Legal Question in Family Law in Texas

Technically, she will be entitled to a "just and right division" of the community estate. What does that mean?

JUST AND RIGHT. Probably means a 50:50 division of community property and debts. Because your infidelity is not the cause of the breakup of the marriage, it probably wouldn't be that important to the property division. It could tilt it to 45:55, but if you have an attorney, it probably wouldn't go that far unless you just agreed in order to get the divorce done.

COMMUNITY ESTATE. All property acquired during the marriage except by gift, bequest, inheritance, or certain personal injury law suit awards. So for example, if you had a $10,000 savings account on the day you were married and you never took any money out and you earned $1,500 in interest so that on the date of divorce the account had $11,500 in it, she would be entitled to half of the $1,500. The $10,000 would be separate property that is not subject to division.

In terms of your retirement, she would be entitled to a share of it based on the length of the marriage and the duration of your service. For simplicity's sake, if you stay in for 20 years and are married for 7.5 of those years, when you start receiving benefits, she would be entitled to 37.5% of those benefits (7.5 divided by 20).

If you have significant separate property, you should hire an attorney to help you sort through all this. All property is considered community property unless you can prove by clear and convincing evidence to the contrary. That's what messes most folks up--it probably is their separate property, but they can't prove it to the court's satisfaction.

Good luck!