Protection for people on deployment
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Grimmerick
Posts: 3,331 Member
I have heard so many stories of people (guys mainly) going on long deployments and having their spouse leave them and clean out their bank accounts and homes so by the time they get back they have nothing but what the spouse didn't want. This doesn't seem right to me? Is there nothing protecting them from this? seems like something the spouse did should be illegal. Anyone know about this? What should or can be done?
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I don't know what the law would be. I imagine it would be tied to divorce laws, maybe. In a community property state, the spouses are each entitled to half, so the deployed person would have resource. Other than that I don't know, but there should be protection from that!0
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Basically, I posted this on my wall this morning "Heard some sad news this weekend. Our (husband and mine) friend who deployed to Iraq and is now in Kuwait waiting to come home, well, his wife just left him out of nowhere. She cleared his bank account with his $17,000 in savings. This is terrible. Now, he comes home in 43 days to no one. Looks like my husband and I will be going to Fort Hood to greet him home when his plane arrives. So sad.".
She justified taking the 17k by leaving everything in the house. In Texas, I think should they get divorced she is entitled to 50%, not sure. Well, she was unemployed all the time he was gone with the exception of 1-2 waiting jobs that didn't last long. She did not come into the marriage with 17k, she probably joined with 5k-7k max.
I definitely think there should be a law protecting these people. It's just terrible.
They should at least make some kind of law that requires the spouse of a deployed soldier to wait until the soldier is back in the country to remove savings or something along the lines.0 -
Yeah my friend Joey is dating this guy, before they dated his ex wife (wife at the time) left him 25 days before he was supposed to come back, took 26,000 dollars from his bank account and anything she wanted out of the house. She was a stay at home wife with no children so she didn't contribute anything financially to the marriage. Then she had the audacity to come back and ask for another 10,000 for a car. Some people need to just disappear and turn up rolled up in a rug in a densely wooded forest.0
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Some people need to just disappear and turn up rolled up in a rug in a densely wooded forest.
Lesson learned: emmydoodles may sound like a cute name, but don't you dare cross her...
I feel like there should definitely be something in place, but actually enacting any laws? That's gonna be a toughy. I wonder how often this happens.0 -
hahaha I swear I am a positive person..............................until you start talking about immoral selfish people and burdens on society lol.............but totally positive otherwise.0
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I have a feeling this kind of thing gets sorted in divorce court and those women better not spend too much of that money because they will probably have to pay at least some back when it's all said and done.
In community property states, you can come into a marriage with nothing, contribute nothing and still walk away with half of whats earned or purchased during the marriage.0 -
This actually happened to a Marine I know. He got married, first deployment he got an email from his wife saying she was divorcing him andhe came home to an empty bank account and house. He deserved it though, he's 25 and on wife 3. The current one called me a fat *&^$ (though she has never seen or met me) so I could care less about his problems.
I think it is sad that there are many women who do this to GOOD men as a scam and get away with it. It's like loophole that allows them to without getting in trouble. .0 -
It will all come out and be resolved in the divorce. Obviously, she'd have to have spent some of it on the mortgage/rent, utilities, gas, etc and that would be perfectly justifiable. But to just withdraw a large amount just prior to leaving him is not. She should have to justify where the money went and anything that doesn't fit gets divided up.
Depending on how long they'd been married, the amount of money she brought into the marriage isn't really a factor. Hubby and I will be married 19 years tomorrow. When we got married I had money and no debt. He had debt and no money. Fast forward and I've now been a SAHM for 15 years. I do taxes and financial planning from home but don't make anywhere near what he makes. We have a beautiful house and are debt free. We couldn't be at this point if it wasn't for his income. However, we also couldn't be at this point if it wasn't for me using the money I had when we first got married to get him out of debt and buy our first house.0 -
I agree w/ Bahet - it will come out in the divorce. Although I should mention my husband went to work overseas last year, and his employer had a class for all their employees on this topic. It was called financial planning while your gone or some junk like that. Basically they talked about how to manage your money responsibly, what direct deposit is, how to do a split direct deposit, etc...
My husband and I both have our own accounts, before he left he added me to his USAA account. I told him if he didn't want me on there, it would not hurt my feelings. He completely trusts me. I set up a savings account and dropped in half his paycheck every payday. I set up his bill pay, emailed him how much he could spend for incidentals, food, etc... and it worked out well.
My stepmom did that crap to my dad, so I have issues with folks that are greedy.
Honestly, doesn't it kinda fall under personal responsiblity? If I didn't trust my spouse or didn't know them for very long, I wouldn't be depositing the bulk of my $$ into our joint account.
Or it could be that I'm overly paranoid and have trust issues. :happy:0 -
He deserved it though, he's 25 and on wife 3.
I assume there is more to this story. No one deserves this unless that person is truly evil. And especially not someone willing to put his life on the line to keep this country safe.
My best friend is about to get divorced a second time. She makes bad choices in men. She doesn't deserve to be financially wiped out because of that.0 -
Honestly, doesn't it kinda fall under personal responsibility? If I didn't trust my spouse or didn't know them for very long, I wouldn't be depositing the bulk of my $$ into our joint account.
Seconded.0 -
Honestly, doesn't it kinda fall under personal responsibility? If I didn't trust my spouse or didn't know them for very long, I wouldn't be depositing the bulk of my $$ into our joint account.
Seconded.
Thirded, with the addition that I wouldn't marry someone I didn't trust/hadn't known very long.
That said, this happens more commonly than you might think, and not just to service personnel. My father managed to get my mother removed from all their joint accounts, credit cards etc, when she was at home, getting on with normal life, albeit not very well, and no-one, it seems, even thought to contact her to confirm that the story he was selling was true/that she had authorised him to do so. Nearly ten years post-divorce, he has a new wife and two expensive homes, while my mother is impoverished (he also managed to steal her company, but that's a whole other issue) and has no home of her own, despite having worked (and been the higher earner) for all thirty years of her marriage. She very nearly had to pay alimony to him! Bearing this in mind, I would most definitely support some form of regulation to protect the rights of both parties to joint accounts.0 -
Casta, that's awful! I don't think he could have gotten away with that in the US. You need more than a story to remove someone's name from an account. You either need the person standing there with you, a signed and notarized letter or something from a doctor stating the person is incompetent. And even if you did all that, in a divorce, the contents of those accounts do not automatically go to the person whose name is on them.0
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Unfortunately it happens all the time and not just to our military folks. Like others said most will be resolved in the divorce, but how many actually receive the cash stolen back is another question. also, in the service (my husband is retired military) if they are married for more than 1/2 of the person's military career the spouse can receive 1/2 or so of the military retirement. Really stinks. Maybe there just needs to be a posse of some sort out there and if the military spouse screws over the deployed person we just take them out! save a lot of heart ache! Granted I have known some military people that treat their spouse like crap and when they are deployed it is the only way they can get out of the house and away, usually a very abusive relationship. The majority aren't like that though.0
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I completely disagree that a spouse who is married for half their military career shouldn't get half their military retirement. You're talking a minimum of a 10 year marriage and that's if the military person enlisted right around the time they got married. If someone puts in that amount of time into a marriage they don't deserve to walk away with nothing. Especially since it's hard for a military spouse to have a real career as they are likely making multiple moves around the country and the world during that time. A military spouse gives up a LOT to be in that role. It's not easy at all.Unfortunately it happens all the time and not just to our military folks. Like others said most will be resolved in the divorce, but how many actually receive the cash stolen back is another question. also, in the service (my husband is retired military) if they are married for more than 1/2 of the person's military career the spouse can receive 1/2 or so of the military retirement. Really stinks. Maybe there just needs to be a posse of some sort out there and if the military spouse screws over the deployed person we just take them out! save a lot of heart ache! Granted I have known some military people that treat their spouse like crap and when they are deployed it is the only way they can get out of the house and away, usually a very abusive relationship. The majority aren't like that though.0 -
Casta, that's awful! I don't think he could have gotten away with that in the US. You need more than a story to remove someone's name from an account. You either need the person standing there with you, a signed and notarized letter or something from a doctor stating the person is incompetent. And even if you did all that, in a divorce, the contents of those accounts do not automatically go to the person whose name is on them.
Not exactly the basis for good father-daughter relations, I grant you... Unfortunately, my father is a lawyer and qualified accountant and had various powers of attorney/trustee-ships etc that allowed him to do things unquestioned. He'd also run the family's financial and legal affairs for years - as seemed logical at the time - so a lot of assets were somehow inaccessible. One might have thought, however, that someone, in one of the relevant institutions, might have thought to call my mother directly to confirm that she knew what was happening... A real lesson in not giving anyone, no matter how trusted, any real power in your financial affairs, though that's difficult to do with joint accounts. I think there is also still quite a lot of left-over patriarchal chauvinism in the banking world that assumes that the male in a partnership is somehow 'in charge' of the money, even if he's not earning the bulk of it.
In any case, as you say, the divorce should have evened things out, but as the higher-earner, my mothers' position was invidious. The fact that she had also paid for most of the household expenses, family holidays, school fees etc and therefore had little by way of individual savings was somehow irrelevant, and my father got to keep what was 'his' as well as almost all of what was 'theirs', not to mention drawing out proceedings so that the costs reached obscene levels... The law, as we say here in the UK, is sometimes an *kitten*. Ladies (and gentlemen), beware! In whatever way possible, keep control of your financial life, and do not trust anyone else to do it for you, even if they are your spouse.0 -
Oh, yeah. Divorcing a lawyer never ends well. I was seriously involved with a guy who was in law school years ago and he used to make commented about how he'd clean up if we ever married and got divorced because he would know all the important people making the decisions. Boy did I dodge it with that one!
He ended up marrying a family law attorney, so hopefully she can hold her own if anything happens, but at the same time she's kind of a shrinking violet so I think she would get screwed.0 -
Oh, yeah. Divorcing a lawyer never ends well. I was seriously involved with a guy who was in law school years ago and he used to make commented about how he'd clean up if we ever married and got divorced because he would know all the important people making the decisions. Boy did I dodge it with that one!
He ended up marrying a family law attorney, so hopefully she can hold her own if anything happens, but at the same time she's kind of a shrinking violet so I think she would get screwed.
Absolutely. Makes it seriously difficult to find a lawyer to act for you as well, when the person you're divorcing has been a leading light of the legal fraternity in town for 25 years or so.... Personally, my feeling is never marry a lawyer in the first place. Well dodged!0 -
I have a million of them in my family! :laugh: But none of them ever got divorced.
The ex is a lying, cheating creep so there's a good chance the marriage won't last. At the same time, she's stayed this long, so ...0 -
I have a million of them in my family! :laugh: But none of them ever got divorced.
The ex is a lying, cheating creep so there's a good chance the marriage won't last. At the same time, she's stayed this long, so ...
My mother stayed thirty years... Eventually, even in the face of her faith and a family record completely unblemished by divorce back to the 9th Century (we have a genealogist cousin or three), she had to make the choice to stand up for herself, and take back her self-respect and freedom. Life doesn't always work out the way we want it to, and sometimes we have to make choices we could never have envisioned making. A little self-protection in advance goes a long way (and costs a hell of a lot less than a three-year divorce fight :sick: ) - and that applies to everyone - servicemen and women, civilians, wives, husbands, common-law spouses, live-in girlfriends/boyfriends, the works.... I hope if your ex's wife ever decides to get out she has an easier time of it - the ex sounds like a real piece of work.
As for the family full of lawyers, family holidays must be a real blast - endless debates! I love arguing with my legal-eale friends (of whom I have a lot), but I have to admit, it's a red-flag profession for me, in a romantic sense, these days! :laugh:0 -
I have a million of them in my family! :laugh: But none of them ever got divorced.
The ex is a lying, cheating creep so there's a good chance the marriage won't last. At the same time, she's stayed this long, so ...
My mother stayed thirty years... Eventually, even in the face of her faith and a family record completely unblemished by divorce back to the 9th Century (we have a genealogist cousin or three), she had to make the choice to stand up for herself, and take back her self-respect and freedom. Life doesn't always work out the way we want it to, and sometimes we have to make choices we could never have envisioned making. A little self-protection in advance goes a long way (and costs a hell of a lot less than a three-year divorce fight :sick: ) - and that applies to everyone - servicemen and women, civilians, wives, husbands, common-law spouses, live-in girlfriends/boyfriends, the works.... I hope if your ex's wife ever decides to get out she has an easier time of it - the ex sounds like a real piece of work.
As for the family full of lawyers, family holidays must be a real blast - endless debates! I love arguing with my legal-eale friends (of whom I have a lot), but I have to admit, it's a red-flag profession for me, in a romantic sense, these days! :laugh:
We're so spread out, it's not common for us to get together that often, and they don't really debate much. And my grandfather is a lawyer, but he was a patent attorney, so not quite as bad. And, well, he's senile now. It's mostly great-uncles and some cousins now.
I hope your mom, despite the financial losses, is spiritually in a better place now. Sometimes it's better to lose the money and gain your self back.
It's a funny situation with the ex and a long story, but basically he dumped me for her, lied to her about our relationship and then a few years ago (after no contact for eight years) contacted me on Facebook.. What started out as just "let's be friends" turned into some very inappropriate stuff on his end. I sent him a long e-mail basically telling him to stand up and work on his marriage and the wife saw the e-mail and contacted me.
She's very sweet, but a total weakling. I feel bad for her because even from that brief back and forth we had, I think she deserved so much better than him. At the same time, I no longer have those moments of nostalgia where I wonder if we could have been happy if things had worked out. Now I KNOW!0 -
He deserved it though, he's 25 and on wife 3.
I assume there is more to this story. No one deserves this unless that person is truly evil. And especially not someone willing to put his life on the line to keep this country safe.
My best friend is about to get divorced a second time. She makes bad choices in men. She doesn't deserve to be financially wiped out because of that.
Oh yes. He is very shallow, hateful and evil. The kind of military person you fear. And I support the military more than most. He's what I consider a "bro" frat-boy mentality. Marries stupid girls for their looks and wonders why they do things like this.0 -
I see a lot of comments about personal responsibility. In my case, he trusted his wife. He had no concerns or any distrust hence why the joint account. At one point my husband had told him to get a personal account to deposit his savings, well, now we know he didn't.
It's unfortunate that this should happen to anyone. Some people just suck0 -
I see a lot of comments about personal responsibility. In my case, he trusted his wife. He had no concerns or any distrust hence why the joint account. At one point my husband had told him to get a personal account to deposit his savings, well, now we know he didn't.
It's unfortunate that this should happen to anyone. Some people just suck
I find a lot of people who are very in favor of keeping finances completely separate are people who didn't in their first marriages and got burned. I think one's instinct is to trust the person one marries or why would you even think of marrying that person? It's a horrible betrayal and I hope your friend gets what he's entitled to.0 -
I completely disagree that a spouse who is married for half their military career shouldn't get half their military retirement. You're talking a minimum of a 10 year marriage and that's if the military person enlisted right around the time they got married. If someone puts in that amount of time into a marriage they don't deserve to walk away with nothing. Especially since it's hard for a military spouse to have a real career as they are likely making multiple moves around the country and the world during that time. A military spouse gives up a LOT to be in that role. It's not easy at all.Unfortunately it happens all the time and not just to our military folks. Like others said most will be resolved in the divorce, but how many actually receive the cash stolen back is another question. also, in the service (my husband is retired military) if they are married for more than 1/2 of the person's military career the spouse can receive 1/2 or so of the military retirement. Really stinks. Maybe there just needs to be a posse of some sort out there and if the military spouse screws over the deployed person we just take them out! save a lot of heart ache! Granted I have known some military people that treat their spouse like crap and when they are deployed it is the only way they can get out of the house and away, usually a very abusive relationship. The majority aren't like that though.
As a military spouse for a little over 20 years, I agree with you. a military spouse gives up a lot. but I think if the spouse is the one to take a hike then I don't think she should get 1/2 the retirement. Of course I sure there will always be circumstances, but I've seen so many that stick it out ten years, just to get 1/2. I know a woman that married 3 separate military men, she now gets a pension and 1/2. doesn't have to work ever again. fair? That doesn't even bring up alimony, houses etc.... If another government employee (state or federal) gets a divorce I don't believe they have to give up 1/2 of their pension, I may be wrong but I have never heard of that. why would it be different for military? alimony yes, 1/2 of the pension, no -0 -
I'll compromise with making it a case by case basis. A woman who leaves her hubby for someone else right at that half way point shouldn't get anything. A woman who leaves her hubby because he started cheating should get it. Ditto if he came home all messed up and started drinking, drugs, violence, etc.
I completely disagree that a spouse who is married for half their military career shouldn't get half their military retirement. You're talking a minimum of a 10 year marriage and that's if the military person enlisted right around the time they got married. If someone puts in that amount of time into a marriage they don't deserve to walk away with nothing. Especially since it's hard for a military spouse to have a real career as they are likely making multiple moves around the country and the world during that time. A military spouse gives up a LOT to be in that role. It's not easy at all.Unfortunately it happens all the time and not just to our military folks. Like others said most will be resolved in the divorce, but how many actually receive the cash stolen back is another question. also, in the service (my husband is retired military) if they are married for more than 1/2 of the person's military career the spouse can receive 1/2 or so of the military retirement. Really stinks. Maybe there just needs to be a posse of some sort out there and if the military spouse screws over the deployed person we just take them out! save a lot of heart ache! Granted I have known some military people that treat their spouse like crap and when they are deployed it is the only way they can get out of the house and away, usually a very abusive relationship. The majority aren't like that though.
As a military spouse for a little over 20 years, I agree with you. a military spouse gives up a lot. but I think if the spouse is the one to take a hike then I don't think she should get 1/2 the retirement. Of course I sure there will always be circumstances, but I've seen so many that stick it out ten years, just to get 1/2. I know a woman that married 3 separate military men, she now gets a pension and 1/2. doesn't have to work ever again. fair? That doesn't even bring up alimony, houses etc.... If another government employee (state or federal) gets a divorce I don't believe they have to give up 1/2 of their pension, I may be wrong but I have never heard of that. why would it be different for military? alimony yes, 1/2 of the pension, no -0
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