Can my spouse file as head of household so I can file married filling separately?

 If your spouse owes back taxes or child support---you can either file married filing separately (which has its own disadvantages) or you can file a joint return with your spouse and claim injured spouse yourself to protect the portion of the refund that can be attributed to your own income. 

INJURED SPOUSE

https://ttlc.intuit.com/turbotax-support/en-us/help-article/spouse-partner/file-form-8379-injured-spouse-allocation/L3KVDvR02_US_en_US?uid=ltmrgzbp

Note:  Using the injured spouse form delays your refund for at least 14 weeks.

@evelyn_83

You should have started your own thread!!!! However, to answer your question, the answer is yes. If the one wanting to file as HOH has lived apart from their spouse for the last six months of a calendar year and paid more than 1/2 the cost of keeping up a home for themself and his/her child who lived with the taxpayer for more than six months during that calendar year. 

six months means the child spent 183 or more nights with the taxpayer

there are other conditions to file as HOH

1) child can not be claimable solely because of multiple support agreement

2) taxpayer can not be a nonresident alien any time during the year

3) child can not be married and filing jointly with their spouse unless there is no tax liability and merely filing jointly to facilitate a refund of taxes withheld or paid estimates. 

---

@bz_92 wrote:

So if one spouse does qualify for Head of Household what filing status does the other spouse use? Would they use Married Filing Separately? Or could they use Head of Household also?

---

If you are married, you can only use head of household if all these conditions are true:

1. you lived apart from your spouse for all of the last 6 months of the year,
2. you paid more than half the cost of keeping up your own home for the entire year,
3. you provided care in your home for a qualifying person, usually your child dependent who lived in your home with you more than half the nights of the year.

The same rules apply to both spouses.  Spouse #2 might also qualify to file as HOH if they meet the same tests.  (This means that, among other things, the spouses must have at least two children, and at least one of the children lived with spouse #2 more than half the year while another child lived with spouse #1 more than half the year.)  It is unusual, but not impossible, for this to be the case. 

If spouse #2 does not qualify to file as HOH, then spouse #2 must file as married filing separately.