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The Pros and Cons of Marrying Later in Life
The heart wants what it wants, and our hearts don’t lose their capacity to love as they age. However, if you find love later in life, it’s important to consider all of the financial benefits and downsides of tying the knot. When there are children and grandchildren, multiple properties and ex-spouses involved, things can rapidly get complicated.
The Benefits of Marrying Later in Life
- Combining Incomes Can Improve a Financial Situation: If both partners have assets and property already, their combined financial situation can often be much healthier than if they did not marry. Whether one home can be sold or rented, two incomes and two sets of previously-independent financial resources are a great challenge to have.
- Maturity Enables Better Problem-Solving: With age comes wisdom, and with experience comes a better understanding of how to work together to accomplish goals together. Older couples tend to have much more experience, understand the challenges that health issues can pose and have a handle on patience and compassion.
- Tax Benefits: Marriage comes with hefty financial and tax benefits, and married spouses can receive an unlimited amount of assets without needing to pay estate taxes. Tax laws also benefit married couples with IRAs.
- Longer Lifespan: One study of over 500,000 people found that staying single as an older adult can take up to 10 years off of your lifespan.
The Downsides of Marrying Later in Life
- Lack of Financial Agreement: Some older adults are concerned about children, relatives and spouses finding out about their assets and wealth and making health decisions accordingly. In these cases, a prenuptial agreement and careful estate planning can offset concerns.
- High Medical Costs: When you marry, you will become responsible for your spouse’s debts, regardless of where they came from. You will also assume responsibility for your spouse’s children or stepchildren in the eyes of insurance companies, who might increase your premiums in response.
- Caring for Children: Depending on past relationships and children, through marriage one spouse might become responsible for the other spouse’s children financially. If the other spouse has younger children, the couple might pay for private school, uniforms, hobbies and more.
Care for Your Senior Loved Ones with Senior Care Lifestyles
Senior Care Lifestyles specializes in connecting seniors with the right in-home care, assisted living, or senior living community to meet their needs. We have helped hundreds of clients and treat each senior as a valued member of our own family deserving our personalized attention, compassion and respect.
For help, or questions please call us at 410-977-3718 or send a message through our website www.seniorcarelifestyles.com.
Deborah Bakalich, Certified Senior Advisor®
Owner, Certified Senior Advisor (CSA®) & Assisted Living Placement Specialist - Senior Care Lifestyles, LLC provides compassion, guidance and recommendations to families faced with transitioning a loved one into Assisted Living, Dementia/Alzheimer’s Care, Skilled Nursing, Temporary Respite Care or a Continuous Care Retirement Community.
Senior Care Lifestyles was founded in 2014 by Deborah Bakalich, a Certified Senior Advisor and graduate from both Towson University and Stevenson. Senior Care Lifestyles is uniquely positioned as a local (not National) Maryland based placement firm familiar with Maryland senior care facilities and in-state financial assistance programs for senior residents. They meet personally with each family to understand the seniors care needs including medical, personal lifestyle preferences, budget, religion and desired geographic location. They pride themselves in locally guiding and educating families through the entire maze of senior living options available and will schedule tours on behalf of the family and accompany the family on visits of communities. They are passionate and committed to finding the perfect match to call home and stays with the family throughout the entire process, every step of the way, until a decision is made, and the senior is safely moved into their new home. Senior Care Lifestyles can also provide the family with trustworthy, vetted, and reputable experts to assist with the transition for organizing, packing, moving, sale of real estate, estate planning, legal services, and determining eligibility for State, Federal and Veterans Benefits to assist with care costs.
Deborah is a proud member of the Maryland Senior Resource Network (MSRN) where she has served as Vice President on the Board of Directors. She is a member of the Alzheimer’s Organization, Society of Certified Senior Advisors, Mid-Atlantic Network Group and a member of the Business Opportunity Network (BON).
6 Comments
Great read! Getting married later in life is special, but can be complicated. I think that before getting married later in life people need to talk about a lot of things. My mom met someone and is thinking about getting married, but it is important that they talk about finances and their wills, as discomforting it is. I recently read another article that gave some tips for marrying later in life, https://www.ez.insure/landing/2021/05/tips-for-marrying-later-in-life/ . It’s a great read too, what do you think?
Kate, thank you for sharing that article! Anyone getting married at any age needs to prepare and really consider the long term repercussions. Will they have enough financials to sustain the lifetime they hope for, will they leave a legacy, can they and to whom….it really needs to be taken seriously. I apologize or the delay in replying! My website was not forwarding me messages from the articles until we did an upgrade and there they were!!! Debbie
I’m 70 my friend is 80 we live together for 3 years. I do all house and yard work.He just sitting in recliner waiting for me to serve meals and cleaning up.
We are both widowed. I’m good enough to do all work but not good enough be married to Him.
Than I’m considering moving out- not to wait until I have to do all the caregiving and being send out by His kids.
Felicity, you are very smart to consider your long time options and how YOU want to spend your life. Happiness is the key component to staying healthy and companionship is also very important. Make sure you surround yourself with a good solid support group you can depend on, talk to, and spend time with no matter what your decision. Debbie
[…] Let’s start with the pros. For most, this means financial security. […]
Financial security is the key to living your life the way you expected. It is the main deciding factor in selecting a community and a community you can afford to stay in, age gracefully, without the fear of running out of money. So many do not prepare, do not have power of attorney’s, Wills, or share their financials with there adult children who are thrown into the chaos and challenge when suddenly faced with making care decision! Thank you for your comment and I apologize for not replying sooner. My website just went through an update and now all these comments are just coming to me. Feel free to call me if you have any questions or need assistance in proactive planning. Debbie 410-977-3718