Dear Abby: My wife and I are both schoolteachers. She hates to call in sick and often teaches class when she says she feels ill. I don't argue with her.

The problem arises when I am not feeling well. When I am sick and feverish, I'm not inclined to rise from my sickbed and go to work. On those few occasions, my wife objects strenuously. She interrogates me about my symptoms, then makes her own "diagnosis" on the spot. Apparently, her gold standard for staying home is the inability to stand.

This creates a problem for me at work because co-workers are concerned about catching my obvious illness. The last time I felt sick, my wife ordered me to go to work. When I saw a doctor afterward, I was told I had a virus and should be in bed. My wife still objected to my missing work because she considered it to be "just a cough."