Hi,

It may be true, IF you were legally married (common law or otherwise, but it must be legal common law marriage) for all of the 10 years prior to that last divorce. This site explains it well:

"You had been married to the worker for at least ten years immediately before the divorce became final. This requirement is met even if this period was interrupted by a prior divorce from the same spouse, provided the remarriage took place in the calendar year of the divorce or the calendar year immediately following. The marriage must be in existence in each of the 10 years before the divorce in order for the claimant to be entitled. You may also qualify based on a 10-year marriage immediately before a prior divorce." http://socialsecuritybenefitshandbook.com/page6.html#204.3

However, you may not meet the above, if your purported common law marriage was in NY - this is because NY does not allow for the creation of a common law marriage within NY. The SSA will then only find a valid common law marriage if it was a common law marriage recognized by the state in question. You say:

first marriage 4 years then divorced reunited lived as common law for 3 years then remarried for 7 years then divorced ny state

If these "common law" marriage yeas occurred in NY, you were likely not married at all in those years. Therefore when you got divorced the second time, you had 7 years of marriage during the 10 years immediately preceding that divorce, not the requisite 10, I am afraid. However, if you weren't in NY but had, say, moved to TEXAS during those three years, it could be possible to meet this requirement, since TX does allow for the creation of a common law marriage within its borders.

I hope this helps clarify for you.

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