Austin Military Divorce Lawyer

Former Prosecutors & Judges Fighting for Military Families Across Texas

Military divorce in Texas involves layers of federal law that a standard divorce proceeding never touches: jurisdiction tied to duty stations, deployment protections under federal statute, and retirement division rules that differ from any civilian pension. At Cofer & Connelly, PLLC, we handle these cases from our Austin office while appearing in courts across Texas, including the Kerrville, Lubbock, and San Marcos areas. That reach matters when PCS orders and deployments connect a military family to more than one jurisdiction before a divorce is finalized.

Our attorneys bring over 100 years of combined legal experience and have tried more than 300 jury trials throughout Texas. Military divorce cases demand exactly that level of attention to individual circumstances, and we don’t apply a one-size-fits-all strategy to any case.

Filing for Divorce in Texas When Military Service Is Involved

Texas generally requires at least one spouse to have resided in the state for six months and in the filing county for 90 days before a divorce petition can be filed. Military service creates two notable exceptions. Under Texas Family Code, a Texas domiciliary stationed elsewhere on military orders still satisfies the state residency requirement during that absence. A service member stationed at a Texas installation for at least six months and in a particular county for 90 days is treated as a Texas resident for divorce purposes, even if their home of record is another state.

Camp Mabry in Austin, headquarters of the Texas Military Forces, places a significant military population within Travis County. Jurisdiction determines not only where a divorce can be filed but whether a court has authority to divide military retirement benefits, which makes getting the filing right an important first step.

SCRA Protections During Deployment

The Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA) protects active-duty military members from civil proceedings when their service materially affects their ability to participate. In a divorce context, it allows a court to grant a stay of proceedings when a deployed service member can’t reasonably take part. It also prevents a default judgment from being entered simply because a service member didn’t respond to a divorce petition while on active duty.

Serving divorce papers on a deployed or otherwise unavailable spouse follows different procedures than standard civilian service methods. Some Texas courts permit remote or virtual hearings, which can help move a case forward when one party is stationed outside Texas. Whether you’re the service member seeking protection under the SCRA or the civilian spouse trying to understand your timeline, these procedural rules shape how the case proceeds.

Dividing Military Retirement in a Texas Divorce

Texas is a community property state. Military retirement pay earned during the marriage can be divided as marital property under the Uniformed Services Former Spouses’ Protection Act (USFSPA), a federal law that authorizes state courts to treat military retired pay as divisible property.

Several rules govern how that division is structured and paid:

• The 10/10 rule: The Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) makes direct payments to a former spouse only when the marriage overlapped at least 10 years with at least 10 years of creditable military service. If that threshold isn’t met, the service member pays the former spouse’s share directly.
• The Frozen Benefit Rule: Established by the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act, this rule calculates the divided pension using the service member’s rank and years of service at the time of divorce, not at eventual retirement.
• Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP): If the service member dies after retirement, SBP provides continued payments to a named beneficiary. A former spouse can be designated as the SBP beneficiary, but that designation must be addressed in the divorce decree, and the order generally must be submitted to DFAS within a specific window after divorce to preserve coverage.

Getting each of these elements into the divorce decree correctly, and in the right sequence, can affect whether the former spouse receives what the court awarded.