re: How much term life insurance should you carry? If at all?

You bring up an excellent point about asymmetry in life insurance, and also regarding the potential future wages of the surviving spouse. I can completely understand carrying 10x salary or more if you have minor children, or a child or spouse incapable of supporting him/herself. But I don't understand the idea of buying huge policies so that a well-educated surviving spouse can enjoy a work-free existence should you pass away first.

I know of a distant relation whose husband died of lung cancer...not exactly a surprise, as he was a lifelong smoker. He very thoughtfully bought a huge policy from his employer & made his wife & (now adult) son equal beneficiaries. He had a long, unpleasant struggle w/cancer & died at home. Fast forward a few years, and his wife & son are mired in a directionless existence, stuck in grief. Neither one has to work anymore, thanks to the fat insurance payoff. But I keep thinking that at least work would get them out of the house on a daily basis, interacting with other people. Instead, they've formed a self-referential closed loop of grief. It's a terrible thing to see--and certainly they prob had some mental health issues before this--but getting up & going to work might have a profound positive effect on these two.