Q: My husband got laid off last year and hasn't been able to find another job. Should I put him on my company's payroll until he does?

A: That's a tough question to answer without knowing you and your spouse. While adding your husband to the payroll may help him get affordable health insurance once his COBRA benefits run out, making him your employee may stir up a hornet's nest of problems that could disrupt your marriage as well as your business.

For one, your husband may never feel like his own man as long as he's working for you--and your employees may start to resent him, too. And if he doesn't work out in his new role and you have to fire him, that won't be a pleasant experience.

On the plus side, your husband probably knows more about your business than anyone except you (after all, you've been complaining about it to him for years), and you probably won't mind if he leaves early to take your daughter to her soccer game or your son to his orthodontist appointment. It's also a great way to keep that extra paycheck in the family.

Best of all, "You'll get to work with each other and see each other every day," says New York City psychologist and business coach Debra Condren, author of Ambition Is Not A Dirty Word:A Woman's Guide to Earning Her Worth and Achieving Her Dreams. "If you have a great relationship, this can be a wonderful fringe benefit, especially if, in the past, you both worked long hours away from each other and had very little together time."

The key to making it work, Condren advises, is to establish boundaries between the personal and business sides of your life. Your husband needs to understand that "work is work" and that "personal is separate."