I am a 61yo divorced woman in a relationship navigating whether or not remarrying is a wise choice due to financial implications. My ex is alive and if I remarry I will only receive $200 per our local SSA office. I had an in-home childcare business with significant write offs for 20 years. I do have 33-35 years of work history. My early retirement SS amount would be around $850, retirement age would be around $1450, and late retirement over $1900.

How can I find out how re-marrying will impact my SS? Am I able to get a comparison somewhere? I know my ex’ SS# and identifying information.

I will appreciate any input you share with me.

Regards,
Barb

Hi Barb. Remarrying won't affect your own Social Security retirement benefits at all, but it would make you ineligible for divorced spousal benefits for as long as both your ex-husband is alive and your new marriage continues. If Social Security told you that you could get $200 from your ex-spouse's record if you remarry, they misinformed you.

Since you're over age 60, though, even if you remarry now you could still potentially claim survivor benefits in the event of your ex-husband's death, assuming that you were married to him for at least 10 years. But, if you're already drawing your own benefits when that happens then you could only be paid the higher of your own benefit rate or your ex-spouse's rate.

Of course, a remarriage could potentially allow you to qualify for spousal or survivor benefits on your new spouse's account, but that would depend on a number of variables. You may want to strongly consider using our software (https://maximizemysocialsecurity.com/purchase) to fully analyze all of your various options so that you can determine your best strategy for maximizing your benefits. For optimal results, though, it would help to know your ex-spouse's approximate benefit rate. Social Security won't give you that information directly due to the Privacy Act. However, the Privacy Act does allow Social Security to release information that is necessary as part of their operations. So, they should be able to tell you whether or not you would potentially be eligible for divorced spousal benefits if you don't remarry. They should also be able to tell you approximately how much your divorced spousal and survivor benefit rate would be.

Best, Jerry