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Support of child by married parents

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atallred

Junior Member
What is the name of your state?What is the name of your state? North Carolina

My husband and I are not divorced, nor even separated. Our 15 year old daughter was diagnosed with a chronic illness 3 years ago. My husband disagrees with the diagnosis (he is not a doctor), and so refuses to pay for any of her medical care or medications - I'm paying all of it myself.

Needless to say, the medical bills are mounting up. Clearly he has a moral obligation to care for her financially, but is he legally obligated?
 


K

krispenstpeter

Guest
HELL YES he does. However, unless you want the hospital, doctor and all the other medical professionals to file a lawsuit against you and dun your credit report, someone has to keep paying for the care she received.

You have only three choices from what I can see.

Stop paying the bills and let it affect BOTH credit reports, or;
Continue paying and take a little out of his wallet from time to time, or;
Divorce the jerk.
 

atallred

Junior Member
Thank you for the info.

I've been paying all her medical bills, but have had to use my credit card, home equity line of credit (I make the house payments, so it's still ME paying here), etc.

I wanted to make sure of his legal responsibility before I use it to hit him upside the head with, since appealing to his sense of decency is futile.
 

nextwife

Senior Member
What is the chronic illness that was diagnosed? And is this a syndrome that may have differences in opinion, as there is no clearcut test to make a verifiable diagnosis?
 

atallred

Junior Member
Yes, she has Chronic Fatigue and Immune Dysfunction Syndrome and Fibromyalgia. We saw 9 different doctors and had 3 hospital stays before reaching the diagnosis. At my husband's insistance, we went to yet another hospital and another specialist - he confirmed the diagnosis. My husband wants me to take our daughter to how ever many doctors it takes to get a different diagnosis.
 

VeronicaGia

Senior Member
I don't get it. You two are married. If you were a stay at home parent, or only worked part time, wouldn't he be paying most if not all of the bills? What is your complaint, that you pay more than he does for household expenses? In our house, so do I, it's called being married and taking care of things like married people do, working together, not keeping track of everything each individual pays for. If you two were not married and not living together, I could understand your frustration.
 

atallred

Junior Member
Veronica,

I think you are missing my point. We used to deposit all our money in a joint account, pay bills, and share the spendable income (we are both employed). My husband was unhappy that I spent $800 to save our dog's life (because he wasn't watching her like he said he would) and he demanded we have separate checking accounts and split the bills.

No problem. I can do that. So, we split the household expenses 50/50. This does NOT include our daughter's $10,000-12,000/year medical bills which he refuses to help pay.

You may call that just a normal part of being married, but I don't. Do YOU refuse to help pay for your child's medications?
 

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