Getting divorced is hard enough. Service in the military has its own challenges. Combine the two and there are some unique issues that are going to apply to your divorce case. If you’re an Alaska military father, here are a few things that you need to know:

The child’s home state is the forum for child custody

In Alaska military divorces, the question of where to decide child custody is often an issue. A law called the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act applies to your case. That means that the state or country where the children have lived for the last six months is the jurisdiction that decides custody. The nationality of the children doesn’t matter.

This isn’t as simple as just where the children have been physically located for the last six months. Rather, it’s a question of where the children expected to return to or to permanently remain. The purpose of this law is to prevent parents from taking the children and running to a more favorable court. Rules on where to decide child custody are complex, and even courts sometimes struggle to apply them correctly.