is there a way to merge the spouse onto the taxpayer

YES.  Definitely,  100%.  I call her my executive assistant.  She is well trained for Lacerte gigs like that.

Years ago (still DOS days for Lacerte), my niece, CS major, MIS minor, offered to help me customizing software utilities, including this type of merging (also for several accounting software, Solomon, CYMA etc.)  She did it as a project for her master's.  I found the time incurred for correcting bugs and cleaning up would be better used for Bourboning.  The follow year, she (half jokingly) asked to continue the work at  pretty much my billing rate.  I thanked her.  And that was that.

In case you're curious, she's now a big shot in Fin-Tech, whatever it is.  She says I owe her some sweat equity.  I told her she owes me her career.

Oops, @IRonMaN I'm over 5 lines...