Collecting SS under an ex-spouse (55, divorce, spouses, marriage)

[barbienj]

I have looked through the SS website and I can not find how to get the numbers of what I could collect if I collected under my ex. We were married over 10 years and I have never remarried.



I think I see where HE could put in the info to find out but I can't ask him to do that.



Does anyone know the process to get that information?

[mathjak107]

Call ss you don’t need anything from him for spousal from an ex ….

[Joylush]

Call them and they will tell you. My partner just filed under his deceased former spouses record. It was amazingly a pretty seamless process.

[josie13]

Originally Posted by Joylush

Call them and they will tell you. My partner just filed under his deceased former spouses record. It was amazingly a pretty seamless process.

SS will really give out that information to you over the phone? How do they know if you are really an ex-spouse without seeing documents?

[arr430]

I believe you need to be a qualified SS recipient yourself, in order to qualify for any of your spouse's benefits.

Do you have a SS number? Is the spouse still alive?

[Roselvr]

Originally Posted by josie13

SS will really give out that information to you over the phone? How do they know if you are really an ex-spouse without seeing documents?

From memory, I think they would have to produce the divorce papers to prove the divorce, not sure if they'd want the marriage license too.

[Rakin]

Originally Posted by Roselvr

From memory, I think they would have to produce the divorce papers to prove the divorce, not sure if they'd want the marriage license too.

I did this under the old rules and had to provide the above IIRC. I also had her SS number which helped.

[TheShadow]

You will definitely need your marriage certificate and divorce final decree. And his SS#.

[NoMansLands]

There's no law that you can't ever have remarried.

[L00k4ward]

Originally Posted by TheShadow

You will definitely need your marriage certificate and divorce final decree. And his SS#.

The friend applied on-line and SSA had an on-line access to the marriage documents, she didn’t need to provide it, but she had to know the information from those documents.

It was during the lockdown though- not sure if now is different.

If the OP is able to go to SSA office - they could get all the information I believe, so the applicant doesn’t need to ask for their ex- spouse SS# - though they could find it from the past tax records?