From the military lawyer to the divorce attorney, military divorces are quite common here in the United States – something that just about any military lawyer will be able to attest to. But divorce in general is not uncommon in the slightest, with couples who are both married for the very first time having a divorce rate as high as 43%, a percentage that climbs with each subsequent divorce and marriage. In fact, in a marriage that ultimately ends in divorce, the marriage in question is likely to only last eight years or so in total before finally dissolving.
There are may reasons that divorces occur, something that any military lawyer, divorce lawyer, or military divorce lawyer is likely going to be easily able to attest to. After all, marriages are hard work and things like infidelity and abuse can quickly take their toll. Even just a lack of communication can ultimately lead to divorce, as sad as it is to say. On a whole, divorces can happen from any number of things, and not all of them are easy to pinpoint, as even smoking (if only one person in the marriage smokes and the other does not) can increase the chances that someone will get a divorce by as much has 75%, a truly astronomical amount by just about any standards.
Of course, as any military lawyer can tell you, job stress can also lead to divorce, as is often the case for divorces among military personnel. In the United States Navy alone, divorce rates sit at above 12%, a relatively high number in relation to the rest of the population. As military divorce lawyers can hypothesize, there are many reasons that marriages among military personnel and their spouses do not end up working out at the end of the day.
First of all, it’s a stressful job, and one that requires you to be away from your spouse for much of the year, if not all of it. This can take a considerable toll on even the strongest of marriages, as it can easily lead to distance growing between the couple, the more distance present the longer that they are separated. In addition to this, moving around so much, as is often considered to be part and parcel of being in the military, can also prove stressful, particularly when children are involved. Uprooting your whole life so frequently can be difficult for everyone in the family and can cause family tensions to rise as well as marital ones.
Even just having children on its own can be a tremendous strain, let alone when one party in the marriage is in the military. The other spouse might feel that they have to bear the brunt of child rearing, while the spouse that is away on military duties often feels that they aren’t able to foster a deep connection with their children, or at least aren’t able to foster as deep of a connection as they would ideally like. When both partners are around, dividing parenting duties and raising children together can be challenging, as they have already spent so much time apart, with the parent at home often playing the role of both parents while the other parent is gone, perhaps even overseas.
And mitigating a divorce with children can be difficult for the typical military lawyer. In such cases a family lawyer might be called into work with the military lawyer (or even instead of the military lawyer) throughout the divorce process. And with up to half of all kids in the United States currently living with divorced parents, the military lawyer and family lawyer are likely to have their work cut out for them, so to speak.
From custody schedules to matters of child support, managing a divorce with children can benefit from a great deal of mediation, as such issues are likely to be among the more contentious of problems that divorcing couples face throughout the process of their divorce and before the divorce is ultimately finalized. Having a strong legal team, however, can truly make a world of difference for both the couple and their children.
