Being in the armed forces is tough on a marriage. You and your spouse are often not in the same geographical place, which puts a lot of strain on a relationship. When the dissolution of the marriage is a dual military divorce, it is handled as a civilian divorce is. Trust me; I’ve been there. The family court of the state in which the petition is filed has jurisdiction over what constitutes martial joint property and which parent gets custody of the children. When there is only one military spouse in the divorce, courts generally award custody to the non-military parent. All in all, military divorce is harder in many ways than a civilian one, and ending the marriage can take quite a bit of time.
As in any divorce situation, the parties must choose whether or not to hire lawyers for divorce. There are some scenarios in which it’s a good idea, such as
• When there is animosity between the parties
• When a lot of community property exists
• When the custody of the children is at issue
• When one party has more money than the other
When my spouse and I got divorced, we were both in the Army. We were not, much to my shame, very nice to each other throughout the divorce process. In fact, it got so bad that I had to hire an attorney for child custody to fight to keep the kids with me. I didn’t really care about division of community property, except for the inheritance I had received upon my grandfather’s death, but I truly believed then, as now, that the kids should live with me, as I have a stable situation in the Army and don’t move around as much as my ex-husband does. After quite a bit of arguing by the lawyers, the judge agreed with me and granted custody of our two boys to me, with ample visitation for their father.
If you’d like more information about military divorce and whether or not to hire a divorce attorney, legal-yogi.com is the place to get it. Legal-yogi.com is a well established consumer resource website which has a database of well over 260,000 financial experts and attorneys to help answer questions about any area of law. Dial 800-397-YOGI (1755) to get your free initial consultation. I know you’ll be glad you did.
