Did you lose the weight because you were hungry or because you wanted to? Want to hear a really stupid rule, I was going to start a thread on this. If you are married and your spouse dies, you have to apply for disability within 7 years of his death, or 7 years after your kids stop getting survivor benefits. I'm not kidding that is a real rule. So if your husband dies when you are 25 the kids are all grown at 46 you have till 53 to become disabled. So the 911 victims , the gulf oil spill victims, the Iraq War, I'm sure they have no idea this rule exists. I don't know what they have to gain by having all these strange rules.

If your husband dies when you are 25, his children would not still be collecting survivor's benefits 21 years later when you are 46.

If you are widowed young, you need to determine if your assets will allow you to continue to stay home with the kids and purchase your own disability insurance OR you go back to work. Then if you are later disabled, you qualify for SSDI under your own benefit.

The entire point of survivor benefits is to replace the lost income of the worker for minor children and a widow(er) who is unable to work because she (he) is taking care of the minor children or because she (he) is unable to work because of a disability. Survivor benefits were never designed to provide a life long benefit for able bodied adults and if a widow/widower chose to stay out of the workforce after her/his child turned 16 and they were still able bodied, why should they qualify for disabled widow's benefits 8 years later? Why didn't they go to work and earn their own Social Security credits?

Also, the scenerio mentioned above is mathematically incorrect: Mother's benefits stop when the youngest child turns 16 so a widow at 25 would only get benefits through age 41.

And why can't the 41 year old, able bodied, not disabled adult go to work? It is highly likely that if the spouse had not died, the family would have been better off and the non-working spouse may never have needed to go into the work force. But it is also possible that the deceased may have chosen to get a divorce and become a deadbeat parent.

SSA cannot cover all possible scenerios with a equal amount of parity. Just not possible.

About 10 or 20 years ago, SSA did ease up the rules on the level of severity of the disabling condition for disabled widows and allowed men to qualify as disabled widowers. That was not part of the original legislation.

Hello and thank you for your response. I lost the weight because I did loose my appetite from all the trouble I am in. Instead of worrying about not eating, I was determined to eat only good things when I was hungry. The conbination did it. I am loosing now and I don't want to however. I maintained the origional loss of 65 and then maintained for two more years. Now I am dropping because of all this mess I am in. The truth is I don't want to fight all the things that are in my life that I need to do. I do not have the energy or the spirit. I don't want more hearings and fights with my family. I don't want any of it any more. ginnie

I think the agents are drinking more than wine making up these rules. More like some psycho drug so they can inflict as much pain into the situation as possible. It seems these acencies are determined not to help in the first place, and they do all they can do to stop you. I am tired legalmania, soul tired. ginnie

The thing is, even if I stuffed my matress with money for my taxes, they would wonder at tax time where I got that much. You are not allowed to keep that much in your possession. If they find out, they cancel your benefits. I was doing all their rules the way I was told to do in their bookets.I have always tried to be very honest in every respect. Not telling the agency about any income you get would be too risky, and I can't do that, I don't want to break the rules. ginnie

That's exactly what went through my head when all this crap was happening. I really do love her, that is probably why I stick around and I believe she loves me too. All I can do is forgive and forget because I don't believe in divorce and we have been together for 29 years, that is hard to walk away from. Things are better now that I am able to contribute to the household expenses.

That's crazy ginnie, $2,700 is not a lot of money when it comes to housing. What do they expect you to do go homeless? It sounds like they want you to mortgage your house so you won't have that much of an asset. You're trying to keep cost down and being punished for it. Well I gotta go do the show try to get back to you.

Bless your heart, congratulations on staying with her that long. Maybe she was afraid you were going to just sit around and let her support everyone. Glad to see it's going better and hope things continue to improve.

Not true, benefits apply until 18. I realize it's not life long however, a women decides to be a stay home mom, then 8 yrs later she is in a horrific accident, her family gets stuck with taking care of her, until she is 62 when she is able to get her husbands benefits again. That law is still in effect, they made it smaller with the overhauled website.

Benefits for children

If a child is getting benefits based on your work, there are important things you should know about his or her benefits:

* When a child reaches age 18

—


A child’s benefits stop with the month before the child reaches age 18, unless the child is either disabled or is a full-time elementary or secondary school student.
— About five months before the child's 18th birthday, the person receiving the child's benefits will get a form explaining how benefits can continue.
— A child whose benefits stopped at age 18 can have them started again if he or she becomes disabled before reaching age 22 or becomes a full-time elementary or secondary school student before reaching age 19.

Note: If a widow or widower is caring for the deceases' children receives Social Security benefits, he or she is eligible if disability starts before those payments end or within seven years after they end.