Marriage at any age involves compromises of varying degrees. When couples marry late in life, the financial and legal decisions revolve around different issues. Who pays for the bucket-list trips? Whose name should go on the deed to the new condo or the home the newlyweds will share until death parts them?
A recent article from The New York Times, “Remarrying in Retirement? It Can Make Money Management Tricky,” explains a growing trend as Americans 65 and older are getting remarried at an increasing frequency. The marriage rate increased from 4.6 people per thousand in 1990 to 5.1 in 2022. By contrast, the remarriage rate in the general population plunged by about 50%.
Merging money and estate planning can get complicated when you marry later in life. People over 65 are more likely to have assets, including retirement accounts and real estate. There may also be children from prior marriages.
Women often arrive in second marriages with fewer assets than their male partners. However, this is more likely to be the case for older women whose generations were limited by social restrictions on women’s earning capacity and career advancement.
For women in this situation, a second marriage can become financially perilous if they don’t have a claim on a home that is to be inherited by stepchildren. Women who have contributed to a household for decades but whose name was never added to the deed very often find themselves in a no-win situation.
If heirs decide to sell the house after a father dies, the stepmother will not have a legal claim to the property or the proceeds unless the deed was changed. Promises made and provisions in a will won’t overcome the deed, even if the surviving spouse was on the mortgage.
For older couples, prenuptial agreements, life insurance and trusts are powerful tools to protect each other. A prenup forces a conversation about what happens if the marriage ends, whether by divorce or death. It may be an uncomfortable discussion, but it can shed light on assumptions about important issues. If both partners have children from prior marriages and intend to give their children all their estate regardless of their partner’s needs, it’s better to know this from the onset.
Life insurance is a good way to provide for spouses or children from prior marriages. In some cases, allocating different percentages of contributions to household expenses is used to address wealth disparities. The math sometimes gets complicated. However, every couple hopefully finds a fair resolution.
In many cases, trusts can be used to protect a financial legacy. This is especially appropriate if one spouse has large healthcare costs not covered by Medicare and needs long-term care. A Medicaid Asset Protection Trust (MAPT) is often used for these situations.
These types of legal structures can seem cold-hearted and transactional. However, they are necessary to ensure that the surviving spouse has a financial cushion if they don’t have enough resources of their own.
Conflicts often arise when a homeowner gives their surviving spouse the right to live in a home they owned together until the spouse’s death. The children from a prior marriage must wait to sell the house, which can engender bad feelings towards the second spouse.
For some couples, remarriage doesn’t make sense from a financial standpoint. For example, marriage triggers inheritance rules for certain retirement accounts. If one spouse has a pension, they may be legally required to name the other as a beneficiary. If the person with the account had wanted it to go to a child, the spouse would have to cede their right to it with extra documentation. Remarriage might also mean sacrificing alimony, pension benefits, or Social Security payments.
An experienced estate planning attorney can address many of these concerns through trusts and other estate planning strategies. Ideally, this should be done before you say “I do” again, but it can also be done after you’ve walked down the aisle together.
Reference: The New York Times (May 10, 2025) “Remarrying in Retirement? It Can Make Money Management Tricky”