Social Security and the Ten-Year Rule

A marriage that lasts at least ten years leaves a permanent mark on the Social Security system — in your favor. If you were married for ten years or longer, are currently unmarried, and are at least 62, you can claim a benefit on your ex-spouse’s earnings record worth up to half of their primary insurance amount ( 20 C.F.R. §404.331); section “Social Security” covers the mechanics. “Up to half” means half at your full retirement age — claim at 62 and the spousal benefit is permanently reduced by 35% for anyone with a full retirement age of 67 (everyone born in 1960 or later), and unlike your own retirement benefit it earns no delayed retirement credits for waiting past full retirement age, so there is never a reason to defer a spousal claim beyond that point.

Three details make this better than most people assume, and one makes it worse. It costs your ex-spouse nothing: their benefit is not reduced, they are not notified, a current spouse of theirs can claim on the same record simultaneously, and a divorced-spouse benefit is not charged against the family maximum the way a current spouse’s is. You do not need their cooperation or even their filing — if you have been divorced at least two years and your ex is at least 62, you can claim on their record whether or not they have filed for their own benefit ( SSA POMS RS 00202.005). And if your ex-spouse dies, the divorced-spouse survivor benefit rises to as much as 100% of what they were receiving. The catch is remarriage: remarry and you generally forfeit the ex-spousal benefit, though if that later marriage ends the earlier entitlement can revive. Survivor benefits follow a kinder rule — remarriage at age 60 or later (50 if disabled) does not cost you the surviving divorced-spouse benefit at all ( SSA Handbook §406), which is precisely why a widowed or divorced 59-year-old contemplating remarriage should look at the calendar before the caterer.

The ten-year line is the date the marriage is legally dissolved, not the date of separation — so if separation arrives at nine years and six months and the earnings records are badly unequal, the simplest negotiation lever in the room is to extend mediation, defer the entry of the final judgment, or let the matter sit on the court’s calendar until the marriage clears the threshold. The lower earner gains a government-backed annuity stream that can run for decades; the higher earner gives up nothing, because their own benefit is not reduced by the ex-spousal claim. It is the rare divorce variable that is positive-sum.