Couples With Age Gaps Face Financial Challenges. How to Navigate Them.

Couples with big age gaps face unique financial challenges. When children are still at home, those challenges multiply, forcing families to balance retirement, college funding and financial security.

Most U.S. couples are close in age—about two years apart on average. But census data show that roughly 8% to 9% have age gaps of a decade or more, putting partners on staggered financial timelines.

“We’ve got college staring us down in 10 years,” said Annie Galvin, 44, a marketing professional in Washington, D.C., whose husband is 54 and whose son is 8. “My husband will be eligible to retire right around the time our son starts college.”

Galvin said they have built retirement savings, a 529 education-savings plan and insurance policies and are now focused on pulling those pieces into a more coordinated framework.

For advisors, overlapping retirement and child-related expenses create pressure points.

“The No. 1 concern is that the older person is scared and concerned there’s not going to be enough money for the younger person,” said Drew Oestreicher, principal at Spinnaker Trust in Portland, Maine, who added that 5% to 10% of his clients are couples with large age gaps. “The other issue is taking care of your existing family.”

Plan for higher costs

Couples with large age differences need to plan for assets to last across more years of spending.

“It’s a really long runway,” said Brian Cummins, a managing director of Joel Isaacson & Co. in New York. The typical 20- to 30-year retirement can stretch to 35 years or more with an age gap.

Even when families recognize that extended timeline, advisors say they often underestimate how costs evolve.

“They don’t tend to think about the full cost of bringing up and educating children,” or the time it can take to fully launch them, said Dan Beckerman of Beckerman Institutional in Ocean Grove, N.J.

That disconnect can have consequences. In one case, an American investment banker in London who had earned a high income for decades—and never felt pressure to plan—continued paying a daughter’s housing costs into her 30s. When he retired, repatriated, and later faced health issues, that approach became unsustainable, leaving less money for a child from his second marriage who is still in high school.

Understand the income gap

One of the biggest risks comes when one spouse retires or reduces income while expenses remain high with children at home. Oestreicher of Spinnaker Trust said it is important for the younger spouse to continue saving during these years, even as the household begins to draw down assets.

Required minimum distributions (RMDs) from retirement accounts can complicate cash flow, sometimes forcing withdrawals sooner or in larger amounts than planned.

The good news: When one spouse retires, the couple may end up in a lower tax bracket. That can be an opportunity to convert tax-deferred retirement accounts to Roth accounts, since the converted amounts are taxed as ordinary income.

Manage Social Security timing

Oestreicher said it often makes sense for the older spouse to delay Social Security benefits and the younger spouse to claim earlier.

Delaying the older spouse’s benefit increases the eventual survivor benefit, while earlier income from the younger spouse can help offset withdrawals during that stretch.

That guidance can shift when younger children are still at home. When a parent begins collecting Social Security, eligible minor children can also receive monthly benefits—typically up to 50% of the parent’s full benefit per child, subject to a family cap—until they reach adulthood.

Janice Rivera, 57, is a federal employee in Washington, D.C., whose husband is 17 years older. The couple adopted two daughters, and when her husband retired at 62, he took on primary caregiving responsibilities. “It was great, because someone was at home taking care of everything,” she said.

The husband started Social Security at that age so their children, then 13 and 11, could receive benefits. Rivera said they funneled a portion of those payments into 529 plans, helping cover college costs and reducing the need for student borrowing.

Extend earnings to bridge the gap

William Plasencia, 58, who works in communications in San Francisco, has two children in their early 20s from a prior marriage and two in elementary school with his current wife, a lawyer who is 13 years younger.

“We started a consulting firm on the side because we were staring at my retirement coming up sooner than hers,” he said. He’s working at the firm while she continues in a salaried position.

Don’t forget long-term care

Cummins of Joel Isaacson & Co. said that the cost of care if one spouse becomes incapacitated is frequently overlooked. “That is something that needs to be thought of. The cost is extremely high.”

For couples with significant age gaps, that risk can be amplified. The older spouse is likely to need care first, often while the younger spouse is still working or supporting children. Without a plan, long-term costs can rapidly drain savings, endangering the retirement of the surviving spouse.

Wealthier households may choose to self-fund by earmarking a chunk of assets for long-term care, Cummins said. Others rely on long-term care insurance or policies with care riders, though rising premiums are forcing difficult decisions. Cummins noted that sticker shock prompts some clients to drop coverage just as they near the age when such insurance might be needed. They should think twice before going without. “If you need to use it, it can end up saving a lot of money,” he said.

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