In recent years, there has been an uprising in financial spousal abuse in the Air Force with little to no real guidelines specified pertaining to family support obligations of a member. Where defined as “adequate support” prior to July 2018, new regulations have been sent down from the top to specify what is considered a calculated pro-rata obligation to support a spouse, the family, or just the children.
For those reading who may be unfamiliar with military regulations pertaining to financial “family obligation support”, this is a huge step for the Air Force to now raise the standards and obligations of their service members. This is such a huge concern for those previously impacted as I actually see women and men spouses of service members rushing to have these “adequate amounts” enforced per the new AFI Regulations.
You see them here as outlined by the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force in AFI36-2906 Chapter 4. You may wish to print these out on 8.5x11 paper for your convenience.
If this hasn’t been released to your base locations, then please print these out and take them into your local IG office on base and demand your familial obligation rights be enforced.
Shame shame Air Force. By creating these guidelines, you also inadvertently admit that prior guidelines were highly inadequate, outdated AND additionally served as a detriment to the Air Force families that have been previously told their struggles were acceptable when the service member cut off utilities, car insurance, education funding for spouses through GI Bills reallocated to them, and much more. After all, these men and women were often told that so long as a car payment was being made (example of a high $ amount), then it was to be considered “adequate support”.
What does this mean for the spouses? This means that regardless of any orders, a member will always be held accountable for financially supporting their spouse, no matter what a court says in an ongoing custody or divorce case. This means additionally that any service member who has not paid anything at all to their legal spouse, in the absence of a legal separation, is legally in violation of these AFI Regulations beginning in the month of July and Base Command may utilize their discretion to hold the service member accountable, wherever their current station is located. This means spouses and families of all forms to a service member from Coast to Coast and Internationally can finally see some peace incoming.
Do I see this as a fail-safe? Absolutely not! While this is a step in the right direction, this by no means absolves the Air Force of years of long term financial abuse left permitted. This will be a headache process for many to enforce and I have no doubt that with the common red tape and push back received by many, the red tape and push back will likely continue. Guess what though? It is okay to push right back- because it is always the legal way you follow. Print these regulations out and begin your paper trail of non-compliance.
So Thank you for this admission of culpability. This is huge and I hope for the families who have suffered, they can finally see some semblance of justice for the ongoing and long term financial abuse sustained as they leave this destructive pattern of financial abuse once and for all.
Time to hold your Base Commands accountable!
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