Spousal or ex-spouse Social Security benefits: which rules apply to you?

Six rows that decide which claim you have

This page is not legal, tax, medical or financial advice. It puts the rules side by side so you can see which one is yours.

The table compares two claims a woman may have. One is on a living husband's record. The other is on an ex-husband's. They pay the same top amount. They differ in who qualifies.

Half his primary insurance amount is the most either one pays. That phrase means the benefit he would get at his own full retirement age. It is not half of what he is paid now. If he claimed early, your number is still measured against the full figure.

The last row matters most. If your own benefit is already at least half of his, neither claim pays you anything. Social Security's family benefits page puts it simply: they pay the highest amount you qualify for, and they don't add the payment amounts together.

The ten-year rule is not a stopwatch

Most people count the months. That is where they go wrong.

Social Security's manual on divorced spouses says the marriage must have been in existence in each of the ten years before the final divorce. It counts by year, and a short gap can be bridged.

Their own example: a couple married in May 1980 and divorced in May 1986. They remarried in July 1987 and divorced again in September 1990. That adds up to about nine years and two months of marriage.

She still qualifies. The remarriage came no later than the calendar year right after the divorce, so the years join up.

Had they remarried in 1988, the bridge breaks and the claim is gone. One year, decades ago, decides it.

So if your history has a gap, do not rule yourself out with a calculator. Bring the dates and ask Social Security to check the rule in the manual.

The switching move that closed for most of you

You may hear an older friend describe a move. Claim a spousal benefit at 66, let your own grow, switch to your own at 70.

It is gone for almost everyone reading this. The manual says a woman born January 2, 1954 or later who qualifies for both must apply for both. Filing for one files for both, and you get the higher amount.

January 1, 1954 is left out on purpose. Social Security treats a January 1 birthday as the year before.

Widows are the exception, and that rule is still open. It is on the page about the widow's cap.

What happens if you remarry

This is the follow-up question most people ask next. The answer depends on which claim you have.

On an ex-husband's record. The rule is that you are not married now. So a new marriage stops this claim. Whether it can start again if the later marriage ends is not stated in the manual page on divorced spouses. The book flags this as an open question to put to Social Security, not to a magazine.

On a current husband's record. If you remarry, you are married to someone new. The claim you would look at is on the new husband's record, with its own one-year marriage rule.

Widows are different. A remarriage at or after 60 does not count against a survivor benefit at all. That rule belongs to survivors only, and the book warns that you cannot assume it carries over to divorced-spouse benefits.

If a remarriage is in your plans, ask Social Security before the wedding, not after.

The decree in the bottom drawer

You were married nine years and eleven months. Or you think you were. You have never looked at the decree since the day you signed it.

You did the math in your head years ago and decided it did not count. So you never asked.

The test turns on two dates on paper: the day the marriage began and the day the divorce became final. Memory does not settle it. The decree does.

And claiming takes nothing from anyone. Social Security says payments to ex-spouses do not count toward the family maximum.

What Nancy Whitaker's book adds to the table

This is the problem The Year You Retire was written for. A woman in her sixties may have a claim on up to four records, and the book maps all four.

Her Own Record, and the Other Ones has both sets of rules, the bridging example, the two-year rule for an ex who has not filed, and the 1954 date. It also marks two questions no official page answers, and tells you to ask them rather than guess.

The Age Ladder has the full retirement age table that spousal benefits use and the reduction for claiming at 62.

Your First Year Pages has a page for each record you might claim on, with lines for the exact marriage and divorce dates.

What we like is that the book tells you which papers to bring: marriage certificates and the divorce decree with the final date. The rule is decided on those, not on what anyone remembers.