Question: My husband has been physically abusive to me during our six-year marriage. Although I have been visibly bruised a number of times, I have always lied about how I was hurt in order to protect his job. After the beatings, he always promises not to hurt me again. I move out of the bedroom for a while, but continue to live with him because I have no other place to go. Things are fine until something sets him off, and then it starts over again. We have no children, and my parents are deceased. Since I am always afraid that he will fly off the handle and beat me, I finally decided to go to a lawyer to try to get a divorce. He told me that because I continued to live with my husband for six months after the last beating, the court would rule that I forgave him and that I would have to wait until the next beating to get out of this relationship. It doesn’t seem fair that I have to suffer another beating to get protection. Is there anything I can do?

Answer: Because you apparently live in a “fault” state and continued to live in the same house with your husband after the marital offense occurred, the law may presume that you and he engaged in marital relations and that you had “condoned” his acts and forgiven him. Because of the duty of the courts to preserve marriages, condonation may be based on continued cohabitation after a marital offense.

As your lawyer explained to you, condonation is a conditional forgiveness based on your husband not committing marital offenses in the future. If he does, then all of his past conduct will be revived.

Without a good explanation of why you continued to live with your husband for six months after the last beating, condonation could bar you from remedies that otherwise might be available to you in the court. In the final analysis, a judge will make this decision based on the facts as he or she sees them. Since your husband will probably contest any action you bring, without a “smoking gun,” you might find yourself swimming upstream. On the other hand, since you are a dependent spouse with no place to go, the court might see it your way.

What to do: 1) If there is a chance of resolving your differences, try joint counseling; however, based on the conduct you describe, you would probably be placed in an inferior bargaining position, and counseling will probably not benefit you. 2) If you are afraid, leave now and take your chances in the court system. But make sure you have evidence of your husband’s conduct and are ready to proceed. You may want to check out abused women’s shelters in your area. 3) If you decide to stay home and your husband threatens you again or hurts you, call 911 and seek protection from his domestic violence immediately.

Question: When my husband and I divorced early last year, I was awarded alimony and child support. It took every penny he paid me and every penny I could earn for me and our children to live. Other than the taxes that were withheld from my salary, I never thought about income taxes until I began to prepare my tax return for this year. It looks as if I will owe more than $4,000 in taxes because of my alimony. I have no extra money to pay taxes. I can't borrow any more money. What can I do?

Answer: If you don't have the money with which to pay the taxes you owe, you may want to ask the IRS to agree to accept installment payments. In order to do this, you should complete an Installment Request Form (IRS Form 9465) and attach it to your tax return. In the future, you should plan to pay estimated taxes on your alimony each quarter as required by law.

It would probably be a good idea for you to seek the assistance of an accountant who can not only help you sort through your problems, but also move toward solutions that won't leave you caught short in the future.