When you and your Texas husband or wife decide to part ways, you may question what retirement is going to look like without your partner’s contributions. You may feel especially concerned with getting by in retirement if you sacrificed growing your professional career for the sake of your spouses and may not qualify for Social Security retirement benefits on your own.
Per CNBC, if you do not qualify for Social Security retirement benefits on your own accord, or if you do qualify for them, but would only receive small monthly amounts, you may have another option. Depending on circumstances, you may qualify to receive Social Security retirement benefits using the work history of your former spouse, rather than your own work history.
How you qualify
If you and your former spouse are both of legal retirement age and your spouse has enough of an earnings history in Social Security-covered positions, then you may be able to secure these benefits using his or her work history. However, your marriage to this individual also had to last at least 10 years for you to be eligible.
How your qualifying impacts your former spouse
Your ex-spouse should not take issue with you collecting Social Security retirement benefits based on his or her work history. This is because your ex is going to receive the same amount each month, regardless of whether you collect Social Security retirement benefits using his or her earnings record or your own.
Research shows that about 30% of Americans do not know that collecting these benefits using an ex-spouse’s work history is an option.