Rebecca Holland

Sun, Jun 1, 2025, 6:07 AM5 min read

The death of a spouse is devastating under any circumstances. But, what happens if your spouse who passed away was also the breadwinner for your family of seven, including five children?

When this type of tragic incident occurs, survivors left behind can find their whole life changed.

Now, imagine that you are the surviving spouse. You have a disability, with a $1,500 monthly benefit and you own a home that you owe $220,000 on. And, your basic monthly bills (not including expenses like food, transportation and health care) are $3,320.

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You'd probably be panicking about your financial future in this situation, and rightly so. The big question is, what can you do to ensure that you and your children are provided for and the bills get paid?

The first thing to do in this situation is to determine what your finances look like based on what your spouse left behind.

Look to see if your husband has a will, and take account of any assets you may have, such as your spouse's workplace 401(k), life insurance policies, bank accounts and investment accounts.

Hopefully, you and your spouse communicated about these issues, and you know where to look. If not, you may have to contact financial institutions, look at your spouse's computer history and email to see if you can find statements and use the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) life insurance policy locator.

In most cases, the estate will need to go through probate to officially transfer certain property and assets. A legal aid attorney may be able to help you through this process if you can't afford a lawyer otherwise. If you were a joint owner on any assets, though, you should be able to access those right away.

With luck, your spouse left something behind that can help you to make ends meet in this difficult situation. Depending on the equity in your home, you may also be able to downsize to something less expensive while freeing up cash you can invest to produce income to live on.

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If your spouse left behind limited resources, the next step is to try to claim any benefits that may be available to you.