Ten years. That is the line the Social Security Administration draws through every divorce in America. If your marriage lasted at least 10 years before the divorce became final, you may be able to collect a benefit on your ex-spouse’s earnings record worth up to half of their full retirement amount. If the marriage ended at nine years and eleven months, you cannot. The rule is that blunt, and the SSA lays it out on its divorce and Social Security page.
For someone who spent years out of the workforce raising children or supporting a spouse’s career, this benefit can be the difference between a thin retirement and a workable one. Yet plenty of divorced people never claim it, often because they assume they gave up any rights when the marriage ended, or because they dread involving an ex in their finances. Neither worry survives contact with the actual rules.
The five boxes you have to check
To collect on an ex-spouse’s record while they are alive, all of these must be true. The marriage lasted 10 years or more. You are currently unmarried. You are at least 62. Your ex-spouse is entitled to Social Security retirement or disability benefits. And the benefit you would get on your own work record is smaller than what you would get on theirs.
Notice what is not on the list: your ex’s cooperation. You do not need their permission, their signature, or even their current address. SSA can locate the record with basic information such as their Social Security number or date and place of birth, and the agency does not notify them that you filed.
What the benefit is worth
At your full retirement age, a divorced-spouse benefit equals 50 percent of your ex’s primary insurance amount, which is the benefit they earned at their own full retirement age. Claim at 62 and the amount is permanently reduced, just as an early retirement claim would be. One thing that does not help: your ex waiting until 70. Delayed retirement credits raise their check, but a divorced spouse’s benefit is always figured from the full-retirement-age amount, not the boosted one.
When you file, SSA applies what it calls deemed filing: you are treated as applying for both your own retirement benefit and the divorced-spouse benefit, and you receive an amount equal to the higher of the two. You cannot take the spousal benefit now and let your own grow until 70; that strategy was closed off for anyone born after January 1, 1954.
Your ex does not lose a dime, and neither does their new family
This is the fear that keeps the most people from filing, so let’s kill it plainly: your claim has zero effect on your ex-spouse’s benefit, on their current husband’s or wife’s benefit, or on their children’s benefits. Social Security does not split one pie among claimants on a record. Each eligible person’s amount is calculated independently. Two, three, or more ex-spouses can each collect on the same worker’s record if each marriage lasted 10 years, and none of them affects the others. SSA’s retirement benefits publication covers the family-benefit rules in detail.
The two-year rule for a retired-but-not-filed ex
What if your ex is eligible for benefits but stubbornly has not claimed them? You can still file, as long as you have been divorced for at least two continuous years and both of you are at least 62. This is called being independently entitled, and it exists precisely so an ex-spouse cannot block your benefit by refusing to retire. If the divorce is more recent than two years, you have to wait either for the anniversary or for your ex to file, whichever comes first.
Remarriage changes everything, in one direction
If you remarry, your divorced-spouse benefit on the prior ex’s record generally ends while the new marriage lasts. If that later marriage itself ends in death, divorce, or annulment, you may become eligible again on the earlier record. Your ex remarrying, on the other hand, changes nothing for you. The rule only watches your own marital status.
And if your ex-spouse dies, the picture improves: you may qualify as a surviving divorced spouse for up to 100 percent of their benefit rather than 50 percent, and survivor claims can start as early as age 60. Remarriage after 60 does not bar a survivor claim, another wrinkle in your favor.
How to find out what you would get
Start with your own numbers. Open a my Social Security account to see your earnings record and your projected benefit, since SSA will pay the higher of your own benefit or the divorced-spouse amount, not both. Then call SSA at 1-800-772-1213 or visit an office with your marriage certificate and divorce decree, and ask them to compare the two figures. Bring the dates: when you married, when the divorce was final, and your ex’s identifying information if you have it.
The worst realistic outcome of asking is learning that your own benefit is already the bigger one. The best outcome is a permanently larger monthly check earned by a marriage you may have written off years ago. Ten years of marriage bought you a claim; it costs nothing but a phone call to find out what it is worth.
