The military divorce rate is significantly lower than the national average. According to an article in Military.com, the overall military divorce rate was recently at a decade-long low at 3.1 percent. That figure suggests that the overall military divorce rate is declining, but it nonetheless suggests that married couples have to deal with significant stress in the marriage, especially when one of the spouses is deployed. Notably, the divorce rate for male military service members is markedly lower than for women. The female divorce rate in the military was at 6.5 percent in 2014, dropping from 8 percent several years prior.
Getting divorced while one spouse is deployed can be particularly complicated. How do you divorce a spouse who is deployed and may not return to Chicago or surrounding areas for quite some time?
State and Federal Law for Deployed Military Divorces
If you live in Chicago and your spouse is deployed and you want to file for divorce, you will need to show that you meet the requirements under the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act (750 ILCS 5/501 et. seq.). For instance, one of the spouses must be a resident of Illinois when the petition for divorce is filed, and to have an irrebuttable presumption that there are irreconcilable differences, you must have been living separate and apart for at least six months.
Meeting the “separate and apart” requirement can be complicated when the other spouse is deployed. While you may not be living together on a daily basis since your spouse is deployed, you may not legally be living “separate and apart” if your spouse the marital home in Illinois his or her primary place of residence. A Chicago divorce attorney can discuss this with you in greater detail.
How the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act Affects Divorce Proceedings
As you might imagine, filing for divorce when your spouse is deployed has a lot of practical complications in addition to legal complications. For instance, as the Circuit Court of Cook County explains, once you file a petition for the dissolution of marriage, the other party needs to be served. Serving your summons can be complex if your spouse is deployed in another part of the world.
The Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA) provides deployed service members with certain rights when it comes to divorce. For instance, deployed members of the military can request a stay on the divorce proceedings until the deployment is over. Under certain circumstances, the court is required to grant deployed service members a stay of at least 90 days, but sometimes that period can be extended. If the deployed service member can show that her duties in the military prevent her from appearing in court, then the divorce may be put on hold until the deployment ends.
Parenting Time for A Deployed Parent
Illinois law requires that when a judge determines a child’s best interests regarding parenting time for a parent in the military who is being deployed, that it consider the parent’s military family-care plan that must be completed before deployment. In addition, Illinois law allows a parent deployed or with orders to be deployed to designate a person known to the child to exercise reasonable substitute parenting time, so long as the court finds same to be in the child’s best interests.
Seek Advice from a Chicago Divorce Lawyer
Just because your spouse is in the military and is deployed does not mean that you cannot file for divorce. You can in fact file a petition for the dissolution of marriage if you meet the requirements under Illinois and federal law. However, you should be aware that other laws can impact the speed of the proceedings and the way in which the case moves forward. To learn more, you should discuss your case with a Chicagoland divorce lawyer. Contact my office today to learn more about how I can assist you.
