Spouses who don’t leave the workforce together often face financial and emotional challenges
It’s a common dream of togetherness for older spouses: Nearly two-thirds of still-working couples expect to retire at the same time or within a year of each other, according to an April 2024 report from Ameriprise Financial.
But those expectations rarely meet reality. The Ameriprise survey found that only 11 percent of retired couples leave their careers simultaneously, and 62 percent retire more than a year apart.
“Social norms are changing, spouses are becoming more independent than in the past, and sometimes life gets in the way of our plans,” says Sue Mintz, a certified retirement transition coach in Dallas. “The old goal of retiring together just doesn’t work for a lot of people anymore.”
Whether it happens by choice or circumstances beyond your control, such as a layoff or health issue, retiring at different times comes with challenges — and opportunities. Couples need to reimagine longstanding roles and routines, adjust to the loss of one income, and find new purpose and ways of being together.
If you and your spouse are navigating this sometimes-rocky terrain, retirement advisers and couples who’ve been through it recommend these steps to smooth the way.
1. Expect an adjustment period
On the first day of her retirement in 2017, Pat Link gave her husband’s closet a top-to-bottom makeover — jeans and casual clothes in one place, work clothes in another, dress shirts arranged by color. When Gregg Link got home from work, he told his wife the new system would be a big help when he packed for business trips. What he thought to himself was was: This woman really needs something to do.
The Links laugh at the memory now, but they say it reflects the challenges they faced as a couple after Pat, now 73, left her job as a process improvement manager at a health services company.
“It was a bumpy road in the beginning because I was struggling to find my purpose,” she says. “Also, more of your personalities, preferences and differences start to surface once you retire because you have more time to explore them.”
In the absence of regular workday hours, Pat’s night owl tendencies bubbled up, while Gregg, 65, is a morning person. She began socializing more with friends and throwing herself into volunteer work, including founding a community nonprofit focused on beautification projects in Farmers Branch, Texas, where the couple live. They began going to bed and getting up at different times, relying on a shared calendar to keep track of each other’s schedules.
“We give each other grace to be separate, to be on different paths at different times in our lives — to not do everything together,” Pat says.
Gregg, a senior director of product management for a tile manufacturer, plans to retire in the next few years. He says it’s important for the working spouse to support their partner as they’re finding their way. “There needs to be a lot of conversation and communication about what your lives are going to look like,” he says.
Mintz agrees that talking about your expectations is key.
“Roles and routines are going to change. Having a shared vision of what that’s going to look like helps defuse tension,” she says. “The retired spouse may be looking for the working spouse to come home earlier, or the working spouse expects the partner to do more cooking and laundry. All of that should be discussed and negotiated to avoid conflicts.”
2. Get a handle on cash flow
A chunk of your household income disappears when one spouse retires, but your spending doesn’t suddenly plunge. You’re still paying around the same amount for housing, utilities and food. You might even be spending more, as the retired partner travels more, eats out with friends or takes up new hobbies, a May 2024 study by J.P. Morgan Asset Management found.
Figuring out how to cover those bills is critical, advisers say.
“Take a look together at your household expenses — what big bills you have coming up, what trips you’re planning, what you value most when it comes to spending and where you might cut back to cover those priorities,” says Nayan Ranchhod, an Ameriprise wealth adviser in Scottsdale, Arizona.
If targeted belt-tightening isn’t enough, you might need to tap retirement savings to make up some of the difference. Financial planners urge caution, though.“You don’t want to put too much strain on savings early in retirement because of the risk of outliving your money,” says Preston Cherry, CEO of Concurrent Wealth Management in Green Bay, Wisconsin. “Maybe the retired spouse is going to need to work part time or turn a hobby into a side hustle to generate some income.
That’s what John Crowell, 68, is doing. The St. Augustine, Florida, resident retired six years ago after selling his insurance business; his wife, Annette, 60, works as a hospital case manager. “We’ve always been great savers,” he says, but their bills are high, especially now that they’re helping their daughter, a single mom, raise their 5-year-old grandson and paying for medical care for a close family member.
Crowell got his real estate license a couple of years ago and now works about 20 hours a week selling houses. Along with supplementing their income, the part-time gig has helped him tackle another retirement challenge: boredom. “My golf game got a little better,” he says, “but it’s not that fun when you do it all the time.”
3. Weigh your Social Security and health care options
If the retiring spouse is 62 or older, claiming Social Security can help offset the loss of a steady paycheck. But filing in the first stage of eligibility can be costly, says Philip Moeller, a longtime financial journalist and co-author of the books Get What’s Yours: The Secrets to Maxing Out Your Social Security and Get What’s Yours for Medicare.
Claiming before Social Security’s full retirement age — currently between 66 and 67, depending on year of birth — reduces monthly payments by as much as 30 percent. That could result in lower lifetime benefits for the working spouse, too, Moeller notes; it reduces any spousal benefit they might qualify for in the future if they earned significantly less than their mate.
“Taking into account how your claiming decision could impact your spouse’s benefit is really important,” he says. “If the higher earner is the one retiring and the working spouse is several years younger, the payoff to waiting can be substantial.”
It’s also important to have a plan in place for health insurance, especially if one or both spouses are covered under the retiring partner’s workplace plan. A retiree who is not yet 65 may need to get on a working spouse’s plan or shop for an Affordable Care Act policy on the government marketplace to bridge the gap to Medicare eligibility.
4. Find your new purpose
Without the structure of a job to fill their day, a retiree can feel unmoored. That can strain a marriage when the other spouse is still working.
“All of a sudden, the person retiring doesn’t have anything to do or anyone to talk to all day. When the working spouse comes home, it can be like they just want to devour them,” says Carolyn McClanahan, a financial planner and founder of Life Planning Partners in Jacksonville, Florida. “Meanwhile, the spouse who’s been working all day just wants to relax.”
Finding something that gives the retiree’s post-work life meaning is key to making the transition work for both partners. That’s what Sara Ann Erichson, 62, set out to do after leaving her position as executive vice president of sales and marketing at Nielsen, the media ratings company, in 2018. Her husband, Howard, a professor at Fordham Law School in New York City, is also 62 and has no plans to retire anytime soon.
“It has created a different dynamic because there are days when the only person I’m talking to is my husband,” Erichson says. “But his day looks the same as it did before, so this has really been a personal journey.”
That journey has taken her deeply into volunteer work. She served for a time as president of her synagogue in Montclair, New Jeresey, where the couple live, and is now president of a membership organization that oversees the lakeside community in Putnam County, New York, where they have a second home. She’s also heavily involved with Impact100 Essex, a local philanthropic group founded and funded by women.
“It was very important to me to make myself useful, to approach my life in retirement with intentionality,” Erichson says.
5. Make time for each other
While the retired spouse forges an independent path, it’s important for the couple to find new ways to be together and do things they both enjoy. That may involve the working spouse being willing to come home a little earlier or take more time off.
“Particularly when there’s an age gap and it’s the older spouse who has stopped working, you want to take advantage of the go-go years, when you’re older but still healthy and energetic,” McClanahan says. “Do things you’ve always dreamed of doing together in retirement before the slow-go and no-go years hit.”
Travel was always high on the retirement wish list for Ilene Schwartz-Montesinos, 66, a former high school biology teacher who retired at 55 when she qualified for her pension. Her husband, Arturo, 65, owns a company that provides services for people with cognitive disabilities and isn’t ready to retire, but he’s cut back his hours and taken more blocks of time off.
That has enabled the Yorktown Heights, New York, couple to plan bucket-list trips such as an African safari and a tour of national parks in Canada and the Pacific Northwest.
These days, the Erichsons also travel for extended periods and spend summers at their lake home — pursuits they couldn’t enjoy as much when she had a time-consuming career.
“My greater availability has made all the difference,” Sara Ann Erichson says. “It’s a very special time for us.”
