Columbia Family Divorce Law Blog

Many Washington households include family members who are in the military. Just as in non-military families, many of those marriages don’t last.

It is often challenging and difficult to balance family life and military service. U.S. military service members in Washington and beyond are not alone in the sacrifices they make because their spouses and children play key roles toward their successful service as well.

The general figure that gets tossed around in Washington is that about half of all marriages in America fail. All marriages have their share of ups and downs, but it appears that people from some professions have higher divorce rates than others.

Military service members and veterans in Washington and the rest of the United States are required to pay child support for their custodial and non-custodial children. The federal regulations pertaining to child support enhance state-level laws by ensuring that military members comply with payment.

Divorcing and figuring out child custody agreements are seldom simple processes, but they may be even more complex if you or your spouse is a military service member. In divorce cases involving military service, you may need to figure out exactly how Washington’s child custody laws address situations such as overseas deployments.

Military couples in Washington might be less likely to divorce than in previous years. Divorce in the military has been on a slow decline in the last decade, and a 3% divorce rate in 2018 represented a 0.1% drop from the previous year.

You will probably still get your basic allowance for housing after a divorce, but there are many factors that could affect it. You, like most service members, probably depend on these funds.

When one or both divorced parents of a child are members of the military, arranging child visitation can be a complicated matter. Just like non-military families, visitation for military members is established in family court through a custody agreement that’s approved by a judge.

For any couple, talking about a divorce can be incredibly difficult. For some, it may even seem downright impossible.

Please review my previous AVVO Legal Guides on Interstate Custody and the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (UCCJEA; in Washington State the statute is RCW 26.26). The UCCJEA provides that when a state in the US has previously entered a child custody determination, that state will continue to exercise jurisdiction until it waives or declines jurisdiction.