Divorce Lawyer REVEALS Why Relationships Fail & How To MAKE IT LAST! | James Sexton

Everything we do in our lives, whether it's our desire for sex or desire for money or desire for art, to create art, to create beauty, it's all about connection. We're just trying to connect to each other 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. There are moments in that marriage that while it's happening, you had no idea that that was the best it was gonna get. There's these little arguments, these little issues that people have, and they just build and build and build and build to the. Once that dam breaks, by the time you're in my office, it's done.

Who's doing what, carpooling and what days to little stuff, the 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, I'm assuming, right?

Yeah. You know, I see people at their worst, and 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 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 two 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 are. Joel, you know, our job's to protect you. So, you know, 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, you know, than their therapist. You know, I know where all the skeletons are.

Why do they tell more to you than their therapist?

Because they have to. I mean, for me to protect them properly. I mean, the first time I meet.

Once the law is under their jurisdiction, they're like, okay, I have to tell you, I can lie a little bit. Little small lies here and there.

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. You know, I really am like a shield to them, you know, and I. I say that's my job. I'm. I'm a shield and a weapon, you know, 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, you know, what it is that they need me to fight for, what it is that they need me to advance. You know, 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. The real train wrecks.

Now, you've worked with over a thousand clients.

Yeah. Easily. 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, happened maybe three 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 repair, it's hard to turn it around. I mean, look, that, that's the truth. You know, when you look at people, it's a whole lot easier to maintain your weight than to get real fat and try to lose it. All right, so it's the same thing with marriages. You know, there's this. No single raindrops responsible for the flight flood. You know, there's these little 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. 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 a technology, you know? 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. And the truth is, is that it's designed to solve a problem. So the next question is, who has that problem? Well, you know, anyone who wants to drink a beverage has that problem, you know, 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.

Now you gotta clean it, you gotta use water.

Exactly. You have to store it. Find stylish ones. I mean, you went, you know, classic plain, but you gotta 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 solved 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 know, if you got married to solve the problem of being alone, 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, you know, 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 going to receive the benefit that you think you're going to receive of it? And how many couples before they get married really sit down and say, hey, we're going to 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. So if that doesn't happen. How are we then surprised that it doesn't work 53% of the time?

53% is now the divorce rate. The divorce rate, then more probably still don't work, but they're in it.

Exactly. So that's the part. And it's funny that you go there because that's where I go with it. So 50, 53% is already terrifying. Right. If I said to you there's a 53% chance when you walk out of this room, you 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.

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.

Us only. Okay, now think about what percent stay together for the kids that should get.

Divorced but stay together.

They can't stand each other.

They stay together.

That they stay together because they don't want to upset the kids or they don't want to give away their stuff.

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, you know, 5%.

That might be the same as kids and, you know, might be the same. Yeah.

So if I say there's a technology with a failure rate of 80%, Toyota had a 0.0001% brake failure. Nice save on their. A.001% brake failure on one of their vehicles. And they recalled all of the vehicles.

Yeah.

So if I said to you 80% of technology, we still use it.

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.

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

And we're ashamed of when 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 a trend that's definitely starting to change.

So I think leave him, divorce him or whatever.

Well, I think as self actualization became more of a Thing. And after the 1970s, people started thinking about themselves and their happiness. It wasn't just about the unit anymore. It was about, you know, 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. You know, 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 yet either.

But I got one for tax reasons, actually.

Cool.

And I had a 1991. I still have a 1991 Cadillac El Dorado that had like 60,000 miles on it. I Uber everywhere. I don't really care.

Yeah. If you have any car you want. If you have. But I like the Tesla.

I like the Tesla because it's fuel efficient. It's, you know, I just wish I had a bigger body.

So you're a pragmatic guy. You ask nice too, though. You ask most people that question, they're gonna get a Ferrari, Ferrari, Lamborghini, I want a Maserati. 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. 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, you gotta 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 three 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 going to 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?

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. Well, you get married, you don't even get a pamphlet. You don't even get like a one page brochure.

This is what it is.

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 going to get married should have an hour consultation with a divorce lawyer. Absolutely.

So they should go into your office.

Before, but for a different reason. 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. You know, that's not something we do. We're not encouraged to be honest about our relationships. We're not. I mean, one of the things you talk about, 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. 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 we're doing. And we don't share, 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, you know, I want to know. I mean, I love the story. Oh, how did you meet? You know, how many times a week do you have sex? Who started, who initiates it? Do you ask, do you always do the same stuff because you've been together for 20 years and you know what each other like or like, do you try, like, do you like calling audible Every once in a while just do some wacky thing, like, what is it 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, you know, Because I really think there's this perception that people have of, you know, oh, we're only having sex this many times a week. It's like, well, okay, is that a lot? Is that too little? Like you have nothing to compare it. Right, right. You know, so in marriage, there's no way to know if you're doing well at 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. And still say, you know what? I'd sign on for this again. Like, in a room full of people, I'd still pick this person.

Yeah, that's cool.

You know, and how many of those opportunities we really get to talk to people that way about the 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 what did it look out for. 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 because I'm not a car guy, 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 two months or whatever.

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. Yeah, loss every day. Not after you get a huge cavity.

All this stuff she tells you to do when you go see her, your teeth are going to do well. So it's for me, who knows more about how a car breaks down than a mechanic? Right. So I know what 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 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, you know, it was a hilarious escapade because, you know, one of the first ideas was, well, we'll call it Everyone 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. And then we said, well, no, that's too pessimistic. And we said, well, you know, maybe we could, you know, just call it, you know, 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.

Yeah.

So I really think that, you know, for me, the best thing we can do with anybody is to. Yeah. Show them a model of success. Right. And show them a model of failure, you know? 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 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 masculine masculinity when you're 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 because 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 want to look at his own stuff.

Yeah.

And he felt like to have a good marriage, he'd have to look at his own stuff, which is absolutely true. Most of what my book is about is about. Yeah, you got to look at your stuff if you want to. 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. Now, you were. 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, I think, benefited from my experience as a divorce lawyer.

You knew the cues of what not to do or what was gonna work.

But it. 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. You know, 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, and 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 chemist, the exact ingredients that you need to be successful in marriage. 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. You love, you know, I mean, from silly things. You love shabby chic furniture. And I like very zen aesthetics. You know, 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, you know, 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. You know, 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.

Absolutely. I mean, that's the term that's been handed to it. But, you know, the truth is, is I think people been doing it for years. You just don't hear about it. It's not that it's. My divorce is the least interesting thing about me. It really is.

Yeah.

Like, if I said to you, like, you know, tell me 10 things about yourself, the fact 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 the people who talk about their divorces incessantly are people who were wounded by them. Yeah. 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, they talk about it, and here's what happened.

And so, you know, 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 two 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 good to know.

I would say at least 50% good. But. But the thing is, the other 50% are louder, are so much more interesting. I mean, so much. It's like, because really, who wants to hear about, like, oh, I talked to my ex wife yesterday and she's, she's lovely, you know, she's she's moving to Rochester soon. Like, you know, that's her life.

It's the drama and the train wreck.

Threw a bat at me, she set my car on fire. It's way more interesting, you know.

Oh, man. Do you feel like, you know, marriage. I hear this all the time. It's something that it's not going to be easy.

Right.

There's going to be challenges, there's going to be fights or arguments, and there's going to be some things that you're not going to agree on. Sure, if you agree on everything, awesome. But it doesn't sound like there's many marriages that are always perfect and always smooth. After 10, 20, 30 years, there's going to be some conflict. So does that mean in your opinion, that we should just be like, you know what, let's throw in the towel when it gets too challenging or, you know, it's getting challenging, that's when we got to dive in deeper and like, come together as a marriage because 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. If you don't consider paying attention hard, then I don't think marriage has to be hard. 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 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, you know, with a client who I've been some miles with, 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? You know, 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 a. 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. Used to always buy. Whenever she was running low, she would just open the cabinet, there'd be another bag of it there. And she. She loved that 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. 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, you know, 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 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, you're so pretty when she walks by, or if it's her saying to you, like, you know, I love you, 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 add up. 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 that's what people need to sort of find their way to connect to again.

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 clean? 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? 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 question. 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. I mean, for real, 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 on. Yeah, 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 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, you know, because very often, if you talk to women about, you know, why did they stop sleeping with their husband or husband's. 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 always 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 going to sleep with you. Well, now I don't feel affectionate towards you because you're not sleeping with me. Oh, well, now I feel even more upset with you because you're not sleeping with me. Well, now I'm going to start sleeping with somebody else. And now we're just off to the races. And meanwhile, we had two people that signed on for the same task that now have completely lost the plot, you know, and that, to me, one of the things 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 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 barns burned down, now I can see the moon. You know, 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 you. When a couple is starting to lose connection, what do you think they can do to get reconnected?

I think that. I mean, the core is communication. Just start talking, you know, just start. I talk about ways to have that conversation, you know, 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, you know, I want to feel more fulfilled, what does that mean? Like, 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. What does that mean specifically? And so, you know, 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 going to 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 call it hit Send now is that I always thought it's 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. And I've had emails where I'm like, I write by 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. Is to say, like, listen, when some little things going on in the marriage that you don't, you know, that this could be an issue someday, but you don't want to, 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 going to be defensive. Well, wait a minute. No, no. And by the way, you may not be ready to have that conversation. You might have other things going on in your brain. 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 read 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 going to 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 going to see them. You're going to be out of the blast radius and you're going to give them a chance to digest it. You know, 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'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, 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 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 going to 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, 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, it's true.

What would you say are the top three reasons people get divorced? Is it infidelity or is it financial? Is it something else?

Yeah, I mean, the top three big reasons again, you know, with the idea that the little things add up and cause these things. But, yeah, absolutely. Infidelity, be number one. Finances would be number two. And number three would be. I would just call it attrition. It would just be, you know, that relationships just. They just burn up. 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 Me, if you.

Just don't care anymore.

Right. Like, you know, there's a line in Casablanca, the movie where, you know, that one of the characters says, the Humphrey Bogart's character 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 that's where people land sometimes, you know, 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 two people that are just great. You guys won. Good job. Neither of you guys 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. You owe each other. Wow. And you never meant to be there. You never meant to be there.

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

Financial stress?

Yeah.

Don't get into it. No, the best way to handle financial stress, again, I think candor, you know, just candor.

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 lose your job. Your company lays off 500 people in your.

One of them, you got a medical challenge.

That happens.

Yes.

Okay, so how do you deal with it? Well, you. With candor, with courage, with honesty, with fearlessness, 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 two 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, knowing your stuff and being fearless enough to say, this is what it is, that's where the magic is.

Yeah, I saw one of the chapters says, yours, mine, and ours. The financial system that works best. I think a lot of people have their own way of how they want to run their money, right? They like managing it their way, spending 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, right?

When was it created?

When women were property, essentially. It was created medieval context. I mean, it was created essentially to, you know, preserve wealth. It was created to preserve lands, right? Royal families would marry each other and rich families would marry each other to preserve land, you know, 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 and. But because this makes sense, this family makes sense. This. This uni union of the clans, our vision, okay? So that's the origin of marriage. Now, at some point, you know, 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. You know, advertising is the dream life of a culture. You know, like, we started to convince people that, you know, marriage should be more about love. It should be more about romance. And then, you know, 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. You know, somebody once said that there's nothing more exciting than getting married and nothing harder than being married, you know, 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, 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 buy. You'd trade a cow for the guy's daughter. That was what it was. There's still cultures where trade five livestock for my daughter and that's 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 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 stay home and tend to the hearth, you know, and the children. You know, we have two intelligent, autonomous, you know, man and woman. 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, you know, and so we said, why should. Why should we have all the misery? Why everybody sign up? You know? And I've secretly believed that there were probably, you know, 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, you know, because if you think about it, when they were. When they weren't able to, they could be like, I would love to marry you, but oh, the government won't let me. I wish. God. Then all of a sudden, it's like, great, the government's letting us, like, oh, okay, well, I guess we have to have that conversation now. 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 something that you can use when you want to buy the other person a birthday present. I mean, if you have a joint account and I buy you a birthday present from that account, I bought myself a birthday presentation. 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.

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. She's incredible, incredible. I love her work and I love the way she know her personally or not. I don't. And I've secretly said to everyone to do a panel with her would be the coolest thing in the world. 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. Captivity, I think was like, it was just a genius piece of work. 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. But I would say that, you know, I totally forgot the question about love.

About love. I mean, I mean about cheating.

Cheating? Yeah. So I think, 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 am not someone who believes, you know, I think John Gray, for example, did great work, 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 become a more sex positive culture. A lot of that misogyny that, that was motivating women to not be sexual beings, you know, it started to fall apart. I don't know if it was Kim Cattrall and Sex and the City and Samantha, it was just this, this, 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 have been cheated on. I see women who've been cheated on. And I can tell you, men don't cheat more than women. Women don't cheat more than men.

Astaire 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. But yeah, they, they. They're not as impulsive or impetuous about it, but it really, you know, infidelity happens because people have a need, a sexual need, you know, and they have a need. And sex is, you know, I think 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, everything in life is about sex 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, how do you maintain that connection? Because that's why people cheat. People who have happy, functional, active sex lives with their partner, and they're really, truly fulfilled by it, and they maintain intimacy. Intimacy is defined as the ability to be yourself with another person. So it's not about sex. Intimacy is, you know, intimacy. Sex is ideally tied to intimacy. But, you know, you can have great intimacies and not have 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. People say sex is the glue, you know, it's the glue that holds it together. Because what is it? It's the thing that separates a lover from a roommate. Yeah, yeah. You know, it prevents it from just. Because if you just want to 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 going to fill my needs and is going to prevent me from wanting to go have sex with other people. That's a more interesting question.

Well, how do you do that after.

10 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.

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, you know, a client I had who was in defeat, you know, in a sexual way. And again, it's not my thing. You know, 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. 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.

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? You know, so the truth is that, you know, sexual desire, you know, is so complex, you know, 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, this is a very common thing, is people like to talk dirty or to have someone talk dirty to them. All right, Maybe we watch too much porn and that's why we feel that way. Or maybe in 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? Maybe this is their fantasy, too. You know, you have to be. But again, what I say in the book is that people have great intentions and cause tremendous problems in their sexual relationships. So the following example is the best one I can think of. So you're with the 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. 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, you know, what the other person likes. 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 really. You're trying to do the right thing. They're gonna do your greatest hits, you're gonna do their greatest hits, and everybody's gonna be so excited in a much shorter period of time. And we'll be done before John Oliver comes on, you know, whatever it is, you know. So then what happens? Six months, a year, two years of just doing the greatest things.

They get boring.

Starts getting right. I mean, I get an album I like, and I love this song. I'm gonna play it so much, play it a hundred times. When, you know, 0 to 100 by Drake came out. I probably listened to it a thousand times, right? Okay. So many times that then when I played it again, I'm like, oh, my.

God, I can't hear the 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? We're kind of always doing the same things. 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, 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, maybe say one or two little things, 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? 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 of the person that they're with. Because that is at the core, I have to tell you, of so many people come in my office, they talk about, we stop sleeping together six, we stopped sleeping together three years ago. We haven't had sex in five years. People come into my office, where I had somebody come into my office, no joke, last month said they hadn't had sex with their partner in eight years. What? Eight years.

You're a roommate.

Yeah. You're a miserable roommate at that. But, you know, because even a roommate, there's no expectation of sex. 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. 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 eight years, can you get mad when I have sex with someone else? That seems wildly unfair, you know, so that's the trick. But, but, but, you know, 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, 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, you know, 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. It's like, wait, what? How did we just get there? But Everyone who's in a relationship knows 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. 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 Zoomanity, which is like the sexual, like, lovey, you know, sensual one. And the host of the show, the drag queen, was asking questions to people who looked like couples. Like, how long you been married? How long have 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 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. I thought that was interesting perspective. What are all the things that the government or the state actually dictates when you sign a contract? Marriage?

Yeah. And 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. Nobody knows the answer to that. I know probably 20 engaged people who don't know the answer to that. You know, whoever discovered water, it wasn't a fish, you know, 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, by the way, 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, you know, 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. A 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 can't go. I'm taking your car now, Louis, because your car is in your name, so you have proof of ownership of it. Okay, If I say, you know, louis, 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? 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.

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. Okay. 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's 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. 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 two. 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's like.

No clue. But if that app could take half your 401k in your house and leave with your kids, you might read the terms of service before you just kept hitting accept, you know? And that's. 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.

I mean, here's a pamphlet. Yeah, here's.

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

You think it's smart to have one?

Absolutely. Absolutely.

No matter what.

It's 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 way, you know? I know I'm gonna die. 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, 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 discussion. What do you expect from this marriage? Why are we afraid of that discussion? Why can't you sit down 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 want to 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? You know? Or would you. You know, 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 to you? What would we do with the dog? You know, what would we do with. 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. You know, we're the most alive in the presence of loss and sadness, you know, 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, you know? And so why not have that conversation? That's a. That's a great conversation. You know, there are. We're storytellers, human beings, you know, and my job is to. To tell stories. You know, 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, you know, And I want to persuade them to see things my client's way, that 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. 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, you know, or married to, and somebody says, 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. You light up.

Yeah, you light up a little bit, right? And 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. 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, you know, that's an act of love, you know, to. 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. There it is. We just tasted cakes, or, oh, we just found the venue. You don't say, like, just finish negotiating the prenup or just finish talking about the prenup. But it's something people are doing because they're pragmatic and they're realistic.

You know, they know the stats too, 53%. So it's like, let's be realistic. Like, if something happens, hopefully it doesn't. Now, would you ever. You've been. 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 gonna win. 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 50 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 so good, and the downside doesn't have to be as bad as we make it. So I think we have to. I think that's where Esther Perez got it right, is we have 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'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, you know, 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 enrich both of your lives, but for whatever reason, you realize 10, 20 late 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 you continue to do.

Where you say, you know what? All right, I've done it a couple times.

I give.

It's not working.

I had a client. I had a client who I did his fourth divorce and a prenup for its fifth 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, 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. Nobody's gonna look at you cultural anymore and say, you know, shame on you. You're living in sin. So he said to me, look, he said, 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 six months, you realize, this was a terrible idea. This was impractical. This is not the right car for you. So you. You get rid of that car, and then you get another car that's closer to the first car. And you really think, okay, this is going to be the car. But for whatever reason, it just doesn't kind of mesh the right way. And 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 going to just walk everywhere for the rest of your life? And I remember thinking, okay, that's not bad. The truth is that we want to maintain connection. Marriage is not a decision that one person makes. It's a decision two people make. I mean, arguably more than two 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, you know, people just keep trying, and I don't. 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 it. You know, very few things. A lot of times I got to screw something up several times before I get it right. You know, I was bad at jiu jitsu for a good five years before I got even vaguely good at it. Yeah. You know, the first time somebody hands you a baseball bat or through a spiral, you know, you didn't catch a football, and, 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, 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. You know, again, I'm always afraid that anything I say about Marriage is going to come off as an endorsement of or a condemnation of marriage. And 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, 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.

You know, so the question really is about, does this technology make sense for you? You know, and if you live in the Tundra, your Tesla doesn't make sense. So could I then say, well, Tesla's are stupid. No, Tesla's 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 on the show, is that, you know, it doesn't have to be. It's about the two people that are in that marriage and the larger context of the. Of the group they're in and figuring out what if, then that makes sense.

Yeah.

You know, not just is marriage good or bad.

What do you. You have two kids, you said, or two kids.

What.

What advice do you give to them on marriage?

You know, 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, and they're both, you know, I mean, my older son is at the age where I married his mother, and we remind him of that constantly. He's completely freaked out by it. And my younger son is at the age where I moved in with his mother, and he's also equally freaked out by that thought, you know, but I'm very blessed in the sense that my son's grew up with a sense of marriage as a technology because of what their father does for a living, and also because, you know, we had to explain to them at the ages of 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. Mom and dad love each other. There's a lot of people I love I wouldn't want to be married to. We don't love each other in the very specific way married people are supposed to love each other. 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 three 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, 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? 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 car example, you know. Yeah. You don't know what's going to happen in life. But there are certain predictable things that you can think about. You know, I'm going to get older, I'm going to. My health will fail eventually. At some point I may want to have kids. I mean, I'm going backwards. But you know, we will have misfortunes 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?

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. They seem to be each other's fans in a huge way. I mean, 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, ah, like I'm so proud of them, I'm so excited about them, you know, and that to me is those are relationships worth having. I have a real relationship role Model. I have two 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. And they have two 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. And she'll write on her Facebook like, oh, my boyfriend's coming home today because he travels a lot for work. And she'll say, my boyfriend's coming home today. And he legit, you know, Jimmy Iovine, the record, you know, executive and genius said because he's been. He's had an incredibly successful marriage and an incredibly happy marriage. Long term marriage.

The second one or the. Because he was married for a while.

And then he got this is his current marriage? Yeah, his current marriage. He's been married for extended period of time.

Got it.

And his secret to it that he's pretty open about is never stop closing your wife. He just never. He's like, I'm always just trying to close. I'm always just trying to like impress, impress her, woo her. Never finished. It's never, 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, 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 going to be really powerful. You can get it right. Now, a couple final questions for you. This is called the Three Truths. And if this was your last day many years from now, and all the stuff you've written and talked about and everything you have experienced and all your dreams you've had come true, but you won'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 three truths, three 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 will only be three lessons you can leave behind. What would you say are your three 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 same thing. 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, that there really was nothing else. At the end of the day, everything we do in our lives, whether it's our desire for sex or desire for money or desire, desire for art, to create art, to create beauty, it's all about connection. We're just trying to connect to each other. 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, and it's probably a shallow thing to say, but I would say don't take it so serious, seriously. You know, I think when I look back on my life as a 45 year old man, you know, solidly mid life, I look back on it and I think to myself that there really are only five or six 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. You know, I think back now, I just think had this thought the other day because 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 just the greatest moment. And it wouldn't be like when I graduated law school or when I won some trial or when my book was published. It would be like some night when I was divorced for a year or two too. 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. Talk too much about feelings or anything like that. He wasn't the kind of man that would read the basket, basket when. But. But it. 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, you know, and leave opportunity for those ridiculous little moments that don't take the rest of it so seriously.

I like those. 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 two 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. Not even mistakes, but just being aware, going into what we're doing 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 is available for us. Some reason we keep making the same mistakes or getting obese or 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 and in a fun and interesting storytelling type of way. So I acknowledge you for all that you're doing, man. 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 in the show. Notes. The final question is what's your definition of greatness?

I would say greatness is diving deeply into what you do, you know, everything that you do, just diving deeply into it. And you know, the tragedy of our time is people spending five days a week looking forward to two, you know, 50 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. Thank you very much. Thanks so much. Collectivist thinking thinks about the well being of others. And I sacrifice my own individual needs for the well being of others. To the other side of the continuum is I have a right to pursue my individual needs and the others will have to adapt to it. And I think that we are a little bit on the extreme end of the other side at this point.