may still have access to can help you ease this transition.

Support Calculations

Because military service members receive some benefits that save them money in living expenses, these benefits are counted as part of their income when it comes to determining support calculations. For example, the military provides service members who do not have government-provided housing with the Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH).

This is considered part of your income in child support calculations and can be substantial enough to affect your child support amount significantly. It’s critical that you include everything required in your income calculations to ensure that you’re in compliance with the law and that the child support calculations are accurate.

What Are Some of the Challenges of Military Divorce?

While every family law case has its unique challenges and obstacles to overcome, military divorces are some of the most complex because of the special considerations involved. The most common issues couples face are determining which court has jurisdiction over the divorce and dealing with the impact of relocations and deployments on custody and parenting time.

Determining Jurisdiction

A divorce petition must be filed in the state in which the parties reside. However, this isn’t always a simple matter in military divorce. The service member could live in a different state than their spouse, who may have stayed behind during a relocation to stay closer to friends and family support. In general, one of the parties must have been living in Arizona for at least 90 days before a divorce petition can be filed in the state. If you have questions about where your case needs to be filed or how to determine jurisdiction, the military divorce lawyers at Arizona Family Law Attorneys can help.

Considering Relocations and Deployments in Custody and Parenting Time Decisions

While it’s true that civilians may also need to relocate for their jobs from time to time, it’s much more common — and frequent — for military families to have to move because of a change in assignment. Service members and their families also have to deal with the possibility of a deployment, which can change the entire family dynamic and schedule for months on end. These are also two of the biggest challenges when it comes to determining custody and parenting time in military divorce cases.

Deployment

If a parent is deployed, it’s possible that they may not be able to be reached in a timely manner — or at all in some cases — if there’s an issue with the children that needs to be decided. This can make shared legal custody (legal decision-making) exceptionally difficult. In some cases, parents may choose to put something in the custody order that changes shared legal custody to sole legal custody during a period of deployment. This ensures that the service member parent can have as active of a role as possible in legal decision-making when they are able and provides a way for the child to get the care they need without having to wait until the deployed parent can be reached.

Relocations

Relocations present more of a challenge with parenting time. The courts generally favor a relatively equal split of the children’s time between both parents unless there is a compelling reason not to, such as incidents of domestic violence or substance abuse. However, standard parenting time schedules, such as alternating weeks or a 2-2-5-5 schedule, aren’t always logistically feasible if the parents live in different states.

Some parents choose to use a long-distance parenting time schedule, which commonly means that one parent has the children during most of the school year. The other parent gets the children on most school vacations, including summer, and some holidays. Others may create their own schedule or have flexible terms that allow for the schedule to change if the service member is sent away temporarily, such as for training or a temporary transfer to another location.

What Should Be Included in a Military Parenting Time Plan?

It’s essential for every parenting time plan to be as comprehensive and straightforward as possible. It’s not uncommon for relationships between parents to get more contentious as time passes. While it may seem like you could agree to adjust things as they come up, it’s best to have as much as possible already covered in the parenting plan so that you have something legally binding that you can enforce if necessary. Factors to consider for your parenting time schedule include:

Who will do the pickup and drop off for parenting time exchanges
Where the exchanges will happen
Who gets special days of meaning, such as the first and last days of school, cultural holidays, or grandparent’s birthdays
What happens when a parent is unable to exercise their parenting time
Whether there will be a first right of refusal, which is when the other parent gets first dibs if a parent won’t be physically with the children during their parenting time

There may also be some issues to consider that come up as the children get older, such as what happens if an extracurricular is scheduled during parenting time or if parenting time can be made up if the child has an event, such as an overnight school field trip.

The team at Arizona Family Law Attorneys can review your specific situation and help you create a parenting time plan that is in line with your needs. We have years of direct experience assisting clients with issues related to custody and parenting time, which makes us uniquely qualified to help you anticipate and avoid common challenges by being proactive when creating your plan.

Ending a marriage is never an easy process, but having the right family law attorney can ensure you know what your rights are and have an experienced guide for every step of the process. A military divorce requires special knowledge of both state and federal law and an ability to understand the unique needs and challenges of military families. If you need help with a military divorce, call Arizona Family Law Attorneys at 480-448-0608. Our law firm is here to help by handling the legal burden so you can focus on yourself and your family.