questions for military families

[Sassyclass]

I need some info and this was the best place I could think of.
Say you are female, married to a deployed soldier in the Army, and no kids involved. Does his pay go directly into an account for the spouse? Can he have it go to anyone else other than his spouse? Does his pay go to bank through direct deposit or is a paper check cut for the recipient?
Also how hard is it for someone in the military to get a divorce? If deployed? If not deployed? If contested? If not contested (In Ohio)?
Any and all info would be greatly appreciated and I'll explain if need be.
TIA

Cat

[bumplett]

My hubby's pay was always direct deposited - including during deployment - but I would assume that it could be direct deposited into any account that he chooses.

After payday, he would take x amount out in cash at some form of ATM (while deployed) so that he had some spending money.

You should be able to call the base legal dept to ask questions about divorce.

I had power of attn while he was deployed, so I could make any/all legal decisions neccessary - but I would assume divorce is a totally different ballgame -

you could become legally seperated until he returns

I would imagine that it would be easier on both if they waited until he returned home though - that way there would be no fear of "lost" paperwork.


as for getting divored while not deployed; the same rules apply that do for everyone else - the military doesn't have anything to do with that - we've known numerous couples that have gotten divorced while enlisted.

[McD]

I need some info and this was the best place I could think of.
Say you are female, married to a deployed soldier in the Army, and no kids involved. Does his pay go directly into an account for the spouse?
Can he have it go to anyone else other than his spouse? Does his pay go to bank through direct deposit or is a paper check cut for the recipient? Military paychecks are direct deposited. The money would be placed into whatever account the soldier has on his direct deposit form. It is extremely easy to switch direct deposit information through the mypay site. And while the soldier can elect to have his direct deposit into one account, he or she can always set up allotments to be directly deposited elsewhere



Also how hard is it for someone in the military to get a divorce? If deployed? If not deployed? If contested? If not contested (In Ohio)?
Any and all info would be greatly appreciated and I'll explain if need be. I have no experience on divorce in the military, however the proceedings are handled on the civilian side of life and would proceed as normal based on your state's legal handling of that. Not sure the effects of deployment on it. ArmyOneSource is a great source of confidental/free information for military members and their families.

TIA

Cat

I put my answeres above. HTH.

[Sassyclass]

bumplett, this is for someone else. They have no clue I'm trying to dig up info on this. Nichole thank you so much for the info, I suspected as much on the direct deposit and I will check out ArmyOneSource.
I'll explain but it's loooong. My DH's son has been "seeing" a girl for over 9 months now. She's married and she's married to a deployed soldier I have NO respect for this person at all. In the 9 months they have been fooling around she has had numerous excuses for not getting or even filing for a divorce. Here they are in the order I remember them in...
1. He wanted the divorce first, this was last November so why didn't she sign the papers? Her answer.. He didn't file. Ok fast forward to March.
2. She wants the divorce and has to dig the papers out of storage,hmmm see above.
3. Hubby told her to just go to the courthouse and get the papers to file herself, she did but she said the clerk told her since he was deployed she couldn't file!? Since when is a clerk a lawyer and how did the clerk know her husband was deployed? Ok hubby got on line and looked up the divorce laws here in Ohio. Seems she can file but it would probably be put on hold until he comes back in November. Fine.
4. Meanwhile she lives with her mom and she's mad because her MIL sent her $1000.00 for the divorce? Why? I have friends who were military and they said if he wanted the divorce it could be overwith in a snap. All he has to do is go to the Provost and ask, shish boom bam done as long as she doesn't contest it. Also what does she supposedly do with this money but pay her mom for rent and electric. She says she doesn't get any money from her husband that it goes to his mommy. Her words. I find that one hard to believe.
5. June, now he doesn't want the divorce he wants to try again.
6. DH talked with his son last night and guess what? Her mom gave her until the end of August to get out so now these two geniuses who both have temporary jobs want to move into government subsidized housing, but not tell them about her getting military pay from her husband!!! Can you say fraud? Again see above. And oh nowww her husbands pay gets direct deposited, he just filed the paperwork even though he's been in the military for a couple of years.
I don't profess to know everything but I know a liar when she opens her mouth. I'm trying to get as much hard evidence as I can so that when I can hand them some toilet paper and tell them to wipe the crap off of their lips.
Ok, I'm climbing down off
Again thanks for your help.

Cat

[MomToTwoBoys]

Heya!

I was married in the military to another serviceperson. We married while we were in and both of us resided in different states. I was listed as being from New York and he was listed as being from Georgia. We were married in September and then one month later, he was deployed to Japan. He spent 11 months there.

To make a long story short, we were separated about four months after he came back. There was a lot of marital discord between the two of us and as such, the marriage dissolved due to irreparable damage.

I was grated an honorable discharge between the time we separated and when I received the divorce papers. I moved back to New York in October 2001 and in February 2002 while he was still in, I received divorce papers that were from the State of Georgia. I was told that if I didn't contest, the divorce would finalize 30 days after the papers were dated. I didn't contest and in July 2002, I received my final papers.

The military has no bearing on your divorce since it's a civil matter. Even if the person is deployed, they're still able to be notified of pending divorce papers. Depending on where the person is deployed, it could and could not be delayed (like if you're in Japan and you get served with papers, you can go through your legal liason in Japan to find out what your options are).

As far as pay goes, it's the serviceperson's duty to designate the account to which the pay goes into. They can also designate whomever has access to it when they open the account and make changes to the account. That means that if he is sending the money to his mother's account, the wife has no say whatsoever in what money can go to her. She's not lying with that one. If they plan to move into government subsidized housing, they're going to find out anyways. They do checks on who is living in the house and housing authority are real sticklers about that sort of thing. They'll get kicked out and he can be charged with frauding the government, which means he'll spend time in the Brig over some chick who isn't even legally detached from someone else.

He can also be charged with adultery, especially if the husband is determined enough to put him away for something that could have waited until they were divorced.

The reason she's also pussyfooting around with the divorce, from my experience, is both financial and support wise. I didn't dance around with my divorce and yes, my ex-DH kept overseas pay from me while we were both members of the service.

[Nishu]

I need some info and this was the best place I could think of.
Say you are female, married to a deployed soldier in the Army, and no kids involved. Does his pay go directly into an account for the spouse? Can he have it go to anyone else other than his spouse? Does his pay go to bank through direct deposit or is a paper check cut for the recipient? It's


Also how hard is it for someone in the military to get a divorce? If deployed? If not deployed? If contested? If not contested (In Ohio)?
Any and all info would be greatly appreciated and I'll explain if need be.
TIA

Cat

It is not uncommon at all for servicemembers who are anticipating divorce or separation to block the spouse from having access to their pay. As MrsMcDowell said it's really easy to do it online or even through the bank, and the spouse has almost no recourse. The military makes no effort whatsoever to ensure that the money is getting to a spouse.

In regards to the being charged with adultery... I didn't catch the part that said OP's DH's son is a military member, but even if he were, it's extremely unlikely that he would be charged. In my not quite 10 years of being either AD or married to the military, I've only known one case where adultery was dealt with by the command and that was only when it was between two service members and had a direct bearing on the chain of command. It certainly looks like an affair judging by the fact that she's still married, but as a practical matter this is just a woman acting inappropriately before the divorce officially gets handled. If the military handled every adultery case with an njp or a courtmartial, they'd never get anything done. I don't mean any disrespect but no one's going to the brig over this.

And I don't know what you're talking about here...

DH talked with his son last night and guess what? Her mom gave her until the end of August to get out so now these two geniuses who both have temporary jobs want to move into government subsidized housing, but not tell them about her getting military pay from her husband!!! Can you say fraud? Again see above. And oh nowww her husbands pay gets direct deposited, he just filed the paperwork even though he's been in the military for a couple of years.

The military has been doing direct deposit for a long time, there's just no other way to get your pay barring extreme circumstances. When I enlisted in 2000, one of the first things they did was to sit us all down and get our bank info in order to do direct deposit. Even those of us who iddn't have a bank had to pick one out from the reps present in order to have a bank account to put our money in.


I'm getting mixed signals here. Judging by the first post, I'm under the impression that she has claimed that she's not getting any support from her husband and that you don't believe her because you think there has to be some kind of system set up to ensure that spouses get the pay, correct? And now she's trying to get into government subsidized housing based on the (presumably) fraudulent claim that she's not getting any support from her husband. Otherwise, how would the fact that her husband has DD have any bearing on the situation. My guess is that she's not going to hide her military money so much as that she's pretending that she doesn't get any at all.

You came here asking some pretty basic questions about how the military handles pay for spouses, when pretty much anyone who's had any experience with the military could have told you this. So in other words, you're not asking for someone, you're asking to confirm your suspicions that she is lying. So I'm going to lay it out for you.

It's entirely possible, and I'd even say likely, that she's not getting any money from him. They don't have kids, she's a grown woman and she's made it pretty clear she wants a divorce. Why would he allow her access to his money when he doesn't have to? I don't even know if she would have grounds to compain about it. And again, the military makes NO effort whatsoever to ensure the spouse has access to military pay.

Regarding the clerk, having a husband in Iraq when you try to file for divorce is most defintely something that could come up while handling the paperwork. Divorces can be complicated by the SSCRA, so it's definitely relevant.

This woman may not be the most awesomest and she's certainly a big cheaterface, but I think you're reading way too much into what's going on. My only advice to you would just be to relax and wash your hands of it.

[guest002]

I wasn't going to even get into this but alas I guess I will.

First off ... the cheating woman is slime. PERIOD. I don't even care the particulars of the situation even if the deployed service member is a jerk, the marriage was over before he deployed, whatever song and dance, she's still slime. IMO. Unless there was documented case of domestic abuse I stand on the slime statement. I'm so sick of spouses cheating on deploying military members because they can't handle what they signed up for, being a military spouse...

There is some military pay that's not basic pay that is only given to a married military member that is supposed to go to the spouse, technically. Now if she were to complain to the command that she was getting no pay, then...technically she should receive that pay. Being that she's a cheating dirt bag and I'm sure everyone under the sun knows about it I'm sure they'd take their sweet time and lose the paper work about a million times, etc. etc... you get the picture.

And people get divorced all the time in the military. Where there's a will there's a way.

And for someone's sake can someone please make sure that this service member's pay isn't supporting this idiot "woman". I hope he's sending his pay to his mother. If he's smart he changed his direct deposit or his allotments to go to his mother and not his cheating wife. You see that's the other wonderful thing about military pay and direct deposits. You can set up allotments and send your pay wherever you desire. So if he's smart and he's gotten wind that she's living with someone else then he's *hopefully* sending his pay elsewhere. If not, then expect all hell to break lose when he arrives stateside.

If I was in your position, I'd tell my step-son to dump this chick as fast as my feet could hit the floor. This is BAD. B*A*D. I mean all of the bad crap that could happen, all the scenarios running in my head...you don't want to know. I'm sure you've had some of them run in your head too but having seen the mental shape of what being deployed can do to a person under a regular situation and then have all of this garbage back home added to the mix is just asking for a bad situation to happen. And bad is the understatement of the day. You've got a possible Dear John situation, PTSD, and only God knows what else going on ...

[Sassyclass]

Oh yes she is slime but so is my step-son IMO. I don't think either one of them can remember from one story to the next what they tell people. First she doesn't get money from her husband at all, then all at once step son says they aren't going to use her military income for an apartment, and she doesn't get it in a check anymore because her husband just filled out paperwork for direct deposit. She said he wanted the divorce, he didn't file and then 2 months later she has to "dig up the paperwork from storage"? And to my step-sons knowledge she has not told her husband about him. My step-sons cousin's husband who is Air Force told step-son point blank Do Not put her name on any legal document with his or they will cut their own throats for her getting a divorce, my hubby told him the same thing 2 days before this. He explained it would be proof of her infidelity and that her husband could then turn around and get alimony or worse yet refuse to divorce her. Did he listen? Nope. I too have been afraid of what this poor guy will do when he comes home in November. My husband mentioned it to step-son and his cocky response was "I'll just have to take care of him". My husband laughed and told him he was dreaming. This guy is a trained soldier who has seen God only knows what and if pushed to far will do only God knows what. I'm to the point that if they end up getting an apartment together I will turn them in for fraud myself. I'm just sick of his stupidity and their lies. It caused problems on our wedding day and I'm still as pissed off today about that as I was on our wedding day.
Thanks for all of your responses, after husbands discussion with step-son last night I don't think I'll worry about him anymore. I think just letting this out after holding it in for over a month helped.

Cat