Married but filing alone, need advise if asked why..

[SocalBroke]

Hi,

Sorry for double posting, but not sure my question was seen in the questions thread. In the questions thread Doghouse posted

Also, if you are married and filing alone then the trustee always asked why your spouse is not filing with you.

I will be filing alone and am a little concerned now...Anyone know if this answer will fly (since it is the God's honest truth)? We have been together 10 years but only married last June (probably shouldn't go into that much detail with the trustee) but we made a decision when we got together to keep our finances separate. We have always maintained separate bank accounts, separate credit cards, everything. The only thing both our names are on is our lease and our car insurances. He has always been pay his share of the bills and has only one or two credit cards that he pays all the time, on time. So since this truly was my debt alone, it didn't make sense to ruin his credit too in the process.

If anyone can think of a better way of stating that, I'm all ears! My 341 is the end of this week and I am starting to get nervous.

[DeadManCrawling]

Say it just like you did on the post, but more briefly.

"We have maintained separate finances since we got married, just in case."

That should be good enough.

[music12]

also, it seems to me relevant that the debt was incurred before you got married (right?) so the spouse is not, and should not be, responsible for it.

[Floridagail]

I hope you have consulted with attorney, WHen I was considering getting married, 20 yrs with my BF now. My attorney said I should file before marrying. It gets tricky afterwards. His income counts toward paying the bills she said if you are married. So better check that out.

[SocalBroke]

I hope you have consulted with attorney, WHen I was considering getting married, 20 yrs with my BF now. My attorney said I should file before marrying. It gets tricky afterwards. His income counts toward paying the bills she said if you are married. So better check that out.

Thanks, I did check with the atty. My case is even a little trickier since I am in a same sex marriage which is recognized by the state but not federally. The good thing is, the atty ran the numbers all different ways and I should be ok as I am under the median in all cases.

[outsidetool]

I filed by myself, wife did not. Yes, the trustee was a bit leary, and asked a lot of questions during the 341 as well as sent requests to my atty for several details. Fortunately, I had a good, aggressive atty who had been this road several times. One big sticking point was our pending tax return for 2008. Filing together my wife and I would have had a refund of about $2500. Filing seperately I would turn out paying $400, and my wife's refund would be around $1800. The trustee wanted to adjust our buget citing that we were having too much tax withheld--at least my wife was--which could have jeapardized my ch 7. The trustee also wanted my wife's refund. Well, we had a bit of a tangle, cause my wife wanted nothing to do with any of it. In the end, she wrote a letter to the trustee and my atty (yes, my atty did urge her to make her feelings known) telling'em all to essentially drop dead: she didn't file bankruptcy, hadn't run up the bills to have to file bankruptcy, and wasn't going to be pulled in to the bankruptcy in any way shape or form. My atty all but dared the trustee to haul my wife in to court and question her. The trustee very quickly backed off; I got my discharge

[jennordhavn]

I am married and filed alone in CA (community property state).............the trustee didn't question it at all. However, I had just been married 4 days before so we truly did not have ANY joint debts and our finances were separate (bank accounts, etc.). On the part of the petition where you list your spouse's name I put a note "Recently married, no joint debt."