Restraining Orders

A protective order can order the abuser to:

• stop committing acts of family violence or dating violence or any acts that are reasonably likely to harass, annoy, alarm, abuse, torment, or embarrass you or your family or household member;
• stop communicating with you or a family member, directly or through a third party, or stop communicating in a threatening or harassing way;
• stay away from your home or workplace or those of your family or household members;
• stay away from a school or daycare center attended by a child protected by the order;
• complete a battering intervention and prevention program or attend counseling with someone who specializes in family violence;
• follow any custody or visitation terms that the judge puts into the order;
• not remove your child from your possession or from the “jurisdiction of the court”;
• stop any transfer or sale of property that you own or lease with the abuser;
• pay child support or spousal support for the time you have the protective order;
• leave your home or other specified property and allow you to stay there if certain conditions are met;
• not possess any firearms, unless the person is a peace officer actively working as a full-time paid employee of a state agency; Note: The judge is supposed to suspend the abuser’s license to carry a handgun if they have been found to have committed family violence;
• not harm, threaten, or interfere with the care, custody, or control of your pet, companion animal, or assistance animal, or that of your family or household member;
• not track or monitor your personal property or motor vehicle without your permission, by using either a tracking application or device, or by physically following you; and
• do anything else that is necessary to prevent or reduce the likelihood of family or dating violence.¹

In addition, if you and the abuser share a cell phone plan, you can ask the judge to separate it. The judge can order that your phone number and your child’s phone number be moved from the abuser’s account into your own separate account. You would then be responsible for paying for it and have the right to use each transferred wireless telephone number.² The Texas Council on Family Violence has an FAQ booklet about transferring your cell phone number.

If your protective order includes terms related to custody or divorce, these terms will take precedence over any order from your divorce or custody case. This means that whatever the judge includes here will be enforced instead of the existing orders. 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.³ 

Note: Even if the order doesn’t specifically say that the abuser has to turn over their firearms, possession of a firearm by a non-police officer who is a respondent in a protective order case is illegal under Texas state law and federal law. Please see Texas State Gun Laws and Federal Gun Laws for more information.

¹ Tex. Fam. Code §§ 85.021; 85.022
² Tex. Fam. Code §85.0225(a), (d)(3)
³ Tex. Fam. Code §§ 81.012; 85.026(b)