Military Marriage and Divorce

Military marriages can start fast—and end complicated. From housing and healthcare incentives to legal nuances like the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act and state-specific divorce rules, military families face unique pressures. This episode unpacks what service members and their spouses need to know about marriage, divorce, retirement benefits, and child custody in a system where the usual rules don’t always apply. Whether you're in uniform or married to one, understanding your rights is key to protecting your future.

Transcript

Military Marriage Pressure Points

When Military Marriages Fail

Heather Tessmer 0:04

You are listening to the Ever Argue With A Woman podcast and I am Heather Tesmer. Hello everybody, this is Heather Tesmer. Again in the military is and to talk about just the added pressures that our military members have when it comes to their families or when it comes to starting your families, because a lot of the the times our younger military members are going through a lot of training and then they get deployed. So they are at their training base for quite a while, they start a relationship and then they're deployed to, let's say, germany. Well, they want this new friend to come with them, but it's very expensive to move to Germany, and so it's not as expensive when they're your wife, and so a lot of our military members tend to rush into marriage because the military almost makes them, because if they're married, the military is going to pay for their spouse and all of their crap to go with them, and so it's just a little easier if you go ahead and do it that way, even though a lot of the marriages tend to be rushed. Also, the benefits when you're married. So you get extra pay, you get the housing benefits, you get the medical benefits, you get the moving allowance that I mentioned, and then if you do a ditty move, you can pocket quite a bit of that money by not using an actual professional mover, and I have a couple of hernias to prove it. So a lot of the times the military members get married young and then they move away. Their support systems are gone and before they know it they realize that they've made a huge mistake. But now they're in Germany with no money and no way to get home. So there's some problems with that whole system, and I want you to know that there are the wellness centers on the bases. They will help you. So if you have a problem with your marriage, there are places to turn and so you need to go to the family welfare offices there on base. So that whole going to Germany, being stuck there with no money and not being able to come home Well, that's kind of my story, and I did not get married.

Military Retirement Benefits After Divorce

Heather Tessmer 3:06

I did pay my way over to Germany, but then I got married shortly thereafter. So I am almost a 20-20-20 wife, and if I would have known better back then, I would have made sure I was a 20-20-20 wife. But I am married to a retired Air Force member and so this is dear to my heart and I make sure that we treat all of our military members very well in this office, and everybody knows that. Um, the military come first around here. So let's say, now you've been married and realize it's not going to work. So now, what do you do? You want to get divorced? Well, let's say you both want to stay in Germany, but you still want to get divorced.

Heather Tessmer 3:53

Where do you do the divorce? Well, there are some special rules for military members, and I just want to go through a few of them, and one of them is no matter where you are in the world, you can do your legal business in your home state or the state where you upped. So like where my husband enlisted was Texas, and that also happens to be his home state. So Texas is the place that he could file for divorce, even if he was in Japan or Germany or wherever he might be in the world. If, however, his wife decides to leave and come back to Texas, she can file here in Texas. Military actions might keep him from contributing in the divorce process actively, then there are some things that he can do to basically stall or stay the procedures, and that's from the Service Members Civil Relief Act, and there are a lot of things in there that all service members should be aware of, because there's a lot of things that help us out, so they can help with leases and car rentals and mortgages, and so there's a lot of things in there that are geared towards helping the service members geared towards helping the service members.

Heather Tessmer 5:28

I also wanted to talk about something that it's something that a lot of the military members will allow their spouses to believe, and that's that you are not allowed to share in their retirement until you've been married for 10 years, and that is wrong. The day you marry them. If you marry them in Texas and you are here in Texas, we are a community property state, and so whatever you acquire or earn while you're married is considered to be community property. So the 10-year rule all that is is that DFAS will send you your share directly, so you do not have to rely on the military member to pay you your share from them. Dfas will do it without any intervention from your ex-spouse. That's all. That is Another rule or military, I guess it's a rule it's the 2020 rule, and that is where you've been married for 20 years, your military member has been in the military for 20 years and that it all overlaps and so I missed it by like three months, because my husband was in the military for almost exactly 20 years and I married him a little bit after. So I'm like a 20, 20, 19 and three quarters wife and if I would have known I would have made him stay in so I could, if anything ever happened, that I could get those benefits, but not that we're ever going to get divorced. It's been 36 years, so I'm going to say probably not. And so the 20-20-20 is you will maintain your benefits even if you do get divorced. So that means TRICARE. That means you can continue to go to the commissary, you can continue with almost every benefit and you do not have to rely on him anymore or her, depending on who your spouse is.

Creative Solutions for Military Families

Heather Tessmer 7:39

Something that a lot of even divorce attorneys don't realize is but if your spouse who is the military member is medically retired, that retirement is not divisible. So you have to make sure that it is a medical retirement. Some can actually be kicked out because of their medical condition, but if it's an actual medical retirement, then it is not divisible. If you go to court, it is not divisible. You can agree to a division and some military members don't even know that, who have been medically retired. So you don't know what you don't know. It's always good to find an attorney who does know these ins and outs. And then another one is if a lot of our military members come out of the military and they are on disability or they get disability payments these are not divisible. However. They are used to calculate how much child support they might be paying monthly and also for spousal maintenance. So if you qualify for that, that might be used to calculate their monthly income to where they might have to share some of that with you if you do get awarded spousal maintenance.

Heather Tessmer 9:11

So just recapping a couple of things that if you are young, if you've only been married a short time, you don't have any kids, you really haven't accumulated any community property, you might try to do your divorce yourself. The only issues that I really have with it are sometimes you have to run your final decree through a staff attorney first and they tend to be very busy and backed up and it can sometimes take months before you get approved to go in front of the judge and actually get divorced. Please, please, please, remember that sometimes the biggest asset might be your spouse's military retirement and that you don't really realize that 50% of you know $4,000 over 30 years, that's a lot of money. So don't leave that on the table and don't just agree to walk away from that, because I mean, you're really talking a lot of money.

Heather Tessmer 10:17

If you do have children, sometimes military members need to have creative solutions in their possession schedules.

Heather Tessmer 10:25

So if they are actively on TUIs or PCSing or moving across the country, it becomes more difficult for them to handle our normal standard possession orders.

Heather Tessmer 10:41

So we need to be more creative with allowing them more time, maybe during the summer, over Christmas break, maybe allowing them long weekends every month.

Heather Tessmer 10:54

Most of the school districts do have those longer weekends and I really think it's because of these possession schedules. And then also don't forget that while if you divorce your spouse and you haven't been with them, with the 20-20-20 rule you won't be able to keep your TRICARE benefits, but your children will be able to. They can keep those medical benefits for as long as your spouse is capable of keeping them or until they age out, and right now they can keep them until they're 26, as long as they are actively in college, until they're 26, as long as they are actively in college. So that's something to definitely discuss also with your spouse when you're making agreements for divorce, so that you can keep your children protected and with such good medical coverage and for such an affordable price. So these are just a few things to deal with when you're military and you're looking at both getting married and divorcing. So I hope this helps and we look forward to seeing you again soon.