If you’re in the military, or marrying someone who is, you’re probably used to adapting. New orders, new cities, long separations, and surprise deployments are all part of the deal. But one thing that doesn’t have to feel chaotic? Planning for your financial and legal future together. That’s where a prenuptial agreement comes in. While every couple has unique needs, military life introduces specific scenarios that civilian couples rarely face. A thoughtful prenup can help clarify how you’ll handle them with dignity, compassion, and clarity. Your prenup can be a tool for stability in a life full of change.
Retirement Accounts and Survivor Benefits
Military retirement is one of the most valuable long-term benefits of service, which means it’s also one of the most contested assets in a divorce. Under the Uniformed Services Former Spouses’ Protection Act (USFSPA), military pensions can be treated as marital property and divided by a state court. A prenuptial agreement gives you and your partner the power to decide in advance whether, and how, you want that retirement divided. Maybe you’ll agree that each of you will keep your own retirement accounts, or maybe you’ll split only the portion earned during the marriage.
You can also specify how you want to divide specific retirement accounts from a Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) to a military pension. Prenups usually address how property is treated during a divorce, but they can also address how to handle assets after a death. In a prenup, you can state how to handle the Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP), a critical benefit that provides continuing income to the surviving spouse after a service member’s death. Just remember to match the language in your benefit plan, will, and other estate planning documents to the language in your prenup if they address the same asset.
The 10/10 rule
You might be familiar with the 10/10 rule which states that if you’ve been married for at least ten years during which the service member was on active duty, your spouse may receive payments directly from the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS). 10 years of marriage and 10 years of service. This timeframe is not a requirement for division, but it does determine how the payments are made. If you and your spouse wish to change this default rule, you can state this clearly in your prenup.
Health Insurance and Life Insurance
Military service comes with important benefits like TRICARE, dental coverage, and Servicemembers’ Group Life Insurance (SGLI). But what happens if the service member leaves the military or if the couple separates? A prenup can answer those questions.
For example, the agreement can state whether one partner will continue to pay for the other’s healthcare after divorce, or whether each will be responsible for their own. It can address who pays premiums if one partner is unemployed during deployment. And since life insurance is often a critical safety net, especially in high-risk professions like the military, a prenup can clarify who will be named as the beneficiary, and for how long. Just remember to update your actual life insurance policies to mirror the chosen beneficiary in your prenup. You don’t want these important documents to be in conflict as this could cause the life insurance clause in your prenup to be overthrown in favor of the language in the life insurance policy.
Debt, deployment, and the financial realities of military life
Frequent moves, long-distance logistics, and temporary housing arrangements can complicate even the strongest household budget. When one spouse is stationed overseas and the other is back home paying bills, who’s responsible for what? What happens if credit card debt piles up from relocation expenses? These are important issues to address for all couples, but especially when the couple is moving regularly and living in separate locations for extended periods of time. A prenup can clearly lay out these expectations related to debt.
Many military couples choose to keep separate accounts and agree that premarital debts remain individual responsibilities. Others prefer to pool everything and work from a shared budget. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution, and that’s exactly why a prenup is helpful. It lets you decide what’s fair for your relationship instead of relying on what a judge thinks is fair after things have gone south.
Separate Property versus Marital Property
The most common topic addressed in prenups is the classification of property. In a divorce without a prenup, states divide property based on one of two laws. Nine states in the U.S. distribute property based on the principle of community property. This means that courts generally divide property equally (50/50). The remaining states apply the principle of equitable division, which does not necessarily mean equal. Courts will look at many aspects of your marriage to determine what division of assets would be fair and just.
If you draft a prenup with your partner, you are able to override default state laws. You can specify that property you acquired before marriage like a car, a house, or even a dog is separate property and is not up for distribution if there’s a divorce. You can also specify what assets you want to be marital property. Signing a prenup with your partner makes you two the architects of your financial future, not an unknown judge in the future.
Powers of Attorney, Estate Planning, and Life After Loss
Military families are often asked to make big decisions with little notice. That includes what happens if one spouse is injured, deployed, or, heartbreakingly killed in action. While powers of attorney, wills, and family care plans often exist separately from a prenup, your prenup can coordinate with these documents to ensure consistency.
A well-written agreement can clarify whether your spouse has authority to manage your finances during deployment, how your estate should be handled if something happens to you, and what kind of support the surviving spouse should receive. It’s also a good idea to revisit your prenup if you have children, especially if you’ll be relocating or living apart for extended periods of time. No one likes to talk about worst-case scenarios. But for military families, being prepared is a sign of strength not pessimism. Including these clauses can offer tremendous relief in the face of uncertainty.
Prenups can supersede some statutory military protections
Courts are inclined to uphold prenuptial agreements as long as they abide by the requirements of the state governing the agreement. States across the country have statutes protecting certain property from being divided during a divorce. But some of those statutes make an exception for situations where a prenup was involved and the parties clearly made their intentions known regarding the protected asset.
Take, for example, a Nevada statute that establishes an important rule for divorcing military vets or other service-connected disabled veterans. It says that when Nevada courts are dividing community or jointly held property or deciding alimony, they cannot attach, levy, seize, assign, or divide any federal disability benefits awarded to a veteran under Section 38 the United States Code unless those benefits were addressed in a valid premarital or postmarital agreement. So, in Nevada, if you want your federal disability benefits to be classified as marital property or to be allocated towards spousal support post divorce, you can state this desire clearly in your contract. But, simply mentioning “military disability benefits” isn’t enough. To override Section 125.165 of the Nevada Revised Statute, the prenup must explicitly specify that those benefits are to be considered marital property even though the default law protects them (NRS §125.165).
Bottom line on what military personnel should include in their prenup
There is so much change and uncertainty regarding logistics in a military marriage. A prenup is one valuable way to establish predictability and financial security before starting your marital journey. In discussing your financial goals and concerns, you’re forming an honest foundation for your marriage and setting the tone for a transparent, supportive relationship. For military couples, a financial peace-of-mind and intentional planning is deeply beneficial. And remember that without a prenup, state law could decide what happens to your assets in a divorce regardless of what your personal desires may be. Wherever you are in your military journey: about to be deployed, changing duty stations, or just want to make sure your future is protected, a prenup is a powerful tool that can protect your family even when you’re apart.
Richard D. Lebovitz is an attorney that specializes in practicing Family Law (Divorce and Child Custody Cases). I am licensed to practice in Pennsylvania (1992) and Maryland (2005). I own my law practice at Lebovitz Law, LLC in Towson, Maryland. I enjoy helping clients resolve their family law matters. I enjoy helping clients prepare prenuptial agreements as they help clients to prepare for marriage and to hopefully avoid many of the issues that would be litigated if their soon to be marriage would end in Divorce. They help with fully understanding the financial assets and liabilities of each partner prior to Marriage.
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