My wife and I are celebrating our 49th wedding anniversary this week. (Although at our age, “celebrating” means maybe an extra scoop of ice cream on our next trip to Dairy Queen!)
I know we are fortunate to be reaching almost five decades of wedded bliss because I get a lot of questions from divorced women who want to know what kind of benefits they might be due on an ex-husband’s Social Security record. So, I thought I’d use today’s column to address the issues faced by divorced couples—primarily divorced women.
Some may ask: “What about divorced men?” Well, I’m addressing this column to women because 95 percent of the time, it is a woman who is eligible for benefits from an ex-husband’s record. But if you are a man who was in one of those less-common marriages where your wife made more money than you did, and had a longer working career than you did, and therefore gets a bigger Social Security check than you do, then simply reverse genders as you read this. Divorced men who were dependent on their wives are due the very same benefits as divorced women….