“I have orders. What happens to this case while I am gone?”
Federal law lets an active-duty member ask the court to press pause. The Servicemembers Civil Relief Act exists so a case is not decided behind your back.
A military divorce in Florida follows the same statutes as any other divorce, plus the federal rules that come with the uniform: the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, the Uniformed Services Former Spouses' Protection Act, and the laws governing retired pay, TRICARE, and parenting during deployment. For families connected to MacDill Air Force Base, that second layer decides real questions: whether a case can move while a member is deployed, how retired pay is divided, and what happens to a parenting plan when orders arrive. Rechel & Associates has practiced family law in Tampa, exclusively, since 1992.
It is not supposed to. We put your orders in front of the court and raise the SCRA stay early, not after a deadline passes.
The Servicemembers Civil Relief Act exists for exactly this situation. An active-duty member whose duties materially affect the ability to appear can ask the court to stay the proceedings, and the Act restricts default judgments against deployed members. The protection is real, but it is not automatic. It has to be raised, supported by your orders, and renewed when circumstances require. Handled properly, the case waits for you instead of moving while you cannot answer.
No. Division follows federal and Florida rules, not a rumor from the squadron. We start from what the law actually says.
Military retired pay can be divided in a Florida divorce, but only the marital portion, and only under rules most people have never had explained to them. The frozen benefit rule fixes the calculation at your rank and years of service on the date of divorce, so what you earn after that stays out of the division. How the numbers work depends on your marriage, your service, and the rest of the settlement, which is why this deserves analysis, not assumption.
Usually, yes. Stationed here or living here generally satisfies Florida's residency requirement. We look at where filing serves you before anything is filed.
Military life complicates residency, but it rarely blocks a Florida filing. A member stationed at MacDill, or a spouse who lives in Florida, can generally file here, and service members are permitted to keep their home-state domicile for tax and voting purposes. Sometimes that creates a genuine choice between states, and the choice can affect property, support, and logistics. It is a decision to make on purpose, at the start, not to discover after papers are filed.
Florida statute 61.13002 protects deployed parents. We build the deployment terms into the parenting plan before you need them.
Florida law does not allow a court to permanently rewrite a parenting plan based solely on deployment. Section 61.13002 provides for temporary arrangements during the deployment, including designating a family member or stepparent to exercise your time-sharing while you are away, with the prior plan resuming when you return. A parenting plan written with deployment, TDY, and PCS moves in mind turns orders into a logistics problem instead of a custody fight.
A military divorce is not a separate kind of case. It is a Florida divorce in which federal law also has a say: when the case can proceed, how retired pay is treated, which benefits continue for a former spouse, and how parenting works around deployment. The pieces below are the rules that come up most for families at MacDill and across Tampa Bay, stated plainly.
Active-duty members can ask the court to pause a divorce when duty genuinely prevents them from participating, and the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act restricts default judgments against deployed members. A case is not supposed to be won simply because one side was overseas.
Under the Uniformed Services Former Spouses' Protection Act, states may divide military retired pay as property. Florida treats the portion earned during the marriage as a marital asset, divided through equitable distribution like a pension or a 401(k).
With ten years of marriage overlapping ten years of creditable service, DFAS pays a former spouse's share of retired pay directly. That is all the rule does. It governs how payment is made, not whether retired pay can be divided in the first place.
Since the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act, the divisible amount is calculated from the member's rank and years of service at the time of divorce, not at retirement. Later promotions and additional years of service are not part of the division.
A former spouse with 20 years of marriage, 20 years of the member's creditable service, and 20 years of overlap generally keeps TRICARE and commissary and exchange privileges after divorce. Shorter overlaps may qualify for limited transitional coverage.
Each branch expects members to support their families in the interim, before any court order exists, and BAH figures into what that looks like. Survivor Benefit Plan elections belong in the settlement itself, alongside child support and alimony.
The mission owns your calendar. It should not own your case.
MacDill Air Force Base sits inside this firm's home county, and military families are part of the fabric of Tampa Bay. When a marriage connected to the service ends, the case carries rules that sit outside the everyday run of Florida divorce work: federal stays, retired pay division, benefit thresholds measured in years of overlap.
Two mistakes show up again and again in military cases. One side assumes the military rules change everything and panics. The other assumes they change nothing and misses a stay, a deadline, or an election that mattered. The work is sorting out which rules actually bear on your case and handling those with care.
Nothing on this page is a promise about outcomes. It is a commitment about process: your service, or your years as a military spouse, will be accounted for accurately, and the case will be built on the rules as they are written.
A member heading downrange, a spouse who has followed three PCS moves, a retiree whose pension is the largest asset in the case: each brings different rules to the front. The work is knowing which ones apply to you.
Your case should account for the mission without surrendering to it: a stay when duty demands one, a parenting plan built to survive deployment, and a clear-eyed reading of how the frozen benefit rule applies to your retirement.
Years of moves and interrupted careers are part of the record a court is allowed to consider. The marital portion of retired pay, continued benefits under the 20/20/20 rule, SBP coverage, and support all belong on the table, stated plainly and early.
Timing changes tactics. A case can be structured around known orders: temporary parenting terms under Florida's deployment statute, a stay if duty requires one, and deadlines managed so nothing important lands while you cannot respond.
Retired pay, the SBP election, TSP accounts, and disability offsets interact in ways that are easy to get wrong in a settlement. The divorce itself may be straightforward; the paperwork dividing a military retirement is not the place to improvise.
Not automatically, and not by a fixed formula. Under the Uniformed Services Former Spouses' Protection Act, states may treat military retired pay as property, and Florida divides the marital portion under equitable distribution. The marital portion is generally the part earned during the marriage, and under the frozen benefit rule the division is calculated from your rank and years of service at the time of divorce, not at retirement. What that means in practice depends on how long the marriage and the service overlapped and on the rest of the settlement. It is a question worth walking through with an attorney before assuming the worst.
No, and this is one of the most common misconceptions in military divorce. The 10/10 rule only controls how a former spouse's share is paid, not whether retired pay can be divided. When ten years of marriage overlap ten years of creditable service, DFAS pays the former spouse's share directly. When they do not, a court can still divide the marital portion of retired pay; the payment simply comes through the member rather than from DFAS. Divisibility and the payment method are two separate questions, and mixing them up leads people to give up rights they have or fear losses they do not face.
Generally, yes. A service member stationed at MacDill Air Force Base, or a spouse who lives in Florida, can usually meet Florida's residency requirement even if the member's legal home state is somewhere else. Military members are also allowed to keep their home-state domicile for tax and voting purposes, which can create a choice about where to file, and that choice can matter for how property and support are handled. Where you file is one of the first strategic questions in a military divorce, so it is worth answering deliberately rather than by default.
Florida law addresses this directly. Under section 61.13002, Florida Statutes, a court generally may not enter a permanent modification of a parenting plan based solely on deployment. Instead, the statute allows temporary arrangements for the deployment period, including designating a family member, a stepparent, or another person to exercise time-sharing on your behalf while you are gone. When you return, the prior arrangement is the starting point again. The practical work is building a parenting plan that anticipates deployment, TDY, and PCS moves before they happen, so orders do not turn into emergencies.
It depends on the length of the marriage and the service. Under the 20/20/20 rule, a former spouse who was married at least 20 years, to a member with at least 20 years of creditable service, with at least 20 years of overlap, generally keeps TRICARE and commissary and exchange privileges after divorce, as long as they remain unmarried and do not enroll in an employer health plan. Shorter overlaps may qualify for limited transitional coverage, and everyone else needs a plan for replacing coverage. Health care after divorce should be settled with the rest of the case, not discovered afterward.
A military case needs a lawyer fluent in Florida family law first. The federal layer sits on top of it.
Rechel & Associates has focused exclusively on family law since January 1992, and Theodore J. Rechel has been licensed since 1990. Everything a military divorce involves at its core, equitable distribution, parenting plans, support, is the work this firm does every day, with attorney Jacob Goss working alongside Ted on the firm's cases.
The military layer changes the inputs, not the nature of the work. Retired pay is still a marital asset question. A deployment clause is still a parenting plan question. What matters is counsel that treats the federal rules as rules to be read and applied, not folklore to be repeated.
Tampa is a military community, and the base is part of this firm's home county. A case touched by the service deserves the same steadiness this firm has brought to every other chapter of Tampa Bay family life since 1992.
Schedule a confidential consultation. Whether you wear the uniform or married someone who does, we will walk through how federal and Florida law bear on your situation and what a sound next step looks like.
Every consultation is confidential.
