Estate Planning for a Second Marriage: Protecting Your Spouse and Your Children

Any major life change should prompt a review of your estate plan, and a second marriage is one of the biggest. The right changes depend on whether either spouse has children, the size of each estate, and what each of you wants to leave to whom.

Second marriages raise one question first marriages often do not: how to provide for a new spouse without disinheriting children from a prior relationship. This page covers the questions to ask, the Colorado rules that apply automatically, and the tools couples use to balance both goals.

Questions to Ask When You Revise Your Plan

A second marriage calls for a full review of each spouse’s plan. The difference between a will and a trust often becomes more important here, because a trust can hold assets for a spouse and children at the same time. Start with these questions:

• If either of you has children, what will each child inherit?
• If you plan to have children together, how will they be provided for?
• How will each spouse’s premarital assets be handled, and which will stay separate?
• Should any assets, such as a home or account, be retitled in both names?
• Does either spouse carry debt the other should know about?
• Will each of you update your own will, or sign new coordinated wills?
• Who will make health care and financial decisions if one of you is incapacitated?
• Would a trust help balance the interests of your spouse and your children?

Engaged couples do not need to wait until after the wedding. A Colorado prenuptial agreement is often where these decisions are first made.

What Colorado Does Automatically When You Remarry

If you married after signing your will, your new spouse may take an intestate share of the estate not left to your children from before the marriage.¹ That share does not apply if the will was made in contemplation of the marriage or says it survives a later marriage.

It also does not apply if you provided for your spouse outside the will in place of a gift under it. An old will is therefore not a safe way to leave a new spouse out.

A surviving spouse can also claim an elective share of the augmented estate, which counts probate and many nonprobate assets.² The share grows with the length of the marriage, so a plan that leaves a new spouse little may not hold up. A valid premarital or marital agreement can waive these rights.

Updating an Estate Plan When Children Are Involved

Plans for blended families are inherently more complicated. Each spouse may have left assets to their own children in a plan from the prior marriage, and that plan may now need to change.

Some couples pool assets and divide them among all the children; others keep their estates separate and coordinate. For example, a couple who each have two children might write a new plan that divides pooled assets evenly among all four. Either approach can work if it is written down clearly.

Do Beneficiaries Need to Be Updated?

Yes, and on every account. Colorado’s divorce revocation statute generally revokes a former spouse’s gifts and beneficiary designations in wills, revocable trusts, and other governing instruments made before the divorce.³ It does not replace the need to name new beneficiaries.

There is a major exception. Federal law preempts the Colorado statute for employer plans governed by ERISA, such as most 401(k) plans and many group life policies.⁴ A former spouse still named on one of those forms can collect, so update those designations yourself and consider naming stepchildren, children, or a trust where that fits the plan.

Beneficiary forms, retitled accounts, and an old will can each undo the plan you think you have. Johnson Law Group offers a no-pressure consultation to review all of them together, so schedule a consultation before or soon after the wedding.

Trusts in Estate Planning for a Second Marriage

A trust is often the most useful tool when one spouse has children from a prior relationship. The qualified terminable interest property trust, or QTIP trust, is common in this situation.

In a QTIP trust, the surviving spouse must receive all of the trust’s income, at least annually, for life.⁵ No one can give the property to anyone else during the spouse’s lifetime. When the surviving spouse dies, the remaining assets pass to the beneficiaries the first spouse chose, often the children from the earlier marriage.

The tax effect is deferral, not avoidance. If the executor makes the QTIP election, the trust qualifies for the estate tax marital deduction at the first death.⁶ The assets are then included in the surviving spouse’s taxable estate at the second death.

For example, $1 million placed in a QTIP trust passes free of estate tax at the first death, and whatever remains is counted in the survivor’s estate later.

With the federal exemption at $15 million per person in 2026, most families use a QTIP trust for control rather than tax savings. It guarantees a spouse is provided for while making sure the children ultimately inherit.⁷

Talk With a Colorado Estate Planning Lawyer

If you are marrying for a second or later time, reviewing your plan is one of the most important steps you can take for both families. Johnson Law Group is here to help.

The attorneys at Johnson Law Group help blended families coordinate wills, trusts, and beneficiary forms and will give you a clear read on your plan. Schedule a free consultation through our Colorado offices, and we will serve as your North Star from here.

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