Does My Spouse Have To File?

No, if you’re married, your spouse doesn’t have to file. We file cases all the time for one party in a marriage. There are reasons sometimes that spouses don’t want to file. They want to protect their credit rating or one of you came into the marriage with a lot of debt that was incurred prior to the marriage. Even if you are living with your spouse and you share incomes, meaning that it’s pooled into one bank account, only one party has to file if that is your choice. I can explain that to you at the consultation, show you the mechanics of it, but it happens all the time, one party can file.