What is a military spouse entitled to in divorce?
The answer depends on the length of the marriage, the length of the service member’s career, and how much the marriage and the career overlapped.
Where the marriage has lasted at least 20 years and the spouse was serving on active duty during all of that time, the spouse will be entitled to military medical benefits for life.
This is called the 20/20/20 rule.
If the service member spouse does a full career lasting at least 20 years, they will be entitled to a pension. If they get divorced, their spouse will be entitled to half of that part of their pension that they earned during the marriage. So, if the service member does a 20 year career and they were married during 10 of those years, the spouse would be entitled to one fourth of the pension.
Since the marriage lasted for 10 years, the marital portion of the pension is 50%. The spouse would be entitled to half of that. So it works out to 25%.
The division of all other marital property is the same as for a divorce where neither party has served in the military. Spousal support is also the same as for any other marriage.
