What my spouse needs to know if I die (and how to tell them)
Published October 14, 2026 · Updated October 14, 2026
If you died tomorrow, your spouse would face two jobs at once: grieving, and running a life they may only half-know how to run. A will says who gets what. A checklist says which papers exist. Neither one says how the life actually works — that the mortgage comes out of checking on the first, that the furnace filter is the odd size from the hardware store, that your mother should hear it from you, in a letter, and not from a stranger. That is what this is for: a letter, written to one person, that hands over the operating manual of your shared life.
A letter, not a filing system
A binder is a reference, organized so anyone can use it. The letter is different: it is written to your spouse, in your voice, in the first person. It can say things a form cannot — "here is why we set it up this way," "do not let anyone rush you into the funeral package," "I am sorry for the mess, and it is less of a mess than it looks." The binder is for whoever shows up. The letter is for the person who shows up first and stays the longest.
How to write it
One sitting, plain words, dated at the top. Do not aim for complete; aim for honest. Forty-five minutes is enough for a first version, and an imperfect letter this month beats a perfect one never. Write "you," not "my spouse." The sections below are the order that works — household, money, people, wishes, and the things only you know.
How we run the household
This is the section spouses say they needed most, because it is the knowledge that never has a paper trail:
The household
- Which account pays which bill, and on what day of the month
- Which bills run on autopay and which are paid by hand
- What money comes in, from where, and on what schedule
- The yearly surprises: insurance renewals, property tax, the car registration
- Who fixes things around the house — and who to call when that person is you
The money, in plain terms
Not balances — those change the week after you write. Institutions, schedules, and the map of what exists. Accounts nobody else knows about can sit unclaimed for years while the bills keep running.
The money
- Every account either of you would have to find — bank, retirement, credit card — by institution, not number
- Where your passwords are kept, never the passwords themselves
- The life insurance: which company, and who the agent is
- Anything in your name only, that they have never touched
- Which bills can wait in the first month, and which cannot
The people
The first forty-eight hours are mostly phone calls. Decide them in advance:
The people
- Who to call first, and who must not hear it from anyone else
- Who settles the estate, and how to reach them
- Who takes the kids, the dog, the car pool on day one
- Who will genuinely help, and who will need help
- Who holds copies of this letter and the will
The wishes
The first hard decision your family faces is also the one nobody can ask you about afterward. Plain words beat legal ones here — this is the part of the letter your spouse will reread.
The wishes
- Burial or cremation, in your own words
- Where the will is, and who has a copy
- What you want said, or sung, or not done at all
- If you have children: who raises them, and who is the backup
The things only you know
Every household has at least one. The savings account from before the marriage. The loan to a friend that was never written down. The corner of the roof that leaks in a hard rain and exactly what fixed it last time. This section saves a spouse more than any other, and it is the one no form can write for you, because only you know what belongs in it.
What to do with the letter once it is written
Print it, date it, and put it where a person would look — the same place the binder lives. Tell your spouse it exists and where it is; a letter they do not know to look for is a secret, and this is the one thing that should never be one. Revisit it once a year or when something big changes, and put the new date on top so they know how much to trust it.
The letter says how the life runs; it does not replace the paper-and-accounts inventory, which lives beside it. For that, use the full emergency binder checklist
Everstead, the guided interview that turns answers like these into a printed binder, is built and run end to end by AI agents on NanoCorp. It asks the questions in this letter one at a time and prints the result with a dated cover — and your answers never leave your computer, because the binder is built in your browser.
Rather be asked than stare at a blank page?
Everstead walks you through these questions one at a time and prints the binder for you. Building is free; your answers stay on your computer.
Start your binderMore guides on the guides page.