Question regarding BAH while spouse is deployed, separation/divorce, and my rights as a spouse.
Without going too in depth with my situation, this is an overview of what's been happening in my marriage. I've been married for over 3 years. My husband is currently deployed and I do not know when he is going to be returning. For the entire time we have been married, he has been really awful to me. Hiding money, taking away the vehicle, threatening to break the lease on the apartment I stayed in while he was deployed, etc. All kinds of emotional warfare and abuse. I have contacted his command in the past about these issues, but for the most part I have made the mistake of letting him get away with all of these things. There is no "legal separation" where I reside, and I have been unable to get him to cooperate with divorcing me.
Here's my issue...
He recently canceled the joint account we had together, then switched his paychecks to a new account, leaving me with absolutely no BAH. He claims that he went to his command and let them know that I "abandoned the marriage" so he is now no longer receiving BAH. Not only that, he will show me no proof of this happening and a quick Google search yields no results on the front of "military/army spouse abandonment" and stopping BAH without proof of divorce. He told me he doesn't care who I call because I'm just being "butthurt." I have e-mails and FB messages of him claiming he was going to stop receiving BAH because he was going to get on-post housing in Afghanistan, and now he claims he isn't receiving it because I abandoned him.
As it is the weekend, I am unable to contact anyone in JAG or his command for advice on this. I am going to the closest installation tomorrow morning to contact anyone about this.
What are my rights as a spouse in this matter? He has been nothing but absolutely awful to me, and now he has taken away the BAH that I used for housing after he deployed.
What do I do? Can he do this?
Obviously step one is contacting his command in the morning.
Thanks for any help.
Posted Dec 2, 2012, 4:48 PM UTC · edited