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Hi everyone, I’m Dr. Michael Mantell with another Family Law Matters, joining Bonnie Rabinovitch Mantel, who’s the owner and managing partner of the Primus Family Law Group. Hi, Bonnie. Michael, how are you doing today? Okay, we’re in beautiful San Diego.
Doesn’t get better, right? It doesn’t. We are very fortunate. And Primus Family Law is right in the middle of San Diego, Mission Valley, right? Yes, we are.
Ready to help those who need us. Right in the middle of it all. Bonnie, you have a lot of clients who come to you through the military.
They’re going through divorce while they’re in the military. And I’m curious as to whether that impacts issues such as child custody, visitation, kids who need mental health prop, mental health therapy, and perhaps the child wants it or doesn’t want it. How does the military impact how adults go through the divorce process? Well, first of all, military has their own rules as to what they think support should be.
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But they will cede to the court’s ruling. So if somebody doesn’t have a court order, the Mill Persons Act will take approximately a third of their pay and give it to the other spouse. Whereas the family court has different criteria on which support is based.
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What impacts with military is they get deployed. And when they’re away, the other parent has 100% of custody of the children. It’s just a fact.
And what they don’t realize is that the other parent is entitled to go into court and say, hey, I’ve now have 100% of custody for six months, maybe eight months. I want support adjusted. And that is going to happen.
Support will go up while the military member is away if the other side asks for it. And then what impacts that even more is that when the military member is away, they get special pays. They get special pays.
They get hazard pay. They get a bunch of other pays that are not taxable that increase their income. So not only are we dealing with a 0% timeshare, but we’re also dealing with for a period of time, they’re getting more money.
And so their support is going to go up. What they can be assured of, Michael, is that when they come back, they get to resume their custodial arrangement, whatever that was before they left. The other parent can’t say, you haven’t seen little Johnny for six months, so we need to reevaluate custody.
We do not penalize our military members in custodial arrangements because they’re serving our country. So if you’re away and you have orders for custody and visitation, those will resume when you get back. I would urge anyone who’s in the military who is considering divorce to be asking a key question the first phone call when you speak to a divorce attorney.
How much experience have you had dealing with people who are divorcing while in the military? And you and your private family law team certainly have a tremendous amount of experience with that. It’s not that you focus only on that, but you certainly have a wealth of information, experience. And if people have questions about this, how can they reach you to talk about divorce while in the military? Oh, they can reach us directly in Mission Valley, San Diego at 619-574-8000.
And you will be put on one of our certified family law specialist calendar for a free 30 minute Zoom or telephone consultation at your preference. You can also reach us online at www.PrimusFamilyLaw.com. There’s a form you can fill out that we get, or you can speak to a live chat agent that will send you through to us so we can put you on our calendar.