Two Retirements, One Portfolio: How Age-Gap Couples Can Make the Math Work

Most retirement advice is built for couples who are roughly the same age and stop working around the same time. For the estimated 8% to 9% of U.S. married couples with an age gap of ten years or more, that advice can lead them badly astray — because they are not planning one retirement. They are planning two.

Financial planners describe the challenge as knitting together two different retirement trajectories and making them work for one household. The combined retirement span — from the day the older spouse stops working through the end of the younger spouse's life — can easily stretch 35 to 40 years, compared with the roughly 20 years the average American spends in retirement, according to TIAA Institute research cited by Kiplinger. Every major financial decision, from when to claim Social Security to how to invest the portfolio to who gets long-term care insurance, needs to be recalibrated for that longer horizon.

The scale of the challenge is easy to underestimate. In roughly one in four heterosexual marriages, the husband is at least five years older than his wife, according to an analysis of the Census Bureau's 2022 American Community Survey cited by Kiplinger. Age gaps are even more common among people who remarry: the Pew Research Center found that more than half of men who remarry wed a woman at least three years younger, and for 20% of remarried men the gap is a decade or more.

As I get older, I am really focused on when I will retire and how that could impact her finances over the long term. I plan to work longer to ensure that she is financially secure.— Burt Hutchinson, CFP and partner at Foundation Wealth Management, whose wife is 11 years younger

Hutchinson, 57, told Kiplinger he intends to stay in his career until age 70 — a choice that illustrates one of the most consequential levers age-gap couples can pull.

**Social Security: delay the higher earner, protect the survivor.** The single most impactful Social Security decision for most age-gap couples is having the older, higher-earning spouse delay claiming until age 70. The reason is the survivor benefit: when the older spouse dies, the younger spouse inherits that monthly payment. The longer the delay, the larger the check the survivor will receive — potentially for decades. Morningstar's director of personal finance and retirement planning, Christine Benz, frames it plainly: the goal is to enlarge benefits over both lifetimes, and delaying is often the right answer for the higher-earning older partner even if it means forgoing income right after retirement.

If you can delay up until age 70, the benefit is that your younger partner will have that higher benefit over that longer life expectancy.— Christine Benz, Director of Personal Finance and Retirement Planning, Morningstar

There is an additional Social Security angle for couples who have minor children. According to Myriad Capital, when a parent begins collecting Social Security, eligible children can receive benefits of up to 50% of that parent's benefit — a potential source of funds for college savings or daily costs that many age-gap couples overlook.

**Portfolio strategy: plan for the youngest life, not the oldest.** A 65-year-old retiring alone might hold 40% to 60% in stocks to balance growth against the risk of near-term losses. But CFP Eric McClain, a partner at Approach Retirement Advisors in Birmingham, Alabama, told Kiplinger that an age-gap couple planning for a 40-year retirement horizon may need 65% to 75% in stocks. 'That money has got to last a lot longer,' he said. Morningstar's Benz makes the same point: a longer time horizon argues for more equity exposure because of the compounding headwind of inflation over decades.

A lower withdrawal rate follows from the same logic. Benz noted that if both spouses retire at the same time — say, a 55-year-old and a 65-year-old — the couple should plan for a 40-year horizon, not the 30 years the older partner might assume, which means drawing down savings more slowly.

**Staggered retirement dates: the financial case for the younger spouse to keep working.** While an older spouse who has already retired may want their partner to join them, advisers consistently say the younger spouse continuing to work can meaningfully strengthen the couple's financial position. Every additional year of income, employer 401(k) matching, and retirement account contributions builds the savings base that will eventually need to support the younger spouse alone. For 2026, savers 50 and older can contribute a total of $32,500 to a 401(k), compared with $24,500 for younger workers; those between 60 and 63 have a super catch-up limit of $35,750, according to Kiplinger.

J. Martin Wealth Management also flags the tax dimension: with one spouse still earning, the couple should maximize pre-tax retirement contributions to avoid being pushed into a higher income tax bracket by the retiree's new income streams. Conversely, Myriad Capital notes that when the older spouse does retire and household income drops, the resulting lower tax bracket can be an ideal window for converting traditional IRA funds to a Roth account.

**Required minimum distributions: a lesser-known break.** Couples with an age gap greater than ten years have access to a more favorable RMD calculation. As long as the younger spouse is the primary IRA beneficiary, the account holder can use the IRS Joint and Last Survivor Life Expectancy Table rather than the standard Uniform Lifetime Table — resulting in smaller required withdrawals and leaving more money in the account to grow. Benz called it 'a good news story' for older adults in this situation.

**Healthcare: the gap before Medicare.** Medicare eligibility begins at 65. If the older spouse retires first and was carrying the family's health insurance, the younger spouse — potentially still years away from Medicare — faces an immediate coverage problem. Advisers say this cost must be factored into the retirement budget before either spouse stops working, and it may be a practical reason for the younger spouse to remain employed or to carefully price marketplace coverage. J. Martin Wealth Management identifies this as one of the clearest planning triggers the age gap creates.

**Long-term care: insure the younger spouse first.** The older spouse is statistically more likely to need long-term care while the younger spouse is still active — potentially still working or raising children. Myriad Capital warns that the cost of care for the older spouse can rapidly drain assets intended to sustain the younger spouse for the following 20 years. Benz goes further: if the couple has a tight budget and must choose who to insure, she says the priority should be the younger spouse, who will likely survive the older partner and eventually have no one to provide even basic informal care.

If you are the younger partner, it's absolutely essential that the couple together has a long-term-care plan for that person because the statistics would suggest that you will survive the older partner and then no one will be there to provide even that kind of basic level of care for you.— Christine Benz, Director of Personal Finance and Retirement Planning, Morningstar

**The emotional dimension.** The financial calculus does not exist in a vacuum. Kiplinger notes that a gap of several years in retirement dates can leave couples navigating conflicting priorities: the spouse who has stopped working wants to travel and pursue hobbies with their partner during the healthy early years of retirement, while the working spouse is still tied to a job. CFP René Bruer, co-CEO of Smith Bruer in Tallahassee, Florida, frames the core question simply: 'Can your money and the assets that you have support you once you're no longer earning income?' Getting to a confident answer requires basing the entire plan on the younger spouse's life expectancy — and revisiting it regularly as circumstances change.

Why it matters — For the millions of couples with a significant age gap, using standard retirement planning assumptions can leave the younger spouse financially exposed for decades — the specific adjustments to Social Security timing, portfolio allocation, and long-term care coverage can make the difference between security and shortfall.

Reported by kiplinger.com, myriad-capital.com, morningstar.com, schwab.com, jmartinwm.com, blog.massmutual.com