The Rule of Two Lives in Retirement

An older couple laughs together in a restaurant. They are framed by a window and drinking wine.

(Image credit: Getty Images)

published 30 August 2025

Marriage may be the union of two people becoming one — but in retirement, that math doesn’t work.

In this instance, one becomes two. That’s because every financial decision you make with your retirement savings doesn’t just affect you. It affects your spouse, too. And the two of you likely won’t share the same timeline, health needs. or lifestyle preferences as you age.

Planning for two lives introduces complexity. And not all couples are on the same page. According to a 2024 Fidelity Investments study, more than half (53%) of couples who haven’t yet retired disagree on how much they’ll need to save.

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Yet, it’s not just about how much you save, but also how you use what you’ve saved. You need to think for two. Hence, the “rule of two lives in retirement” means accounting for your partner at every decision point: from pensions and Social Security to withdrawal strategies and emotional well-being.

Here’s where it matters most and how planning for both lives can make retirement more secure, purposeful and supportive for each of you.

Optimizing for longevity

Combining assets as a couple can create a sizeable nest egg, but it doesn’t eliminate one of the biggest risks in retirement: living longer than your money.

The timing of retirement is often a shared decision. For instance, consider that on average, men retire at age 64 and women at 62, according to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.

Chart showing average age of retirement between 1962 and 2022, by sex. Male retirement age decreased slightly, while the average age for women increased sharply.

Longevity, on the other hand, is a wild card. It’s not only harder to predict, but it’s also likely to differ between partners, depending on personal factors such as family history.

Although the average age of retirement for men and women has been trending closer together, it's important to note that average longevity still remains years apart for mixed sex couples. The average life expectancy for men in the U.S. is 75.8 years, compared to 81.1 years for women. Both figures may understate the actual years you have left. Thanks to rising lifespans and medical advances, the global centenarian population is expected to swell to 3.7 million by 2050.

A chart showing rising life expectancy at birth of men vs women between 1900 and 2023.

In other words, living well into your 90s may not be the exception, but the rule. That’s why couples should plan for the longest likely lifespan, not just the average.

Too often, however, retirement plans focus on income rather than age. Melissa Caro, CFP® and founder of My Retirement Network, flags this common trap: “The mistake is building a plan entirely around the ‘primary’ earner or assuming the survivor will seamlessly execute the ‘rational’ decisions you mapped out together years earlier. Reality is messier.”

Age gaps, health disparities and differences in risk tolerance between spouses can have real consequences for drawdown strategies, asset allocation and insurance planning.

“Your financial plan must last as long as either spouse does,” says Patrick Huey, owner and principal adviser of Victory Independent Planning. “Often, this means stress-testing the portfolio out 30-plus years, especially if there’s an age gap or strong longevity in the family.”

Decisions around survivor benefits and taxes

Some retirement benefits force you to make a fundamental choice: should they cover one life or two? That’s the core of survivor benefits.

This is especially critical for couples who still have access to a pension. Pension plans typically offer two options: a single-life annuity, which pays the highest monthly benefit but ends when the pension holder dies; or a joint-and-survivor annuity, which provides a reduced benefit that continues for the life of the surviving spouse.

While the joint option may seem like the safest route, there are strategies that might offer more flexibility and even greater long-term value.

“With pensions, I sometimes recommend choosing the higher single-life payment and using the extra monthly income to purchase a permanent life insurance policy on the pension holder,” says Huey. “This approach provides both flexibility and, often, more lifetime value than a built-in survivor pension.”

Survivor planning also requires thinking ahead about taxes. When one spouse dies, the surviving partner often moves from the more favorable “married filing jointly” status to “single,” says Deva Panambur, CFP® and founder of Sarsi. That change can push the survivor into a higher tax bracket, known as the “widow’s penalty,” especially if large pretax accounts and required minimum distributions are involved.

Panambur recommends proactive steps: “Roth conversions can help reduce future required distributions. You can also be strategic with asset location, such as placing unrealized losses in the account of the longer-living spouse, and unrealized gains in the account of the spouse with shorter life expectancy.”

One of the major advantages of being married in retirement is having two sets of Social Security benefits to work with. That opens the door to more flexibility and strategy when deciding when each spouse should claim.

For example, a lower-earning spouse may be eligible for a spousal benefit worth up to 50% of the higher earner’s full retirement benefit. And if one spouse passes away, the surviving spouse can typically switch to a survivor benefit based on the deceased spouse’s earnings record, if it’s higher than their own.

“Social Security planning needs to account for which benefit survives,” says Panambur. “If the spouse with lower life expectancy also has the higher benefit, that can still be a strong case for delaying benefits because the higher check lives on.”

For many couples, delaying the higher earner’s benefit as long as possible can provide the greatest long-term security, even if it means tapping other resources in the short term.

“After one spouse dies, the survivor keeps the larger of the two benefits,” explains Huey. “So maximizing that one provides support for the spouse who may live alone the longest. And remember, one Social Security check disappears, joint costs don’t always get cut in half and taxes can jump.’”

Preparing financially and emotionally for the loss of one

Of all the challenges retirement presents, the most difficult to experience and to prepare for is the loss of a spouse.

The financial consequences can be significant. A 2020 Chicago Federal Reserve study found that spousal death leads to a persistent decline of about 11% in a surviving individual’s annual income.

But the emotional toll often cuts even deeper.

Losing a partner later in life has been linked to declines in both physical and mental health, and even an increased risk of death. According to the National Institute on Aging, grieving spouses should seek out emotional support, stay active in things they enjoy and care for their health.

Still, those steps are rarely easy, especially when the survivor is suddenly responsible for all major decisions on their own.

“I encourage budgeting for a transition period — ideally a year — where the survivor has the financial breathing room,” says Caro. “That buffer protects them from being forced into major decisions at the worst possible time.”

Practical preparation is just as important as emotional resilience. Caro adds that documentation is often the biggest missing piece. “One spouse almost always runs point on the household finances. It’s ideal if couples can organize and share this information as if they were running a small business: accounts, logins, service providers, pension details and any hidden life insurance attached to old benefits.”

And beyond the spreadsheets, there’s meaning to consider.

“I think the most critical piece of advice that I tell clients is to spend their money appropriately,” says Collin Lyon, CFP® and wealth strategy advisor at Anderson Financial Strategies. “What I mean by this is they spend their money on the things that bring real value to their lives. The mourning period is easier to digest when you’ve spent money on the trips with friends you can now lean on, or you’ve given to causes and communities that you’re still part of. It turns the survivorship conversation into a talk about how they can thrive while they are still living.”