Chapter 390 - Your option boss (1)

10 May, Matthew's Office, Military Base, City K

Having sat through the meetings with Head Honcho and Legend, Matthew looked at the time, realising that he had not done any PT this morning. Despite the restrictions he still had from the surgery, there was no way he was going to let general level of fitness to go away, so he slipped into his office and changed into his training uniform, to go for a run.

As he exited his office, Sergeant Yi said "Boss, Lieutenant Li asked for some time."

Matthew paused, and said "Give me two hours, but organised for a simple meal to be in my office from the mess in ninety minutes," before quickly leaving, heading out for a run, where he knew he could work through his thoughts.

Pounding the run path, Matthew kept thinking about all his discussions with Phillip after he dragged him to the family villa. He had been right, the last thing he needed was to come back to base. He needed to calm down and start to look at the situation with a bit more distance. The question was what was the most important, his anger or his marriage. Last nigh he would have said the former, but acting in anger would immediately have sent Lexi against him, meaning when the time frame he set expired he would not have an option but to grant her a divorce.

In preferencing his marriage, Matthew knew that he was giving Lexi a message, that she could hurt him again and again. That was not a marriage, that was allowing her to treat him as a mat that she could walk over and would potentially end up in the same result as remaining angry, a divorce as he would not be able to live with a relationship that was not worth it.

After finishing his run, Matthew looked at his watch and noticed that he had been gone longer than intended, so quickly made his way back to his office, slipping into the bathroom to quickly shower and change. On returning into the main part of his office, Sergeant Yi was placing a simply meal on his desk, and said "Sir, Lieutenant Li will he here in fifteen minutes, but there is a few things on your desk that you need to deal with as well."

After Matthew nodded, Sergeant Yi quickly exited his office, and as he started eating, Matthew picked up the first report on his pile, and started reading it. This was part of the job he hated, reports and administration compared to being in the field. Advancement has its pros and cons; this was one of the cons.

As he sat the first report, there was a knock on the door, and Lieutenant Li was shown in, and sat down, as Sergeant Yi left them alone. As she heard the door shut, she said "Boss, I have had a chance to do the research and figure out the situation. I have a report…"

"Leave it on the desk but tell me your findings."

"Boss, please do not take this the wrong way, but have you thought about what the impacts are of this course of action?"

"Lieutenant, that is still a question I have to work through. But what is the outcome of your research so I can consider it in my decision making."

Bronwyn Li looked down at her hands. Ever since she had started dating John, she realised that life was more than just her job, but depending on what the boss decided, it could break so many relationsh.i.p.s. That was something she did not want to be a part of, but it was not out of the realms of her responsibilities.

Taking a steadying breath, she said "Boss, given the information you gave me access to on your personnel record, the law is extremely clear. Before I moved onto your specific question about getting your name on Dominic's birth certificate, I wanted to double check everything. I did not want there to be any room for questioning anything."

"When you and Lexi completed the first two of the three steps required at that time for a military marriage, when one party was under the age of eighteen at the time was all done legally. You filed your marriage report and made the commitment to a chaplain, in your case over the phone, which was perfectly fine. The remaining step was to complete either a religious ceremony or a civilian registration. At the time no time limit applied to that step, and unless the military party filed the necessary paperwork to cancel that commitment, future civilian registration whether with a religious ceremony or not, did not invalidate that."

"When the new marriage law came into effect, with military marriages it made a number of changes. All marriages conducted in accordance with the requirements continue to remain valid, but for those where both parties were over eighteen at the time of the initial steps, they had one month after the law became valid to complete the process, otherwise only civilian registration was valid. For those where one party was under the age of eighteen at the time of the processes, the law gave them twelve months to complete the processed."

"My understanding for that was that it would allow those trying to take advantage of the process recently time for the party under eighteen to turn eighteen. But it did not place a time limit on how long ago the initial two steps had been taken. That ensured that your marriage is valid because you underwent a religious ceremony."

"Additionally, if what I saw on your personnel file is correct in that you never took the steps to invalidate the commitment, then technically Lexi was never legally married to Richard Yao."

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