Military Divorce

This guide is for informational purposes only and is not legal advice.

Your Situation

When one or both spouses serve in the military — active duty, reserve, or retired — a Colorado divorce picks up an extra layer of rules that don't apply to civilian cases. These rules cover several big-ticket items: protections that can pause the case while a servicemember is deployed, how a military pension gets divided, what happens to parenting time when a parent is sent away, and who the court even has the authority to make these orders against. Each one carries real financial and family stakes, and getting the details wrong can delay your case or undo an order later.

This is a genuinely complicated corner of family law, and the stakes are high — a military pension may be the largest asset in the marriage, and a deployment can upend a parenting schedule overnight. This guide will help you understand what Colorado law requires in a military divorce, what courts typically do, and the concrete steps you can take to protect yourself and your children.

What the Law Requires

Flagging military status. Colorado's divorce and parenting forms all ask whether either party is in the military, and it matters that this gets disclosed. The reason is the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA) — a federal law that gives active-duty members the right to request a pause, called a "stay," of civil proceedings including divorce and custody cases.

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An active-duty servicemember can request a stay of the case, but a servicemember who chooses to waive that stay also gives up the right to court-appointed counsel under the Act — a consequential decision that should not be made without consulting a base legal officer or an attorney first.

Jurisdiction over the pension is special. Having personal jurisdiction over a spouse is not the same as having authority to divide that spouse's military pension. Under the federal Uniformed Services Former Spouses' Protection Act (USFSPA), a Colorado court can treat a military pension as divisible property only if it has jurisdiction based on the member's residence (not just a military assignment), the member's domicile, or the member's consent — and consent requires some affirmative act, not merely a failure to object. These federal limits override ordinary state jurisdiction rules. The authority must exist at the time of the decree; a court that lacked it then cannot come back later and divide the pension.

What can and can't be divided. Military retirement pay earned during the marriage is marital property that a Colorado court can divide, but only the "disposable retired pay" portion. Military and veterans' disability pay is carved out — it is not marital property, and a court cannot craft a workaround to reimburse a spouse for that excluded disability portion. A spouse cannot be stripped of their share by the member voluntarily waiving retirement pay in favor of disability pay; Colorado won't allow that as a matter of public policy. Where a pension mixes nondisability and disability components, a court may still divide it as long as the nondisability part is large enough to cover the other spouse's share. Lump-sum separation payments and voluntary separation incentive payments earned during the marriage are also treated as divisible deferred compensation.

A residence requirement for filing. Simply being stationed in Colorado doesn't by itself give a Colorado court jurisdiction to grant a divorce — but after 90 days stationed here, a servicemember can establish Colorado domicile sufficient to support a decree.

Deployment and parenting. Colorado's Uniform Deployed Parents Custody and Visitation Act governs temporary custody arrangements during deployment. Parents can enter an interim agreement giving someone custodial responsibility while one parent is deployed. After the deploying parent returns, the court immediately issues an interim order granting that parent reasonable contact with the child consistent with post-deployment leave — unless it finds that contact isn't in the child's best interest — and that contact can even exceed the parenting time the parent had before leaving. A deploying parent may also delegate parenting time to a new spouse during deployment, which does not create new legal rights for that person or violate the other parent's rights.

What Courts Typically Do

In practice, Colorado courts treat military retired pay as marital property and divide it using one of a couple of methods — a deferred distribution approach under USFSPA (the spouse receives a share when payments begin) or a net present value analysis that assigns a current value to the non-military spouse's share. Courts have offset the present values of both parties' pensions against each other, even where one spouse was retired and the other still in the active reserve. In one case a court awarded a wife 50 percent of the husband's disposable retired pay, weighing her contributions over his career and the fact that she had no survivor benefits if he died.

Courts are consistent that disability pay stays off-limits regardless of whether it's taxable, and they will not let a member defeat the other spouse's share by electing disability benefits after permanent orders — the court keeps authority to enforce its original order through contempt if needed.

On the parenting side, courts have honored a deployed parent's wish to delegate time to a new spouse when that served the children's best interests, treating the deploying parent's judgment with the presumption that they acted in the children's interests. Outcomes vary with the facts; nothing here is guaranteed, and the child's best interest remains the touchstone for any parenting decision.

Step by Step: What to Do

1. Confirm and disclose military status. Make sure the military status of both parties is accurately identified at the outset. This puts the court on notice of SCRA protections and affects how and when the case can move forward.

2. If you're the servicemember, talk to your base legal officer before anything else. Before deciding whether to request a stay or to waive one, get advice from your base legal office or an attorney. Waiving the stay also waives your right to court-appointed counsel under the Act — don't sign a waiver without understanding that.

3. File your petition (or respond) with the right paperwork. You don't need to hunt down or hand-fill the correct forms. The guided wizard on this site will interview you about your situation — including military status — and prepare and pre-fill the right Colorado court forms for you, flagging SCRA where it applies.

4. Nail down pension jurisdiction early. If a military pension is in play, the question of whether Colorado has authority to divide it under USFSPA needs to be addressed at the start of the case — based on residence, domicile, or consent, not just a military assignment. Because this authority must exist at the time of the decree, it's not something to leave for later.

5. Gather pension and pay documentation. Collect records showing the military member's retired pay, disability designation (if any), length of service, and any separation or incentive payments earned during the marriage. These determine what's divisible and what's protected.

6. If deployment is coming, plan for parenting coverage. A deploying parent can delegate daily care authority — including schooling and medical decisions — to a trusted adult for up to 12 months using a notarized special power-of-attorney type delegation, which is revocable in writing and does not change your underlying parenting orders. Parents can also enter an interim custody agreement; the guided wizard can help prepare the related paperwork.

7. Handle the return from deployment properly. When the deploying parent comes home, an interim arrangement can be ended by a written, signed termination agreement filed with the same court that has the case; absent that, it ends automatically 35 days after the returning parent gives notice of return.

What Research Shows Can Help

The items provided here focus on Colorado law and court practice rather than social science findings, so there's limited research-based guidance to offer on this specific topic. What the materials do emphasize — consistently — is that the child's best interest governs every parenting decision, including delegation of time during deployment and contact after a parent returns. If you're making arrangements around a deployment, keeping decisions anchored to what genuinely serves your child, and documenting agreements in writing, is the approach the law and practice reward.

What to Do Today

• If you or your spouse is on active duty, contact your base legal office to discuss SCRA stay rights before signing anything that waives them.
• Start the guided wizard so your paperwork is prepared correctly and your military status is flagged from the start.
• Pull together pension and pay records — retired pay statements, any disability rating, service dates, and documentation of separation or incentive payments.
• If a deployment is on the horizon, start thinking about who would handle day-to-day care and whether a time-limited delegation of authority makes sense.
• Write down key dates and facts about where the servicemember is domiciled and how long they've been stationed in Colorado — this bears directly on jurisdiction.

Related Issues to Be Aware Of

• Retirement accounts and QDROs: A military pension isn't the only retirement asset that may need dividing. Colorado distinguishes defined benefit plans from defined contribution plans and has specific rules for dividing public and private retirement benefits, so you'll want to account for every account, not just the military one.

• Property division: Colorado divides marital property equitably without regard to misconduct. Remember that property acquired during the marriage is presumed marital regardless of whose name is on it, but gifts and inheritances can be separate — and active military service alone doesn't give a spouse an interest in the other's separate property.

• Spousal maintenance: Because disability pay can't be divided as property, maintenance may become more important in a military divorce. The court must make findings on each party's income and resources before setting any maintenance amount and term.

• Missed or modified parenting time: Deployment and frequent relocation make missed parenting time a common issue for military families. Colorado allows makeup time of the same type and duration as time that was denied, and a change of custody should not be used to punish a parent.

• Temporary orders: While your case is pending — or while a servicemember is deployed — either party can request temporary orders on support, property use, and parenting. These follow the child's best-interest factors and terminate when the final decree is entered.