When One Spouse Has Always Handled the Investments. And One Day, They Can’t.

In many long-married couples, there’s an unspoken job description that never made it into the vows: Chief Investment Officer. One spouse has handled the investing for decades. They’ve done it well. Markets went up, markets went down, and through it all, the plan held. Accounts are organized. Decisions are disciplined. Life is good.

The problem is not the investing. The problem is what happens when that one spouse can no longer do it.

Sometimes it’s sudden, like a death. Sometimes it’s slower, like cognitive decline or health issues that make decision-making harder. Either way, the transition is often unplanned. The surviving or caregiving spouse is suddenly expected to step into a role they never trained for, during one of the most emotionally exhausting seasons of life.

This is where families tend to stumble. Not because the portfolio was wrong, but because the process lived entirely inside one person’s head.

At Formula Wealth, my role is to serve as the transition team. I help couples turn a one-person system into a shared, durable plan. That means documenting the investment philosophy, simplifying account structures, aligning estate documents and powers of attorney, and ensuring that if something happens, the strategy continues without panic, guesswork, or forced decisions at the worst possible time.

The goal is simple: continuity. The same disciplined investment approach, the same long-term thinking, and a clear handoff so that no one spouse is left trying to learn everything while grieving or caregiving.

If you and your spouse have done well financially because one of you has always “handled the money,” that success deserves a second chapter. One where the plan outlives the planner.