Paying Twice for Half of My Late Husband’s Pension

In hospice, before he slipped into a medication-induced sleep, my husband, Keith, said: "After I'm gone, get in touch with my office — they'll walk you through what you need to do."

This was sudden; not once during the 14 months of his cancer treatment did we sit down and talk about the Foreign Service Pension System (FSPS) plan I would inherit if he didn't survive. He was busy continuing to work, I was under contract to write a book; encouraged by his doctors, neither of us considered the possibility that he could be among the 40% to 50% of patients for whom the treatment didn't work.

We thought that at 52 he was simply too young to die and not enjoy the retirement he had earned.

In the foggy weeks that followed the funeral I did as he advised: I contacted his headquarters. A few days later a package with 14 files landed in my email. Heading the forms I would later spend hours deciphering was a letter informing me of the benefits I had inherit as my husband's beneficiary.

Keith's career in the Foreign Service spanned more than two decades; at the time of his passing, he was already eligible to retire. Now that he was gone his annuity would pass to me — as his spouse of 27 years I qualified for the survivor benefits.

I skimmed the letter registering only faintly that the size of my inherited annuity would constitute just half of what he would have received had he lived to enjoy it. I didn't ponder it then: in those first months, the rare lucidity that grief allowed me was only enough to fill out forms — not question them. Yet every time I mentioned this to friends they asked why. "Didn't he earn that amount by working all those years?" they'd inquire.

The question was valid but the grief was still fresh so I kept letting it go. Thinking back to the moments of his death, and later, to the days I sat at my desk cutting his credit cards, and, thus, erasing him again and again was already enough to send me into a sobbing spiral.

Yet, as the time went by, the question my friends posed tugged at me: why, indeed, were we being disadvantaged because he was unlucky enough to get sick and die? Wasn't it, too, an erasure of sorts — an erasure of his service to his country — if posthumously his contribution wasn't treated equally to his living colleagues?

The Retirement Network of the U.S. Department of State says that "a basic factor in determining whether an employee is eligible for retirement and in computing the annuity benefit is the total of the years and months of the employee's creditable service."

Foreign Service Officers earn their pension by paying a percentage of their paycheck into the FSPS and clocking in the required number of years. The annuity amount is based on the highest average basic pay earned in any three consecutive years of service. It should be directly proportional to the number of years served — the longer an officer serves, the higher their pension. Thus, dedication is rewarded — except, apparently, if that officer happens to die.

But disadvantaging someone who devoted his life to his work — and paid into the system — simply because they are no longer alive is only one side of this unfair equation.

As a Foreign Service spouse, I spent my life moving to wherever my husband's assignments took him around the world. I supported his career by being the one to pack and unpack every time we moved, by making sure our child adjusted well in her new school, by organizing our lives from scratch in every new locale.

Professionally I had to re-create myself, too. Because neither my degree nor my vocation allowed me to work remotely and because remote work wasn't as available or accessible as it is now, I've had to adjust, re-inventing myself after almost every move.

With our lives constantly in transit, I couldn't build a career or establish a track record of stable employment. At the time of my husband's passing my resume was a hodgepodge of consulting, training and writing — hardly the kind of credentials sought after in a professional job marketplace.

Like many Foreign Service spouses, I sacrificed my career by virtue of being married to an officer and, thus, by extension — and without compensation — also dedicated my life to the Foreign Service.

Yet neither his nor my dedication seem to matter.

When my husband joined the Foreign Service neither he nor I thought much of what would happen after his diplomatic career concluded. We never imagined he would die this young (who does?) but we prudently (we thought) elected a survivorship option in his FSPS plan so we believed I'd be all set.

Yet neither he nor I realized his annuity would be significantly reduced in the event of his death. (A couple of Foreign Service officers I spoke with when I began writing this piece didn't realize it either.)

A little over two months after Keith's death on what would have been his 53rd birthday, his colleagues held a virtual "celebration of life" event for him. Many spoke highly of his work ethic, his willingness to help, his kindness and the legacy he left at the posts at which he served.

Several mentioned his devotion to his family and how important it was for him to take care of us. It was both heartbreaking and humbling to hear the tributes and to know that his long service to the country he loved — the service he continued almost to the very end — made a difference.

But as I hid behind my turned-off camera wiping off tears and remembering his concern for my future when he lay dying in hospice, I also felt sad and disappointed. Sad on his behalf because his dedication did not, in the end, result in as much security as he expected for his family, and disappointed at myself for giving up so much for a system in which spouses sacrifice as much (if not more) yet receive only half.