Restraining Orders

Your protective order can be transferred to the court handling your divorce or custody case. This can happen if you get a protective order:

• before or during a divorce case; or
• before, during, or after a custody case.¹ 

Either you or the abuser can make this request, and the judge can also decide to do it on their own.¹ The judge cannot transfer the order, however, if that would make you or anyone else protected by the order unsafe.² If the abuser asks for the order to be transferred and you do not agree, you must file an affidavit in response that explains how the transfer would make you unsafe.³ 

It is possible for your protective order to say something different from what your divorce or custody orders say. Even if your protective order is not transferred, if the orders say different things, your protective order will be enforced instead of (take precedence over) any other order you may get in your custody or divorce case. This will be true for as long as the protective order is in effect, even if it is a temporary ex parte order. The order should include language saying this, but it is true even if the language is not there.⁴ 

¹ Tex. Fam. Code § 85.064(a), (b)
² Tex. Fam. Code § 85.064(c-4)
³ Tex. Fam. Code § 85.064(c-1), (c-3)
⁴ Tex. Fam. Code §§ 81.012; 85.026(b)