Nolo's Essential Guide to Divorce - Emily Doskow [147]
Domestic Violence and Other Abuse
If you are concerned about domestic violence or child abuse, see Chapter 14 for information and resources that are useful for both civilian and military spouses. But be aware that the military deals with issues of family violence in some different ways than civilian authorities do. The policies, procedures, and rules described below apply mostly when the abuser is a service member. If you're a service member being abused by a civilian, you're probably going to have to use civilian methods to prosecute the abuser-though sometimes base commanders will bar civilian abusers from the base to protect a service member.
The Department of Defense has two programs in place to deal with abuse within the family: the Family Advocacy Program and the Military Justice system. All military personnel are required to report any suspicion of family violence to the Family Advocacy Program, which will assign an investigator. The investigator reports to a commanding officer, who decides whether the charges are substantiated and then whether the offender should be offered counseling or be subject to discipline under the Military Code of Justice.
Family Advocacy Program counseling isn't confidential. Unlike many civilian counseling programs, which protect participants through therapist-patient privilege, counseling under the military's Family Advocacy Program isn't confidential. Information provided to the investigator can be used in later military or civilian prosecution against the offender.
A base commander can also issue a Military Protective Order, requiring the service member to stay away from the spouse or child being abused. Civilian authorities won't enforce a Military Protective Order, so it won't help if you want to get an abuser kept away from your civilian workplace, your kids' off-base schools, or other places off base where you feel unsafe. For that you'll need a restraining order from a civilian court. (See Chapter 14.)
Penalties for a finding of abuse can be severe for the service member, up to and including discharge from the service. Many spouses married to service members are reluctant to report abuse because they fear the military spouse's career will be damaged and that the family will suffer financially as a result. However, federal law protects the civilian spouse if a service member is discharged as a result of abuse of a spouse or dependent child-and it's irrelevant whether the discharge followed a court-martial or was imposed administratively by a commanding officer. The civilian spouse is entitled to "transitional compensation" from the military for 12 to 36 months after the military spouse's discharge.
In addition, a civilian spouse can receive the equivalent of retirement payments directly from the military if the service member was denied retirement because of the spousal or child abuse. The civilian spouse can obtain an order from a divorce court under the provisions of the Uniformed Services Former Spouse Protection Act for payment of the amount the service member would have received if his or her military career had continued. The military will honor the payments. The Family Advocacy Program can help if you're a civilian spouse who wants to take advantage of this rule.
Postdivorce Follow-Up
Chapter 15 explains how to ensure you've taken care of all the small (but important) postdivorce tasks that are easy to forget or put off.
In addition to the items discussed there, there's a lot of paperwork and record keeping involved in military service, and both spouses should be sure to update all records, usually by notifying a commanding officer.
Resources
For more information about divorce and the military, here are some useful sources.
Try the Armed Forces Legal Assistance Office website, http:// legalassistance.law.a£mil/index.php. Be cautious in relying too much on this source, as not everything is as accurate