Retirement Planning for Couples

Most retirement plans for couples assume a single decision-maker and a shared comfort zone. Real life is rarely that tidy.

When I sit down with couples in their late 50s and 60s, the most useful early conversation is rarely about portfolios or products. It is about how each of them, separately, wants the income to feel.

Two RISA® profiles, not one

The Retirement Income Style Awareness (RISA®) framework places a person on two axes: comfort with market growth versus contractual guarantees, and a desire for flexibility versus a willingness to commit. Spouses often land in different places on those axes.

I see the pattern often: one partner is comfortable with a market-driven, total return approach, while the other prefers an income protection approach with a guaranteed floor. Neither is wrong. The risk is forcing them into the same plan.

A plan that ignores the more cautious spouse holds up fine in good years and falls apart in 2008-style years. That is when most plans get abandoned — not because the math broke, but because the household couldn't sleep. The fix is structural. Each spouse completes the RISA assessment separately, and the plan honors both profiles.

Surviving spouse risk

The harder conversation is what happens when one of you is no longer there to manage things.

Financial decision-making capacity tends to decline with age, often unevenly between spouses. If the partner who handled the bills and monitored the accounts is the one who passes first or experiences cognitive decline, the survivor is left with a plan they were never the operator of.

Guaranteed income — from Social Security, a pension, or an annuity where appropriate — keeps depositing whether or not anyone is rebalancing. The survivor isn't left to make complex decisions during grief.

The “actuarial bond” alternative

Couples who annuitize face a real trade-off: a joint-life annuity pays both spouses but at a lower payout rate than a single-life version. Pairing a single-life annuity on one spouse with a permanent life insurance policy is one approach researchers have studied — the death benefit can effectively refund the annuitized assets to the survivor, who can use them as they choose. Whether that structure fits depends on health, ages, costs, and the rest of the plan.

Dynamic horizons

A planning horizon for a couple is not the same as for a single person. When one spouse passes, tax brackets compress, withdrawal math shifts, and income sources change. A plan that does not anticipate that transition will surprise the survivor at the worst possible moment.

If the two of you are sitting with different views on how this should work, that is the conversation worth having before retirement, not after. Let's talk through your numbers.

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