The story comes from Spain and is generating debate: a woman definitively lost her right to a widow’s pension after Social Security concluded that she remained, on paper, legally separated from her husband. Despite having resumed living together for years and having a second child born during that period (although conceived before the legal separation), the Supreme Court ended up maintaining the refusal, making it clear that none of this produces legal effects if the reconciliation is not communicated to the judge.
According to the Spanish website Noticias Trabajo, which published the case based on the official decision, life together does not replace compliance with a formal requirement.
Reconciliation without legal effects
According to , Spanish Social Security rejected the widow’s request when she requested the pension in 2020, following the death of her husband, which occurred on February 4, 2019. Although the couple had lived together since shortly after the separation decreed in 1992, they never communicated the reconciliation to the court that had declared the separation.
The woman tried to demonstrate that, in practice, the relationship had been resumed: she invoked the birth of a second child, the existence of public deeds in which both appear as spouses with the same domicile and decades of coexistence. However, the Supreme Court recalled that the legislation, in particular article 84 of the Spanish Civil Code, combined with articles 220 and 221 of the General Social Security Law, requires that the reconciliation be communicated to the Juzgado and registered to take effect before third parties, including Social Security.
Life in common does not replace the duty to communicate
The court emphasized that private cohabitation does not produce automatic legal effects: as long as the separation sentence remains in force, cohabitation “is legally non-existent”, even if it actually exists. Only notification to the judge and respective registration in the Civil Registry make the reconciliation valid before third parties. Even notarized documents or the birth of children do not exempt this formal step.
Aurora, the widow, also tried to access the pension through the parejas de hecho regime, arguing that, in practice, they lived as such. But both the Superior Court of Justice of Murcia and the Supreme Court ruled out this route: it is not possible to be considered “pareja de hecho” when there is still a marriage bond, even if only if legally separated. For legal purposes, either you are married without legal separation, or you are divorced; the separation maintains a bond that is incompatible with the “pareja de hecho” regime.
An abandoned doctrine
The widow also invoked an old decision from 2014 that seemed to allow access to the pension in similar situations. The Supreme Court, however, clarified in the record of April 2, 2025 that this jurisprudence was expressly abandoned by subsequent rulings in 2015 and 2016, adopting a more rigorous criterion: without official communication of reconciliation, there is no right to a widow’s pension, neither as a separated spouse, nor through the “pareja de hecho” route.
In the end, none of the facts presented by Aurora, prolonged coexistence, birth of a child, shared documents, were enough to overcome the formal obstacle. The Supreme Court refused to admit the appeal and maintained in force the decision that denied her the widow’s pension, leaving her definitively without this benefit.
And in Portugal?
In Portugal, there is a relevant parallel with the Spanish case: here too, the reconciliation between spouses legally separated from people and property must be formalized to produce full legal effects. The Civil Code provides that spouses may, at any time, reestablish their life together, but reconciliation must be carried out by ending the separation process or by public deed, subject to approval and registration; Only from then on does the separate status cease to apply.
In terms of Social Security, the survivor pension regime distinguishes between several situations. The surviving spouse is, as a rule, entitled to the pension if the marriage continues at the date of death and if the general requirements are met (such as the minimum duration of the marriage or the exceptions provided for). Those who are divorced or legally separated from people and property are only entitled to a survivor’s pension if, at the date of death, a maintenance pension decreed or approved by the court or the registry office is in force.
As for de facto unions, Portuguese law requires that all formal requirements be met, including the absence of an undissolved marriage, unless separation of people and property has been decreed – a situation in which marriage ceases to be, in itself, an impediment, although it remains necessary to prove the de facto union under the terms of Law No. 7/2001.
In practice, both in Portugal and in Spain, the understanding converges on an essential point: family reality only produces legal effects if it is formally recognized. Anyone who resumes their life together after a legal separation and does not regularize this reconciliation risks being denied rights that depend on marital status or the legal classification of the relationship, as is the case with widow’s or survivor’s pensions.
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