A Divorce Lawyer on the Small Things That End Marriages | James Sexton

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Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness podcast. We have Jim Sexton in the house. Good to see you, man.

Good to see you, Lewis.

Thanks for having me.

Excited about this. You've got a book called If You're in My Office, It's Already Too Late: A Divorce Lawyer's Guide to Staying Together. You've been doing divorce law work for 2 decades, right?

Yeah, about that. A little less than that, right?

Almost 2 decades working with couples who have gone through every challenge under the sun, right? Who have been through it all, from sleeping with the nanny to financial issues to what you said, carpooling. Who's doing what carpooling and what days? To little stuff to big stuff and everything in between. You've seen it. And you're not a trained therapist, but you've probably had years of work in your experience being a therapist for a lot of people.

Yeah.

Assuming, right?

Yeah, you know, I see people at their worst. I think I see them in a way that— people still lie to their therapist, you know, but they don't necessarily lie to their divorce lawyer.

Wow.

Because there's a tremendous incentive not to lie to me. You know, lying to your doctor and lying to your lawyer are like the 2 people you shouldn't lie to. Our only job is to protect you. Our only job is to make sure that whether your goals are legitimate or illegitimate, our job's to protect you.

Yeah.

So I think I get to see a very, very candid— I know more about their finances than their accountant. I know more about their personal life than their therapist. I know where all the skeletons are, you know?

Why is that? Why do they tell more to you than their therapist?

'Cause they have to. I mean, for me to protect them properly. I mean, the first time I meet with—

Once the law is under their jurisdiction, they're like, okay, I have to tell you.

Well—

I can lie a little bit. Little small lies here and there to the therapist.

Yeah, I mean, I think other professionals, you just don't feel the automatic sense of you're here to protect me. I mean, I am there to protect them in the rawest, realest way. I really am like a shield to them, you know? And I say that's my job. I'm a shield and a weapon. And I'm a shield in the sense that my job is to protect my clients' interests. And I'm a weapon in the sense that I'm there to advocate what it is that they need me to fight for, what it is that they need me to advance. I represent people who've been cheated on, and I represent people who cheat. And I represent people who their spouse has a drug or alcohol problem, and I represent people who have drug and alcohol problems. So I've spent so much time with every variety of the person in a couple, that that's how the book happened. It really turned into, you know, look, I'm not a therapist, I'm not a philosopher who's just opining on what I think people do. I'm just telling you what people do. I'm just telling you what I see actually happened in actual marriages. This isn't theoretical marriages, this is actual marriages.

Yeah, the real mess.

Yeah, yeah, the real train wreck.

Now, you've worked with over a— is it over 1,000 clients now?

Yeah, easily.

Have there been any clients that you've worked with that were going to get a divorce and then they decided not to after working with you, and then they came back together for whatever reason? And if so, what was that reason?

It happens pretty rarely, and that's why I actually called the book If You're in My Office, It's Already Too Late.

Maybe 1% of people?

I would say even less. I would say even less. I would say in a 20-year career, it's happened maybe 3 times where someone, by the time they were in my office, It's so far along and the wound has so festered that it's hard to turn it around. I mean, look, that's the truth. When you look at people, it's a whole lot easier just to maintain your weight than to get real fat and try to lose it all, right? So it's the same thing with marriages. There's this— no single raindrop's responsible for the flood, you know? There's these little—

Right, they all add up.

Arguments, these little issues that people have, And they just build and build and build and build to the point where once that dam breaks, by the time you're in my office, it's done. It's, it's— and it's rare that people can come back from that. Yeah.

You were talking about before we started that marriage is a technology.

Yeah.

Now, what does that mean? What is the technology of marriage?

I think anything that's designed to solve a problem is a technology, right? So, I mean, this mug is, is a technology. And what is the problem to which this technology is a solution? Well, it's the problem of I can't hold hot tea in my hand. It's a problem of I don't want to use— and kudos to you for using non-disposable ones, that zero waste.

Yeah, yeah.

You listen to her. And the truth is, is that it's designed to solve a problem. So the next question is, who has that problem? Anyone who wants to drink a beverage has that problem. And the next question, and I think the most important question, is what problems does it unintentionally create? Okay, so every technology is a Faustian bargain in the sense that it solves a problem and it creates a problem. You gotta clean it, you gotta use water to wash it, you gotta store it. Exactly, you have to find stylish ones. I mean, you went, you know, classic plain, but you got to find ones with witty sayings on them, and it can break, and now my favorite mug was broken, and how am I gonna replace it? I mean, again, some of these problems are silly little problems in exchange for really great benefits, but Most people never ask themselves the question. The technology of marriage, which is a man-made technology, a human-made technology. We got together and said, hey, let's create this legal contract.

Governed by a state.

Right, governed by the state. Let's come up with something that— let's turn a lover into a relative. You know, let's find a way to turn this into a legally binding contract. And people just go and sign up for this technology. And they spend more time thinking about what cake they should serve at the ceremony than thinking about what did I just sign on for and why did I sign on for it and what are some problems it might create for me in exchange for the things that it solves for me. And by the way, will it even solve the problem that I'm trying to have it solve? And one of the things I talk about in the book is you got married to solve the problem of being alone.

It's not a good idea.

You might be alone still in your marriage. Like, if you got married because you want to have sex, you want to have more sex, Being married is no more a guarantee of getting sex than living near a restaurant is a guarantee of getting fed. You know, it doesn't mean just because you're in it, you're gonna receive the benefit that you think you're gonna receive of it. And how many couples before they get married really sit down and say, hey, we're gonna sign up for this technology. What do you want to get from it? What should I be wanting to get from it? How will it change over the years? That just doesn't happen.

Yeah.

So, so if that doesn't happen, How are we then surprised that it doesn't work 53% of the time?

53% is now the statistic?

Is the divorce rate.

The divorce rate, and then more probably still don't work when they're in it.

Exactly. That's the part, and it's funny that you go there because that's where I go with it. So 53% is already terrifying, right? If I said to you there's a 53% chance when you walk out of this room you're gonna get hit in the head with a bowling ball.

Yeah, you're probably not gonna go out.

Or you're gonna wear a helmet at a minimum, right? At a minimum you're gonna wear a helmet, but you probably wouldn't go out. Now let's look at that number though. 53% end in divorce.

That's US or global?

US. US only. Okay, now think about how— what percent stay together for the kids?

That should get divorced but stay together?

Can't stand each other, but they stay together. They stay together because they don't want to upset the kids or they don't want to give away their stuff.

I would say another 75% stay together even though they want to get divorced.

Okay, so let's say 20— so another 25% of married people, let's say. I mean, so So now we've got a technology with a failure rate over 75%. So now, what percentage stay together for religious reasons? Probably a declining percentage over the years. But let's say—

More.

—5%.

That might be the same as kids. And, you know, it might be the same.

So if I say to you there's a technology with a failure rate of 80%— Toyota had a 0.0001% brake failure on one of their vehicles, and they recalled All of them. All the vehicles.

Yeah.

So if I said to you 80% of technology, you—

And we still use it. Yeah, yeah.

Not only do we use it, we celebrate its use.

Yeah, it's part of our culture. And we're shamed if we're not married almost.

Absolutely. Well, because it's considered a sign that you're not mature and forward-thinking.

Mm-hmm. And we're shamed if we're divorced.

Right.

But now we're being celebrated to get out of marriages if it's not what we want or if we're not getting what we want.

That's, that's a trend that's definitely starting to change. So, so I think—

It's like leave him, divorce him, or whatever, you know.

Right.

became more of a thing, and after the 1970s, you know, people started thinking about, like, you know, themselves and their happiness. It wasn't just about the unit anymore. It was about finding yourself. Then, yeah, it became more acceptable to be self-interested. I'm not gonna say selfish, because not all self-interested behavior is selfish. But it became more acceptable to say, I'm not happy. I married this person when I was 20.

Yeah.

And now I'm 40, and shockingly, I'm not the same person at 40 that I was when I was 20. And now I'm a different person, and it's no longer a good fit. You know, I mean, the analogy I tell people is, if I said to you right now, you can have any car you want, what car would you have?

Well, I just got a Tesla.

I have a Tesla too.

I actually don't care about cars at all. I'm not a big car guy either. But I got one for tax reasons, actually.

Okay, cool.

I had a 1991, I still have a 1991 Cadillac Eldorado. that had like 60,000 miles on it. I Uber everywhere. I don't really use it.

It's a great car, yeah. If you have any car you want, if you ask most people— But I like the Tesla.

I like the Tesla because it's fuel efficient. I just wish I had a bigger battery.

So you're a pragmatic guy.

It's nice too, though.

It's clean.

You ask most people that question— They're gonna get a Ferrari, Lamborghini. Ferrari, Lamborghini. I want a Maserati.

Yeah, yeah.

Now if I then said to them, okay, you get one car, though. Whatever car you pick, that's the car you're gonna have for the rest of your life. Suddenly, a Lamborghini is a terrible idea, because you can't put a car seat in it for a kid.

No.

And you can't, you know, when you're 80 years old, get into that car, right? So, if you are only allowed to have one car, you got to find a car that not only makes sense when you're 20, and 30, and 40, but when you're 70, and when you have kids, and when the kids have gone away. So, again, like a minivan that might make sense when you got 3 kids, when the kids go off to college, that minivan no longer makes sense. Well, marriage is a technology where you're signing on with one person, and saying, for the rest of my life, I'm gonna be with this person. And that's a very challenging thing. But here's the thing, I actually think people give more thought to the car they're buying than they do really to the technology of marriage and what about it specifically they like or don't like.

Mm. What training or information do you think, do you wish every couple would go through before signing up for the technology of marriage?

That's a great question. I think, you know, if you buy a house, you get a lead paint disclosure, you get a HUD disclosure that talks about the loan, you get all kinds of disclosures, right? You sign a will, there's all these pages that explain to you in great detail, you know, what's happening when you sign that will. You get married, you don't even get a pamphlet.

Yeah.

You don't even get like a one-page brochure that says, by the way, this is the most legally significant thing other than dying. that you will ever do legally, and you don't get any information about what just happened. So the first thing I would say is I think everybody who's gonna get married should have an hour consultation with a divorce lawyer. Absolutely.

So they should go into your office before—

Yes, but for a different reason.

For a different reason.

Yes, prophylactically. Yes, they should come in proactively and learn about what's about to happen legally. What's about to happen to my rights? You know, what's about to change in terms of how I own property, the financial obligations I'll have to this person? I would also say one of the best things they could do is talk to someone candidly who's been married for an extended period of time. We're not encouraged to be honest about our relationships. We're not. I mean, one of the things you talk about in Mask of Masculinity that I loved is about, particularly for men, but I think it's true for women too, we don't share candidly what's really going on in our lives.

Yeah.

We're in a very curated society where you put up on social media the best picture and the best vacation photos and the best of everything and we don't share with each other the challenges. We don't share with each other even, even really relevant information. Like, when I meet a couple who's been together for 20 years, I mean, I love the story, oh, how did you meet? And, you know, the kind of— Yeah. How many times a week do you have sex? Who initiates it? Do you ask? Does she ask? Do you always do the same stuff 'cause you've been together for 20 years and you know what each other like? Or, like, do you try, like, do you, like, call an audible every once in a while and just do some wacky thing? Like, what is it really like, the day-to-day of your relationship? And so many people, I mean, you've been in relationships, I've been in relationships, So many people just don't talk honestly. Even when I'm with my guy friends, you know, do we really talk honestly about the day-to-day of our relationships, the way we talk to the women in our lives, like the nickname they have for us or the nickname we have for them? Again, it's private to some degree information, but if we could share that stuff a little more, we'd have a lot more accurate of a perception of where our relationship stands in the scheme of things and how we're doing. I really think there's this perception that people have of, you know, oh, we're only having sex this many times a week. And it's like, well, okay, is that a lot? Is that too little? Like, you have nothing to compare it to.

Right, right.

You know, so in marriage, there's no way to know if you're doing well in it. Because you can't say, well, you know, we have fights every now and then. Well, okay, people have fights every now and then. But if you have a fight every week, that might be a lot. But how would you know? What would you compare it to? So I would say one of the best things you could do to people who are considering getting married is put them in a room with people who've been good at that technology, who've managed to not only endure marriage, but endure it and still like it.

Thrive.

Right, right. And still say, you know what, I'd sign on for this again. Yeah, like in a room full of people, I'd still pick this person.

Yeah, that's cool.

You know, and, and how many of those opportunities do we really get to talk to people that way about their relationship?

Not many. Yeah, and maybe also talk to someone who's been through divorce and ask them what didn't work and why didn't it work and Well, we're gonna have to look out for it.

Exactly. See, one of the principles that inspired me to write the book was the idea that, you know, again, I hate using car metaphors 'cause I'm not a car guy either, but it's the best analogy I can think of in the sense that if when you bought a car you did every bit of preventative maintenance that a mechanic told you to do— You change the oil every 2 months or whatever. Everything, right? Yeah, my sister's a dentist, you know, and she always says to me, by the time your tooth hurts, you're screwed.

Prevent it. Floss every day, not after you get a cavity.

all the stuff she tells you to do when you go see her, your teeth are gonna do well. So it's, for me, who knows more about how a car breaks down than a mechanic, right? So I know people are in my office and I get a very candid view of them and I get to talk to them and I have been very blessed that people trust me with tremendously personal information. And so what I wanted to do with that information is just find a way to leverage that into some kind of wisdom.

Yeah.

That people could use and say, you know what, Just don't do what they did. When we were talking about titles for the book, it was a hilarious escapade because one of the first ideas was, well, we'll call it Everyone's Screwing Everyone, because it was about how people just abuse each other in the process of divorce and how they're really taking advantage of each other.

Wow.

And then we said, well, no, that's too pessimistic. And we said, well, you know, maybe we can, you know, just call it Vows and talk about like the promises that people make. But it's not really the promises that are interesting, it's the way that people go in with good intentions with those promises, and they just can't keep it together.

Can't keep it, yeah.

So I really think that for me, the best thing we can do with anybody is, is to, yeah, show them a model of success, right? And show them a model of failure. And look, you've said it a million times on this show that you learn just as much from your successes as your failures. You might learn more from your failures, even to some degree. So we don't have those role models. We don't have relationship role models. You know, and, you know, one of the things you talked about, Masked Masculinity, when you were talking about Neil Strauss and his marriage and how he says, look, it was my stuff. It wasn't like I said, oh, I don't like marriage 'cause I don't like this about it and I don't like that it would force me to do this and force me to do that. And really what it was is he just didn't wanna look at his own stuff. And then he felt like to have a good marriage, he'd have to look at his own stuff, which is absolutely true.

Terrifying.

Most of what my book is about is about, yeah, you gotta look at your stuff if you wanna, If you want to be successful in this technology, you got to look at it, own it, and share it with this person.

And be aware and be honest with the person about who you are and what you, what you want, what you don't want.

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Now, you were married for how long?

I was married for 12 years.

12 years. Got divorced. Yep. Got divorced while you were a divorce attorney.

Yes, while I was a divorce attorney.

So you're hearing these stories every day and going through your marriage.

But, you know, my— yeah, I mean, my marriage which I think benefited from my experience as a divorced lawyer.

'Cause you knew the cues of what not to do or what was gonna work.

Yes, but it was hurt by the fact that I love what I do for a living and was so consumed with it that I worked constantly. My ex-wife, who is one of my dearest friends to this day, she's remarried to an amazing guy who's a great stepdad to my sons who are now older. They're both in college. But I'm very blessed. I mean, I've had an experience of divorce where I'm still close friends with her. I'm friends with her husband. I'm very lucky for that because I look at it like there's a lot of people I love that I wouldn't want to be married to.

Sure.

And she's one of them. She's someone I love. She's someone I appreciate who I think is just an amazing person, but we don't have the exact ingredients that you need to be successful in marriage.

Long-term, yeah.

Because we met when we were 17. And what we wanted when we were 17, 18, 19, 22 when we got married, 24 when we had kids, When we turned around and we're in our 30s, we went, you know, we don't actually have that much in common. And so either I'm gonna have to stop being who I actually am— like, I love to travel, you don't love to travel— from silly things. You love shabby chic furniture and I like very zen aesthetics, you know?

Yeah.

Like, you love this kind of movie and I love this kind of movie. And you reach a point where you kind of go, well, do we white-knuckle it now because we don't want to quit something that isn't working? Or do we say, you know what? Let's call this. Let's call this, and let's find someone who feeds us in the right way, and see if or just be alone for the right reasons. And I'm very blessed that the person who I was married to was mature enough to see it the same way, and to have that painful but really wonderful conversation that so few people can have. And that is to say, look. This thing was successful. We both are leaving this better people than we were when we came into it, and we're leaving it with two kids that are the exact chemistry of the two of us, and they're made up of the two of us. But we're gonna kind of take our different paths now, and let's still love each other. Let's still respect each other. Conscious uncoupling. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's the term that's been handed to it, but you know, the truth is, is I think people have been doing it for years. You just don't hear about it. It's not that interesting. My divorce is the least interesting thing about me.

Right.

It really is.

Yeah.

Like, if I said to you, like, tell me 10 things about yourself, the fact that I'm divorced wouldn't make a list, because the fact that I tried to marry someone and stay with them forever and it didn't work out isn't that interesting. It's not that unique. You know, what you hear about in— the people who talk about their divorces incessantly are people who were wounded by it.

Yeah.

And, and now they've been victimized by their divorce, and so it becomes a tremendous part of their identity.

They hold on to it for a while, and they talk about it, and here's what happened.

Absolutely. They're the silent— you know, there's a huge number of people that had divorces like mine where the marriage just ended. It ended in a friendly fashion. They continue to co-parent successfully together, and they both live their lives.

There's not this pain and resentment for years.

No, and I have to tell you, as a divorce lawyer, as a practicing divorce lawyer, A huge, I would say more than 50% of the people that I represent, it's that kind of transaction. It really is, that it's just 2 people, that their time is done, and now we just have to figure out how to divide up the things they have and work out the schedules with the kids. That's the majority.

That's about 50%, yeah.

Yeah, I would say at least 50%. That's good. But the thing is, the other 50%—

Are louder.

Are so much more interesting. I mean, so much, it's like, 'cause really, who wants to hear about, like, oh, I talked to my ex-wife yesterday, and she's lovely, you know? She's moving to Rochester soon. Like, we're just, you know, that's her life.

It's the drama and the train wreck.

She threw a bat at me. She set my car on fire. Like, it's way more interesting, you know?

Oh man. Do you feel like marriage— I hear this all the time— it's something that it's not gonna be easy, right? There's gonna be challenges. There's gonna be fights or arguments, and there's gonna be some things that you're not gonna agree on. Sure. If you agree on everything, awesome, but it doesn't sound like Yeah. There's many marriages that are always perfect and always smooth. After 10, 20, 30 years, there's gonna be some conflict. So does that mean, in your opinion, that we should just be like, you know what, let's just throw in the towel when it gets too challenging? Or, you know what, it's getting challenging, that's when we gotta dive in deeper and like come together as a marriage, 'cause we signed up for this.

It's a great question. I would say the following. I think one of the most common things people will say to you about marriage is, you know, marriage is hard, marriage is hard. I don't know that that's true. I think if you consider paying attention hard, then marriage is hard.

Right.

If you don't consider paying attention hard, then I don't think marriage has to be hard. I, I think that It's again, not to use the metaphor again, but losing weight is harder than maintaining your weight. And I really think, look, you're gonna have challenges. You're not necessarily gonna have fights. You're gonna have challenges. Life is gonna throw challenges in your way. Illness, adversity, career issues, you know, day-to-day miscommunications with each other. If you're not paying attention, Those things get huge. And then the big, big things happen. So people come in and they go, I'm getting divorced because he's sleeping with his secretary. You are. That's a great reason to get divorced, and that's a legit thing. He's not— he's sleeping with his secretary because there's something wrong in the marriage.

Yeah.

You know, and you— if you don't want to look at that because you have some culpability in that, and it's easier to just go, oh, this harlot came and took him away, and it's a lot easier to say that. But the truth is, you know, you stopped paying attention, you know. And this is the question I find myself when I have a minute with a client who I've been some miles with.

Mm-hmm.

And we're sitting outside of the, you know, the courtroom waiting for the case to be called, and I have enough of a rapport with them, and we've been enough of a distance together that I feel like I can be candid with them. I'll say to them, was there a moment where you realized your marriage was over? What was that moment? And you would be amazed at the insight if people think about that question that they give to you. I had a woman who said to me, and it was to me a very powerful example, I discuss a little bit in the book. She said there was a kind of granola that she liked, and you could only get it at like a certain store, like a Whole Foods or something like that. And her husband used to always buy it. He used to always buy it. Whenever she was running low, she would just open the cabinet and there'd be another bag of it there. And she loved that.

Mm.

Because he didn't say, like, oh, and look, honey, I bought your granola. Like, I get credit for that. You know, like, he just would do it. He just saw that this was something that— he was paying attention. He just saw that there was this little thing, and it was this little kindness that he showed her that let her know she was important to him. He was still kind of trying to woo her without being obvious about it, and he was still paying attention. And she said then one day she just ran out of the granola, and it wasn't there. So she thought, oh, well, maybe he's, like, busy, and he just didn't notice. So she kind of left the bag out. And sure enough, he still didn't replace the granola. And she said she had a tangible memory. It was about a year before the actual divorce, but she said she had a tangible memory where she thought, okay, this is over. You know, this thing is over now. And I think that that's the thing. That's kind of— if you boiled my book down, one of the things I say to people is there's this thing in every relationship, some little thing that you had to— that you did for your partner, or some little thing that you just had to tell them that at some point you just stop telling them.

Yeah.

You know, I don't know if it's, it's just in the morning saying like, God, you're so pretty, when she walks by, or if it's her saying to you like, you know, I love your strong arms, or whatever it might be. Like, there's just those little things. Like, we, we just want someone cheering for us. We just want— why do we, why do we get together? We want connection. We just want connection. Like, there's no other reason to get married other than wanting connection. So those little disconnections, that's the ad, you know, and that's— it's death by a thousand paper cuts, you know. And that's the challenge for me, is, is, is that's what people need to sort of find their way to connect to again.

Yeah, yeah. What do you think are the most important things to find out about your spouse before getting married?

See, I'm super pragmatic about that. I think you're gonna be living with somebody, so I think you should, you should know some bare-bones things. Like, I want to know, can you go to bed with a dish in the sink still? Or are you somebody that, like, needs to have the dishes cleaned? What time do you go to bed? What time do you like to wake up in the morning? Are you a loud morning person or a quiet morning person?

Mm-hmm.

Do you, you know, how do you feel, like, what, how do you feel about credit card debt? How do you feel about, very pragmatic questions. How many times a week do you think you should have sex when you're married for you to be satisfied? You know, these are the kinds of questions, like, if I'm signing up to live with another human being, to share my finances with them, and to only have sex with them for the rest of my life, These are important questions. For real, like, why would you buy a car and, oh, I don't know how many miles it is, or I don't know how many doors it has? Like, these are basic questions.

Or if it's gonna turn on when I turn it, try to turn it on.

Right, right. Like, just ask some fundamental, honest questions. And look, there's nothing wrong with asking those questions. There's nothing— we've convinced people that this idea of like a soulmate, that you should just meet someone instant chemistry, and if you don't have instant chemistry and perfection, you're doing it wrong. And so you're discouraged from asking pragmatic, practical questions like, listen, how many times a week do you think you should have sex? Or how many times a week? Because if you had those conversations, not only are you gonna go into the relationship with your eyes open, but it's gonna allow you to actually serve the needs of your spouse a little bit better. Like, if I know what you want—

See what she wants or he wants.

Right, like, now I know You know, it's as advertised. You know, this is what you said you wanted, and I know, am I meeting that standard or am I not meeting that standard? And if I'm not, we can have a conversation about, hey, listen, just so you know, this is why I'm not that way anymore. Because very often if you talk to women about, you know, why did they stop sleeping with their husband, or husbands about why did you stop being interested in your wife, they'll tell you the reason. You know, they'll say like, oh yeah, he just stops being complimentary to me, and now he just wants— like, he only hugs me when he wants to have sex. Like, if he hugged me more often, I would probably feel more romantic towards him. If you'd had that conversation, you wouldn't get to this war that no one wins. Well, you're not hugging me anymore, so now I'm not gonna sleep with you. Well, now I don't feel affectionate towards you because you're not sleeping with me.

Right.

Oh, well, now I feel even more upset with you because you're not sleeping with me. Well, now I'm gonna start sleeping with somebody else. And now we're just off to the races. And meanwhile, we had 2 people that signed on for the same task that now have completely lost the plot. I mean, one of the things I, I love about divorce law is in this culture where we're so full of it, you know, we're so— we don't want to admit when we screwed up. We don't want to admit when we're lost. We're terrified to admit when we're lost. To have— no one meant to get divorced. You can't pretend.

Right.

You're in this beautifully raw situation. Anyone who is in my office, they did not mean to be there. And there's something to me really beautiful about that. Because it's this opportunity to just say, you know what, like, yeah, we tried to do this thing and it fell apart. And so to me, that's— that can be beautiful. That's an opportunity for growth. You know, the barn's burned down, now I can see the moon. I really feel like that's the thing, that if people could have that level of honesty and candor and realness in marriage, they wouldn't end up in marriage.

Yeah. When a couple is starting to lose connection, what do you think they can do to get reconnected?

I think the— I mean, the core is communication. Just start talking. Just start— I talk about ways to have that conversation, very pragmatic, practical. Like, I didn't want to write a book that was filled with conclusions of lofty— so you need to reconnect with your partner. What the hell does that mean? You know, like, when your partner says, I want to feel more fulfilled, what does that mean? Do you mean you want to have a date night once a week, or do you mean you want to surf more often? Because I don't know if I should take you out to dinner or drive you to the beach. Like, what does that mean? Specifically, yeah, yeah.

Specifically.

And so, I think people need to know how to talk to each other. And in fact, why not have a conversation about how you have conversations? Like, why not talk about, listen, when there's a problem in the marriage, how are we gonna talk to each other about it? And one of the things, there's a chapter in there called Hit Send Now, and it's about just this very simple idea, and that is, send an email to your partner. The reason I called it Hit Send Now is that I always thought it was kind of funny when you hit send on an email, You can't hit like unsend. Like it's just you hit it and you're like, oh wow, okay, it's out there now, you know? And I've had emails where I'm like, you know, I write my email and I'm like, okay, there it is. Like I can't take it back now, you know? And it's kind of exciting, but it's also kind of terrifying. And I think the idea of Hit Send Now is to say like, listen, when some little thing's going on in the marriage, you know that this could be an issue someday, but you don't wanna, you know, Write an email. Write an email to the person and say, like, hey, listen, when we were sitting around last night and we were having dinner and you kind of made that little comment about my sister, like, I don't know if you meant it or not, but, like, it kind of hurt, you know? It made me feel really weird because I always thought you liked my sister. And so I don't know, I just wanted to let you know, you know? And see, unlike a conversation, if we have that in a conversation, you immediately are gonna be defensive.

Fair.

Well, wait a minute. No, no, I bet— and by the way, you may not be ready to have that conversation. You might have other things going on in your brain. You might— so an email is great because it gives a person a chance to digest it. It gives them a chance to sort of think it through, not be immediately—

Breathe through it, yeah.

Right, not be immediately defensive. And what I even say to people is make the subject heading, hit send now. Because that way the person goes, oh, it's gonna be one of these emails. Okay, like brace myself for it. Like be ready that this is what this is. And you can time when you send it. Send it when you know you're not gonna see them, you're gonna be out of the blast radius, and you're gonna give them a chance to digest it. Send it to them in the morning when you know they're sharp, or at night when you know they're calm, whatever. You know, hopefully you know your partner well enough to know like what What's the time to talk to them? Before they go to the gym or after they get back from the gym? You know, if you want to ask me something, ask after I get back from Brazilian jiu-jitsu class because I'm like calm as a Hindu cow.

Yeah.

You know, but if you see me on a Friday morning when I've got court, like, this is not the time to talk to me about relationship issues. So I, I would say the best thing people can do is communicate in a very clear way with each other. That's going to be that's gonna solve 90% of the problems that you have. And most of this book is just about ways to communicate with each other and ways to, to, you know, own your stuff and help your partner own their stuff. Because I still believe that relationships, maybe not marriage, but marriage at its best is about having someone who sees your blind spots.

Yeah.

You know, we're better together as human beings. We're better in connection. We're better when we have the benefit of each other's perspective and when we help each other see the things that we just can't see about ourselves.

Yeah, that's true. What would you say are the top 3 reasons people get divorced? Is it infidelity? Is it financial? Is it something else?

Yeah, I mean, the top 3 big reasons— again, you know, with the idea that the little things add up and cause these things, but yeah, absolutely infidelity would be number 1. Finances would be number 2. And number 3 would be— I would just call it attrition. It would just be you know, that relationships just, they just burn up. Like, people just don't care anymore. You know, the opposite of love isn't hate.

It's contempt, right?

It's indifference.

Indifference.

I mean, hate is a passionate emotion. Like, if you hate me, you have— you feel strongly about it.

If you just don't care anymore.

Right. Like, you know, there's a line in Casablanca, the movie, where, you know, one of the characters says to Humphrey Bogart's character, he says, boy, you really hate me. And he says to him, you know, I suppose if I gave you any thought, I probably would. And I found in my— when I saw that film, I thought, oh, that's the most cutting insult. Because when you really just don't care, like, that's the opposite of love. Because love is about, I'm paying attention, I want to please you, your pleasure gives me pleasure, your joy gives me joy, your sadness becomes my burden, you know, and it becomes something I want to alleviate. So indifference, that sense of, I don't care what you're doing, I don't care if you're happy, I don't care if you're sad, I don't care. That's the thing, and, and that's where people land sometimes.

Mm-hmm.

As they just land in that place where they used to care, and then in this escalating war of, well, I shouldn't have to do that. Well, I shouldn't have to do this. Well, I shouldn't have to do that. Well, then I shouldn't have to do that. And now you got 2 people that are just, great, you guys won. Good job. Neither of you has to do anything for each other anymore. Great job. Great job. You're living with a person who owes you nothing, and you owe them nothing except what the state tells you that you owe each other.

Wow.

And you're never meant to be there. You're never meant to be there.

Yeah. Wow. What's the best way to handle financial stress in your opinion?

Financial stress?

Yeah.

Um, don't get into it. Yeah, yeah. Uh, no, the best way to handle financial stress, again, I think candor. You know, just candor, honesty.

Probably communicating it before you get married about these things so you don't get into it.

Absolutely. Again, what's the best way to lose weight? Don't get fat.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, the truth is, is try to find a way To prevent getting in that place. But look, once you've got financial stress— so there are financial stresses you can't prevent. You know, you lose your job, your company lays off 500 people and you're one of them.

You've got a medical challenge that happens.

Right. Okay, so how do you deal with it? Well, you— with candor, with courage, you know, with honesty, with fearlessness, you know, with bluntness. I mean, one of the things, like I said, I love about your book, and that's why I said I think the 2 books together would actually be a great combination. If you know a guy who's getting married, you buy him your book and buy him my book. And I think you just dropped the statistics down on these guys because the truth is, is knowing your stuff and being fearless enough to say, this is what it is, that's, that's where the magic is.

Yeah. My friend, I hope you're enjoying this episode. And the School of Greatness drops new conversations every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday around money, mindset, healing, manifestation, and relationships. And if you're not If you're not yet following the show, then you're missing all of them. Please tap the follow button right now and you'll get notified the moment every new episode drops, because the next one might be exactly what you need. Now let's get back to the conversation. This fall, L.L.Bean is celebrating the moments people look forward to all year: the first school drop-off, the first sweater weather day, and the first chilly evening around the fire pit. For over 100 years, L.L.Bean has been part of these traditions, crunching leaves in Maine-made bean boots, cheering from the sidelines in Scotch plaid flannel, and walking the dog in a rugged field coat. So grab the layers and people you love and get outside. Visit llbean.com to shop the fall collection. L.L.Bean, be an outsider. As a loyal listener of this show, you're always challenging yourself to grow, to be better, to keep learning. And Southern New Hampshire University University can help. Southern New Hampshire University offers over 200 career-focused degree programs online. Plus, Southern New Hampshire University has some of the lowest online tuition rates in the US, so balancing school, work, and life actually feels achievable and affordable too. Find your degree at snhu.edu/greatness. That's snhu.edu/greatness.

I saw one of the chapters says Yours, Mine, and Ours: The Financial System Right. Works best.

Yeah.

I think a lot of people have their own way of how they want to run their money.

Right.

Right? They like managing it their way, spending it on things they want to spend it on. Some like getting in debt, others don't like getting in debt. So how do you find our way?

Well, I mean, you got to keep in mind marriage was created as a technology.

When was it created?

When women were property, essentially. I mean, it was created in medieval context. I mean, it was created essentially to preserve wealth. It was created to preserve land. Right? Royal families would marry each other, and rich families would marry each other to preserve land and to bring clans together. You know, the Game of Thrones mentality of, all right, I'm marrying this person not because I love them, but because this makes sense. This family makes sense. This, this union of the clans makes sense. Fits our vision. Right. Okay. So that's the origin of marriage. Now, at some point, 1920s, 1930s, it started turning into some romantic notion, right? Some notion of, well, I should have some—

The movies. The movies brought that in.

You know, it's entirely possible. I mean, entertainment media is very much how people perceive— advertising is the dream life of a culture. We started to convince people that, you know, marriage should be more about love, it should be more about romance, and then people became consumed by that model. Why? It's a compelling model. It's a wonderful model. I mean, there's nothing more exciting than the initial days of a relationship. Somebody once said that there's nothing more exciting than getting married and nothing harder than being married. And so getting married, super fun. Courtship, those early days of a relationship, they're fantastic. They're fantastic. There's so many people you could have a really wonderful early relationship with.

Right.

But how many people could you have 10, 20, 30, 40 years with? So, you know, when you think about the fact that marriage was put together when women couldn't own property, when women were essentially sold, I mean, you'd buy— you'd trade a cow for the guy's daughter.

Wow.

I mean, that was what it was. There's still cultures where trade 5 livestock for my daughter, and that's the trade, you know? So now we're in a society where we've kept the same technology that was rooted in that, but we're in a place where men and women are both in the workforce. Men and women both have obviously independent autonomous value, and they're equals, at least in a theoretical sense, right? Even though there's still some inequality and patriarchy and things people have to figure out and deal with. The truth is, is that men and women have equality of opportunity, ideally. So now, well, what makes sense? You're no longer bringing together this overreaching man who's in charge and goes to work and this woman who's going to stay home and tend to the hearth, you know, and the children. We have 2 intelligent, autonomous men and women, and I didn't get into it in the book, but men and men and women and women. I mean, we have marriage equality now. We fought really hard for it so that, you know, gay couples and lesbian couples could have the privilege of this failing technology.

Right.

You know, and so we said, Why should we have all the misery? Everybody sign up. And I secretly believe that there were probably gay and lesbian individuals who'd been with their partners for long periods of time and secretly voted against marriage equality so they wouldn't have to have the conversation.

Really?

Yeah, because if you think about it, when they weren't able to, they could be like, oh, I'd love to marry you, but oh, the government won't let me. I wish, oh. And then all of a sudden it's like, great, the government it's letting us. Like, oh, okay, well, I guess we have to have that conversation now.

Mm-hmm.

So I really do think that from a financial place, Yours, Mine, and Ours, the basic idea of it is just to say, look, have some joint finances, have some sense of we'll have this account that joint money goes into, we'll pay for joint expenses from it, but then have some autonomy. Have your own individual accounts. Have, have something that you can use to when you want to buy the other person a birthday present. I mean, if you have a joint account and I buy I didn't buy you a birthday present from that account. I bought myself a birthday present. So, you know, let a person have a little autonomy financially, but have a joint account so there's still some sense of shared purpose financially.

Yeah, yeah, I like that. What do you think is the real reason people cheat on each other? Is it these little things that have added up over time that people aren't paying attention to?

I mean, I think at its core, it's the human need for connection. I mean, I think Esther Perel, and, you know, there's a lot of people, she's incredible, incredible. I love her work, and I love the way she describes— Do you know her personally or not? I've secretly said to everyone, to do a panel with her would be the coolest thing in the world.

It is, yeah.

The future of marriage, you know, we really, because she has such incredible perspective and she comes at it from this mental health perspective and she comes at it from a really, like a hacker mentality. I don't think she realizes it, but she is like, she wants to Uber marriage. Like she's thinking about like, well, why don't we do it different? Like what, instead of, you know, she's got that Silicon Valley approach, which is don't look at how we did it, Look at it and go, well, wait, what if we just ripped the technology apart and started from nothing? What could we do with it? You know, and I love that about her, and I love Mating in Captivity. I think it was like, it was just a genius piece of work.

Yeah.

And again, I think if people understood those concepts before they got married or even thought about them, you'd already be a step ahead of the game, because identifying the problem is a huge piece of the problem, is that people never identify it.

Yeah.

But I would say that, that, you know, I think cheating is a function of losing that connection.

Yeah.

And I also think it's about a human need for physical intimacy, physical attention, physical attraction. I think John Gray, for example, did great work, is super intelligent with his ideas of, you know, men are from Mars, women are from Venus, and that, you know, men are like a microwave and women are like a slow cooker, you know, and that it takes us different sexually times to heat up and stuff. I think some of that was tied to some sexual mores. Yeah, there's some biochemistry there, But I think the truth is, is that women are now really becoming permitted to own their sexuality. We've become a more sex-positive culture. A lot of that misogyny that was motivating women to not be sexual beings started to fall apart. I don't know if it was Kim Cattrall in Sex and the City and Samantha, or if it was—

I don't know.

If it was just this long-term thing, but I think men and women are very sexual. I see men who cheat. I see women who cheat. I see men who've been cheated on. I see women who've been cheated on, and I can tell you tell you men don't cheat more than women. Women don't cheat more than men.

Esther said that too. I mean, women cheat just as much.

Women cheat just as much. They, in my experience, do it more intelligently usually than men. Um, but yeah, they, they're not as impulsive or impetuous about it. Infidelity happens because people have a need, a sexual need, you know, and they have a need. And sex is— they attribute it to Oscar Wilde, but I don't think it's fair. I don't think it actually came from him. I don't think they know who said it, but they said that everything in life is about except for sex, which is about power. And I think the truth of sex is that sex is a way we share our affection for each other. It's a way that we share our attraction to another person. And when that starts to fall away in a relationship, then people cheat. The question is, is how do you maintain that connection? 'Cause that's why people cheat.

Yeah.

People, people who have happy, functional, active sex lives with their partner And they're really truly fulfilled by it and they maintain intimacy. You know, intimacy is defined as the ability to be yourself with another person. So it's not about sex. Sex is ideally tied to intimacy, but you can have great intimacies and not have a sexual relationship with someone. You and I as friends can have tremendous intimacy. I can be myself with you, you can be yourself with me. But sex is a tremendous way for people to build intimacy and sustain intimacy. You know, there are people say— You know, sex is the glue. You know, it's the glue that holds it together. 'Cause what is it? It's the thing that separates a lover from a roommate.

Yeah, yeah.

It prevents it from just being— 'cause if you just wanna have a roommate, have a roommate. You know, it's the sex that's the pillar of marriage, you know? And so how do we maintain sexual connection with someone, satisfying sexual connection? Again, it's not about how do I stay married? Easy, don't get divorced. You know, how do I stay happily married? That's a much harder question. How do I keep having sex with the same person? Not a hard question to answer, just keep having sex with them. How do I have satisfying sex with that person that's gonna fill my needs and is gonna prevent me from wanting to go have sex with other people? That's a more interesting question.

Mm. Well, how do you do that? After 10, 20 years?

I can tell you how you don't do it. How you don't do it is by not sharing with the person what you really want. There's a chapter in the book called Go Without or Go Elsewhere, where I basically say that if you don't share every sexual desire you have with the one person you're allowed to have sex with, you're an idiot. Because you're either gonna go without it then, or you're gonna go elsewhere to get it.

And resent it.

Yeah, yeah, and resent it. Or you're gonna have to go elsewhere and then potentially ruin the relationship. You know, I talk about a client I had who was into feet, you know, in a sexual way. And again, it's not my thing. I'm not a foot guy. I mean, like, to me, feet and sex, it's like I use my feet to get to bed to have sex. Other than that, the feet don't get into it. But this was this guy's thing. He loved feet. And in a really, like, intense way. Like, this was sexually— it was a fetish for him. And, you know, you and I laugh at it, but the truth is it's actually a pretty generic thing, apparently. Like, Google it. It's a pretty generic thing.

People like it, yeah.

People like it. And you know what? Attraction is so hard to understand. Desire is so hard to understand. Why do any of us like what we like? It's the reason why I've just never been homophobic. Because until I can articulate to you why I like what I like, how could I possibly judge you for the things that you like?

Mm-hmm.

You know, so the truth is that, you know, sexual desire is so complex and so hard to understand, you know, that we don't realize that there's a tremendous value in just identifying what you want and sharing it with your partner. And I say in the book, don't just in the middle of sex— like, if you, you know, if you want your partner to talk dirty, you know, that's a very common thing, is people like to talk dirty or to have someone talk dirty. All right, maybe we watch too much porn and that's why we feel that way, or maybe in the romantic films that people, you know, speak sexually to each other and that's why. Whatever reason, or maybe there's just something in us that likes the sound of our partner's voice, but we're like afraid to say something, you know. We're afraid, right? You're embarrassed. You don't want the person to be like, wait, what? What the hell's wrong? You know, you don't want that to happen, so you hold it in. You don't say anything about it. Who are you serving there?

No.

Maybe this is their fantasy too, you know. You have to be— again, what I say in the book is that people have great intentions and cause tremendous problems in their sexual relationships.

Wow.

So the following example is the best one I can think of. So you're with this sexual partner for, you know, initially, and initially you're having tons of sex and it's great sex, it's all new and it's exciting. And what starts to happen, you start to learn what the other one likes, right? You start to figure out, okay, she likes this and he likes this, and I do this first and then that warms up for this, and this is great. And that's part of the fun of early days is figuring out what the other person likes. Mm-hmm. Well, then what starts to happen? Then you go, hey, listen, let's play the greatest hits, right? I know that this they love and this they kind of could care less, so I'm just going to do the greatest hits. I'm just going to— and you have good intentions. I mean, you're really trying to do the right thing. They're going to do your greatest hits, you're going to do their greatest hits, and everybody's going to be so excited in a much shorter period of time and we'll be done before John Oliver comes on, whatever it is. So then what happens? 6 months, a year, 2 years of just doing the greatest hits.

It gets boring.

It starts to get— right? I mean, I get an album I like and I love this song, I love that song.

I'm gonna play it so much.

Play it 100 times. I mean, when, you know, 0 to 100 by Drake came out, I probably listened to it 1,000 times, right? Okay, so many times that then when I played it again, I'm like, oh my God, I can't hear this song again. So the truth is, people with really good intentions create a sex life That creates discontent in their sex life. So then what happens though? That's the key moment. What do you do? Well, if you're smart, you say, hey, you know what, like, we're kind of always doing the same things. Let's, let's change it up. Let's do something different. You hit send now. You send that email. You say, hey, you know, maybe I'd like to— again, don't just call an audible in the middle of sex because the person's gonna start to go like, well, where did that come from? Like, we've been doing the greatest hits and all of a sudden you did this random thing, you know?

Let them think about it. Let them— yeah, yeah.

Well, I mean, the example of talking dirty, which I think is a pretty ubiquitous Just a simple kind of an example. Don't just start like straight-up porn dialogue in your partner's ear if you've been silent all these years.

Right.

Maybe say 1 or 2 little things and see what the reaction is. Gauge the reaction. You know, touch them in some body part you haven't before. See what the reaction is. And then have a conversation after about, oh, did you like that when we did that? Or, oh, did you, you know, I kind of threw that in there. What'd you think of that? You know, that's the kind of communication that I think prevents people from Losing the plot, being stagnant, even with good intentions, and losing their sexual desire and attraction to the person that they're with.

Yeah.

Because that is at the core, I have to tell you, of so many people who come in my office. They talk about, we stopped sleeping together 6 months ago, we stopped sleeping together 3 years ago, we haven't had sex in 5 years.

No way.

People come into my office—

5 years?

I had somebody come into my office, no joke, last month, said they hadn't had sex with their partner in 8 years.

What?

8 years.

Your roommate?

You're— yeah, you're a roommate. You're, you're a miserable roommate. No, because even a roommate, there's no expectation of sex, right?

Right.

Like, you don't want to see your roommate and go like, wow, we haven't had sex in a while. You're not supposed to have sex with your roommate, but you're supposed to have sex with, with your sexual partner. You're supposed to have sex with your spouse. And by the way, if we haven't had sex in 8 years, can you get mad when I have sex with someone else? That seems wildly unfair. You know, so that's the trick. But you know what the answer to that is? Yes, you do have a right to be upset at that if we've never had a conversation about why we're not having sex.

Mm-hmm.

You know, and not figured that out. Because a lot of times, it's the— again, those little things. Look, anyone who's been in a relationship knows that you sit with your partner and you're having a conversation about the best way to get onto this highway from this particular place, And it turns into a slight disagreement, and 10 minutes later it's, you know, I never liked your mother.

Oh my.

It's like, wait, what? How did we just get there? But anyone who's in a relationship knows you— the fight was about one thing, and then it turned into some other much bigger, deeper thing. So it's the same thing when it comes to infidelity. It, it, you know, there was one conversation happening in the relationship about sex, and then all of a sudden you turn around and you're completely in a different place and you lost the plot.

Yeah. I was at a Cirque du Soleil show over the weekend in Vegas, and it was Zumanity, which is like the sexual, like, lovey, you know, sensual one.

Sure.

And the host of the show, the drag queen, was asking questions to people who looked like couples, right? Like, how long you been married? How long you been married? Are you married? Are you together? And the drag queen asked one of the couples and was like, how long have you guys been married? And he said, we're, we're not married, but we're life partners. And she goes, well, what does that mean? And then the guy took the mic and he said, we're not allowing the government or the state to dictate our relationship.

Sure.

I thought that was an interesting perspective. You know, what are all the things that the government or the state actually dictates when you sign a contract of marriage?

Sure, yeah, and you know, the funny thing is, isn't it amazing that you live in a culture where marriage is everywhere, and you don't know the answer to that. And I'm not saying you specifically.

Yeah.

Nobody knows the answer to that. Like, I know probably 20 engaged people who don't know the answer to that. You know, whoever discovered water, it wasn't a fish. And what happens in these situations is people are so surrounded by marriage as a technology that they don't ever stop and ask the question, like, wait a minute, what, what legally happens when I get married? So I mean, what legally happens when you get married is, A, you opt out of the title system. So I have a car, it's in my name. It's titled in my name. I have a bank account, it's titled in my name. So title is the legal term for when someone's name is on something.

Okay.

So if you and I are friends, and you own a car and it's in your name, and I own a car and it's in my name, I'm taking your car now, Lewis, because your car's in your name. So you have proof of ownership of it, okay? If I say, you know what, Lewis, I've bought a car. I have a Tesla, you have a Tesla. It's silly that we both have Teslas. Let's share a Tesla. So I'll put your name on my Tesla, and now we both are titled owners of that Tesla. Well, now if you and I have a parting of ways, we have to divide that Tesla somehow. And the law says, okay, we'll divide that based on how much you put into it and how much— who repaired it or who fixed it up. So there's all kinds of ways to determine how the ownership interest— just like a business. If we start a business together, it's in your name, it's in my name. How are we going to divide it up? Right. When you marry, you immediately opt out of the title system. So if it's in my name, it's ours. If it's in your name, it's ours.

Whatever one person owns, both people own.

If I buy my wife a Rolex watch, I bought myself one half of a Rolex watch. If I get $10,000 in credit card debt, my spouse just got $5,000 in credit card debt. So you're opting out of this. So no one knows that. You're now opting in To certain systems regarding a lifestyle. So you're opting into systems about maintaining spousal support or alimony. What used to be called alimony is now called spousal maintenance or spousal support. And that is a system whereby if one person is an earner and the other person's less of an earner, that if there is a split between those people, that one person has to now make payments to the other person to maintain them in a certain level of lifestyle or rehabilitate their earning capacity.

For life?

No, not necessarily for life. Every state has different formulas as to how they do things, and every state has different, you know, numbers and percentages and how many years you have to be married before the right to alimony kicks in. But again, people don't know those things when they sign up. Like, you know, people when they get married in New York State don't know, oh, 17% of my gross income less FICA is my child support exposure if I have a child, one child, 25% if I have 2. You know, people don't learn that. You don't get a piece of paper when you get married that explains that to you. You're signing up for a contract you don't know the terms of. And again, I think you're just sort of assuming that it's a fair contract. You haven't read it, but you just assume it's a fair contract. Getting married is like when you just agree to the terms of service on the app that you just bought.

You have no clue what it says.

Right, no clue. But if that app could take half your 401 and your house and leave with your kids, you might read the terms of service before you just kept hitting accept, you know? That's the reality, you know. That's why I think if you put engaged people in the office of a divorce lawyer and just say, hey, listen, what— I mean, what are the—

The pamphlet.

Yeah, here's the pamphlet.

Look, I do more prenups now than I ever did before, and, and more and more people are getting prenups.

Do you think it's smart to have one?

Absolutely. Absolutely.

No matter what?

It's not only smart to have one, it's incredibly foolish not to have one.

No matter who you are, no matter where you're at in your relationship, no matter how romantic you are and how you're like, we're gonna be together forever.

And look, I don't plan on dying, but I have a will. I know I'm gonna die.

You have life insurance.

Every marriage is gonna end. It's either gonna end in death or divorce, but it's definitely gonna end. There's no such thing as a marriage that lasts forever. It's either gonna end in death or divorce. Do you have a will? Okay, your marriage is gonna end in death, so you have a will, right? Your marriage might end in divorce, so why not have a prenup? By the way, why not have a prenup for the reason I'm talking about, which is just to have some discussions about what do you expect from this marriage? Why are we afraid of that discussion?

Mm-hmm.

Why can't you sit down with a, with a person who you've been dating for that period of time and who you apparently like that much that you've decided you wanna have this person be the one you hold hands with as you walk into all of the challenges of the world? You can't have a conversation with them and say to them, If this ends—

Yeah.

Maybe it's your fault, maybe it's my fault, maybe it's our fault, maybe it's some third party's fault, whatever. If this ends— and I'm not saying it will, I love you, knock wood, you know— but if this ends, what would— what do you think it would look like? What would it look like? Like, would you set my shit on fire? Would we like sit and say, okay, wait a minute, here's what I need, here's what you need? Would you want half my things? Would I want half your things? What would be important important to you? What would we do with the dog? You know, what would we do with— and, and having that conversation. By the way, I believe very much so, and I've heard it said many times on your podcast by a variety of professionals, we're the most alive in the presence of death.

Hmm.

You know, we're the most alive in the presence of loss and sadness. And so I think we're the most acutely aware of the value of love when we think about losing it. You know, when we think about, what if this person was taken from me? What if this person who I love wasn't with me anymore? Like, what would I lose? What would I not have anymore? Because really, it's a conversation about value. It's a conversation about, what is this person bringing to my life and to my heart? And so, why not have that conversation? That's a, that's a great conversation. We're storytellers, human beings. And my job is to tell stories. My job is to go into a courtroom and tell the story of a marriage to a judge. In a way that flatters my client.

Right.

Puts a halo on my client and horns on the other side. And I want to persuade them to see things my client's way, that my parent— my client's the great parent, the other side's not the great parent, you know, if it's a custody case, whatever it might be. So I'm a storyteller by nature, and I have to learn how to spin some of the same facts into different outcomes. And what I'll say is I understand the power of stories, you know, and the stories we tell ourselves about our marriage and the stories we tell each other about our marriage. We've all been out to dinner with someone who we're dating or married to, and somebody says, so how'd you guys meet? And so you tell the sweet little story of how you met, and everybody like kind of lights up a little bit. Like, nobody— everybody pays attention to that story. That's a fun story. Like, I like to hear that story. I like to hear, how did you meet your girlfriend? Oh, tell me about that. And by the way, your demeanor changes when you tell that story.

You light up.

Yeah, you light up a little bit, right? And so So I think people kind of in that moment, there's a lot of like reconnection to the love again, right? There's a lot of reconnection to each other in that moment. Because why? Because you're talking about when this person wasn't with you and then they came to you and they added something to your life. Well, why not have that conversation when you're getting married? Why not have a conversation about what did I have before you? And if there was to be an after you, what would it look like for me? Because I think it's a very romantic conversation. I think it's a very romantic thing to speak so honestly to someone about, here's what you bring to my life, here's what I hope I bring to yours. If this ends in a way other than us dying, what would it look like? How would I express my love for you? You know, I'm very proud as a divorced man that my love for my ex-wife is still evident in my behavior.

That's cool.

It's still evident in the fact that I've treated her with love and respect And I'm still someone who supports her as a person and who's still emotionally there for her. I've embraced the man she married because he's now part of my family, because he's part of my son's family. So that's an act of love to talk about how marriages end in a very fearless way. And I think it'd be a great thing if people did it more often. Prenups are on the rise. People don't talk about the fact that they're getting prenups because it's just not something you don't on Facebook go, we just did our Prenup. You know, you post, oh, we just tasted cakes, right? We just tasted cakes, or oh, we just found the venue. You don't say like, just finished negotiating the prenup, or just finished, you know, talking about the prenup. But it's something people are doing because they're, they're pragmatic and they're realistic.

And yeah, you know, well, they know the stats too, 53%. So it's like, let's be realistic. Like, if something happens— hopefully it doesn't.

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Now you've been married, you've been divorced. Would you ever get married again? And do you believe in the technology in the way that it is right now still?

Yeah, I believe very much in marriage. I think marriage is like the lottery. You're probably not going to win, but but if you win, what you win is so good that it's worth buying a ticket. It's worth giving a try. My parents were married for over fifty years. My mom passed away two years ago after a long battle. with cancer. But they had a tremendous partnership, and their lives were better for having loved each other. And they had ups, and they had downs, and they had challenges, but their lives were really enriched by the fact that they married each other. I think the upside of marriage is so good, and the downside doesn't have to be as bad as we make it. I think that's where Esther Perel's got it right, is we have to re— I think we need to reinvent how we view marriage. And we have to, as a culture, start talking about what's really going on in marriages, and what, what, what's really happening with them, and what's really important to us in marriage, and why we're getting married. We have to start looking at marriage as a technology, not as some romantic sentiment. And I think if we do that, we're gonna find ourselves in a better place as a culture. And that's a technology that might be worth signing on for.

Mm.

But definitely a prenup. I mean, a prenup would be in order.

Gotcha. Now, so you would get married again. Let's say you got married and it worked and it was amazing and all the things happened that you wanted to happen and enriched both of your lives, but for whatever reason you realize 10, 20 years later, like, it's not working for us anymore. You decide to part ways again. Would you get married again?

Third time. Great question. So here's what I'll say.

Would you continue to do it or would you say, you know what, all right, I've done it a couple times. I think not working.

I had a client— I had a client who I did his 4th divorce and a prenup for his 5th marriage.

No way.

Okay, and I had the same reaction as you.

Yeah.

But let me tell you what he said to me, and it was, it was really— it stuck with me. This is 15 years ago. I said to him, because he's an older fellow at that point, and I said to him, like, you know, look, you realize you don't, like, have to marry them, right? Like, you can, you can sleep with them, you can date them, you can even live together now. Like, people don't have— because I thought maybe he's old school, like maybe no one told him, you know, that it's okay. Like, you can, you know, not from like the Vatican perspective, but like, it's okay. Like, you can fall for it. Nobody's gonna look at you culturally anymore and say, you know, shame on you, you're living in sin. So he said to me, look, he said, um, let's say you buy a car. And you drive it for 20 years, and it's super reliable, and it gets you where you need to be. But eventually, it just breaks down. So you go out and you buy a sports car. You buy a flashy, amazing sports car. And within 6 months, you realize this was a terrible idea.

This was impractical.

This is not the right car for you. So you get rid of that car. And then you get another car that's closer to the first car. And you really think, OK, this is going to be the car. But for whatever reason, it just doesn't kind of mesh the right way, and, you know, maybe it's that your driving habits after all these years or whatever it is, but it breaks down and you get rid of it. Are you gonna just walk everywhere for the rest of your life? And I remember thinking, okay, that's not bad. Like, the truth is, is that we want to maintain connection. Marriage is not a decision that one person makes. It's a decision 2 people make. I mean, arguably more than 2 people, because people get married not just for each other, they get married Because their parents expect them to get married, their culture expects them to get married, their friends expect them to get married. So it's not even just about a personal decision between two people. But no one ever gets married just because they felt like getting married. There has to be another person in the equation. So I think realistically, people just keep trying. I think it's foolish to say, well, if I had a failed marriage, I wouldn't get married. Listen, there are very few things in life that I was good at the first time I did. Very few things. A lot of times I gotta screw something up several times before I get it right.

Right.

You know, I, I was bad at jiu-jitsu for a good 5 years before I got even vaguely good at it.

Yeah.

You know, the first time somebody hands you a baseball bat or threw a spiral, you know, you didn't catch a football and go, oh yeah, I know how to do this now. It's something that you really have to fail, you have to suck at before you get good at it. So marriage might be that kind of thing. You might have to suck at marriage a little bit. Now maybe you can suck at it and improve at it during the marriage.

Right.

Or maybe you suck at it, you have to end the marriage, and you go, okay, let's try this again. You know, it's a very personal thing, I think, and it has to really do with— I'm always afraid that anything I say about marriage is gonna come off as an endorsement of or a condemnation of marriage, and it's, it's not that. Again, it's a technology. I'm not for or against mugs. I just know what purpose they're supposed to serve, and I know what problems they potentially create. And then the question is, is do you have that problem? Not do I have that problem? You know, if you say, is marriage good? For who? For me or for you? Or for your cousin or for your mom? You know, those answers are going to be different. Is that shirt good? Yeah, that shirt's good for you. It wouldn't fit me.

Yeah.

So the question really is about, does this technology make sense for you? And if you live in the tundra, your Tesla doesn't make sense. So could I then say, well, Teslas are stupid? No, Teslas just don't make sense for you. So I think marriage, why can't we look at marriage the same way? Why does marriage have to be one size fits all? And again, that's the kind of stuff that Esther Perel, I think, says so eloquently. She said it on the show, is that, you know, it doesn't have to be. It's about the 2 people that are in that marriage and the larger context of the group they're in and figuring out what if then that makes sense. You know, not just is marriage good or bad.

What do you share? You have 2 kids, you said, or 1 kid? 2 kids, yeah. What advice do you give to them on marriage?

I've always told them to take it seriously. Just take marriage seriously. I mean, my one son is 19, the other one's soon to be 21. My older son is at the age where I, I married his mother, and we remind him of that constantly, and he's completely freaked out by it. And my younger son is at the age where I moved in with his mother. He's also equally freaked out by that thought. But I'm very blessed in the sense that my sons grew up with a sense of marriage as a technology because of what their father does for a living, and also because we had to explain to them at the ages of, you know, divorced, 10, or 8 and 10. We had to explain to them in a way that kid could understand, and the way we chose to do it was to say to them a very specific thing. We said to them, you know, mom and dad don't love each other in the very specific way married people are supposed to. But we both love you, and you're only gonna have one mom and one dad, and we're always gonna be a family. And we repeated that over and over and over and over again, you know? Because think about, like, break that down a little bit. It's not mom and dad don't love each other. No, mom and dad love each other. There's a lot of people I love I wouldn't wanna be married to.

Yeah.

We don't love each other in the very specific way married people are supposed to love each other. And kids can understand that, because kids know the way I love grandma, the way I love mom, the way I love my teddy bear are 3 different ways. So it's okay to say, you know, I love this person, but I don't love them in the very specific way a married person is supposed to love their spouse, you know. And that to me is what I've always tried to say to them. It's just when you marry, if you're thinking about getting married, take it seriously. Ask yourself, what problem am I trying to solve by marrying this person? Look at honestly what they want, what you want, and what will likely happen in your life. Just like that card Yeah, you don't know what's gonna happen in life, but there are certain predictable things that you can think about. You know, I'm gonna get older, I'm gonna— my health will fail eventually at some point. I may want to have kids. I mean, I'm going backwards, but you know, there's certain— we will have misfortune sometimes, we'll have challenges. So knowing what you're likely to come up against, does this person make sense? And if the answer is yes, then, you know, give it a shot. Have a prenup and give it a shot.

Yeah. Is there a marriage that you Admire a lot that you've seen in your—

I have, yeah. I mean, I have— I don't have a famous person marriage I could point to, although I think Ted Danson and Mary, I forget what her last name is, they have a pretty, uh, they seem to be each other's fans in a huge way. I mean, I, I love when you see couples that have been together for an extended period of time and they're just still cheering for each other. They're just still like so like in this person's corner, and they just look at them like Like, I'm so proud of them. I'm so excited about them, you know? And that to me is a— those are relationships worth having. I have a real relationship role model. I have 2 very dear friends who have been married for a little over 20 years. I knew them when they were in college. We all went to college together. They have 2 sons who are roughly the same age as my sons. And they still— she still refers to him as her boyfriend, and he still refers to her as his girlfriend.

Wow.

And she'll write on her Facebook, like, oh, my boyfriend's coming home today, 'cause he travels a lot. a lot for work and just say, oh, my boyfriend's coming home today. You know, Jimmy Iovine, the record executive and genius, said— because he's been— he's had an incredibly successful marriage and an incredibly happy marriage, long-term marriage.

And he's— The second one or the— because he was married for a while and then he got married again, right?

This is his current marriage. Yeah, his current marriage. But he's been married for an extended period of time.

Got it.

And his secret to it that he's pretty open about is never stop closing your He just never—he's like, I'm always just trying to close. I'm always just trying to like impress her, woo her, and so never finished, right? It's always this, and that's why I said that you know marriage is hard if you think paying attention is hard. If you don't think paying attention is hard, marriage isn't that hard. So it really is about like I see in this my relationship role models. I see in them this constant like they wouldn't forget to get the granola. They wouldn't stop doing that little thing. That little thing that lets the other person know, man, I like you, I'm cheering for you, like I want it to be good.

Yeah, yeah, that's cool. Make sure you guys get this book. I think it's really cool. If You're in My Office, It's Already Too Late: A Divorce Lawyer's Guide to Staying Together. Make sure you check this out. I think it's gonna be really powerful. You can get it right now. A couple final questions for you. This is called the 3 Truths. And if this was your last day many years from now All the stuff you've written and talked about and everything you've experienced and all your dreams you've had come true. But you wouldn't be able to leave them behind. You'd have to take them with you. So no one would have access to all your information, your message, your content, the things you've done. You'd have to bring it with you when you, when you pass on. But you got to leave behind a piece of paper that said your 3 truths, 3 things you knew to be true about all your experiences in life. Whether it be from your career, work, love, relationships, parenting, whatever it may be, these are only 3 lessons you could leave behind. What would you say are your 3 truths?

So I would say the first one would be that the hard thing to do and the right thing to do are almost always the same thing. Because I think that that's something I've learned in every aspect of my life, that the hard thing and the right thing are almost always the The second thing would be, it's all about connection. I would probably just write, it's all about connection, and I would hope that the person would understand what I meant. Mm-hmm. That there really was nothing else at the end of the day. That's— that everything we do in our lives, whether it's our desire for sex, our desire for money, our desire for art, to create art, to create beauty, it's all about connection. We're just trying to connect to each other, and, and, and that's the beauty of it, and that's the tragedy of it. Because in my office, I see the beauty of it, and then I see the tragedy of it when we lose that connection, or when we miss that connection, or when we let that connection fall apart. So I would say it's all about connection. And the third thing, I, you know, and it's probably a shallow thing to say, but I would say don't take it so seriously. I think when I look back on my life as a 45-year-old man, you know, solidly midlife, I look back on it and I think to myself that there really are only 5 or 6 moments that when I think about my life, I go, wow, that was such a great moment. And none of them when it was happening did I realize how great it was.

Mm.

You know, I think back now, I just had this thought the other day 'cause both my sons are in college now. And my youngest, I became an empty nester in September when my youngest went off to college. And I was thinking the other day about if I had to think of a moment in my life that was like the, just the greatest moment. It wouldn't be like when I graduated law school or when I, you know, uh, uh, you know, won some trial or when my book was published, you know. It would be like some night when I was divorced for a year or two and I, you know, went to the store and got just what the kids liked to eat because they were coming for the weekend. And I like made them dinner and they sat at the table doing their homework and we were just together and I felt like a really engaged, wonderful, loving father, you know. It wasn't the kind of father I had My father was like a, of his generation kind of a father. You know, he drank and he kind of, you know, didn't talk too much about feelings or anything like that. He wasn't the kind of man that would read The Mask of Masculinity. But, to me, those little moments, those unexpected little moments, it's everything. And so, just don't take all of the other stuff so seriously because when you look back, even in a marriage, like, there are moments in that marriage that you, while it's happening, you had no idea that that was the best it was gonna get, you know. So just cultivate space and leave opportunity for those ridiculous little moments that— then don't take the rest of it so seriously.

I like those. Yeah, that's cool, man. I want to acknowledge you for a moment, Jim, for— there's a lot of pain that couples go through. It's a lot of heartache, a lot of misery. There's a lot of stress, anxiety through the divorce process. So for you to give some great information from your almost 2 decades of insights to be able to hopefully prevent a lot of the pain that people don't need to go through. I want to acknowledge you for using your gifts, for using your information and presenting in a way that is fun and interesting and inspiring, but also informational so we can hopefully not make a lot of mistakes that 53% of people do make. I mean, not even mistakes, but just being aware going into what we're doing.

Right.

And having all the information laid out.

Yeah, I'd love to put myself out of business. I say it all the time. I'd love to put myself out of business. I don't think it'll happen. I don't think that any— I think the truth's out there in a lot of things, but can people apply the truth and are people interested in hearing it? I don't know. I hope so.

It's the same thing with nutrition. There's a lot of nutritionists that would love to put themselves out of business when all the information's available for us. For some reason, we keep making the same mistakes or getting obese or we're hurting ourselves in that way too. But you've got a powerful gift and I'm glad that you're able to present this information in a fun and interesting storytelling type of way. So I acknowledge you for all that you're doing, man.

Thanks, thanks a lot.

And I'm glad you came on. I think this will be fascinating for a lot of people. Final question before I ask it, make sure you guys get the book. We'll have it linked up with everything else talked about on this page on the resources of the show notes. Final question is, what's your definition of greatness?

I would say greatness is diving deeply into what you do, everything that you do, just diving deeply into it. And and the tragedy of our time is people spending five days a week looking forward to two, you know, fifty weeks a year looking forward to the two weeks vacation they get. You know, to me, greatness is about identifying and diving deeply into the things that make you feel alive and that make you feel connected. You know, again, it's all about connection. I mean, it's ridiculous that a divorce lawyer who disconnects people for a living. is preaching the gospel of connection. But, but that's the truth. It's about connection. It's about connecting to yourself, connecting to other people. So, I would say the definition of greatness for me is about just diving deeply into connection.

Jim.

Great to see you, Lewis. Thanks so much for having me. Appreciate it.

My friend, I hope you're enjoying this episode right now because we are on a mission to impact 100 million lives every single week. And every follow here on this podcast helps us reach more people. Make sure to hit the follow at the top of this show's page right now. It's the single biggest thing that you can do to support the show and the impact of us reaching you every single time we have new episodes. I appreciate you, and I can't wait to see you in the next episode. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad-free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you, and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you, if no one has told you lately, that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.

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