I wanted to add as I feel for you man. I had this exact situation happen to me twice in an old marriage when I was on active duty over 20 years ago. I was married to a person with bi-polar disorder and substance abuse disorder and would regularly get assaulted by her and have to restrain her. I would get cigarettes thrown in my face, ash trays thrown at me, slapped, and punched in the mouth. She would always call the police and due to DV laws, any complaint of pain or assault; I got arrested.
This happened twice, both cases dismissed and unfounded; as I was actually assaulted despite getting charged with the assault. I also had it expunged later. I took all the necessary classes, etc… I had a Secret at the time, which I believe was suspended pending the outcome. Once the case was dismissed, it was reinstated. I remember I was up for reinvestigation at the time and disclosed the incident and outcomes and was able to maintain my clearance and went on to reclass to an MI MOS. I got as far away from her as possible and filed for divorce, which I got after a drawn out battle in court; which, I don’t for the life of me understand why she fought it if she hated me so bad lol.
The bad thing is this will always follow you, even if it’s expunged. Fast forward from these incidents; I got out of the mil and became a Police Officer, which I have been for the last 12 years. Of course, this comes up, and has to be investigated more and explained in detail. Luckily, I had a good BG Investigator for my first department who later became a good friend. He was very thorough with his investigation and dug through the police reports and found her criminal history as well, which she had a pattern of doing this as well as her own arrests for assault and battery on former male partners, DUI, and drug possession. The police reports discovered that they never asked me my side of the story or questioned me, they just arrived and hooked me; which any DV investigation or even verbal disputes between people requires that an officer interview everyone on scene to determine what happened and if anything actually occurred, and if it did who is the primary aggressor. I was never afforded this. Anyway, a thorough investigation was favorable for me and I served exemplary.
Now, as an Officer, I have dealt with a thousand DV cases. Unfortunately, I saw this same situation play out more often than not. Yes, there are legitimate cases of DV and when you see it you know it. However, most cases are just like the one you explained and that I went through. It’s never clear cut and a lot of times false claims are made and it’s he said she said with little to no evidence of any physical assault. Now on to the bad part. Due to the stigma around DV, and yes it is very serious issue, as many women “and” men are killed yearly in violent domestic situations. Officers are required to make arrests if any allegations are made of physical assault, or complaints of pain with little to no evidence. More often than not, the male half will be the one arrested as the primary aggressor even if he was defending himself and trying to restrain his female partner from attacking him.
Protective Order’s are automatically issued even when the female half does not want one and arrests are made even if she recants and says that nothing happened. Due to victim’s rights, women are not typically charged in re canting and saying that nothing happened and that they don’t want to go further with the case. Most cases that I see, this is typical; a complaint is made, whether it happened or not, there is little to no physical evidence with either party involved, an arrest is made, and the PO is issued. The case goes to court and either the complainant does not show up or re cants and the case is dismissed. This happens a thousand times a day across the the country. Unfortunately there are the real and very bad cases, which often do not even get reported as the female, or sometimes male, lives in fear of the other half and these are the horrible cases where a person is seriously injured or killed. This sets the tone for every other case with a zero tolerance policy in hopes to prevent those extreme cases from occurring. I have worked and seen many of these cases and they are horrendous, traumatic, and depressing.
With it following you be prepared to talk about it twenty years from now if you want to get another job or renew your clearance. I recently went through the process as a contractor for a gov’t agency and had to re live this all over again. The investigator, which I know he is just doing his job, questioned me like he was a Detective trying to re-open the case and get me charged and convicted. I expected to talk about it, of course, but not to the level where he was trying to get me to admit guilt despite the incidents being over 20 years old, unfounded, dismissed, expunged, and that I was an actual victim in the case. You will be good to go, don’t worry. This is more common than you could imagine. What is meant to protect people from great harm, also harms a lot of innocent people as well, which is the unfortunate collateral damage with DV cases. I don’t know if this helps or not, but wished to share my own personal experiences and realities from both sides of an incident similar to yours.
