Retirement planning for couples is a complex calculus of financial as well as emotional priorities – deciding when you will each stop working, how much money you’ll need, whether you can actually spend so much time together without driving each other bananas. Retirement planning for age-gap couples, with years of age difference between them, multiplies the complexity. Financial planners characterize the process as essentially having to knit together two different retirement trajectories and make it work for one family.
It’s a challenge many couples face. In roughly one out of four heterosexual marriages, the husband is at least five years older than his wife, according to an analysis of the Census Bureau’s 2022 American Community Survey. And in an estimated 7% to 9% of marriages, husbands and wives have an age gap of 10 years or more.
Unions in which one spouse is considerably older than the other happen even more frequently among couples who remarry, a situation that is more common as people get closer to retirement age. The Pew Research Center found that more than half of men who remarry get hitched to a woman at least three years younger than they are, compared with 35% in first marriages that have the same age gap; for 20% of remarried men, the age difference with their wives is at least a decade.
If you’re a lot older or younger than your spouse, there are several key areas you need to focus on to secure a financially and emotionally satisfying retirement, advisers say. That includes devising an income and investment strategy to ensure your savings last through the younger spouse’s lifespan, coordinating time lines for winding down your careers, and coming up with a plan to maximize Social Security benefits. Younger spouses — typically wives – must also prepare for the prospect of a longer period of time as a widow, with the money challenges and emotional punch that come with that.
These preparations are personal for Burt Hutchinson, a certified financial planner and partner at Foundation Wealth Management in Media, Pennsylvania, whose wife is 11 years his junior. “As I get older, I am really focused on when I will retire and how that could impact her finances over the long term,” says Hutchinson, 57, who intends to stick with his career until he’s 70. “I plan to work longer to ensure that she is financially secure.”
Considerations in retirement planning for age-gap couples
If you and your spouse are planning for retirement and there is a considerable age gap between you, here are the steps to take now.
Prepare to stretch your retirement savings
Research from the TIAA Institute indicates that the average American spends a little less than 20 years in retirement. For a couple with a significant age gap, the combined time span for retirement could easily be twice as long, from the time the older spouse stops working through, in most cases, the rest of the younger partner’s life — and savings and income need to last over that longer period.
For planning purposes, that means basing strategies and projections on the younger spouse’s life expectancy, although the health of both partners also factors into the equation, says CFP René Bruer, co-CEO of Smith Bruer, a financial advisory firm based in Tallahassee, Florida. “It’s all about expectations,” he says. “Can your money and the assets that you have support you once you’re no longer earning income?”
To help ensure the answer is yes, advisers recommend that age-gap couples invest their long-term savings with an eye toward continued growth, keeping more of their money in stocks than the older spouse might choose based on his expected retirement age alone. For instance, a 65-year-old about to stop working might typically have an investment mix of 40% to 60% in stocks and the rest in fixed-income securities to balance growth with the need to protect the portfolio from market volatility and losses. But for an age-gap couple planning for a retirement time line of 40 years or more, 65% to 75% in stocks might be appropriate, says CFP Eric McClain, partner at Approach Retirement Advisors in Birmingham, Alabama. “That money has got to last a lot longer,” he says.
Although an older spouse may be eager for his partner to join him as soon as possible once he retires, advisers say that from a strictly financial standpoint it might make sense for the younger spouse to keep working, earning income and contributing to retirement accounts to continue to build savings. That’s especially true if an employer matches a portion of 401(k) contributions or if the couple are able to take advantage of higher catch-up contribution limits. (Savers 50 and older can contribute a total of $32,500 for 2026, compared with a maximum of $24,500 for younger workers; people between the ages of 60 and 63 have a super catch-up limit of $35,750.)
Later in retirement, in cases where one spouse is more than 10 years older than their partner, a couple may be able to further stretch retirement savings by taking smaller required minimum distributions from an IRA. As long as the younger spouse is the primary beneficiary on the account, couples with that age difference can use the IRS Joint and Last Survivor Life Expectancy Table to calculate RMDs instead of the standard Uniform Lifetime Table, resulting in lower withdrawals. (See IRS Publication 590-B for details.)
Coordinate your exits from the workforce
What’s best from a strictly financial standpoint, though, isn’t the only consideration. A gap of several years in retirement dates can leave couples navigating conflicting priorities: The spouse who is no longer working wants to travel and pursue hobbies with their partner during the healthy, active early years of retirement, while the other spouse either has to keep working for financial reasons or enjoys their job and doesn’t want to give it up. And by the time the younger spouse retires, the older spouse might not have the desire or the physical capability to keep up.
That friction can pop up anytime there’s a big difference in retirement timing between spouses, but may be exacerbated by a sizable age difference. “I have a client who’s still working, and his wife is in his ear at every meeting,” the adviser says. The client is several years older than his spouse but doesn’t want to quit his job; the wife no longer works and wants them to begin their next chapter before her husband is too old to enjoy an active retirement together. Hutchinson says, “She asks him, ‘When’s it going to be our time?’”
To ease this kind of tension, planners say it’s helpful to stop thinking of work or retirement in black-and-white terms. “There’s a ton of gray areas you can take advantage of,” Bruer says. In some cases, couples compromise by having one or both partners transition to part-time work. That gives them the freedom to pursue the lifestyle they want and continue earning some income as well, reducing the amount they need to draw from their nest egg to maintain their lifestyle.
Figuring out how you’ll get health insurance also factors into the decision on when age-gap couples retire. If a younger spouse gets coverage through their partner’s employer and both spouses intend to retire at 65 once they become eligible for Medicare, the younger spouse will have to find an alternative. You may be able to bridge the gap with COBRA coverage, remaining on your spouse’s former employer’s plan for up to 36 months. But the cost will be much higher because you lose the employer subsidy that lowers workplace health insurance premiums.
If you’re working, your employer’s health insurance plan is an option; if you’re not in the workforce, taking a part-time job that offers health benefits is a possibility. The Affordable Care Act marketplace is another, especially if your income is low enough to qualify for subsidies. Tax credits to defray the cost of premiums are available for people who earn between 100% and 400% of the federal poverty level — $84,600 for couples in most states in 2026. Some states also offer additional subsidies.
How to lower health care costs
Another consideration: A couple with one spouse still earning a high income and the other on Medicare need to budget for the possibility of higher Medicare costs. Medicare assesses income-related monthly adjustment amount (IRMAA) surcharges on Medicare Part B, which covers doctor visits, and Part D, which covers prescription medications, on high-income households.
IRMAA surcharges, which are indexed to inflation, kick in at incomes above $218,000 in 2026 for married joint tax filers (based on your returns from two years ago), with tiers for higher income levels. Income of even a single dollar above each threshold can mean sharply higher premiums. For instance, couples with joint income from $274,001 to $342,000 each pay $405.80 per month, double the standard monthly premium of $202.90 in 2026.
Martha C. White is a contributing writer at Kiplinger Personal Finance magazine. For more on this and similar money topics, visit Kiplinger.com.
©2026 The Kiplinger Washington Editors, Inc. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
