I work for a collection agency in GA. We do sue spouses jointly even for bills they incurred separately (medical collections mostly). We also can sue them together if the bill is for a mutual biological child. We sue for a few other clients, too, notably broken rental leases, etc. Now, the couple can contest this before a judge if they wish, but I’ve only seen it done successfully when the couple is divorcing. Once the statement of claim (suit) becomes a judgment, both parties are fully liable for the entire debt and we may garnish either spouse’s wages and/or bank account(s) for the entire balance. We did recently have a guy traverse (contest) a garnishment using the excuse that most of the bills were his wife’s but since he signed a consent judgment for the entire balance, the judge told him he was out of luck.
Jaade, Were those bills they incurred during their marriage, or previous to it? (Or does it matter?)
I’m not responding to Foxy’s posts because her take on marriage is so extremely opposed to mine (for which I am profoundly thankful, BTW) that we just don’t have a shared wavelength anywhere.
That said, I do want to say that, even without the kids at home, when I add all my hours of work together for a week I’m always in the 40 hour ballpark – sometimes a little less, and frequently quite a bit more. I do all the cleaning and much of the basic maintenance of our home. I do all the laundry and laundry related stuff and all the cooking and post-cooking cleanup. I do all the shopping & errand running & bill paying. I help my husband (who works from home, when he isn’t traveling) with administrative work – nothing professional, mind you, but I do his travel claims, proofread his reports, do some of his basic data entry, and do basic research for him, when needed. There was slightly more cleaning, more food prep & more laundry when my kids were still home and a lot more errand running. But really, I’m nearly as busy keeping up with Kevin and me in our house alone than I was when the kids were at home. Especially since my parents, who are growing elderly, moved to our area at around the same time as our kids moved out. My folks are still pretty fit, but I do go over to their house and help them out with various things as needed.
All that said, I have a pretty good gig and I know it. For the most part, I make my own hours, and set my own standards. And I hate this putting-housewives-on-a-pedestal stuff as much as anyone. This isn’t rocket science – it’s just work. My work isn’t anywhere near as stressful or difficult as a surgeon’s or a pilot’s or a CEO’s. But it’s honest work and I make a genuine contribution to my family. Some might feel that a paycheck would be more of a contribution, but we disagree. I like staying home and my husband likes having me at home. If we feel that having me here taking care of business on the homefront is the best use of my time, for our family, I can’t imagine why anyone else would think their vote (that I should be out making a paycheck instead) should matter in the least to us.
Thank you! For some reason, it just makes my blood boil, too!
Sorry, not going to stop for you either. Like I told Giraffe, I’ve been doing it for years, in multiple places, so just because a few people find it annoying, I should stop? No. Everyone does something that annoys someone else. (Some people annoy me just by breathing.) So just skip my posts if they bother you.
I was a SAHM when my kids were young, and even though I was busy with them, I was also involved in a lot of charity work in addition to the usual cooking/cleaning/running kids everywhere stuff. These days I work at home (paying work), but I’d give anything to have the freedom I had when I wasn’t employed – mostly to do that charity work; there’s a lot I’d love to spend more time on if I had it. My husband also likes for me to be at home since even though I work here, my schedule is more independent than his is so I’m able to make a lot of phone calls, run errands, be available for deliveries/workers, etc. that wouldn’t happen otherwise.
I’m hoping that in a few years I won’t have to work any more and can go back to having a life. For me work has always and only been a means to enough $$ to do what I want to do with my life; I have no great love for my job, except for the working at home part which at least allows me to stay up late/sleep late, since I’m a total and permanent night owl.
There’s no one right way. Personally, if I didn’t have kids at home and did nothing but clean house all day, I’d be screaming for a job in about two seconds. As it is, however, I’d prefer to make my hobbies a bigger part of my life since they’re things I do for charity (knitting, sewing, etc.), so I know that my time would be busily occupied whether I was getting paid for it or not.
Frankly, I don’t think it’s anybody’s business whether anybody stays home or works. I grew up when a lot of girls were going to college to get that MRS degree, and had zero career plans after that; so I find it fascinating that now women who followed what was a totally normal life when I was growing up are considered by many to be somehow sponging off their spouse. It’s a 180° mindset reversal in, what, 40 years? Amazing.
This is so true. My mom has been a housewife for 51 years – my dad’s been retired for 10 years now, so she doesn’t get too much trouble for it nowadays (people tend to classify her as ‘retired’ rather than as a housewife), but she did get some flack from people about her choices back before Dad retired. In her case, she didn’t get called a slacker, but she frequently ran into younger women who wanted to talk to her about how she was ‘forced by society’ into a subserviant role and how it was such a shame that she was born just a little too late to be able to pursue her own dreams instead of just latching onto my dad’s… They never believed her when she said that she doesn’t feel subserviant to my dad, that they are genuinely equals; that she chose her life as a housewife & mother and never wanted to be anything else; and that she has always felt completely happy and fulfilled and wouldn’t change a single thing about the life she’s led.
Look – I absolutely don’t think my choices are the correct choices for everyone. I know they are not. Plenty of women would hate doing what I do, so it’s great that people have choices and can decide for themselves how they want to run their lives and their families.
I don’t want to be put on a pedestal and my work is not more deserving of praise than anyone else’s and is probably less deserving of praise than some. However, I don’t appreciate being called a parasite, either.
I think I’m going to start substituting the dweebiest male name I can think of for any use of “Himself” so it doesn’t bother me as much (Clarence? Poindexter? Abner? Nimrod?). 