Contracts of Love & Money That Make or Break Relationships | James Sexton

Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday [Music] life. I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor of neurobiology and opthalmology at Stamford School of Medicine. My guest today is James Ston. James Ston is a renowned attorney with over 25 years of experience in family law, specializing in prenuptual agreements and divorces. He is known as what many call the voice of reason between love and legal. Today we discuss something that might seem counterintuitive, which is how the legal frameworks and contracts surrounding relationships, particularly prenuptual agreements, can actually deepen emotional connection and build trust between partners. As James points out, intimacy and trust are fundamentally about the ability to be your true self with your partner and them with you. It's about allowing ourselves to be vulnerable. It's also about having a same team spirit, of course, respect for one another, and admiration for each other's unique qualities. Today we explore how prenuptual agreements, which most often are viewed as being unromantic or pessimistic, can actually serve as ways to establish a sense of safety for both people and prevent many common conflicts and misunderstandings. As James puts it, everyone has a prenup. You either have one that was created by the state legislature or you can tailor one to you and your partner's unique needs. He also points out something that many people will find surprising, which is that the vast majority of people who do prenups stay married. and yet most people opt not to do them. We also discuss love itself and the key questions that we all need to ask to find the right partner and if you have one to build the strongest possible bonds with them. The information in today's episode is going to be extremely important for anyone looking for or currently in a relationship. Whether you're single, dating, engaged, or married, understanding how the legal and emotional frameworks that support lasting relationships intersect can help you navigate one of life's most rewarding but challenging journeys with much greater awareness and intention and probability of success. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, this episode does include sponsors. And now for my discussion with James Ston. Jim Ston, welcome. Thank you. It's good to be here. Been wanting to do this for a while. I know it's a long time in the making. Yeah. I think if two guys sit down, one of them a lawyer who's known as a divorce lawyer and they're talking about divorce and love and money and contracts and the ending of things. I think there's a understandable default mindset where the female half of our audience are probably gonna think like here a couple guys talking about relationships and divorce through the lens of their Y chromosomes which of course it's impossible to avoid completely because I haven't done the karaotyping but you have a Y chromosome and I do as well. I would like to know in your experience working with male clients and female clients, is there something unique to the female experience of divorce or the female experience of realizing, wow, this contract that I thought was for life may not or is it not for life that sort of drives a kind of uh female specific um set of uh psychological responses. Here I'm I'm basically asking for a generalization. Yeah. And I want to be clear, I'm not asking this for politically correct reasons. I'm asking this because, like I said, two guys sitting down to talk about relationships, love, and divorce. It's kind of where the mind goes. Yeah. And and I mean before I would get, you know, before I would get cancelled in the comments for being misandressed or misogynist, I I always try to say that, you know, the things I'm observing are a function of having divorced thousands of people, you know, men and women. Like for 25 years, I've done nothing but divorce law on a full-time basis. And I mean on a truly full-time basis. So I I I wake up in the morning thinking about this stuff. I go to bed thinking about this stuff. I work six, seven days a week. That's why I'm divorced. I I I really really love the work. And so all the things I'm saying are are really just my observation. So, you know, in response to that question, I think I think the world relates to divorced men and divorced women differently. And I think people's self-conception, right, is very different. So I I often tell my male clients when we're dealing with, you know, a custody case, for example, which is, you know, arguments over when a child's going to live with whom and when they're going to spend time with whom. And there was this concept called the maternal presumption, which was around legally for years, or something called the tender years doctrine. It's called different things in different states, but it was around until probably the 1980s, and that was that a child was assumed to stay in the custody of the mother unless you could prove she was an unfit mother. So men were automatically secondass when it came to being a parent. So it was automatic. It was the default. Now of course in the 80s there was a different makeup of the workforce. There was a different in gender roles obviously in terms of assignment of of child care responsibilities. It was a different world to some degree. But that was eradicated in the 1980s and the bench even the judges have changed dramatically. When I started practicing 25 years ago 90% of the judges I appeared in front of were old white men. Period. Like that was it was old white men. And so I got in the habit of like have a short haircut, hide the tattoos, like look like you're coming out of the set of Inherit the Wind, like look like you are what you because you got a conservative old man as your judge. That is not the makeup of the bench anymore. The bench now is as diverse as the people that it serves. So one of the things though that I I tell my male clients is even though that maternal presumption is gone, women fight harder for custody than men do. Really, I'd love to say to you that it's because the maternal instinct and bond is so strong that women just care about their kids and they want custody. I I don't really believe it's that. I I think it's the following. If you and I just met in normal life, right? Like we're just out at a bar and I sit up night and you say, "So, so said so Jim, tell me about yourself." And I say, "Well, I'm divorced. Uh my kids live with their mom. I see them every other weekend and once a week for dinner." He would go, "Okay, cool. Jim's divorced guy, you know, he's working. He's does his thing. I'm a woman and I say, "I have two kids. They live with their father. I see them every other weekend." You go, "What is wrong with this woman? Is she on substance use issues, mental health issues? Like, why does he have custody of the kids? Why doesn't she have custody of her kids?" So there is a there is an element of how motherhood is perceived as an identity even for a working woman that it's like if you don't have your kids on a full-time or close to full-time basis there's this percept so that infuses that changes the way that women are in custody litigation. That's a huge piece of it. On the other side of things, you know, the the gender stuff in divorce and in breakups is really interesting and complicated in this sense that, for example, if a man cheats on his wife, he's a piece of [ __ ] can't keep it in his pants, he's a child. Why couldn't he be honest? A woman cheats on her husband, she was driven into the arms of another man. She couldn't get, he wasn't meeting her needs. This was her journey of self-discovery. Like you see in popular media like watch any film any TV show when the man cheats it's like he's a leerous guy you just get the woman cheats it's like oh this poor woman like she she needed to find herself she needed like her eat prey love moment and so that's again like the the way the world interacts with people in breakups and in the clay that builds to the breakup is very different. So how people react to it is very different. men in my experience as clients there's a lot of anger that that you know manifests in very honest ways like very blunt ways like very kind you know because men are you know men are Bill Burr recently in one of his recent special has this thing about men are allowed to be two things angry or fine that's it like angry or fine and that's and I used to always say that growing up you know I'm 52 like growing up I had two choices you're either Clint Eastwood or Richard Simmons. Those were your two choices as a man. You were either like stoic, you know, stony, no emotion or gay. That was it. Those were like your two choices. And of course, it's totally dishonest. Of course, the reality is is men have a different, you know, we have an emotional vocabulary. It just expresses in different ways. But anger is something men are allowed to have. So when men are sad, they seem angry. When men are angry, they seem angry. women. My experience of women in divorce is is they're they're much more forgiving in unhappy marriages. They're much more willing to stay in relatively unhappy marriages and and sort of torture their partner. And then when they've decided, okay, I'm out, there is a a level of like, yeah, whatever we got to do, we got to do. Like that sometimes to me as someone who does this for a living is like, oh, oh, okay. like you're you're just willing to you're just willing to go there, you know, like mercenary. Yeah. Just there's, you know, like when and you look at the history of the marriage and you go, "Wow, when they were together, like there's nothing she wouldn't do for him." And now it's ending and man, there's nothing she won't do to him. Like she is just weaponized on him. And it's it's um it's kind of it used to be surprising to me. It's not really surprising to me anymore. I I think I have a friend who was a criminal lawyer for many years, criminal defense attorney, really good one in the city. And we used to laugh because he used to say, "As a criminal lawyer, he sees bad people at their best. And as a divorce lawyer, I see good people at their worst." And I it's always astounding to me because I've reached a level in my career, thankfully, where I represent elite athletes. I represent, you know, people in the financial markets who who literally move markets with their trades, people in entertainment industry, and they are as bad at this as any of us. Like they're as bad at relationships, they're as bad at heartbreak as anybody. So, you know, there were differences in the gender piece. There are differences in the socioeconomic piece, but at the end of the day, it's like it's hurt people hurting people, and it kind of looks roughly the same. It's very interesting, and there's a lot in there. I want to return to this um sort of divergent response to men cheating versus women cheating a little bit later. Super interesting area for exploration. Well, I feel like I have a PhD in infidelity because it's just it's part of like 90 plus% of divorces in some form. Yeah. Really? Well, it's it's why people, I think, you know, mistake correlation for causation. I mean, people all the time are like, you know, why are you getting divorced? Because he's sleeping with his secretary. And it's like, oh, that's a pretty good reason to get divorced. But, you know, then when you scratch the surface, you're like, okay, but why is he sleeping with his secretary? And there's almost always this very deep backstory of like, well, we stopped sleeping together. Why do we stop? Well, because he's unkind to me. Well, why is he unkind to you? Well, because you're totally indifferent to me. And and you start to go, okay, the truth's at the bottom of a bottomless pit, and we're never going to get there. Like, and all of those facts come with a point of view. So when you do what I do for a living, which is, you know, full contact storytelling basically in a in a courtroom against someone who's trying to tell the opposite story, you you find a lot of what you're doing is just figuring out how to present the most persuasive version of this person's subjective experience of their own life. I would like to take a quick break and acknowledge one of our sponsors, Wealthfront. I've been using Wealthfront for my savings and for my investing for nearly a decade, and I absolutely love it. At the start of every year, I set new goals. And one of my goals for 2025 is to focus on saving money. Since I have Wealthfront, I'll keep that savings in my Wealthfront cash account, where I'm able to earn 4% annual percentage yield on my deposits, and you can as well. With Wealthfront, you can earn 4% APY on your cash from partner banks until you're ready to either spend that money or invest it. 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Wealthfront brokerage isn't a bank. The APY is subject to change. For more information, see the episode description. Today's episode is also brought to us by BetterHelp. BetterHelp offers professional therapy with a licensed therapist carried out entirely online. I've been doing weekly therapy for well over 30 years. There are essentially three things that great therapy provides. First of all, it provides good rapport with somebody that you can really trust and talk to about any issues you want. Second of all, it can provide support in the form of emotional support and directed guidance. And third, expert therapy provides useful insights. Insights that allow you to better not just your emotional life and your relationships, but of course also the relationship to yourself and to your professional life into all sorts of life and career goals. With BetterHelp, they make it extremely easy to find an expert therapist who you can really resonate with and that can help provide these benefits that come through effective therapy. And because BetterHelp allows for therapy to be done entirely online, it's very timeefficient and easy to fit into a busy schedule. There's no commuting to a therapist's office, finding parking, or sitting in a waiting room. If you'd like to try BetterHelp, you can go to betterhelp.com/huberman to get 10% off your first month. Again, that's betterhelp.com/huberman. We're talking about breaking one contract, the contract of marriage, and creating a new contract, the contract of divorce. I'm fascinated by contracts in the world of business. um my business partner and I that started this podcast um I insisted that uh we take an even split. That was important to me. It's absolutely critical um because this podcast wouldn't be what it is without him um and his incredible expertise. He is the uh the genius behind it all. Our our initial contract was on a piece of paper in a little coffee shop in Manhattan where I said, "How about this? How about this?" And we we discussed it. people like you give lawyers like we get hives like you say that and I I instantly start like you know six months later uh or so a lawyer told us we had to get a real contract and we did it um and I have to say it was fine and I'm glad we have contracts but to me all contracts whether or not it's a scribble on a piece of paper or it's a formal contract um contracts make me feel safe. They make me feel good. I like rules and guidelines. Um, I like knowing what's going to happen if for a scientist, um, this doesn't really exist. You you like to think you can control outcomes, but you can't, and you acknowledge that, and you you go into the unknown. So, contracts are very reassuring to me. Yeah. I want to talk about the contract of marriage first. Yeah. And what you think is going through people's mind when they decide to get married? There's the engagement. There's a lot of love. Hopefully, there's a lot of love. Hopefully, um, there's a lot of dopamine. That's a wonderful thing. Um, presumably there's a lot of pherommones. There's a lot of emotional and biological stuff happening. Sure. There's the recognition from others. There's the party. There's the bachelor party, the bachelorette party, the the shower, the the wedding. I mean, there's so many things reinforcing this bond. And every one of the things you just named are awesome. Mhm. They're great. Like, those are all positive things. like the from the cake to the bachelor party, bachelorette party to the dress to the way we're going to have photos taken to commemorate the moment and sort of have this snapshot in time of who we were and who our families were. Like all of that, how could you not cheer for that? Like it's phenomenal. All of that sounds great. It's like, you know, like, oh, I like this ice cream. What's not to like? It's ice cream. Of course you like ice cream. Yeah. To me, it's celebration of life. Yeah. You know, it's very different than the birth of a child, but it's this each one of those is a celebration of the the life spirit. Yeah. And your place in the timeline and the history and the merging of families, the merging of clans like the and and and sort of this we're going to merge now and maybe new life comes of that and then that life merges with more life and we become part of this chain like this is gorgeous stuff and this is the fundamental building blocks of human civilization. So, it is perfectly understandable that we get absolutely intoxicated by the thought of it and that we get so hopped up. But, but here's what people don't think about. The term contract never gets into that discussion. I'm telling you right now, right now, someone's getting married somewhere and they've never The word contracts never come out of there, but they don't view marriage as a contract. the the two things that I as a divorce lawyer I'm constantly thinking about is marriage as an economy and marriage as a contract and those are two the minute you say that people assume you don't believe in or experience emotionally any of those other beautiful things you just said and I think 90% of the appeal of my media work in this chapter of my life has been that people go oh a divorce lawyer or this is just going to be a guy talking about how like marriage is the worst thing ever. And in reality, I I think what I'm saying is, look, this is amazing. This is wonderful. Why wouldn't you fall in love? Why wouldn't you have pair bonds? Why wouldn't you consider locking in with another person and say, but my god, be honest with yourself about the risks involved. be honest with yourself about the ways you can hedge that risk and be honest with yourself about the the contract and the economy because those are two things that I do not think that there is anything unromantic. I don't think it takes away from the romance or the beauty of a thing. You know, I I I I often say you my favorite poem is a poem by Joseph Broaddsky called The Song. And he wrote it when his wife passed away. And it's a it's a beautiful poem about love and loss. And the the sort of refrain of the poem is I wish you were here, dear. Like, I wish you were here, dear. I wish you were here. I wish we sat in the car and you sat near. It's this beautiful poem. And one of the lines is I wish you were here, dear. I wish you were here. I wish I knew no astronomy when stars appear. And I I remember the first time I read that line thinking like, "Oh, that's so beautiful." Because once you know astronomy, like there's something less magical about the stars, you know? I mean, I don't know. See, I I don't believe it has to be that way. Yeah. I don't either. Uh the great Richard Fineman, Nobel Prize winning physicist of uh surely you're joking, Mr. Fineman fame, said that uh understanding things at a reductionist level added to his sense of beauty with the with the physical world. And I think it can. I mean that's my sense of biology and physiology and what I I know of psychology. Understanding the the deeper layers adds to my sense of wonder. But I acknowledge and agree with you completely that for most people when we think about all those um things around marriage, the the engagement, the wedding, the party, they all imply a ton of trust. I believe in you. I I have faith in you. I'm going to merge lives with you. Yeah, the word contract implies somewhere in there a lack of trust. I gave this little anecdote about something very different than marriage, right? A business contract with my business partner where when they said, "Oh, you need to have a formal contract." Yeah. It there is something about that that implies that things could go wrong or that there will be unforeseen circumstances that our verbal contract Yeah. can't anticipate and won't allow us to navigate as business partners. And this is again far and away different arguably lesser example than a marriage contract which is a much bigger life milestone. But I think what you're a point you're making that I think I would slightly reframe is the following. There is a contract that binds you and your business partner. It was written by the legislature of the state in which you reside. Okay. So, do you want your relationship with this person governed by a contract you didn't write? You had no input in. And the government can change without your consent or knowledge. And by the way, once they've changed it, you can't say, "Oh, I don't I don't like that new rules, so I don't want those to apply." Yeah. Too late. Too late. So, I tell everyone, you you have a prenup. Every married person has a prenup. It was either written by the government or written by the two people who allegedly love each other more than the other 8 billion other options in the world. Now, if you ask me who is going to write a better contract, unnamed politicians who are subject to being elected and unelected or two people who have an abundance of optimism towards each other who get like there's a rule set. There's a rule set and if you're signing up for a rule set you wrote or co-authored with your partner, I think you're in a better place than saying let's trust it to the government. I have to tell you, I've been to the DMV. I've never walked into the DMV and thought these people should be in charge of everything. This is great. They they have got it down. Like this is they should be in charge of my marriage. They should be in charge of everything. My business dealings, they should be the ones who make the rules because they're clearly so together in their thinking. I don't feel that way. I feel like there is tremendous value in the level of trust and optimism that two people at the beginning of a venture, whether that venture is a marriage or whether that venture is a business venture. While we're in this heady space of optimism, excitement, trust in each other, that's the time to say, "Hey, we're going to disagree about something at some point." It happens. It'll be my fault. I say dumb [ __ ] I say dumb [ __ ] all the time. So, I'll probably say something that's going to upset you. So, why would you learn how to fight while you're in a fight? Like, learn how to fight before you get in a fight. Learn the rule set. Have a discussion about, hey, if we disagree, what's the best way? Do you need a minute? Do you need some time to yourself to like kind of cool off? Or are you the kind of person that's like, no, we got to sort this out right now. I can't go to bed angry. I'll fester. So, that to me, the the right mindset is not faith and trust or contracts. I think that's the totally wrong way to frame it. I think the right way to frame it is there's a contract. There's a whether you want to call it a contract or not, just like there's an economy. An economy is an exchange of value. You know, this many bananas is worth this many coconuts cuz if it was what how many bananas will you trade me for bananas? That's not an economy. Like we're not bringing the same thing to the table. So, it's the same thing. Why is it a dirty word to say, "Hey, I'm marrying you. Why? What do I bring to your life? What do I mean to you? what value do I present to you and what value do you present to me so I know what to protect and preserve you know so I know like when that slips to start talking to you about it and and by the way you can tell me and remind me when hey this thing I loved about you has changed so like you talked about all these good things about your business partner like oh he has this vision or he has this patience or he has this organizational skill and he makes up for some things that I don't have like if you just said oh yeah he has the exact same characteristics as me it's like Well, what do you need him then? You know, it's many hands like work maybe, but ideally you have the Steve Jobs and the Steve Waznjak. You know, either of whom without the other would have been kind of eh, but together it's like lightning in a bottle. So, I just genuinely think framing this slightly differently and saying there's going to be a rule set. So, we are the best people to write that rule set. That's the way to look at it. Yeah. The way you're framing the contract of marriage and prenups, I I love it. Um because you're putting a positive emotional lens on it, right? Sure. Two people who love each other. Therefore, let's discuss the contract of love and marriage. Two people that are committed to creating perhaps children together and a whole life together, raiding together lineages. Let's get a contract to really solidify this. And what do we owe each other? You know, what do we owe each other? That's a huge piece for me. It's like, why are we doing this? you know, what is the problem we seek to solve or what is the value we add to each other's lives? That's such a beautiful question. Like, and by the way, it's an invitation to such an intimate discussion like this. These are the things that you make me feel like these are the things you do that make me feel that way. like they you make me feel loved really when when you uh uh remember that tea that I like and you make sure that it's here, you know, or oh when you you know uh remembered it was my sister's birthday and sent her a text and then sent me a screenshot. Like these are this dumb little things that make us feel so loved and seen. So why wouldn't we embrace an opportunity to say to this person, by the way, like do you know what I love about you? Do you know what you do that makes me feel so loved and makes me feel so in love with you? Because that's a worthy conversation. The way you're framing this, I think, is entirely different than how most people would envision a discussion about a prenup, which I think that's true. Which I really appreciate, and I know the audience appreciates, too, because you're putting a different lens on things. I'm going to just put on my hat as a neuroscientist and biologist for a moment. I think there are certain words that people for whatever reason consider kind of a buzzkill. Like we're talking about pherommones and love and children and romance and sex and vacations and honeymoons and parties and then someone says contract. Yeah. And someone and somebody says um you know we finances which you know maybe that turns certain people on. I guess people in the finance world it probably turns them on. But do you get where I'm coming from? I I have to assume it's a different brain circuit for most people. Whereas what you're doing is you're coming at this from a different perspective, which is part of the reason why you're here, is that you're saying this discussion around a prenup contract can potentially shed more light into the nature of the bond and maybe even deepen the connection. Of course. And and I I will tell you I've been doing prenuptual agreements for 25 years for clients and I usually end up having a very good relationship with the person I do a prenup with because you're talking a lot about their fears, their hopes. Is it one person or both? I wanted to ask this one at a time. So each of you has your own lawyer. Each of you has your own attorney. You cannot as a lawyer represent both people because they have what's called potentially adverse interests. And what if one person has substantially more income to hire a better lawyer um assuming that more money gets you a better lawyer? I have to assume on average it does um than the other. Yeah, it's unfortunate. It's an unfortunate thing. I mean, one of the projects I' I've been involved in in the last couple of months is a a website trusted prenup.com. I worked with a a couple of tech people to put together something that's going to democratize prenups. Because up until now, prenups have been something that you spend 510 $15,000 for a traditional lawyer to draft for you and then your fiance brings it to an attorney to review and then they want to make revisions and it sort of walks into this adversarial process as opposed to sort of democratizing prenups. So what we are trying to do is sort of leverage technological innovation, AI, my hundreds of prenups I've drafted, we sort of fed into this to create the ability for you to go online and to create a prenup for like in the realm of $600, $700. That would be a game changer. It's really an opportunity. But but the purpose of it as far as I'm concerned is not just to democratize prenups, which I think we have to do, but to really reframe the way we look at it because people come in all the time and they're like, "Well, I I don't know if I need a prenup because I'm not wealthy." And you say, "Well, you're still going to have a rule set applied to your marriage." And actually, if you're super wealthy, like most of my clients, they can afford to buy six more houses. Like they you keep the house, I'll buy another house down the street, and then we'll buy another house for the kids, and then we'll visit with them in that house. Like that's actually called nesting. It's a thing. So that's nesting. Nesting is when I was coming up, nesting meant something very nesting now is when you each have your own home and then one home is just where the kids live and instead of doing a custodial rotation where the kids go back and forth between homes, the kids have a home and the parent who has parenting access during that time is in the nest with the kids. When I was in college, nesting was when you got a tablecloth. Nice. Nice. Yeah. It's a very it's a very you know the rich divorce in different ways than than than the normal general populace. And so that's why we're trying to say look bring this democratize this bring this to let people develop a rule set because especially too when you have scarcity like most people can't afford to give away one half of everything they have and still have enough to function. Most people are going paycheck to paycheck. Most people are a couple of paychecks off from being in bankruptcy if things don't go the right way. So when they divorce and now we have two electric bills and two internet bills and two that's something most people can't do. So all the more reason for people to have a rule set that the two of them created again when they were feeling positive and benevolent and optimistic towards each other and they were trying to protect you because to me personally I don't know how you can feel loved if you don't feel safe like I think you have to feel safe emotionally safe physically safe like if you're afraid of your partner emotionally physically how can you really feel loved. So to me, the prenup is an invitation to a can we talk about hard things? Because I'll tell you right now, when somebody says to me, "Well, I would do a prenup. I know it would be good, but I, you know, that's just going to be a hard conversation." Don't get married. If you can't have hard conversations with a person, you have absolutely no business marrying them. I mean, it's good for me as a future income stream, but I'm telling you, I don't think it's a good idea. like you're going to have to talk about hard things, you know, and you're going to have to have uncomfortable truths instead of comfortable lies to this person, you know. So, I'm a big fan of early on in the process having those conversations. And again, it doesn't all have to be like, you know, the convers like when you talk about your will, that's a hard conversation. Like there's no upside to being dead, you know, like other than being off social media, like there's no upside to it. So, I I I I understand why people are like, "It's really hard to think about like if I die and if both of us die, what do we do with the kids?" Like, that's a hard conversation. But look, if we break up, what would you need to feel safe? Like, would you, you know, there's a line from a Prince song, um, if I was your girlfriend? Uh, and it is, would you run to me if somebody hurt you, even if that somebody was me? And I think there's something really sweet about saying to someone like, "Hey, if I hurt you, like, how can I still have you feel safe? like how can I have you still feel loved? Like I don't think that you know when I meet someone and their exes are like they just have painted them as a villain like with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. And that's frequent, you know, it's frequent people do that. And to me that that says a lot about like the core values of both of these people. You know, I I think there's real value in saying to someone early on like, "Hey, if I hurt you, what are you going to need from me?" Like, "What what do we need to be made whole? How can we both feel safe in this relationship?" That's what those discussions are about. Like throwing the words contracts, throwing the words economy in there. I understand. Like, I think you're totally right. There's something about those words. But I think reality can be beautiful. I don't I don't think like I don't think you have to CGI everything for it to be perfect. I think it's perfect. I think it's already perfect. I There's something very perfect about how imperfect and flawed and frightened we are. And I think there's something really beautiful about finding someone that you can be that with and I don't think I can learn everything I need to know about myself from myself. Like I think I need someone there. Ideally, someone who really loves me and is cheering for me and sees my blind spots. And and I think the conversation about a prenup is that's what that conversation should be. It's fantastic. I love the way you lean into life uh in all its um light and shadows and say, "Okay, let's accept all of that right off the bat and uh figure out what's going to give this the highest probability of working." Well, it's reality. I've never thought about prenups as a way to bolster the probability of the marriage working. Well, I'm telling you, I I I and I got sidetracked as I tend to do, but I've done probably hundreds if not thousands of prenups over 25 years. I think there maybe five people that I did their divorce after they had a prenup. Really? Yeah. I think I think people need to hear that again. I think that Yeah. So, so I've done hundreds if not at least a thousand prenups in 25 years. I probably do two or three prenups a week. So, I do a lot of prenups. Most of my colleagues do a lot of prenups and I've never asked my colleagues this, but you know, usually when you do a prenup, you have a good relationship with the person by the time it's finished. It's a transaction people feel good about. It's a divorce. Sometimes you finish a divorce and the person is like, "Oh my god, I never want to see you again because you remind me of this really dark chapter." But prenups, it's usually very friendly transaction. It's positive. This is surprising to me. So people who prenup tend not to break up. Yes, that rhyme. Yes. Um I think many people will be very surprised to hear that. I think it's self- selecting. I think the kind of people who can have a conversation that you need to have in order to discuss and negotiate and again there's another term I don't think it's the right term negotiate a prenup. Negotiate gives the impression it's like you're buying a car you know like the kind of people who can have the conversations you need to have in order to have a prenuptual agreement I think are the kind of people that are going to be successfully married period. Like there's something about there that that I'm not going to talk about a prenup because I don't want to talk about the possibility that anything could ever go wrong with this thing. It's perfect. It's wonderful. It's cake. It's roses. It's nothing but romance and sex and it's wonderful. Okay, you got no Listen, falling feels like flying for a little while, you know, and then you hit the ground and it is waiting for you. And if the first time you ever think about what legal rights and obligations do I have is when you're in my office like you've you're already screwed. You're already screwed. You did nothing to prepare emotionally, financially, you know, nothing. So there's something about the imagination, right, that people if you if you're just the kind of person who's like, I don't even want to talk. I actually met I had a they'll remain nameless, but it was a neighbor and I tried to every once in a while I get it in my head that I'm going to like try to be a more social person. So, I'm like, "Oh, I should like invite the neighbor over for a drink, you know, a couple." And uh they don't live near me anymore, so I can get away with it now. But I invited these people over for a drink. They came over, lovely people. But at some point, she said, "Oh, you know, I don't know how you do what you do. Like, we don't we don't allow the dword in our house." And I was like, "You you mean?" She's like, "No, no, we just you're not allowed to say the word divorce in our house." And she said it like divorce like she was saying Voldemort, you know. She was like, "We don't say the D word." And I was like, and I thought to myself, "If only it was that easy, you know." By the way, got divorced like three years later. Really? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. 100%. And like down, drag out, brutal. Both of them tried to call me and hire me, you know, and I I will not represent people that I know in any capacity. And I just remember thinking like that did like that is such a what a delusion like that I'm never gonna say the word like what are you my great-g grandandmother like you have to say cancer like this cuz if you say cancer and like of speaking volume suddenly like tumors will develop like do are you that superstitious like do you believe you know do you believe in Chewbacca too like that's crazy I mean superstition is a form of paranoia it's a mild form of paranoia but it's a form of paranoia of course yeah but I think It's, you know, I I say all the time that I think most of our attitudes about marriage have been just handed down. Like it's just it's this is something that like marriage, you could be the most like modern Bella Abzug feminist person and a lot of women are like, "Oh yeah, I still want my dad to walk me down the aisle and give me away." Give you away? Like seriously? Like you're you're a seuite executive at a software company and he's going to trade you for what? goats like this is going to be where he because you are your father's property and now you will be the property and he will give you away to your husband and you'll now be his property. That's where that tradition comes from. Gang, what do you think uh the psychological underpinnings of of what you're describing are about? Is it some sort of internal validation of worth external validation of worth? I mean none of it computes for me when I look at you know like you said like a let's say these are extreme examples but seuite female executive let's make or a founder also these exist I'm from the bay area of them yeah and typically they will take their soon tobe husband's last name interesting not always% um that's far more common than men taking their their wife's last name actually I can't even think of a single instance I've had a few that hyphenate that's a new evolutionary biologists do that. It used to be all the evolutionary biologist most give the kids the husband's name. Most give the kids the husband's name. And I again I don't know if that's a male thing that like men are like that's my kid, they're going to have my name. I I really don't know. But yeah, there's the a lot of the feminism gets thrown out the window. Another one is that in divorces, I've observed this. I don't have statistics on this, but women will keep their ex-husband's last name. Yeah. Because what I was told is they want to have the same last name as their kids. That's pretty common. Um, which is understandable. Yeah. Yeah. Of course, the kids could switch last name. It eliminates a certain level of confusion because at school like to say, you know, like this is my name and the kids name is different. Some of it's through the kids. That piece I get. I absolutely get, but I I also, and by the way, I I have clients cuz you don't have to change your name back, but you have the right to and I have male clients who like want their name back. Like I want her to no longer be allowed to use that name. And I have to explain to them that's kind of you can't force her to not have your name. He's like, "Well, that's my name." And I'm like, "You understand? I can change as long as you're not doing it for the intent of defrauding creditors. Anyone can I can change my name to Andrew Huberman tomorrow if I want to. As long as I'm not doing it to defraud my creditors, you'd get a lot more problems than be the lifeline. I'd be Mrs. Huberman. That's very fun. Very fun. Oh my goodness. Um, no. You'd be Andrew Huberman. And that comes with a certain number of liabilities. That sounds exhausting. I don't think I can handle it. I I can't do that. I can't bench that much either. Full-time fun. No, just kidding. Um, in all seriousness, wow, people have asked for their name back. Yeah, they want her prohibited from having her name and and even though the kids have that name, but again, that's that anger thing. Like that's just a pure expression of anger. And I get it. You know, a lot of what I do is sort of helping people get to the core of like what are they really upset about? And that's a lot of what my job is. Like I my undergraduate degree was in psychology. My master's was in cultural anthropology and specifically in the study of death and dying. And uh and then my law degree, I wanted to be a divorce lawyer as soon as I started law school. And I I think I use the psych degree as much as I use the law degree because it's so much of what I do is just dealing with people when they're in this very heightened emotional state. Like I'm a fan of faith, but just not blind faith. Like I'm a fan of fairy tales. If the fairy tales inspire something in you, that's incredible. Like if if you say to me, you know, Jim, I love Star Wars. Like the struggle of the Jedi against the Empire, like it inspires me to want to be a disciplined person and to fight for good and to, you know, not be afraid of evil and to know like that's a beautiful story. If you try to tell me Wookies are real though, like we've got a problem, man. You got to get checked out. Like that's not okay. That's not true. So the divorce rate's 56%. So 56% of the time this technology fails. 56. 56. Yeah. It changes every year, but 56 is the divorce rate currently. Okay. So 56% of marriages and in divorce. Now is that true? Excuse me. In Europe as well and South America as well and Australia. Every country the statistics are different. There are states does not have you can actually look this up online. And there's a a great there's like a running tally that's kept um but the highest uh divorce rates are in I believe Italy is currently winning that race. Ireland was at the bottom because basically divorce was not possible in Ireland for an extended period of time. Countries that have a very strong underlying religious narrative like Sharia law and things like that obviously have a very low divorce rate. Mhm. Um but it it it it varies in terms of but but but countries that are um I don't want to say you know like very modern you know where there's been a proliferation of social media where there is a open information environment so people can compare themselves to other people constantly not North Korea not North Korea great example yes that there is a sense of um because I actually even North Korea like has an underlying religious narrative. It's just that they've decided that their or they've been told their leader is a god, you know. So, I think when when you don't have a core foundational religious narrative that that prohibits divorce as part of its structure, then you're left to people's desires to some degree and the cultural foundations of it. And tradition, right? And tradition for many, many years, tradition was you stay married even if you're unhappy. And then tradition in the 1970s and 1980s started turning into your happiness is more important than the institution of marriage. So if you're unhappy, you might need to leave your marriage and get divorced. And that's when the divorce rate started to spike, right? So and I think there's some value to that. Like I, you know, tradition is in some ways like the wisdom of the people before us and they saw things we might not see. And to some degree, tradition is peer pressure exerted by dead people. So I think our our fascination with marriage as this I found my soulmate and now we're not even going to think about the possibility of us ending even though fully 56% of the time the thing's going to end. Like that's the part I can't wrap my head around is and again look at the numbers there. Like let's assume conservatively that another 10% stay together for the kids cuz the 56 is just the ones who actually said this is so bad we're getting lawyers and we're ending this thing. Like how many people stay together for the kids or religious reasons or because they don't want to give away half their [ __ ] Like that's a got to be a big number. I I mean conservative 10%. I think it's more than that. 20%. Definitely more. And these are first marriages. First marriages. the the statistics for each subsequent marriage the divorce rate gets much higher. So like by the time really second marriage is higher than first marriage, third marriage is much higher. Interesting. And then once you get past three it's like you're you know all the divorced people in my family remarried and have been in those second marriages very long periods of time. I know a lot of very happy secondary very happy because I and I think there's value to that because I do think as a divorced person um you learn a lot about yourself through the process of divorce. You learn a lot about what you don't want to do again in a relationship and what didn't work for you. So I I don't do anything perfectly the first time I do it. So I think that there's value in in sort of giving something a try. Like you don't learn how to swim by reading books about swimming. You learn how to swim in the pool. So that's why I'm a like I'm a fan of marriage even though the the divorce rate is very high. It's clearly a very risky technology. One could argue it's a reckless thing to do. You know that that I mean the the legal definition of negligence is a failure to perceive a substantial and unjustifiable risk of serious harm. Okay. Recklessness legally is a conscious disregard for a substantial and unjustifiable risk of serious harm. Okay. So if you know something ends in heartbreak and division of assets and fighting that requires attorneys 56% of the time and you don't make any plan for that in advance. I would argue that's reckless. You're consciously disregarding a substantial risk of harm. Period. Yeah. And if there's kids it it brings them different kind of even higher level. Yeah. Do you happen to know the numbers or the rough numbers on percentage of first marriages with kids that last whether or not they're happy or not? I don't I don't know that delineation. I mean, I know that these statistics are fairly closely tracked. So, you can find them out online pretty easily because they're tracked by the government. Every time we do a divorce, we have to file what's called a certificate of dissolution of marriage. And that certificate includes the grade level, the highest grade level each person completed, um whether there are children, how many children, the ages of the children. And the whole purpose of that document is to compile demographic information. So the government for many many years has been monitoring this and looking at you know, okay, what are those numbers? Those numbers are not well publicized. I think partly because the wedding industrial complex does not want people getting involved in that conversation. Like you don't want people to really look at the truth of things because it takes away from the fantasy of things. But see, again, I think that's a framing issue because to me, I think, you know, the stars are still beautiful even if you know astronomy. Like I I think if anything I actually think and maybe this is just the way that I look at things, the fact that love is loaned and not permanently gifted makes it more beautiful. Like the fact that I'm going to die for sure makes my life more beautiful. There's a finite number of sunsets I'm going to see. There's a number. I I don't know it yet. It might be five. It might be 500, but there's a number, right? And so when you when you're with someone, that marriage is going to end. Every marriage ends. It ends in death or in divorce. It's one of the only things in the world that you go, I hope this ends in death. Like if you said to someone at their wedding like, "Man, I really hope your marriage ends in death." They would be like, "What is wrong with that guy?" But it's the truth because all marriages end. They end in death or divorce. I hope that yours ends in death. But you I don't think that makes it less beautiful. It makes it more beautiful that every day this person wakes up and decides to continue to be your spouse and to continue to be your partner and ideally your cheerleader and your, you know, your fan, you know, and and and to me, the fact that you don't own this person, that they have free will, they have autonomy and agency, and they they choose you, not just on one day where you put on nice clothes and played good music and everybody got drunk, which is there's value in that and the memory of that and the photos of that and a reminder, but like the fact that they every day get up and continue to choose to be with you like that and and if you said to me that the reason why they stay with you is they don't want to get divorced. Like that's a terrible reason. You know, I I was a smoker many many years ago. You know, people used to say like, "Oh, you got to quit smoking. You know, it takes it's going to take 10 years off your life." And I'm like, "Right, like the last 10 like the adult diaper wearing years. I don't want them anyway. Like you met a 90-year-old, like I don't want to be 90. It's fine. Like take you're taking them off the tail. Once I made the connection between I feel better, I taste food better, I can run further and faster. Then it made sense to me because now there's something real and tangible in the present. There's something that has value. So it's the same I think it's the same thing with marriage. It's the same thing with prenups, which is let's not talk about what is this going to give us on the back end or what are we going to lose if we don't have this on the back end. Let's talk about what can this do for us in the present? What can this conversation do for us in the present about understanding what we mean to each other and what we owe to each other? As many of you know, I've been taking AG1 daily for more than 13 years. 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I'm beginning to adopt a mindset around contracts that they are a tool to embrace reality, both potential negatives, but also to enrich the positives and imagination. I think imagination too. I think that marriage is about an imagined future, right? Like it's about we're going to build this thing. What's it look like? Like when you and your business partner sat down together, you had an imagination together. Like you weren't just like, "Okay, what are we going to do today? What are we building? What do we want it to be?" You know, and by the way, it never ends up being what you thought it would be. It it it's turns into something completely different. There was no premonition. I mean, that's a very different scenario. But but I don't think it's really even that different. I think that, you know, if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. Like, I think the best thing is this vague idea of like, what do we want to do? I don't know. some we wanted to do something exciting together. I don't know what exactly what's going to look like. I think this is the loose structure, but I don't know exactly what it is. Like, you know, you and I are friends. Like, we didn't talk about what we're going to talk about today, right? You know, we talked a dozen times, but we didn't go say, "So, what should we talk about when we're Why?" Because I think if we did, it wouldn't be authentic. Like, there's something so much better about like, yeah, we want to have a good conversation, something of value, something we'll both enjoy and then maybe the people watching would enjoy, you know? So, that's so much better. And and I think that's what you're doing with with a prenup or with a marriage is you're imagining a future together. Okay. What does it look like? Tell me. So it's not just about the rule outs. Like I think about um you know certain guidelines like in uh in the octagon it's you know no groin shots you know no thumbing eyes. Um so there's all the this is not going to happen type stuff and there's reasons for each of those. No matter what, X, Y, and Z are off the table. That makes people feel safe, right? Because you want to know that certain very dangerous things are off the table. But what you're talking about are a number of optins through contracts and prenups. Sure. And also markers like markers of Look, you spend so much time, one of the reasons I I I consume so much of what you put out there is I like to know the markers before I have the problem. Like I like to know like what are the things what are the you know measure what matters right like I want to look at what what has changed and then what can I do to adjust at that point and I think relationships it's the same thing like by the time you're in my office it's too late like it is so much harder to take a broken relationship and try to make it good again than it is to take a good relationship and keep it good and keep it strong. Like it's so much harder to g, you know, gain a bunch of weight and then try to lose all of it than it is to maintain a healthy body mass. Like it's just easier. So I think the same concept applies, which is be honest with yourself about what it is we're moving towards and what it is we're building and how do we stay at this place. I I don't like to just have it's not just about the opt outs like, okay, if we're split up, we're not going to have to hire lawyers and we're not going to have to go through the court system. we're going to know what the rules are. There's value to that, but there's also tremendous value to the conversation about what do we owe each other? What are we bringing to this rel because that's where the economy piece of it comes in, which is, you know, and this is the part it's so laden with gender stuff and it's laden that no one wants to talk about it or it doesn't feel safe to talk about it or to talk about it honestly. Hence 56%. Yeah, I think so. I think we are poorer for that dishonesty because I think I understand it's an uncomfortable truth. I understand that it's difficult to say like yeah I don't know there's something in me that wants it this way. Like I don't know what it is. I don't know if it's biology. I don't know if it's hormones. I don't know. But like I this is important to me. Like yeah I I want to have a fulfilling sexual relationship with you but we want different things sexually. Like I want frequency. You want you know you want intensity. like whatever it might be like the male sex drive, the female sex drive, like I I I they're not the same. Hormonally, they're not the same. So, is it okay to have a conversation about, hey, if we're marrying each other, we have a sexual relationship usually. And so, where it's at right now is good, I'd imagine. So, how do we know when we're slipping off baseline? And how do we know where and by the way, how do we know where when we slip off baseline? It's not a sign of disaster, right? Like if if I'm 8 years old and my eyesight starts to get really bad, it's probably more alarming than if I'm 52 and now I need reading glasses. Like these are more normal things, right? So why not say like, hey, I'm not saying the amount of sex we're having when we're dating or engaged is the baseline and if we ever slip off of that, it means that the relationship's in trouble. That's an insane statement. So do prenups include discussions or agreements about sex, money? They can money for sure, sex they can. And and I think the overall conversation that should surround prenups and the reason why I think people who get prenups in my observation are less likely to get divorced is at the front of this thing. You are having conversations about what do we owe each other? What do we expect from each other? What is meaningful to us about each other? What value do you bring to my life? Like, why can we do that in in any other relationship? Like, if right now you as my friend, someone said, "Why do you like Andrew Huberman as a friend?" I I could run off a list of things. He's super interesting. He's super interested. He knows a lot of cool workout stuff. He's a lot of fun to hang out with. He eats the same way that I do, like kind of boring. He doesn't drink just like me, so we can hang out. I don't feel weird cuz I'm not drinking cuz he's not either. Like, there's a whole list of stuff I could say. I say the exact same things about you except you know a bunch of stuff I don't know in addition to that. But you know we're interested we're interesting. Our friendship makes sense, right? So why? And by the way, isn't it lovely to hear what someone likes about you? Like I think it's one of the nicest things in the world when somebody says, "You know what I like about you, Jim? I'm all ears. Tell me." You know, or if someone who I love and trust and know, like I know you're my friend. So if you called me and you said, you know, Jim, can I give you some constructive feedback? like something I think you're doing that's getting in your own way. Dude, I would be all ears. I would be all ears. I would want to hear that. You've made that call to me a couple of times. Yes. Turning client privilege. I can't bring it up. But yeah, I mean I I think there's something that's an event in a couple's life, right? So why why in this in this romantic context would you squander the opportunity to have that conversation? Here's what you bring to my life. Here's how you make me feel. Here's when I feel the most loved. Here's when I feel not as loved by you. I think it's because when people hear the word prenup, they're thinking ending. It's about the ending. It's what you It's the contract that is going to divide the resources so we don't have to give a certain amount to the lawyers. Everyone's going to feel safe. You don't have to worry that you're going to end up with whatever less than there is value to that. But I don't think I don't think I could be wrong, but I don't think most people associate the word prenup with anything about the success of the marriage, which is probably why so few people get them. Is there any idea roughly what percentage? No. What's amazing about a prenup is a prenup is not filed anywhere. It's just you have one in your safe, the lawyer has one in their safe. It's a contract. And is it as binding as as anything else? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Because we know nowadays things like NDAs are kind of fluid. No, NDAs are fluid because NDAs are a relatively new construct and they haven't really been tested. Just like non-competes, there was a period of time where non-competes were like they were overly broad and they weren't worth the paper they were printed on and then people tried to tailor them. And now, you know, non-competes that are specific as to geography and duration like, you know, the court system, the living law figures out, okay, here's how we have to tweak it. Prenups, the same thing happened. There was a lot of prenups back in the day used to get tossed out, but for the 25 years I've been practicing, trust me, I've had a couple of prenups I've tried to set aside and I've been unsuccessful and I'm a good lawyer, but it's very hard to set aside a properly drafted prenup, you know, and I think that that's a good thing because again, the framing needs to change, which is everyone has a prenup. It's either written by the government and subject to change by the government without notice to you and then you can't opt out of the new rule set or it's one that you and your partner draft together. I want to return to prenups um and unfortunately to divorce but uh I'd like to talk about love and the contracts both emotional and practical around love a bit more. Sure. Do you think people are completely honest with themselves and with the other person when they decide to get married or simply to become quote unquote life partners or to just become partners? I mean, do you think that part of the um the allure of the dopamine oxytocin pheromone social crow uh cloud, excuse me, and all that goes with it? I mean, what's more fun than leaving the bedroom with someone you're totally crazy about, showering up, and heading out. Yeah. And going to see friends. Yeah. And you're happy, they're happy, and then going back home again. Repeat. Like, there are very few things that that are as um from the other side of of the fence to uh to see a couple that's really happy and in love. And you don't need to know or care about what they do in private. You just you can feel how much they adore one another. You feel the vibe off of them. Yeah. I mean, I think there's a pheromone effect of that. I mean, and there's really serious primate biology that supports all that that we don't even have to discuss. We can just kind of like put that one on the shelf and everyone knows what we're talking about. But, you know, underneath there is um like you said, our needs. Needs that in the future um somebody might not feel are being met. Sure. And that sort of thing. It's hard to anticipate one's needs too, especially if it's a first relationship or third relationship. You know, you need some And sometimes you know you meet the right person at 18 and that's a beautiful thing. Oh yeah. So to ext Yeah. and let alone express them. Yeah. I I think I've always said that the most dangerous lies are the lies we tell ourselves. And I' I say in my book that that all marriage problems stem from two underlying problems. We don't know what we want and we don't know how to express what we want. Even if we know what we want, we don't know how to express it to our partner. And I think those are two really different but but deeply correlated problems. I think one of the great mistakes we make is I think we fall in love very fast in what we call love. Right? I mean, I'm fuzzy on the whole love concept because a lot of what's described as love is like something that, you know, was designed in the 1950s to sell shampoo. Like I I don't I don't this idea of like you meet this one person and then that person you're going to be your soulmate. Like whoever created the term soulmate, I owe them a tremendous amount of money. Well, in some religions, there's actually a word for the god the god designated choice. Yeah. Like my bashert, my fate, right? The god-given choice. singular person that is going to meet that need. But even even if you were to say, okay, this is person's been selected by an omnipotent creator deity, that's at least more reasonable than saying, I've met this one person and they are now going to be the best friend, best co-parent, best roommate, best travel partner, best sexual partner, best confidant, best financial partner. Wait, all of those? like all they're gonna they're gonna check all of those and they happen to live three miles from you like and go to the same coffee shop in a world of eight billion people. Like what are the odds? Like I would definitely believe in God if that's the reality. But the truth is I I don't think it's like that. I think it's a combination of pherommones and it's a combination of dopamine. And look, I like I get it. Like I get it. I get it. But why do we have to look at it like those early days of a relationship where you look, we've both been in love, we've both been in a romantic relationship where just the person brushes up next to you or the scent of them hits you and it's like an electric shock through you. It's magic. It's It's just the greatest drug in the world. And And you ju But if that stayed forever, you would never get anything done. Like civilization would perish because we would all just want to sit there smelling someone's hair all day. Like we would just want to be around each other all day. And by the way, not just how we feel about them, how they make us feel about ourselves. Like why do you think affairs are so intoxicating? because you've been in this relationship with this person and they don't even see you anymore and you don't even see them anymore. And then you meet this other person and they're like, "You're fascinating. You're brilliant. You're handsome. You're" and and all of a sudden you start to feel brilliant and handsome again. Why? Because the observed, right? Like you're you're seeing yourself through the lens of this person's gaze. Esther Pel when she was sitting in the same seat you're sitting in now said that 90% of affairs um people describe as um they did them they had those affairs because they made them feel quote unquote alive. There was an aliveness that was in stark contrast to the deadness or lack of aliveness in the in the and it's not a justification. She was we were discussing the you know so what what is the underlying thing that they're seeking? Is it sex? Is it adventure? And in some cases it might be well her book you redefining infidelity like all of her writing I she and I were on a panel together some years ago and um I mean I think she's a brilliant brilliant mind and she has an insight into the nature of infidelity and human relationships, romantic relationships. But again she's saying the quiet part out loud and I again I don't think she's not a romantic. I don't think that she doesn't believe in love. Like when someone says to me, "Well, do you believe in love?" It's like it's like do you believe in oxygen? Like it's all around me. Love like love's all around me. It's everywhere. It's I guess the question is do you believe in the in the potential permanence of romance and love? Yes. Yes. Because with the same person. Yes. Cuz I've seen it just like you have. It's just it's a rare and special thing. You know, one of the things I' I've said before and I get pillaried for it every time I say it because people want to misinterpret it intentionally is that marriage is like the lottery. You are probably not going to win. But if you win, what you win is so good that you might as well buy a ticket. Like give it a try. Like give it a shot. Again, with a prenup, then your downside is controlled to some degree. But I I am offend now. People take that quote and go, "Oh, well, so you're saying that it's random. Like you can't do anything to increase your chances of winning the lottery of buying more tickets. Like marriage is it's a practice. It's work. It's" And when people say to me like, "Well, marriage is hard work. Marriage is hard." Like I I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know that love has to be hard work. Like there's so much that we put on love that romantic love that just doesn't make sense as far as I'm concerned by observable experience. If you watch people who are happily married, they're cheering for each other. They enjoy each other's company. But again, are they dealing with those early days intoxication to the point where if the other person starts speaking, they lose their train of thought? No. because they're building the life and a family and an ecosystem in the home together and you know they have to divide responsibilities as but that those two things do not have to be incompatible with each other. But you cannot throw into that equation ignorance and refu willful blindness to the reality of the impermanence of love and the fragility of love. Like my career is about the fragility of love. And why why can't we talk about this fragile thing and treat it like you treat a fragile thing? Like why not treat love like what it is? It's something that's so amazing, powerful, and beautiful that it takes sucks the reason right out of our heads. And all you want to do is be with this person and tuck in and just what what do you want to do tonight? Do you want to go to the greatest concert in the greatest venue and sit in the front row or just sit with this person and like watch something on Netflix and eat some popcorn? Yep. I'll take that. I'll take that cuz it's the best thing. Right. Well, the friendship piece is something that I've heard you talk about before and you know, you know, with all the discussion that we're having here about, you know, pheromone clouds and dopamine and romance and sex, I think that um, you know, I'll I'll put in a strong vote for saying all that's wonderful, but the mellow times just hanging out on the couch are different, you know, you know, starkly different, but um, are as bonding in many ways, especially on a backdrop of a world that especially now is, you know, chaos otic uncertain um threatening to many people even if you're successful in the world like the world world's a lot pretty overwhelming now there's a lot coming at us all the time through devices and through and through things you know there's a lot of uncertainty about our whole species at some point and criticism I mean there's so much criticism from the outside world so much self-criticism and comparison that there's something about having someone who sees the beauty in you and is cheering for you and that when you fall down their their response is okay you fell down like come on people fall down it's okay I'm come on get up you got it you got this you know something about that to me is that's the best thing like that's that's when I see successful married couples they're not taking the piss out of each other like that old all the tropes now of like you know like women just being like oh yeah he's just such an idiot Yeah, like you know that it's like cute somehow to like talk crap about your husband or your wife. Men as children. Men as children and women is the most loathome harpies ever to castrate a man, you know, like, oh yeah, well, please, you know, and she's this one, you know, there's nothing we're not like. I don't find that cute. I don't find it charming. It's sort of an American theme, you know. I I've noticed like I've half my family's in South America. Completely different picture. Now, one could argue there problems with the picture there, and I'm sure they exist. Um, but it's not the same, you know, men are children, women are uh women are cutthroat. Yeah. Yeah. And and the I guess for me, especially in this increasingly performative and curated age that we live in where, you know, we're watching on on you know, Instagram and all these other social media, we're watching everyone's greatest hits while we live our gag reel. And we're sort of comparing ourselves to like this curated version of other people's relationships and lives. And so a lot of the time we're just not feeling good about what we're doing or where we're at, our bodies, you know, like our minds, our success, our accomplishments. Like we're looking at everybody else's curated greatest hits. And I think there's something really valuable about having another human being next to you who's not criticizing you. Like even constructive criticism is criticism. Like there's some something about having another person. I'm not saying, by the way, that part of being in a good relationship is not criticism, you know, or the ability to like give feedback to a person, but it's like I said earlier about our friendship. Like if if a if you know it's coming from a place of love of like, hey, man, I know you're great and I feel like this is dampening your greatness or this is shining light in the wrong place. Like I think there's so much value in that but but again it requires these two people to have you know a conversation early on I think about what do we expect what do we feel towards each other and again you know to look at that as a I mean marriage is a contract divorce is a different contract a prenup is a contract like we're living in this world of contracts whether we want to admit it or not so why not admit it say it out loud It's not I promise it is not going to take away the beauty and the romance of this thing. Like I've been a divorce lawyer 25 years. I still get misty eyed at weddings. I still watch love stories. Like I watch Love on the Spectrum. I I literally cry every episode because it ever want to just feel the most affirmed you'll ever feel in your life because these are people who are struggling with tremendous difficulties and challenges in life. challenges you and I don't have and all they want is connection with another person. Beautiful. And there's something about like how they both at like oh my god I want this like a oh do you like ice cream? Oh I like ice cream too. Like and it's just oh okay good. Like we found a thing. We found a connection point. Like and you're just watching it on the edge of your seat going oh my god. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Good. Good. Okay. Good. You're doing so good. You're doing so good. Okay. They ran out of things to talk about. Okay. It's okay. It just, you know, and I I watch it like I imagine some people watch the Super Bowl like just on the edge of my seat. Like you'd think I had money on what happens to Tanner, you know, like I'm watching it and and it because there's something so pure about I just want to find love. Like I just want to find another person that I'm going to feel loved by and safe with and who likes me and who the way they look at me makes me look at myself in a more positive way. There's something so beautiful about that. And maybe you have to strip away a lot of this intellectual crap to like be able to really see that that's what this comes down to and to make it its purest distilled version. But again, I think that's something that's easiest and best to do when you're at the beginning of that journey, not midway through, not definitely not where it's gone off the rails. I'm thinking about standards of expectation. Uh and obviously social media plays an important role in that. Uh you mentioned that people showing their best lives, best selves, best everything. I have a friend who uh is very high up in one of the social media platforms, you know, let's just say in the in the original 10, okay? Um who told me um social media is 99% about women and female biology and psychology communicating to one another and to men and getting men to communicate to the world. things that um support kind of an ideal. Mhm. Some people are going to hear that and get upset and then I'm going to tell you that the person that told me that is a woman, which kind of bends people's brains around it. Um men will show their workouts. Men will compete with other men. Men will you know uh you know just show their their halfcourt shot prowess etc. Is that for women? Maybe. Is it for men? more likely in some cases more both all of it. But the argument is that this idea of ideals being presented as something to keep striving toward is very much the modern version of the Disney movie, the wedding at the end. Yeah. Right. The bride and groom and everything's perfect that it that there's a a subconscious text there we're all kind of aiming for and hoping for. And so we see the the the top veneer. I mean, let let me put it this way. I don't think I've seen a movie or an Instagram account for that matter of a couple resolving a really hard um challenge. Yeah. That wasn't like cancer or something like like a a psych like a a discussion, a hard discussion, a real one in real time. I've seen some staged ones that are just ridiculous where somebody listens. I hear you. I hear you. Okay. But that doesn't get to the underlying emotions at all. And so I think what's happening is um people are getting more and more entranced by this ideal and losing track of what you just described, which maybe the real ideal, this one from this show, uh Love on the Spectrum, right? That you're trying to find connection along the lines of simple everyday things that you can bask in over and over without the fear of them disappearing. Yeah. because they're not that hard to attain and they're not dependent on some transient dopamine wave that you just can't get back. But I I I think what you're saying is spot on. But but so I've always interpreted social media as a form of advertising. Mhm. It's really what it is. It's advertising. And there's two things about advertising that I think should be said out loud. One is that advertising is the dream life of a culture. Like it's it's the ideal It's the dream life. It's this idea of like this is what a Bud Light drinker looks like. You know, they're having a good time. They're with their friends. This is what a guy who drinks this beer looks like. Like, and which guy are you? This is what a BMW driver looks like versus this is what a Hyundai or a Subaru or Jeep driver looks like. Like, so it's the dream life of a culture. And I think there's tremendous value to that. Tremendous value to like what do we imagine ourselves to be? Like cuz whenever I'm talking to someone in a negotiation, as someone who negotiates for a living and litigates for a living, like I I'm not just interested in who you are. I'm interested in who you want me to think you are and who you think you are and who you want to be. Right? So advertising, social media, it's the dream life of a culture. But here's the thing we don't like to talk about. Advertising at its core is the opposite of therapy. If the goal of therapy is to create a sense of wellness and wholeness in a person, okay, advertising is the opposite, you're not okay. You're not okay. You could be you could be you could if you had you would have then you would be better. You're you're good. You're good now. It is true. It's actually delicious. But if if you know the purpose of advertising is essentially to say you're not okay. You're not okay. You could be redemption is available to you. Subtext. you're not okay. And if you did X, Y, or Z or God, then maybe you'll be better. You'll be much better. So, so, so social media is the same thing. You're not okay. Maybe if you did contrast therapy, saunas, cold plunge, you'd be better. You know, maybe if you took more creatine, you'd be better. Like, you're good now, but you could be better. And so, that constant barrage of our dream life, our our imagination, I mean, again, it's inspiring. It's really good for people in some ways, but to be inundated on a daily basis with you're not okay, you're not o over and over again. This is not a normal condition for humans to be in. And that is why I think to some degree, we find that like romantic relationships so appealing because you're closing the door and this person, you're okay. You're good. You're good. You're I have you. That's what I need. Yeah. Well, I have you. That's what I need. Yeah. And what a warm, wonderful place to be. Particularly like it's really nice to be in a warm house when it's cold outside. It's really nice to be in a dry house when it's raining outside. Well, when you're living in a ecosystem where information has become a form of garbage that comes at you from every possible angle all the time, devoid of context, and everything is an advertisement telling you there's something wrong with you. Why wouldn't you want to slam the door, close the windows, and be with someone and ideally a couple of dogs where you guys can just be warm and happy and love each other? And by the way, it's right there. It's so accessible. You don't have to buy much of anything. You don't have to like you don't need that much. If you have love and you have each other, you don't need And but that's why I think our society I think capitalism likes love in so far as it sells Hyundai and it'll get people to buy like the wedding industrial complex. Like it'll get you to go out and do all the stuff you do. But like the idea that hey, if we just find another person that we might realize that this is all the matrix like that I don't need all of that to be loved and I don't need all of that to feel love. I like the fullness you feel when you love someone and are loved by them. Like again, it doesn't even have to be a human. Your dog, why people are always like, "Man, we don't deserve dogs." Yeah. Cuz your dog doesn't give a [ __ ] what car you drive or what you do or how if you got six-pack abs. Like, they don't care. Like, they just love you. and you love them in a way that is like mindblowing in that again, do you ever look like people are always like, "Oh, well, you know, this person I'm in a romantic relationship with, like they're aging, their body is not as jacked as it was or they're not as Do you ever look at your dog and go like like I got to get a puppy, man? Like this dog is old now. Like this dog's like, you know, it's just more and more appreciated. It's just deeper and deeper. It's like the pair of jeans that you're like, "Oh my god, it gets more comfortable every year." Like and like love that's how love can be and should be. But again, it requires to some degree that that noise of that ecosystem, that constant you're not okay. You're not okay. That we can figure out a way to turn the volume down on that and turn up the volume on what are we feeding here together. Again, it may not sell as many cars. It may not sell as much beer. It may not, you know, but that's okay. Like that's the wholeness. that sense of wholeness, like that depth of connection to me, like that makes all the sense in the world. What you're describing is very alluring. And um when you said, you know, two people together in the cocoon, maybe some dogs as well, if one were just to inject a smartphone in there, completely different picture. Totally changes the EOS. You know, and I'm not trying to be a buzzkill here, but what you describe is so beautiful. And you know, if I look back on the best moments in romantic relationships that I've had, it was well, in recent years, driving a segment of the California Coast where there was no Yeah. phone reception. Yeah. Like the amount like the kind of peace that comes from that, you know, it's always moments of simplicity. Yeah. Always. Um almost anybody if you ask them you know genuinely ask them like what was a moment where you felt the most loved like their answer will surprise you like it rarely cost anything. It really, you know, I was on you and I both done Diary of a CEO, you know, Steve Bartlett, and you we both have a friendship with Steve and one of the questions he asked me was, "When when did you feel in your life the most loved and I instantly knew the answer and it was the silliest answer and yet the most honest and it I told the story about how my when I was a kid, we used to get pizza every once in a while and you know, pizza's cut in a certain number of slices And I remember my friend Tommy and I were having pizza and my dad like there was an odd number of slices and my dad had one slice and we like two young boys just devoured you know like three four slices a piece so there's only one more slice left and of course he and I are both looking at it even though we'd had like three or four slices of pizza and my dad had only had one and my dad went like yeah you guys can have it and we split that last piece my friend and I and a couple of weeks later I was at his house and ordered pizza And the his father just like ate the last slice of pizza. He ate like more slices than we did. And I remember looking at him and thinking, "My dad would never do that." And I remember thinking, "Oh, he loves me." Like I I just felt it to my core that like he loves me so much. Like I know he wanted that other piece of pizza, but the joy he felt in watching me eat another piece of pizza was bigger than the hunger he had for another piece of pizza. That is the purest expression of love. And like most people, if you say to them like, "What was a moment in your romantic relationship where you felt loved or you just felt joy inside yourself?" Like they like, "God, I'd rather be here than anywhere in the world." The answer is not going to be we were at the most expensive restaurant and we were or we were having the most mind-blowing sex like that. Listen, you'll have fond memories of all those things, but it's some little moment of just connection or just the feeling of like holding this person's hand or like the way that the light hit them at the particular sunset when you were sitting outside together. Like, and to me, like, of course, modern consumer culture doesn't shove that down your throat because you don't need anything. You don't need to buy anything to experience that. You don't need to do anything to experience that other than find another person and love them, you know, and let them love you. And that's not doesn't require a lot of purchases. I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge one of our sponsors, Function. Last year, I became a Function member after searching for the most comprehensive approach to lab testing. Function provides over 100 advanced lab tests that give you a key snapshot of your entire bodily health. 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And I should say by taking a second function test, that approach worked. Comprehensive blood testing is vitally important. There's so many things related to your mental and physical health that can only be detected in a blood test. The problem is blood testing has always been very expensive and complicated. In contrast, I've been super impressed by function simplicity and at the level of cost. It is very affordable. As a consequence, I decided to join their scientific advisory board and I'm thrilled that they're sponsoring the podcast. If you'd like to try Function, you can go to functionhealth.com/huberman. Function currently has a wait list of over 250,000 people, but they're offering early access to Huberman podcast listeners. Again, that's functionhealth.com/huberman to get early access to Function. You got my mind going to a number of of uh pleasant memories and examples, but I love I love your your pizza example. I'll just quickly give one. I uh I was in a long relationship with somebody. We're still on on very good terms, and we still laugh um and delight in this one moment. There's there's a a a diner here in Los Angeles that we had come to that uh it's closed now, but it's still there. Yeah. Every time I drive past it, I think about this. Yeah. Like I I I think about this and you think about her. I think about her and we were on a it was a early early days of of dating and um I remember she asked for cream for her coffee and put like a little bit more cream than one would normally put in the coffee. And I was like, "A little cream with your coffee?" She's like, "Well, actually, I want to put the whole thing in here, but I'm trying to be polite." And I said, "Put the whole thing in." And without hesitating, she just went and put the entire beaker of of cream in there. And we still laugh about that. And I remember that moment being so freeing for me because it was this moment where I knew she was relaxed enough to do it. It was hilarious for reasons that were only clear to us. Um, and people are probably bewildered about why it would be so meaningful now. And I don't think they will be. And to me, it it was a moment where I was like, I I I don't want to reveal who this person is. people in my life will know, but she has such a lust for life, like like full blast, all gas pedal on everything. Um, and it was like, I love cream. I want the entire beaker of of cream. And it was this this permission that she gave herself. So, I still delight in that. So, these little things, right? And I think as you were describing the pizza example or this my my example, what what clear to me is that the memory of say like the incredible early stage of a relationship or um some big vacation or event which is wonderful. That stuff can set a kind of yearning as much as an appreciation like you want it again. Whereas the for me this probably silly sounding uh thing about the the creamer the cream in the coffee or the pizza thing, you still have that like it's not like you want it again. You've got that. It's yours. It's never going away. And I think there's something very deeply biological and psychological about those kinds of things because I think they drive really deep pillars into our memory. It's like we still have them. I mean, look at the way you describe it or the way that I Well, first of all, there's nothing silly about that. Just the fact that you say like, "Well, that silly example I gave." Like, there's absolutely nothing silly about that. Like there there's there's I completely got it. I completely was smiling while you were telling that story because it's lovely. Because what is it? It's intimacy. Like the definition of intimacy has nothing to do with sex. Intimacy is defined as the ability to be completely yourself with another person. And what was she doing there? She was doing what we all do on a date. Those first few days, those early days, we have spanks on our personality. You know, everything is like, "Okay, I'm gonna" And again, is it lying? No. Is makeup lying? No. It accentuates the positive, decentuates the negative. It's not a lie. If someone was wearing makeup and then they take their makeup off, I don't go, "You're a liar. Your eyelashes don't look like that. You're a liar." No. Look, you're trying to impress me. I get it. Like, you're trying to be this, but eventually you're going to see this person without makeup. Like, eventually you're going to find out she puts an insane amount of cream into her coffee. But these are the things we love about people. It's what makes them human is that you're just you're she puts so much cream in her coffee. Like it's so weird to me. It's ridiculous. But it's but but let me tell you something. You still think of her when you drive it. You think of that moment like that was an investment that that paid dividends forever. You'll remember that forever. And by the way, it's not a betrayal to future relationships that you fondly recall this moment of intimacy where this person felt loved enough and comfortable enough with you to go, "Yeah, I'm going to take that mask off. I'm going to show you I like an insane amount of cream. I have no idea why I like that much cream, but I just do." Like, is that make me weird? Is that okay? And you going like, "Yeah, go to town. Like, whatever, man. Like, I like like I don't even use cream, but like go to town. Like, be you." Like that's the feeling we all want is that feeling of like yeah you're not crazy you make sense to me you make s you're not just like me we're very different but you make sense to me you know I feel understood and that to me like that that's the whole thing and so if you say well this is where we were in early days and that's the baseline and if we don't continue to feel that intoxicated by each other that we're doing it wrong okay then then it's You've said an impossible stand. That's like saying I'm not in the shape I was in when I was 25, so I must be doing something wrong. No, like that the the organism doesn't change. It doesn't evolve that way. Like this is the nature of things is that it's supposed to be what it is. Like it's supposed to merge or evolve into something different. But again, having conversations about what that is and what it looks like, that that's the best possible way to preserve what's best in it. And I think starting a marriage with we're not going to talk about any of that. We're not going to look at any of it. We're just in love. That's all that matters. We're just in love. That's all that matters. Let's talk about any of this other stuff. Like that's not that's that to me, you're doing yourself a disservice. Start early. by creating the pattern of we're just going to say it. We're just going to say it. We're just going to say what we're doing right, what we're doing that that hit the wrong way. Like, cuz here's the thing, like you and I are friends. If if if you hurt my feelings, if we had a conversation and you said something and it just hurt my feelings, I know you didn't mean to. We're friends. I know you don't want to hurt me. I don't want to hurt you. You're my friend. Like, I get it. But I'm going to probably say something sometime that hurts you. and I didn't mean to, you know. So, what do you do? Carry that around? Just don't say it out loud because it's uncomfortable to say that to Jim. He's going to feel badly that he said that to me and that it upset me, so I'm just going to carry it around. That's how if you've been in a long-term romantic relationship, which we both have in our lives. That's how you're having some very benal sort of argument about like what's the best way to get from here to Calabasas or whatever and 5 minutes later it's like you know I never liked your mother and like you you never respected me and you're like where how did we get there? Like how long have you had that in the chamber? Like how long you been holding on to that? And the answer is since the day it happened. So why not create a framework early where if we something blips the wrong way, like I'm not saying dwell on it. I'm not saying put a person in a defensive situation by immediately calling it out, but like if you if I said I'm telling you right now as my friend, if I say something to you at some point that hurts you, I know I didn't mean to. I know I didn't mean to. So I'm I'll tell you in advance, I'm sorry. I'm sorry cuz I know I didn't mean to hurt you. Doesn't mean what I said isn't true. It might be true. It might be fair criticism, but I know I didn't mean to hurt you. I know cuz I love you. And so if you're my friend and I love you, I didn't mean to hurt you. I know that for sure. So why can't we from the beginning? And that's why I like prenups because from the beginning, let's talk about this. What do we mean to each other? What do we owe to each other? What what are the benchmarks of this economy? Like what are the what are the exchanges of value between us? And as we grow and change, how will we hold on to the part that's most meaningful to both of us? Can you give some examples of what a prenup kind of the scaffold of a prenup might might look like? Um, barring the extremes of like billionaires and and um, you know, and and they have 19 Chihuahua or whatever it is. Good lord, who has 19 Chihuahua? But ambitious for actually one of my jiu-jitsu teachers, Paul Shriner, is he's got a remarkable number of Chihuahua. He rescues Chihuahua. I I admire it tremendously. I think Steven Cutotler who um is involved in a lot a lot of the literature and popular writing around flow. Yeah. Has a lot of Chihuahua and he told me that in in some country other than the United States where they translate book, someone did played a joke or something where the on the title of the book it translates as Chihuahua man. Love that or something like that. Well, I mean if you think about Chihuahua it's fair because if you if you glued like 20 of them together it's still not a great dance. You know what I mean? size-wise, just mass in terms of volume of it. I like all dogs. I I like all dogs. I like all dogs. For the record, I'm not being politically correct. I'm partial to hounds, but I like all dogs. Well, you and I are friends for a reason. Um, some some of the basic scaffold of our prenup cuz I How like I can imagine that if we break up, you'll get x amount of uh blah blah blah. Yeah. Maybe list off some like like core core tenants. So, so to do that, you know what you're what you're doing is we're going to do we're going to do a consultation for a prenuptual agreement right here. I do I do them all the time. Great. So, the first thing that Yeah, you're getting it for free. I mean, that's pretty good. It's usually $850. So, what I'll say is the following to understand what a contract does. The first thing you have to understand is what are your rights in the absence of that contract, right? Most contracts, that's pretty easy. Like, I'm going to lease a car. I know in the absence of that car lease, they have the car and I have the money, right? So, that's a really easy contract because whatever the contract is, we both want the same thing. They want my money and I want their car. So, now we're just trying to figure out what are the terms and how do we codify them? And then we'll come up with what are some things that could go wrong. What if I stop making the payments? What if I drive the car off the lot and the wheels fall off? Like, okay, now we have to start using some imagination about what do we do in these contingencies? But at its core, simple contract, which is I want the car, you got a car, you want money, I've got money. Let's figure this out. And if we can't, somebody else will get the car and somebody else will take my money. We'll be all right. We'll be okay scheme of things, right? So, this is the same thing. Okay? It's the same thing. So, if we don't marry, we both know that's easy, right? We both know we're in love, we're happy, we're together, we're enjoying each other's company. Now we're not gonna get married. What happens? So you suddenly the love goes out the window. The whole thing falls apart. I don't think so. That's kind of weird, right? So again, first order of business is why are we getting married? Why? Like what is the problem to which marriage is a solution? Like why is it so strange to say to another human being if I said to you, Andrew, great news. I'm getting married. If you said, really? Why? Like why would that be like what kind of jerk is Andrew today? Like it's why? Well, my parents it's really important to them that I get married and you know we're having a great time she and I but like you know her parents are very religious and they say oh that's a good reason. It's a good reason to get married. Like we do things to make our parents happy or our partner's parents happy. That's okay. That makes sense to me. I genuinely think that there's a valid thing there which is this is the reason why we're getting married or I want the tax break that comes with getting married. There's a tax break. There's a significant tax break. Yeah. Yeah. On federal and state, you get you different dependency exemptions. You get different schedules of how much you have to make to pay at a different town. Yeah. There's there's a whole bunch of purely financial reasons to get married. Like again, with a prenup, you can take away the risk but still have all those benefits. You can file married joint returns. You have all kinds of inheritance rights if you want them. Like there's all kinds of potential perks to getting married, right? There's also certain cultural legitimacy like that. Again, another good reason for people to say they're getting married, isn't it? Yeah, we'll return to that one. I want to make sure we flag that because things are changing. But I I agree. There's always the have they ever been married? Why aren't they married? There's this. We'll get back to that. If you say this is my girlfriend, that could mean a week. We've been together a week. Or it could mean we've been together 10 years and we have kids together. It implies you say my wife. Now that's a fallacy. That's insane, right? just just cuz we went and did like we 20 bucks Elvis will marry you in Vegas and you're telling me that that gives more legitimacy than someone who's got two children with someone has lived with them for 10 years but just didn't get the government involved like that doesn't make any sense to me but we've decided it's like presto change you're married that means now you're a totally legitimate relationship a family member told me that years ago I won't tell you what the course of their relationship was um said the reason to get married is because it's an additional buff buffer against uh walking out when things get tough and they're going to get tough. Yeah. See, I want to hear that a lot. And I you know what if we what if we closed emergency rooms from 1000 p.m. until like 500 a.m. Do you think people would do less risky [ __ ] Do you think people would go like, "Hey, you know what? If I break my leg skateboarding, sorry to pick on skateboarding. if the ER is closed, I won't be like that's insane to think that people in this dopamine state, you know, intoxicated by pherommones that they're going to say like, oh, you know, like we are legally married, I might have to guess. Like it's it's the numbers don't bear it out. Like with with the divorce rate what it is, it doesn't work. You want to create barriers, create barriers to entry. Like how bad do you want it? Like how bad do you want to get married? You have to there's a waiting period or you have to take a test or you have to whatever something some barrier to entry you have to pay some amount of money to get m I don't know create barrier if you believe in the barrier concept barriers to exit makes no sense barriers to entry might make sense again still don't think it would make that much sense but to tie it back to the prenup question so the first question is why are you getting married okay what's the purpose what is the problem to which marriage is a solution the next question is okay if we marry without a prenup what will govern mhm our relationship in the event that it doesn't end in death okay so if it ends by some other reason either I divorce you you divorce me we come to the joint decision that this isn't working some intervening circumstance occurs that changes the dynamic between us in a way that we couldn't possibly have antic anticipated whatever that might be a medical issue something with a child like I've had cases where and these are tragic cases but I've had maybe a in a 25 year career I've maybe had a dozen cases where people lost a child by usually some kind of tragic accident so kid falls in the pool drowns and they they cannot be together anymore like they are a reminder to the other person of this immeasurable loss that they can't wrap their brains around like and so they lose each other, you know, and it's not anyone's fault. Like it's not either of their fault that this horrible tragedy occurred, but it's just too painful. Like they just remind each other of this loss. They can't ever, you know, they can't ever extricate that from their feelings. So now I don't look at that person and go, "Well, you have you should never get divorced. divorces, dude. Who the who am I to say to that person? No, no, continue to feel that torturous pain or oh, go to therapy and that'll get rid of that. Like, like it's not it's not that simple. So, if that person who's been through that exquisite unique kind of torture, that person says, "Yeah, we just can't do that. Like, we love each other, but we just can't. Like, we have to start over and reboot our lives separately so that we have no memory of that anymore or as few reminders as possible. I have nothing I can say to that except of that's not a choice I could tell you is wrong. I I don't have the right to tell you that. So there are circumstances that can end a marriage that were not anticipated by or caused by either person's males. Right? So okay now what? Right? So so if we know in the absence of a rule set in the absence of a prenup what happens if we divorce? Well most people never even get to that step. Like most people never when they get married, they never sit down with anyone and go, "What's legally going to happen to me right now?" Like what just changed? You know, like what? Like you buy a house, you get a HUD one that tells you the nature of the loan and how much you're paying in interest so that nobody can like claim they didn't know that. You get a lead paint disclosure. You get all kinds of things. You get married, you didn't get a pamphlet. You just did the most legally significant thing you're ever going to do other than dying. And no one told you anything about what just happened. So, you've opted out of the title system. So, like right now, if you and I buy a house together, right, title controls, whose name is it in? If it's in your name, it's yours. If it's in my name, it's mine. If it's in our joint names, we own it 50/50 unless there's a contract that says otherwise, right? So, there are defaults in the absence of a contract. There are legal defaults. Again, lawyers make a ton of money over people's aversion to contracts. Like, it's great. Like the worst thing when I got involved and trusted prenup and I told people, "Oh, I'm doing this thing. I want to democratize prenups." All my colleagues were like, "Are you nuts?" Like a prenups are the easiest thing we do. And and we make pure profit on them. We can charge 5 $10,000 for basically a document that you go into Word and change the names and it's the same one for a lot of people. Okay? Or we've done so many of them that we just go, "Oh, this is just like that one." And you just change the and here it is and I can charge you5$10,000 for it. And if it's successful, I'm taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in council fees out of my pocket because now you're not going to have a litigated divorce. It's not going to be a knockdown dragout with whatever the government's current way of handling things happens to be, which by the way is going to be different 5 years from now than it was 5 years ago. I know that because I've been doing this 25 years and the law is completely different than it was 25 years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago. It changes constantly because politicians change constantly. So fundamentally what happens with a prenup is simple. We're creating a rule set together, whatever that might be. And it can be as detailed as you want it to be. So I've seen ones that have very specific things about how often we're going to have sex and um if we split up, what'll happen? Requirements. Well, what they are is either aspirational guidelines or it is tied in some way to some incentive or disincentive like some penalty. Oh, yeah. You're kidding me. I'm not kidding you. I I don't advocate for that. I don't think it's a good idea. But I mean, the story I tell pretty frequently is I I did a a prenup defense where I didn't write the prenup, so don't blame me, but I defended the prenup successfully where um for every 10 pounds the bride gained, she would lose $10,000 a month in alimony when they split up. Yeah. And a court upheld it. A court upheld it. The court in its decision actually said, "This is borish. This is disgusting. I don't know why you married this person who insisted on this being in the contract, but it's a contract. You signed it. He signed it. You're adults. You were both represented by counsel. And I'm It's enforceable." Whoa. Yeah. But did the marriage last? No. No, they divorced. Yeah, they divorced. And And she lost She lost $20,000 a month in alimony. He gained little around 20 20 pounds during Do you think that was the the Well, he was rich and she was gorgeous. I mean, you know, and he got richer and she got less gorgeous. But there are a lot of rich gorgeous matchups. Um pretty common. And that's by the way, it's gender blind, too. Like the seauite executive founder that you're talking about, like female founder, they very often don't marry. I know like some people in the red pill community want to say like hypergamy and stuff like that that like seauite women only marry like even more successful men than that. I have a lot of female clients who I have to tell them they owe alimony and they're like wait why do I have to pay I'm a woman he's a man he's got a strong back why do I have to pay alimony I'm like because you are a seuite executive who makes millions and you married the like super hot unsuccessful musician who has the like oops I didn't know I was sexy stubble cuz he looks really good like and that's you you married the equivalent of me marrying like the hot yoga teacher like I get it like but you know you you did the thing and gender has nothing to do with it. If you marry someone who earns significantly less money than you do and they have a diminished lifetime earning capacity, then you owe them alimony most likely. Is it always 50/50 of assets? Generally, yeah, there's a presumption that e equitable distribution, equitable meaning fair, is really the law, but equitable is presumed to mean equal. There are some reasons and some circumstances where where equitable does not mean equal. There can be things called wasteful dissipation of marital assets where a person has squandered money that should have stayed in the marital estate, gambling, having a paramore, a girlfriend or a boyfriend. So there's there's rule. But again, like to tie it back to prenups, what you're doing with a prenup as a fundamental is just saying, okay, there's yours, there's mine, and there's ours, right? like in terms of assets and liabilities, which by the way, I think is an excellent analog to the nature of relationships themselves, right? There's you, there's me, and there's we, right? And and a healthy relationship, there's still you, there's still me, and then there's this ven diagram of we, right? And of course, you don't want you and me to be subsumed by the Wii because I fell in love with you. You fell in love with me. Why would we want those to go away completely? But of course, the the Wii is like, you know, it's it's a it's intoxicating and you want to become the Wii more. But there's value in staying you and me and having a healthy we having a healthy, you know, intersection there. So why not in your structure of the marriage have okay yours, mine, and ours. So at a fundamental level, if you're going to have a basic prenuptual agreement, it's just going to say, "Hey, we're staying in that system. You, me, we, right? Yours, mine, ours. If it's yours, you keep it. Asset or liability. If it's in mine, I keep it. Asset or liability. If it's ours, we divide it 50/50." Fair enough. And now we're going into this relationship with knowing the rule set. So I get a big bonus at work. Okay. If I put it in my account in my sole name, I've protected it. We also need to have a conversation. Hey babe, you just got that big bonus at work and you didn't put any of it in the joint account. Like what's that about? Something going on that we need to talk about? Like and again, I understand people don't want to have uncomfortable conversations. Well, you can have like a series of mildly uncomfortable conversations throughout the course of a relationship or you can duck that and then have some really difficult conversations in divorce court. And to me, that's pretty easy like which of those two things I'd choose. So, at its core, a prenuptual agreement can cover as many like people put in infidelity clauses where there are financial penalties if someone cheats. Again, I discourage it. financial penalties. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Liquidated damages, whether it's a lump sum or a waiver of alimony if you're caught cheating. I mean, it used to be the law of the land that if you could prove adultery, a a person at that point, typically women because the workforce was predominantly male at that time. If you could catch, that's why like the picture of a divorce lawyer with a private investigator with a telephoto lens taking pictures of someone coming out of the hotel. It's like in everyone's mind forever because, and by the way, people still come in to my office and they're like, "I've got him. I've got photos of him coming out of this hotel with his girlfriend." I'm like, "Okay." Like you, you know, there's no like good spouse bonus and bad spouse penalty, right? Like you don't get like extra stuff because you were a super good spouse who never cheated. And you don't lose stuff because you cheated. like other than maybe the marriage, you don't lose like you don't get anything less. It's not like you don't get it. Used to be if you could prove adultery, you waved alimony. So if this person cheated, they weren't allowed to ask for alimony. That was abolished in the 1970s by statute. So it's gone now. It's not divorce. No fault divorce is the law of the land according to the prenup or according to the law again according to the law as it stands, which has changed dramatically over 25 years and varies stateto state. Whereas with a prenuptual agreement, you're agreeing on a rule set. You're agreeing and again, if people want to agree to weird clauses like infidelity penalties and things like you can do that and lawyers, we can draft stuff like that. No problem. who gets the listen pet clauses the level of it was very funny because when the team at at trusted prenup I you know I was the legal advisor piece of it obviously and so I was really feeding them so they could feed to this AI kind of all of these prenups I had done and uh Ben who's our tech guy uh he lives in Australia uh he he he called me up and he was like you do know like the pet clauses are actually the most complicated and diverse out of all of the things. I believe it. And I said, "Yeah, do you have pets?" I said, "Because I'll tell you right now, because there are people that go so hard in the paint on pet stuff like that, it's like they have custody rotation schedules for the pets. They have clauses about what to do if there's a conflict about veterary decisions. And unlike children, you are most likely going to outlive your pet. And so you have to have clauses in for if this pet has to be euthanized, can we both be there? What do we do with the cremated remains of this pet? You know, if we can't agree on a park or whatever that it's going to be sprinkled at, should we each get half and then we can do what we want with it? Like these are things that again have that convers because here's the thing. If we have that conversation when we are now angry at each other and breaking up, right? When when hell hath no fury like a woman or a man scorned, do you think the answer is going to be a compassionate and thoughtful one that honors the relationship we both had with this companion animal? No. It's going to be I'm keeping the ashes. Why? Cuz [ __ ] you. That's why. Like that's the answer. Like I've had people explicitly say I had a case a couple weeks ago where we went in and had like it was supposed to be a four-way discussion, but I was doing like shuttle stuff. So, I'm talking to the wife and her counsel, and I've got my client in another conference room, and these people own like 12 properties, like really high netw worth case, and I said, "Look, which which of these properties do you want to keep?" And she was like, "Well, which ones does he want?" And I said, "Well, why why does that matter? Why don't you tell me?" And she's like, "Well, because I want to know which ones he wants." And I said, "Right, but why?" And she's like, "Because whichever one he wants, I want those." Wow. And I said, "Well, that feels like you're just trying to be contrarian." And she goes, "Well, no, like he's actually a pretty shrewd investor, so whichever ones he wants are probably the best ones, so that's actually why I want them." Now, look, whether that's true, which seems like a fair logic, or whether it was cuz [ __ ] you, that's why. Like, the time to have that conversation was not that moment where we're at odds and we both lawyered up. The conversation should have been had back in the day. you know, back when there was still an abundance of optimism and affection between these people. And so, pet clauses, great example. Like, I think there's tremendous value in putting that stuff in there because let me tell you something, heartbreak is hard enough. Breaking up cohabitation with someone, like I don't care if you're married or not, you live with someone and now you're not cohabitating anymore. It sucks. It sucks. We've all been there. It sucks, man. Like, who keeps what? And like but even if I keep a thing like I don't want that anymore. Like it just reminds me of you. Like we got that on that trip. I don't want to look at it, you know? Like and I don't want to throw it out cuz it's like it was special. But I also want to look at it. So I'm going to put in a box somewhere and hope that someday I'm going to open that box and smile and no one else opens that box and no one else opens that box and goes, "Oh, where'd you get?" Oh, nothing. You know what I mean? Like and that's, you know, like this is the challenge of this. But that's why having that conversation earlier, that's the way it is. So for me, what prenups combined is a long list of things you can bind with prenups. What's important is what's the prenup that's right for this couple. What issues are important to you? The simplest one, yours, mine, ours. 50/50 divide on the hours. Yours and mine. We each keep our own. Whether that's the stuff we had before the marriage or what because even like states like California that have community property. Okay, community property just to give you like a cliffnotes on it. And there's a couple of community property states. California is not the only one. So when you marry, what you own at the time of marriage is your separate property. Okay? And then everything you acquire from the date of marriage forward is presumed to be marital property. You're one person in the eyes of the law. So if you buy your wife a Rolex watch, you bought yourself one half of a Rolex watch. Okay? It doesn't matter. Title is irrelevant. If you win the lottery, she won half the lottery. Okay? So that's how it works. In the absence of a prenuptual agreement, community property is after a certain period of time, and that period of time varies from state to state. In California, 7 years. Once you hit that benchmark, all the separate property is now marital property. You're considered like fully married. You're one person in the eyes of the law. All the mind becomes ours. All the mind becomes ours. So the you and the me both becomes part of the Wii. Now in theory, the legislative intent, okay, was yeah, after a certain number of years, you're like the tree that's grown in the way that now it's inextricably. There's no more you and me. There's just we, right? Love that idea. Love that idea. Cool. Like very romantic concept, right? In reality, do you know what it did? It spiked the divorce rate at 6 and 1/2 years. Cuz why? Cuz 6 and 1/2 years, honeymoon's over. Like that intoxication's passed. You know, that early days intoxication's passed. The the creamer is no longer like Look at how much creamer she uses. It's like Jesus Christ, you need that much creamer. Like, I got to go buy more creamer now. I don't throw my story, man. No, I'm not trying. I'm not trying to divorce. I'm the skunk in the picture. She'll listen to this and she'll be like, wait a second. I know I'm kidding. No, you were still speaking of it fondly. So, I'm the divorce. There's nothing I'm just joking as if I don't bring a little black cloud to the conversation. There's nothing you can do to take away to puncture that memory for me. I love that. And by the way, all the more reason why it's not silly or stupid. It's incredible. That's an incredible thing, you know, and that's and we all have those things if we're being honest in every relationship we've ever had. In every single one. Nina, my girlfriend in high school, loved Skid Row. She loved the band Skid Row. She was madly in love with Sebastian Bach from Skid Row. And I was so jealous because I looked absolutely nothing like him. And I just remember that about her that she had a poster of Skid Row on her wall. Like how many years ago that was like she's a mother of two. Like she's a, you know, but I still remember very fondly like sort of like being so insecure about Sebastian Bach from Skid Row and her like kind of reassuring me like, "Oh, that's okay. I think you're much more handsome than him. And me being like, that is so not true. He's so good-looking. But like it, we all have those memories of every single, no matter how short the relationship was, we have a memory like that. And many of them, it's been eclipsed by the [ __ ] that happened at the end, the negative stuff that happened at the end. And and by the way, that's another good reason to control that downside because you can destroy 20 years of amazing, beautiful memories with six months of litigation. All you're going to remember is that last six months. Like that's it. Like whoever said that money can't buy love, you know, they they didn't know it's like a restaurant. The check comes at the end. Like that's when you got to pay the bill is at the end, right? if you do it the old-fashioned way, which is we're just going to submit ourselves to a game that we don't know the rule set of, and then when it's ending, we're going to let lawyers just go at each other, or we're going to rely on the the hope that we won't use the adversarial system, and we'll be able to sit across each other from a table with a mediator and hold hands and sing kumbaya. what you're saying is really important uh as forgive me um for interrupting but because I think that nowadays there's kind of a a growing I hear more often like yeah we were these are colleagues of mine typically like oh yeah you know we we were married we got divorced but you know we had 15 really great years we raised our daughter and they're still friends or at least friendly and they look they look on those years or at least speak about them I I believe them um with a ton of fond and without the kind the major injury of what you're talking about, which is this rough litigation at the end. So, that's another reason to have a prenup. Another great reason to have a prenup because look, I have an ex-wife. I've been divorced for 20 years. She's been remarried for 15. Like, she's a wonderful person. She's a friend. I care deeply about her. She will always be There's a lot of people I love I wouldn't want to be married to. And she would describe me that way. She she'd be like, "I love Jim. He's a great guy. He's a great ex-husband. I'm a much better ex-husband than I am husband. Totally different skill set, totally different resume. I'm an excellent ex-husband. I do not have the patience to be a good husband, but I have the patience to be a good ex-husband. I can be a great co-parent, too. I'm a really good father. You know, you don't have to be a great husband to be a great father. It's a different skill set. Like, just because you cook doesn't mean you can farm. You know, like those are two different things. Yes, they both deal with food, but they're two totally different skill sets. So fundamentally I think how things end very often impacts your perception and memory of the entire thing. And you as the brain scientist would be able to tell me why that works in terms of what actually imprints on us. But I believe and I'm sure there's some chemical reason for it. Pain, we remember pain more than pleasure. Well, you know all this stuff about 28 days to form a habit or adult neuroplasticity. There's something called one trial learning and it comes fast and it sticks around forever unless you do something to reverse it. And that's the basis of trauma. Yeah. Bad, hard, painful stuff. Yeah. Is etched into our nervous system in one trial. Uh sadly in some cases and it shakes you. Yeah. And it changes your memory of everything that precedes it. The truth is divorce of the ugly kind is trauma. Period. Like I am involved in a tremendous amount of trauma. Trauma for each of the parties, trauma for their children. Like it's a tremendous trauma. And it does not have to be like, but here's the problem. No one comes into my office and sits down in front of me and says, "I want this to be complicated and expensive and awful. I want it to last a really long time. I want to put your kids through college instead of mine. And I just I want it to just be just miserable. I want it to be a [ __ ] show. Everybody comes in and says the same thing. I want to be fair. I just want to be I want this over with quickly. And I want to be fair. Problem is their definition of fair and their spouse's definition of fair are completely different. Completely different. And what they think they owe each other is completely different. And now you both got guns on each other. You both hired lawyers and I've argued both sides of every single issue you could argue in a divorce. I have argued both sid probably in front of the same judges. I've had days where in front of the same judge I argue complete opposite positions on different cases because that's the nature of our job, right? And a weapon in the hands of of a of a virtuous person protects and a weapon in the hands of the villain causes tremendous harm. But the weapon is neutral. Like like and I'm the weapon like and there's plenty of me out there and we get paid by the hour and we get paid whether we win or lose. By the way, like personal injury lawyers and everything is no fee unless we recover for you. Not divorce lawyers. Yeah. You're 56% uh statistic reminded me of like Marines sometimes you'll see them with the tattoo like killing is my business and on the other arm it's and business is good. You say divorce is at 56%. And business is good. Business is good. Business is really good. And and and the truth is like I don't need to make it rain just cuz I sell umbrellas. Like I'm not at a bar saying to people like, "Hey man, you could do better than her." Like I don't need to. Like people are doing a fine job of [ __ ] their relationships up all by themselves. No, you're the love guy. Yeah. Oh, well I happen to be, but even my colleagues like we're not cheering for divorce any more than an oncologist is cheering for cancer. And like when people say to me, "Oh, you make your how could you? this guy, he makes his living in in people's ruined lives and heartbreak. It's like, okay, like my mom had cancer. Like, I didn't look at the oncologist and go, "Well, I bet you feel good about yourselves making money on my mom's cancer." Like, no, I understand what they're not. They're there cuz this exists and they're there to try to do what they can to help. And by the way, like there are so many people that divorce the way that you described your friend's divorce and the way that I described mine. You just don't hear about it. You know why? It's the least interesting thing. Like, do you think that's interesting? Like, if if you invited me to a party and somebody said, "Oh, what do you do for a living?" I said, "I'm a divorce lawyer." And they said, "Oh my god, you must have some stories." And I went, "Oh my god, I've got this one." So, there's this couple. And they fell in love with each other and they were quite young when it happened. And then, um, gradually like they just wanted different things. They matured into different people and they sort of lost the plot of what they were together. in the ven diagram of their their overlapping interests and joys kind of got smaller and smaller. So they decided amicably that you know they should end the relationship but they wanted to continue to co-parent really well. Dude, you'd be like that is the worst story. Whereas if I go like and then he took a chainsaw and he cut the car in half and he was like pick which half you want [ __ ] Like that's one that you're going to be like oh my god Jim you got to tell the story to this guy. Like you want to hear that story. It's so much more interesting. And by the way, people who have an ugly divorce, it's so traumatic that it becomes part of who they are. Like it becomes a lens that that they see the whole world through. It damages their trust so much and they're so wounded by it. And it's the fight. I mean, I Yeah. And they almost don't know what to do with themselves when it's over. And the and the impact on the kids and the pets. Yeah. And by the way, like most human beings, you and I both know, when they tell you the story of their life, they're the hero of the story or the victim or the victim, right? Like one of one of the things I like about our friendship is that like you and I are very aware of our own flaws and cognitive biases. And so we're when we talk to each other that, you know, like all of the people I like best are people that like reality, you know, and that see themselves with a certain level of reality, you know, and and so I don't have to be afraid to like talk to them candidly and blunt. And I think that that in marriage like and in divorce, if you tell the story and you're like, "Yeah, I could have done better. Like I really screwed that up, but you know, I did get this right and you know, she's being unfair when it comes to that." Like I when you tell the story and you're not the hero of the story, it's much more credible as far as I'm concerned. And I say that as someone who tells stories for a living, you know, in a courtroom to try to be as persuasive as possible. I always tell my clients, I'm like, if you make yourself the hero and you make the other person the villain, like you lose credibility tremendously. Everybody has to be like a flawed hero, a villain that has some traits of positive to them. Like it's a much more believable real story. The cookie cut that's why little kids TV shows there's like the villain and the music gets dark when the villain comes on and the hero is all good and all. But as adults, that's not what we want. We want Breaking Bad. We want anti-heroes. We want complicated heroes. We want villains that we kind of feel a little bad for like the Joker. We get it, you know, like because we can relate, right? Because we know that's what we actually are. And by the way, that's what our partners are. So this idea that let's just put a tux on him and a white dress on her and then everybody's heroes. Like that's kind of silly, you know? And and that's where I think that anger that becomes toxic and def definitional to a person. It doesn't have to be that way. If early in the discourse about love, we just normalize this idea of you're a human being. I'm a human being. We're flawed. We have hopes. We have fears. We have things we got right, things we get wrong. We're going to change. We're going to change in good and bad ways. if you want to parse it that way. So, how do we water the plant? Like, how do we keep this thing healthy and vibrant? How do we check in with each? You have a job. You have performance reviews, right? You have some system whereby there's feedback about what you're doing right and doing wrong or there's a bonus structure so that there's skin in the game. Like, why why does it make it less romantic to look at our relationship that way to say like, "Hey, it's important to check in on this stuff. It's important to have like routine preventative maintenance on this thing. Like if you said to me like, "I'm taking my car for an oil change." You'd be like, "What? You don't have faith in your car?" Like, "No, what? You have a cheap car?" Like, no. Like, of course, preventative maintenance makes sense. It's a whole lot better than waiting for there to be a problem, then trying to fix the problem. Well, I think it's this uh business of egos, right? It's there's something in the quote unquote traditional courtship dance that is about, you know, sort of um before people are critiquing one another, before people are commenting on the things that aren't working. Um where, you know, it's it's a it's a false reality, right? That you're only seeing the good, they're only seeing the good. Um and it feels good. And um well, sure, what wouldn't feel good about only seeing the good? Like the previews is the best part of the movie. If you watch the previews and you go, "Oh my god, that preview was good." Haven't you ever seen a preview and gone, "Oh my god, I can't wait to see that movie." And then you see the movie and you're like, "That sucked." Like the only good scenes were the things that were in the preview and that two-minute preview. Like, okay, well, what do you think courtship is? Courtship's the preview. By the way, if the preview sucks, the movie's really going to suck. Yeah. The relationships are more like the deer hunter or something. really they're long and they're complicated and there's and there's moments in it that you kind of go like I don't know what the point of this is but I'm in for the ride so let's do it right yeah hats off to anyone that got through the deer hunter it's great movie but it's yeah it takes some time to get through it let's talk about movies and and as a serious thing um couple years ago I saw you on a podcast and you were talking about the movie True Romance Oh sure uh love that movie anyone that was a a teener in their 20s in the '9s uh will remember that movie everyone should see that movie who's old enough and I get so excited when anybody knows that movie. It's just such an awesome movie and the cast is amazing. Um uh Gary Oldman, Gary Oldman, greatest scene in history. U Michael Rapaort's hilarious. Um Brad Pitt is in it. He has a little scene in it. I think Quinton Tarantino makes a Quinton Tarantino might make a cameo. He wrote it. Makes a cameo. Um anyway, incredible movie and Patricia Arquette who's just awesome and Christian Slater at his coolest. Yeah, very very uh cool movie and you you made the excellent point which uh doesn't give away the plot uh so no spoiler alert uh necessary which is that you know the essence of the movie is really about someone seeing something or a collection of things uh in somebody and just thinking that they're awesome. Yeah, I don't want to give away any more than that. you know, and just that that kind of um appreciation for quirkiness and uniqueness. The two protagonists of the film, without giving anything away, are deeply flawed. Mhm. Like they're deeply flawed by any traditional definition. Yeah. They are not something that you would go, "Oh, this is the perfect romantic partner." It's actually quite the opposite. Like, yeah, their histories alone are a reason to walk away. On paper, there's a lot of reasons to to just walk away from this person. and they meet and there is this instant true romance. There is this sense of like I see you for what you actually are and all that negative stuff on paper that means nothing cuz that's not who you are. I see who you are and I'm cheering for you and you you are so cool. Like that's that's the reality and that to me movie still stands up for that reason cuz it's this it's this sense of being seen with all your warts and all and just being I see you and you see me and it's you and me. It's you and me. Let's do this. Like you know let's hold hands and walk this thing together and it's a game you cannot win and we're going to play it to the utmost. like let's just play this thing through and and it's it doesn't get better than that. Yeah, you nailed it. Uh you nailed the description. I I feel that in contrast to how you described I think very aptly social media as an advertisement of of a um of a life to aspire to even if it's not um possible to have. I felt for a long while that movies and television and books and music were advertisements for exactly what you just described. The uniqueness and the quirkiness of a of relationships that are not typical. Um there's nothing generic about them. Even if the decision to um the the bond the legal bond that the marriage, you know, marriage is marriage is marriage is is marriage. I mean there's some subtleties depending on state and conditions but um but each one of those is unique that the right people found one another. So, so there's something really quite beautiful and special about that picture, right? True romance, right? As as seeing the quirkiness, the everyday things, and as you said, a a teammate perspective. Yeah. Right. 1 plus 1 equals three. There's tremendous value to that. Tremendous value. That's in very stark contrast to um what I think many people experience now where they have their relationship, but then they also have visual and movie access to all these other relationships in the form of social media. They're always being presented with other options of at least how things exist for other people. Yeah. And so I believe again the biologist in me thinks this sets a kind of a yearning for something that one doesn't have because ultimately all the good stuff we've talked about whether or not it's dogs or a person or the pizza story, the creamer story, whatever is about um basking in the completeness of what one already has. Yeah. As opposed to needing more or wanting more. So would you say that social media um not to I mean I teach on social media, you're on social media, but let's be honest that it um in some way maybe poisonous to things like appreciation, fidelity, not just because you can meet people there, but because of the yearning that it creates. Look, I you know, you you while you were while you were saying that, all I could reflect on was a prior conversation you had on a podcast about pornography and the effect that it has on us and our perception of sex, our dopamine, all these other things. Yeah, because young guys are writing to me about this all the time. Roms are porn. That's all rom listen, I'm not saying that there's not a purpose in having an ideal, a romanticized ideal, but but most romantic comedies are not true romance. a story about two flawed characters who you know like f most romcoms are like an ideal right they're a romanticized ideal that by the way ends before reality can kick in so like if you think Jack I forget what the her charact's character was on Titanic but like if you think he'd lived at the end of Titanic that a few years later she wouldn't be like all right enough painting the French girls like you got to get a job buddy like you're telling me like most of these movies, you know, these romcoms, they end at like the high I love you, I've always loved you, I love you, too. And then it ends. They don't ever have to live together. They don't ever have to You don't have to ever see like the actual reality of them at Trader Joe's waiting on the line like arguing over what, you know, like he doesn't find someone else. He doesn't find somebody else. He's not on sitting on the couch scrolling when she's trying to talk. So, she would have expired the age limit, right? Absolutely. It's like Manudo. He like you turn 20, you're out. I think it's not public knowledge. So, I I I think at the end of the day, what's really core here is look, I'm not saying let's get rid of pornography. Like, I have two sons. They're adults now, but when they were young, they got to a certain age, they had phones, they had iPads, we had the internet, and I was like, they're going to encounter pornography cuz it's coming at them in a way that it did not come at me when I was that age. Like, I was that age, you had to like trade like a bunch of things. You had to get someone's dad's porn magazine for like a day so that you could look at it. You couldn't just log on to any device and be inundated with any kind of kink you wanted to see. Yeah, it's inconceivable. It's it's not it's not even fathomable. And I don't know what effect I mean, you know better than I do and you've spoken eloquently about it about the effect that has on the organism. But here's what I will tell you. It definitely creates in people a per if sex if your sex education is pornography, you're going to have a really hard time navigating an actual sexual relationship. And by the way, like I've seen pornography and I've had sex. Sex is not like it is in pornography, but it's great. Like it's still so fun. It's like the most fun thing. So I I don't know why like anybody, oh, we got to make it better. Like sex is great. Like it's great. Sex sells sex. You don't need to put all that on it. Like I understand why. Yes, of course. It's like you want to you want it's just like what what they do to French fries at a fast food restaurant. They figure out ways to make them more addictive, you know? I get it. But but same thing with romcoms. Like romcoms is an idealized stylized version of the best part of all of it. Just like porn. So like if you make your relationship like your sexual relationship based on pornography or what looks good in movies, you're setting yourself up for heartbreak. So same thing with romcoms. Same thing with like I've met my soulmate and that's my soulmate and then it's perfect and it stays perfect and if it's not perfect then they mustn't have been my soulmate. Like all that is is pornography. All that is is taking the dream life, the stylized perfect parts, showing just that and then convincing people that's what it's supposed to look like. And if it doesn't look like that, you're not having a satisfying time. Like the reality is is that people are flawed but we want the same thing. We want love. I don't believe that the path of like I'm going to own 50 like you and I both know men who own every car you could ever want and could sleep with any number of gorgeous women three four at a time if they want to and they're unhappy. They're desperately unhappy. Like I represent people who have a net worth of you and I combined times a hundred and they're miserable because they don't have love. They don't have this basic connection with another person. They don't have the sense of who they are as an object of someone's love and the worth that comes from which by the way is foundational. Like look at a baby. Like look at a baby and look at how they look at their mother. Like mom is the name of God on the lips of children. Like there's something about like this thing loves me and and wants what's best for me. Like we come out halfformed and there's this person that just loves us, right? Like and and so of course we're always looking to find that again, that kind of love and that kind of connection. And there are people that find it, but the way they find it is not through fairy tales. It's not through the romanticized version of pornography. It's through realism. I think one of the reasons why, you know, I hear from so many young men about their challenges with pornography, which tells me that they've defaulted to pornography or that there are elements of it that have gotten them quote unquote addicted or at least in a compulsive way with it. Um, and I also frankly hear from a lot of women that are um frustrated with uh men dating apps and this kind of thing is that uh people are very afraid I think in large part because of what you're describing with social media and uh and other forms of media, but also just by virtue of the way that everything is um shared so much now that people are afraid to reveal any kind of flaws or authenticity in themselves. Unless it's the kind that they can leverage to make themselves seem more attractive or something because, you know, if they go out on a date or um let's say they share a first kiss or something that if they're not a great kisser that that you know, she's going to tell all her friends or or worse put it on an app or something that you know where his name is named. Um or he's going to sleep with her and and then might even share photos of it with people covertly. I mean things that are illegal slash just just breaches of trust like the the contract of of trust that is um purely I don't know for lack of a better word it's kind of a spiritual contract where you say hey listen like I don't know if this is going to work you don't know if this is going to work I'm willing to wager in a healthy way some of my own safety by revealing some things that aren't aren't like super great about myself and maybe you'll do the same or maybe you won't and I'll just feel okay just with the way it lands. That seems more rare nowadays. Sure. Um because it's brave. It's brave. Like I I grew up I wanted to be brave. Like I aspired to being brave. Like I my heroes growing up were from Last of the Moheakans, right? L Longon Caribbean, you know, the the like they were samurai like in in the films like the Moy Mashi films, you know, all those kinds of films. And so if you're not scared, it's not brave. Like it's only brave if you're scared and you do it anyway. Like that's the thing that makes it brave. Like and that's the thing we're we're not teaching young men anymore is it's like, yeah, it's scary. It's so much easier to just be like, "Yeah, women don't mean anything. Women just they're disposable. They're like iPhones. I'll get a new one. It'll have different features. It'll be great. Like you think Andrew Tate's brave? Like Andrew Tate's brave because he fights Muay Thai. That's brave. That's brave. Like even ground with another man, bare hands. Let's do this thing. Yeah, that's brave. But having a bunch of women and sort of not committing to any of them, not having being vulnerable to any of them. This is what's brave about there's nothing brave about that. Like what's brave is I'm going to give you the ammo to hurt me. Like I'm going to give you the ability to hurt me. like and and I'm and I'm gonna do it anyway. Like, and I'm I'm scared, but but I'm gonna do it anyway. And that's what makes it brave. And I think that that's the thing we've just lost in this culture is this. And and that's where I think it's so backwards like that we go, well, a prenup a prenup's antithet like it goes to the opposite direction. Like because a prenup is you're saying, well, I don't believe in this thing. It only works if you oppon That's insane. That's insane to say that, you know, if you don't if you take any precautions at all or give anything or by the way, more accurately, that if you don't trust it to the legislature of your state that you're not being brave, like that's insane. It's brave to merge your destiny with that of another person. It's brave to let someone see what you're afraid of, what you hope for and aspire to. Those are all like divorce is intimacy weaponized. Like it's it's it's and I say it as someone who's been in the room with thousands of people going through it. And I mean the pain and terror of this person who in hushed tones you whispered to them all the things you're most afraid of when you trusted them more than anyone. And now they're going to use that against you in a public forum in a courtroom. Like my god, man. I thank God. I have no idea what that feels like to have done to me. Like it must be horrible. But but again, like it's is it worth it to try? Is it worth it? Yes. But I think having conversations from the beginning about listen, we've got to figure out like is this the kind of person who's going to hurt? Are you going to hurt if you're mad at me? If I tell you something you don't want to hear, are you going to throw at me these intimate things I shared with you? Because if you are, pull the rip cord now and get out. Like, get out. Like if you tell I've had guys come to me, successful people come to me and say, "Yeah, I told her I want a prenup." And she was like, you know, "Well, if you have if we have now, I'm leaving. That's it." I'm like, "Okay, then let her leave, man." Like, because if if that's all if you're saying, "I love you. I love you more than anyone in the world and I'll love you forever." Great. Could you we sign this contract? Absolutely not. But then that's it. I don't even want to see you again. Wow, that changed fast. Cuz like a minute ago, you loved me more than anything in the world. and you would never let me go under any circumstances and you never hurt me. And now I just told you that there's a financial concern I have about letting the legislature make decisions about our future and you've now decided you don't even like me anymore and we're out. That's a hell of a jump. Yeah, good data there. Yeah. Real. But but I mean that how do you reconcile that? Like if they say, "Wow, why are you why do you want that? Do you not have faith in our relationship?" Now let's have a conversation. No, of course. Of course I have faith in our Why would I want to marry you otherwise? Like and what is it you're afraid of? Are you afraid that the contract will be lopsided? Because here's the thing. I want it to not be like I want to know what you're like, you know, I I was having a conversation with with the trusted prenup guys when we were talking about marketing prenups. Like how do you market prenups to people? And they were saying like, you know, like yeah, when you talk about it deepens the relationship and connection, okay, that's a very feminine a aspiration. Like that's a good way to sell prenups to women, right? is to say it's going to the conversations are going to deepen the connection and there's going to be this sense of like hey we're talking about what we expect of each other what we're afraid of and I was saying well for for me I think a great entry point for men in heterosexual relationships is to say hey you want your woman to feel safe right like she's with you she's safe you know her heart is safe her body is safe like you're going to keep her safe yeah provide protector yeah provide protector right so the one of the best things about being a man right is the feeling of like I love that. Like I you don't test that theory like say to any man, I can't open this jar. We go, "Okay, give me look at that. Here you go." Like, you know, we're thrilled for that opportunity. We all want to provide and protect. So, okay, why do we not turn the conversation about prenups into how can she feel loved if she doesn't feel safe? So, okay, in that situation where he has more resources than her and she says, you know, I'd like to be a mom someday or there's a good chance I'd be a mom someday. So, if I'm going to be the primary caretaker of our children and your career is going to stay your focus so you can provide, right? Then you're going to get way ahead of me in the race in terms of economics. So, we need to figure out like how we would deal with that imbalance. Who would say that's not a fair conversation? Who would say that? Now, look, if you bring it up when we've decided we hate each other and the relationship is over and I've been sleeping with my secretary. Okay. Yeah, now I get why you don't want to have a fair conversation about that. But at the beginning, when we're still abundance of optimism, we're still feeling positive about this, would any man say, "Well, you're being greedy. You're being a gold digger." No, you'd say, "Hey, listen. Of course, like you're going to make certain sacrifices and focus on certain things." And you know, I rarely have ever met a couple, a happy couple, that they go, "We brought the exact same things to the relationship. She's a great provider and I'm a great provider." No. Complimentarity is what it's of course, right? And so say that out loud to each other. I maybe you don't want to announce it to everybody and put it on your social media, but you can talk to each other privately about, hey, what do we owe each other? What do we expect of each other? If we split up, what should it look like? What would you need? What would I need? And you can talk about that in very practical ways. And I don't think that that I think that's actually quite romantic because what you're saying is I want you to feel safe. I want you to feel safe that even if cuz I don't I'll tell you for me even just selfishly I don't want you here cuz you don't know what you're going to do economically if we split up. It's not a good reason to stay with me. I want you to want me next to you because you like me. You like having me around. your life is better for my presence in it on a day-to-day basis. Not that well, who's going to pay my rent? You know, I'd want you know what? I'll pay your rent. You can have your rent paid. Are you still here? Because if someone says if I say, hey, if I paid you, like somebody said to me the other day, if somebody gave you a $100 million, would you still do your job? Would you still be a lawyer? And I was like, absolutely. Absolutely. Would I do it at the level I'm doing it currently, would I be as stressed about it as I currently am? Probably not. But I would still do the job because I love the job, you know. And the answer is if you had hund00 million tomorrow, would you still do the podcast? If the answer is no, stop. I've said this before, it's still true. I check in with myself now and again. If you offered me a billion dollars to quit the podcast, no way. No, I just love it. I love my team. I love the I love learning. I love teaching. Um, end of story, right? And so, so, and by the way, let's take that further, right? You get tremendous value out of it and the people who are participating in it, audience and the co-producers of it all get something out of it too. This is a totally wonderful economy. Everyone's getting some advertisers getting something out of it. Everyone's getting something out of it. It's like win-winwin for everybody involved, right? Okay. So, in the relationship between a a man and a woman or a man and a man and a woman and a woman because of marriage equality, in a in a romantic relationship, in a marriage, what if you said to your partner, "I'll give you $10 million to give up this person." If the answer is see you, then that's not the person to be with. Definitely not. Okay. So, so I would rather have that conversation early on. Like if you want to talk about barriers to exit, by the way, you can put anything you want in a prenup. So you could put in financial terms in a prenup that will give this person a financial windfall. I had a client who was a a young man in his 30s. He was a Goldman. I can say that. And uh he was worth like 30 40 million bucks at the age of 30. So he was in the beginning of his career. I mean he was going to do well in life. That's a lot of money. And he was marrying a yoga teacher who made like no money at all. Stunningly beautiful, funny, brilliant, like just insightful, spiritual. He was very quant, very analytical. And she just lightened him up and was adventurous and fun. It was very barefoot in the park. It was very like he kind of reeled her in a little and she pulled him out of his comfort zone and it was like a really nice coupling. and they did this prenup and of course they both lawyered up with good lawyers, right? So he hired me and she hired a a colleague of mine at a great firm in the city who I have a lot of cases with and um the lawyers went at our thing, you know, and so I put in a waiver of any alimony, spousal support, and the other side came back and said, "No, no, if they're married this many years, it's this percent, and if it's this many years, it's that percent." So, I go to my client because this is kind of a negotiation, but it's with a person who he's been going home to every night because they're cohabitating already, you know, and I say to him like, "Listen, they want this structure and this amount for and he goes, yeah, just like put like 5 million bucks." I was like, "I'm so wait, what?" And he goes, "Yeah, like if we get divorced, she gets 5 million bucks." I was like, "Wait, if you get divorced in a month cuz she's sleeping with a her tennis instructor, she gets 5 million bucks." And he's like, "Yeah, you know what? ific if we get divorced, I got bigger problems. Like just, you know, like, yeah, just like, you know, I'll know that if she's staying, I'll know she likes me more than 5 million bucks, so that's good. Good for him. And I thought, you know what? Like, that is gangster in a good way. Like, I loved that. And they're still married. Like, and that was probably 10 years ago, you know, and and and they're tra they got a couple kids now. Like, and I I when in that moment, I remember thinking, "Yeah, they're going to be fine probably these two." Yeah. You know, it never hurts and it often helps to be generous. I mean, I mean, sometimes generosity, people will look back on their generosity and actually no, I can't think of a single instance where, you know, I was maybe even pushed myself to be a bit more generous than I my impulse at the time would have had me be and and didn't think like in retrospect that was the right thing to do. I mean, I I've uh you know, haven't dealt with circumstances of a having that much money or b uh doing a prenup. Um, well, if you have that much money, it doesn't really mean anything anymore. Like I represent I have a couple of billionaire clients. Like one of my clients worth eight billion dollars. You know, it's like Stalin said, "The death of one is a tragedy. The death of a million is a statistic." Like I think if I said to you, Andrew, great news. You've won $150 million. I'm sorry, $130 million. You wouldn't go, "Ah, like the numbers on a page are numbers on a page." Start to feel like a drop in the ocean. There's just no, you couldn't possibly spend that amount of money, right? The the amount of money that money makes on an annual basis just in interest alone is insane. So, well, the joy in being generous is the opportunity, at least in this instance, or something parallel to it is the opportunity to do something that for someone else would be quite meaningful and for you just feels good to do. Yeah. You know, one would hope that he didn't say give her five because five didn't feel like anything. I mean, if he's got I think he felt he felt that was not his roomion. This is not a man who did not take money seriously. He he made his bones in it. But I I think what he was saying is, well, there's no way that $5 million isn't enough for her to be okay. And I want her to be okay. I want her to be safe. I want her to feel right. And he was saying, you know, cuz look, when you marry someone the right way or even cohabitate with someone or even get in a relationship with someone, you're kind of handing them a dagger and saying, "Okay, here you go. Here you go." Like, you can if you want to. It's yours. Like, if you want to stab me with that, you got here it is. Here's my soft spots. I'm going to show you where they all are. Like, and I'm giving you that. And again, I think that's the bravest thing in the world. And I think it's the coolest thing in the world. Oh man, I've done it a number of times. Sometimes it ends well, sometimes it doesn't end well. But I'll tell you, um, and by the way, with enough time, both of those, there's something really like beautiful about that. I mean, look, I'm I I've been reflecting on this a lot lately, and I don't want to pivot to my unique circumstances, but you know, since I was um probably since I was an embryo, but since I was old enough to remember, I'm interested and on the adventure of life. Yeah. And you and you're a romantic at heart. I mean, that's a function of our like our friendship is born of the fact that I think you're a romantic at heart. And I think you're I I think the people who have had their ass kicked by love and still go, "Yeah, I'm going to do it again. Let's do it. Put me back in." Like I love that. Put me back in. I love that. And by the way, that's the statistic that everybody forgets. Which is 56% of marriages end in divorce. And 85% of people who get divorced are remarried within 5 years. That's an incredible statistic. And it's an incredible statistic. And I And I And I've usually I do their prenup. I tell all of my clients, by the way, that if I did your litigated divorce, I will do any prenup for you for any subsequent marriage for free. And I've only had three clients take me up on it. So people are braver than one might think, I think. So I think, look, I think discretion is the better part of all valor. So I think I'm a fan of bravery but I'm also a pragmatic human being and I think there is value in saying okay let's dive into this thing let's do it brave let's do it but see again I think bravery on the front end which is bravely having a conversation about what does this look like if we hurt each other what if we end up like the majority of people what do we do like what do we You know, and there's there's value in that conversation. Come on. Any heterosexual man is going to tell you they've been in a conversation with the woman in their life where she goes, "If I was missing a leg, would you still love me?" And you're like, "What? Where did that come from?" Like, you know, like, cuz what's the person saying? They're saying, "Hey, you know, like if I wasn't exactly who I am, like what parts of me would you have to lose for for me to you to not love me anymore?" Like, I understand that question for what it is. I mean, to some degree, it's a thought exercise. It's anecdotal. It's funny, you know, and my response to it is always like, "A whole leg? Forget it." Like, you break a nail amount. You know, my response? Yeah. I'd love you more. Yeah. Yeah. And then they go, "Wait, what are you what are you into?" Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You be like, "Well, we we play hopscotch. I don't know." No, I just The idea is I mean, I think the the the question is such a beautiful one because it's a it's a question of vulnerability, right? It's saying if I were cuz generally people aren't asking hey if I um you know gained 50 lb would you still love me? Yeah. You know a missing leg is is more dramatic but at the same time it it's so it preserves certain things while it um while it removes a certain thing. It's very it's very well defined. I think that there's another way to look at it. You know there was a so I grew up watching LA Law. I think it's part of the reason why I became a lawyer is I loved that show. I I tried watching it recently. It's up on one of the streaming services and it it didn't age well. Um, but I I grew up watching like because of a lack of political correctness by today's and also like some of the plots like there's gender stuff in there that you're like, "Oh my god." You know, and it's also as a lawyer. I It's very hard as a lawyer to watch lawyer shows cuz you're like, "That would never happen." Objection leading like you find yourself going like this. None of my friends that were in a special operations can watch a movie that they just you can't physically painful to do it. But but I grew up watching it and I wanted to be Jimmy Smiths played this really cool criminal defense attorney called Victor Sephuentes and he had an earring and I was like I'm going to be him. Instead I ended up becoming Arie Becker which was the divorce lawyer on the show that you know like no Corbin Bernson played him and uh I'd never imagined that's who I would grow up to be but it definitely created in me this love of the law. But there was a character on the show named Benny and he was developmentally disabled and he worked in like the copy room and he um has a crush on this secretary and she says something to him about well I'm I'm trying like she's eating a salad and he says why are you eating that for lunch like you know that's doesn't look very good and she says well I I want to be skinnier and he says why do you want to be skinnier and she says well because if if you know if I lost 20 pounds you know I'd be prettier and he says no you'd just be smaller. smaller. And there's a simplicity to that that's completely honest. Like, no, there'd just be less of you. You know, like when someone says, "If I gained 50 pounds, would you still love me?" I hear that as both a a thought experiment, b uh you're looking for me to reassure you how much I love you. But also, what you're saying is if something changed, like what about me can change and what about me can't? Like what would be the things about me that could change? Cuz by the way, sometimes things change totally beyond our control. You know that the tumor is what made you gain weight. It wasn't that you liked Big Macs. Like so if it if if you gained weight because you were irresponsible in your eating habits versus you gained weight because of the tumor. These are two very different circumstance. But if what the person is saying is what do you love about me and what about me could change and and I would lose your love potentially. Again, what is that conversation but the prenup conversation? It's what do we mean to each other? What do we owe to each other? Where do we store value in this relationship? And when it changes, not if, when it changes, what changes, can we communi how can we communicate about what those changes feel like? Because here's the thing. If we're having less sex 10 years into the relationship, I don't think that's abnormal. Like when you're first dating, the amount of sex you're having and the amount of sex you're having 10 years later with two kids is probably going to be different and probably less. Does that mean something's wrong in your relationship? Not necessarily. Like you're also aging. That might change. Your testosterone levels change. Maybe her body changes when you had kids. Who knows? By the way, if you're having more sex, does it mean your relationship's healthy? Not necessarily. Right? So the question becomes is when things change, how will we check in about it? Because I don't think let's just pretend everything's exactly the same and it's fine. It's fine. It's fine. I don't think that's the answer. I think that's what gets us a 56% divorce rate. I've heard it said that um men marry women thinking that they're not going to change. Women marry men thinking they will change. And there in lies the the challenge. I I think there's a saying, but yeah, I mean, there's a lot of good axioms. The one I've heard before that I think is is similar is that um women marry the man they want to spend the rest of their life with and men marry the woman they don't want to imagine the rest of their life without. That's a more romantic version. Women are women are parsing it in the imagined future with this person and men are thinking about the imagined future loss. I've spent a lot of time in the room with people who have recently been caught or caught their spouse cheating. And the most common question the man wants to know is, "Did you [ __ ] him?" And the most common question the women want to know is, "Do you love her?" And that says something about value for those two people. Because for the man it's like the the the did did did you like did you betray me physically, right? And for the woman it's like do you not do I have no value to you anymore? Do you not love me? Do you want this person more than you want me? It's more about the the value than the sex necessarily. Right? And again, I'm not saying all men. I'm not saying all women, but I think there there is a sense in men, a lot of the men, I say this even my personal relationships with with male friends that they're like, "Yeah, like they once they find someone that they're like, "Yeah, I just can't imagine like her not being here." And they they marry because they're like, "I got to marry her or else I'm going to lose her." You know, like I never met a guy who's like, "I can't wait for my wedding day and I've imagined my tux and I just can't wait." Like that's not it's just not something men I I don't know a lot of men that like could dreaming of their wedding day. Whereas I know a lot of women again some of that's cultural that we've been shoving weddings down women's throats and you get to be a princess for a day and wear the dress and everyone's paying attention to you because the bride's the star of the show. You know I get it. But but there is also something about the idea that like you know most of the men I know they're like yeah we got married cuz like you know like that's what you do like you make an honest woman of her you know like that's her parents would have killed me if we didn't get married her friends were all getting married so it was like you know all of her friends she's been a bridesmaid eight times like I was like it's about time you know whereas women very often it's like where is this going where is this going are we moving and again there's probably a myriad of reasons evolutionary biological having to do with procreation There's lots of cultural, religious, there's all kinds of but at the end we are where we are in that equation. And I think marriage is something most men are like, okay, if that's the price, like if I got to buy that ticket to take the ride, I like the ride. I don't want to lose the ride. I don't want to lose this person. Oh man, I'm just uh I'm not I'm not necess sorry I'm not necessarily agreeing with you, but like I can just hear the the voices in people's heads about the really is that passive for men? You know, this sort of like it it sounds like almost like a a passive response like yeah, I guess there's really no other path here, right? I've had a lot Let me tell you something. People lie to their therapist. They don't lie to their divorce lawyer. Like I have had 25 years of conversations with men who are ending a marriage or starting a marriage and getting a prenup or thinking about getting a prenup, but they're too afraid to say anything to her about it. I've had those same things with women. I've represented roughly half half men, half women. And and I'm telling you, like you don't have to like the truth. The truth is the truth. Like you don't have to like like I get it, man. Like don't shoot the messenger. Like that's how it is, you know? And every time I speak about these things because they're so tied in with gender stuff and they're so I I know I'm putting a huge target and everyone's like, "Oh, this guy I I don't care because here's the thing. Sit in my office for a week." Well, you're an equal opportunity assassin when it comes to these conversations. I mean, sure. Sure. What you just said kind of puts a target on men in the sense that it makes them sound like, well, they kind of went into it cuz there really wasn't another like trail on the on the mountain. Sure. On the other hand, there's something kind of um both romantic and uh and actually very honorable about yeah, look, there might be other options, but this is the one I like and she really wanted this and I wanted her and so that's the contract. I mean, there's there's something pretty nice. How is that passive? How is that passive? That's love. It's it's love economy of love. What you like going to antique shows? I don't. But you know what? if she wants to go to if that's something she enjoys. You think she enjoys Brazilian jiu-jitsu tournaments? Have you smelled one? Like, trust me, that's not But she, you know what? I love it. And she's excited to see me be so excited. One. I've never been to one, but I can imagine. Trust me, you can smell it from here. It's unbelievable. The funk is like you'd never believe in your whole life. The only other thing is like equestrian is maybe the only other habit that could smell as bad as that. But the truth is part of love is you you know, yeah, you you want that slice of pizza more than I do. Like part of it is like the okay like this is important to you. Yeah. The pleasure and sacrifice, right? Well, because listen, if it's important to me and it's important to you, am I doing it for you or am I doing it for me or both of us? Like what's beautiful is when you're not sacrificing to give, you know, when there's this feeling of like if this is important to you, it just became important to me. Like, and that but that's at the core of any healthy relationship. You know, if you say to me as my friend like, "Jim, this upsets me." Okay. Or I'm scared of this. If I go, "Well, I'm not scared of that." You know, like, "Thanks. That didn't do anything for me." Yeah. It sort of ceases to be a friendship at that point, right? When you say to someone like, "Hey, I get that, man. You know what? Honestly, like I understand that. Like, I don't I'm not afraid of that. And here's here's how I think about it, which is why I'm not afraid of it." like and I hope that maybe helps, you know, like and and that's what or just hearing the person and going like, "Yeah, I get that, man. Hey, that's fair. Like people are afraid of I got some stuff I'm afraid of that you're probably not afraid of. Like that's okay." So why is it I don't think there's something passive about a man saying, "Yeah, marriage was not that important to me, but it was important to her, and what's important to her becomes important to me because she's important to me." Like that's beautiful. Yeah. I didn't want to imply it was it was passive. I want to be very clear. I think that some people might be surprised to learn that many men, because I agree with you, by the way. Yeah. Uh will agree to do things um not out of the sheer joy and delight of the thing, but the deeper delight of making the person that they care about happy. I feel like that's love. Like that's a big piece of love. And so I think marriage can be one of those things where just look whether you wanted it or the other person wanted it. Like there's something wonderful about you're excited about this. Okay, let's do it. But get a prenup. Of course get a prenup. Why would you not get a prenup? Listen, man. I love you and I trust you're a good driver. We get in the car. I'm putting on a seat belt. Putting on a seat belt. Why wouldn't I? Cuz there are other drivers on the road. There's other drivers on the road. You're damn right. There's other drivers on the road. And by the way, like again, this is a situation where there are rules in place whether you accept it or not. Like that's the thing about the truth, right? Like my beliefs don't require you to believe them. Like this is the you don't have to believe the truth if it's the truth. It's the truth. Like the there is a rule set governing every single marriage. It was written by the state legislature. Period. I want to discuss relationships that start earlier in life versus later in life. When I was an undergraduate, I took a course uh several courses actually from a professor um who was just phenomenal. Learned neuro anatomy from him, developmental neurobiology, gave me the only B+ after my freshman year. That's not to boast about my other grades, but that's the course that I learned the most from. Um I still remember the questions I got wrong. I still remember him explaining exactly why I got it wrong. was the best learning, right? Yeah. It was amazing. Um, years later, I went back to visit him just for social reasons and he had kids now. He was married. He had a new baby. And he said to me something. I don't know why he felt compelled to tell me um stuff about um his personal life and giving me advice, but he did. Uh because he was known for being a pretty rigid guy, very particular, which is part of what made him such an excellent neuroanatomist. Sure. And he said to me, "You know, I don't know what your personal life is like, but you should get married as young as possible within reason." And I said, "Oh, yeah. Why?" And he said, "Because there's this thing that happens when you reach a certain age that you need to have the toothpaste on the right hand side of the sink." And when the toothpaste isn't on the right hand side of the sink, then you it irritates you. and and but if you get married and and kind of merge lives with somebody early, you develop a flexibility and you go through a lot of developmental milestones with them. And um I found it both amusing and and and interesting that he would share that. I know examples uh of people who merged lives early and are still together. I know some that merged life early early lives early, excuse me, and diverged later, got divorced. Um I know people that get married, have kids later in life. Um I'm almost 50 in September, so this question isn't about me, but um certainly pertains to me in some sense. In your observation of successful versus unsuccessful marriages, is there a tendency for people who marry younger, Yeah. to despite the fact that they quote unquote might not know themselves as well, etc. for those marriages to be more successful because they go through a lot of these life milestones together. um setting aside here whether the toothpaste is on the right hand side or the left hand side of the so I've given this a lot of thought because the nature of my constitution is to look at patterns and look for patterns we're similar in that regard and so I'm always looking at that for 25 years I've been looking at like same religion different religion cohabitated before marriage didn't cohabitate before marriage age gap no age gap female age gap like she's older he's younger versus the other way like I try to find patterns And I try to the patterns that can't be tracked by the government in a certificate of dissolution of marriage. The patterns that can only be tracked by someone who's observing this, right? And I I I've really tried to look at that from every angle, including the angle that you just said, which is people that connect in the romantic setting or enter a monogous relationship or make a romantic connection even if it doesn't stay monogous throughout that whole journey. So, like they met in high school, dated in high school, or dated and then went off to college, dated other people, and then they reconnect to each other, you know, after they played in the other fields, and then they go, "Okay, now we're going to be together." Um, I've looked at all of that, and what I will tell you is in my experience, in my observation, what he said is certainly true, but it also ignores the the negative, which is also true. So yes, there is a scenario where people meet at a relatively young age, teens, 20s, whatever it might be. They marry or they become monogous with each other and then they eventually marry or stay in a romantic relationship together and they grow in that like tree that the roots become intertwined and they they just know each and they build a history together that is just irreplaceable, you know, because who like you were there when my mom was still alive, you know, like you were there when I, you know, got into law school, you know, like not just when I passed the bar, not just when I built like you were here for this whole trajectory and there's this shared history. I mean, you have old friends. I have old friends. There's something about someone who was with you when there was just no like no I have some friends that it's like dude there was no reason to be friends with me other than like I had nothing to offer you. I had no money. I had no status. I was a C student like and something about you still was like no that's my buddy you know and I love that. So there is a tremendous beauty in that and when it works there is also that people who have known each other since the beginning as they grow and age and mature and they reach the stage in life where they start to as we can call it a midlife crisis which by the way is not reserved for men like men and women both have a form of that that they start to say hey like have I really felt everything there is to feel. Have I I've only slept with this person for the last 15 years? Like there's so many other things out there. There's so many other experiences out there and I haven't had them. So there's a sense and by the way there's also a a a uh you know mistaking correlation for causation in the sense of saying you know I'm dissatisfied with my life and you've been here for the whole thing. So, it must be you that I'm unhappy with as opposed to the choices I've made and where they've led me or the person who I've become rather than who you be. It's much easier to point to the other person and say, "Oh, you're the reason why I'm so unhappy. I gave you my skinny years, you know, like it's over now, you know, like." And so, I think it ignores that. I I have not found, and if believe me, I'd be the first to say it. If I could find a pattern where I would say, okay, live together or don't live together or like these are ways to to prevent divorce is like this is what you should be looking for in a partner. Same religious structure, same whatever. You were both raised in households with alcoholics or you were neither of you whatever. I I don't see it. I don't see it. I think everything that's virtue can be vice. I think that there's lots of ways that being together from an early age can add depth and beauty to your relationship and there are ways that it can cause people to to not value each other the same way or view each other the same way. I think familiarity can breed contempt and I think that you know no man is a hero to his butler. Like I think that when people have been together through a lot of those things sometimes there is a familiarity that comes whereas again I think the opposite is true also which is having had someone who's in your corner for an extended period of time solidifies and deepens that relationship. There is no simple answer to that. I think there are a lot of things people can do in the relationship to heighten the bonds created by a long shared history and keep everyone's eye on that ball than to have them distracted by novelty. I also think realism becomes really important like looking at it and saying like you know if you've been with the same partner for 15 20 years that the fact your eye might wander to a shiny object like not being afraid to admit that and figure out ways to like hey I feel this now it's a human way to feel that's okay you know like how do we deal with that like what do we do with that is it an ethical non- monogamy which is what a lot of like younger I don't want to say younger but like a modern generation is certainly there are people coming up with different permutations of relationships where there's ethical nominogamy where there's a sense of okay we're going to have certain open things in our relationship like a lot of my gay male friends have been doing that for years where they had you know because again a societ like a a culture that has been ostracized and told that what you're doing is an aberration and you're not like which is what it was when I was growing up like the gay community was like had to hide to some degree because you could be literally killed for for for for expressing your sexual orientation. So, what did that do? Well, there's a freedom that comes with that to some degree. If you're on the outskirts of society, you're like, "All right, well, we just make up our own rules." I guess they're like relationship outlaws. Yeah, they really are. They're like, "Listen, like we're already told we're awful, terrible people for being who we are. So, we might as well come up with our own ways of doing stuff." So, I knew lots of of gay men from the 80s on who, you know, were like, "Yeah, like we have certain rules in the relationship. Like, we can hook up, but the other person has to be transparent about it or there's certain boundaries you can't cross in terms of, you know, how sexually you interact with this person or it's something that we'll only do together in the form of a threesome." Well, again, I it's a permutation of relationship that is between those two people. It's up to them. That's their that's the conversation the two of them can have. So I think there are things any couple can do to feed what's good in the relationship and dampen the negative impact of the things that are challenging in a relationship. I I don't think there's anything but but again the solution to that problem is not just pretend we don't have a problem. Just shut your mouth because if you say it out loud it's going to make it real. It's real. Living in the delusion. Yeah. The living in the illusion is is should really be called living in the delusion. Delusion. Yeah. Because I think these are precious illusions that people have and they cling to them and I understand why. Like it's it's nice to pretend everything's fine, you know, but it's not honest. And and I think there's tremendous value in saying these things to your partner, sharing them, hearing them, which by the way, that's a two-way transaction. Like if you're going to be in a relationship where you're able to say things that might be hard for your partner to hear but are important for them to hear, you have to be prepared to let them do the same thing. So again, that's why it's brave because there's this sense of I would like an uncomfortable truth more than a comfortable lie. I realize you've examined every permutation of the relationship structure and tried to correlate that with outcome whether or not the relationship survives happily or not you know divorce etc amicably or not there is one question that um I do think might fall into a distinct category. Sure. U which is the amount of time that people know one another before they decide to get engaged. Yeah. We hear about and it's been romanticized somewhat. you know, people, you know, met on vacation. I mean, you still see these in like in uh traditional media. I don't look at traditional media too much anymore, but um you'll see, you know, they met in Cabo for 4 days, went back, realized, and then there they are married or um but they might have been together 50 years, you know, or um you know, people were together a very long time. I mean, to me, nothing sadder. Here's the kind of like the Disney thing, right? When you hear about a couple like in their late 70s having been married very long time grandchildren, you know, they decide to get divorced and we all reflexively go a like there because we have the and everyone romanticizes the couple sitting together is all over Instagram, right? The old couple he still does this for her, she still adores him, he adores her. Um, so amount of time that people have known one another prior to engagement, any correlation with outcome? Yeah. So, what I'll say is a couple of things. Again, not a clear correlation. Like, we all have anecdotal stories we can tell of people who were together for extended periods of time and then split up. And we all have a couple of stories of people who like I have a dear friend who got a woman pregnant on the first date, like first date, like they went to movie and dinner and then they had sex and she got pregnant and she called him like a couple of weeks later and was like, "I'm pregnant. And he was like, "I'm marrying her." And I was like, "I'm sorry. Is it 1950?" Like, "What? No. Like, you don't even know her. You went on one date with her." And he's like, "Nope. I'm going to do the right thing." I'm like, "The right thing is to marry a stranger because you had sex with her and got her pregnant." Like, are you serious? You know, they've been married 28 years. 28 years, three kids. Happily. Yeah. 28 years, three kids. That's wonderful to hear. It's a warming story. Yeah. It's a warming story. It's an it's an anecdotal, you know, it's not it's not proof of anything. It's not a playbook. I'm not suggesting people go out and knock somebody up on the first date and then just take the take the chances. If you do, get a prenup. That's all I'm going to say. But, you know, I think that again, it depends on what like if I said to you, I go to the gym for an hour every day. Is that good for me? If your answer is anything other than, I don't know, what do you do there? Because if what I do is I walk on the treadmill for three minutes and then I sit in the steam room for a half an hour and then the rest of the time I'm on my phone, then I might as well have stayed home probably, right? Whereas if I say, "Oh, I never go to the gym." Does that mean that's bad? No. Maybe I do bodyweight workouts at home all the time and I never set foot in a gym. Like, so I I don't think it tells the story. So the truth is is a couple that's together for an extended period of time and has the kind of relationship where they're learning about each other through that process. Like practice doesn't make perfect. Perfect. Practice makes perfect. Look, time is good. Time is good in the sense that you're going to see some good things and some bad things. You're going to see this person at their best and at their worst. You're going to see them through some difficult times. They're going to see you in some difficult times. And hopefully you'll you'll know what you're like. If you got to drive a car for 6 months before you decided if you were going to buy it or not, like you know, you would know, you'd make a much more informed choice. Why do you think they don't let you drive a car for 6 months before you buy it? Like there's a reason for that cuz you'd see the whole thing. Like that's that's again I think it's a great idea. Like but you drive test drive any car. It's going to be fun, you know? I mean maybe you'll see like oh this is boxy. I don't really like it. Look, I've seen again successful and unsuccessful, brief pairings, long what I will say is when people have had a long court, I'll call it courtship period or pre-marital period that they used to deepen their connection to each other and get to know the good and bad of each other and see each other in good circumstances and bad circumstances and with and without makeup. And when you're mad and got cut off in traffic and when you're happy and blissed out. Yeah. They're making an informed choice. Like they're buying something that they understand what it's like. You know, like friends of mine say to me all the time like, "I'm thinking about getting a dog." Like, sorry to make this analogy for romance and and dogs, but it works for me. Somebody says they want to get a dog. Well, it's a beautiful day out and I want to go running with the dog in the park. Who wouldn't? But if you're not ready to have the dog when it ate something and now has diarrhea and it's raining outside and you've got to keep taking it outside and you've got to keep washing your c, then don't get a dog, man. Cuz you know what? It's not playing in the park all day long. It's I've got to get home. Why? Cuz the dog's been alone for 4 and 1/2 hours and I don't want the dog to be alone for that long. Like you've got to you got to change your life for this thing. So again, is it worth it? 100%. 200%. Are you kidding me? Because one of those sunny days is worth everything. And by the way, if you love it enough, even that stupid part with the like it's an act of love. It's like I don't care. Like I don't care. I'll clean up after this thing. I [ __ ] love it. Dogs the diarrhea. They they have this they feel bad about it. They feel bad cuz they're out of And by the way, you love them so much that all you care about is like, "It's okay, buddy. It's okay. You're like my dog throws up and I'm like, "It's okay. Get it out. It's okay. Get it out." And I'd give my entire left hand to have like one more week with diarrhea. Except that would Yeah. One more week. And And you know what? Like I think that that a romantic relationship there is no reason why you can't use the courtship period to sort of test all those permutations. And I don't think, by the way, that people would just stop buying cars if you had a six-month trial period on the vehicle. I I think there's something really okay like you would still find maybe you would when you made a choice you would really be picking one that you really like. So what I will say in response to the question I made a long answer is I don't think that a long courtship period if for example if the courtship period the length of it is a function of one of them being super reluctant to commit to the other person that might not be a good indicator. But if if the purpose of that courtship period, that extended engagement or that extended dating period is to really get a feel of each other in a variety of conditions, you know, like to know a thing, know its limits. When it's pushed beyond its tolerances, its nature emerges. So, I think there's value in seeing like I don't want to just see you with makeup on like because you're going to not be wearing makeup for a lot of this relationship. I want to see what you look like coming out of the shower, you know? And and by the way, like you should want that. You should want that, too. You want me to look at you with no makeup on and go, "Oh, you're beautiful. You look great." Like, do I love it when you put on makeup? Of course. But do I love it when you've got the flu and like I can take care of you? Yeah, I love that, too. That's beautiful in a different way. So, I think that if you use the time the right way, there's tremendous value in that. Much better than just throwing a dart at the board. Like, I find this person attractive, they find me attractive. [ __ ] it. let's do this thing. Like I don't think that that is a good recipe. I've seen a lot of divorces that come from a very brief courtship. But is that the death? No. No. I think sometimes people just get it right. I mean, listen, you and I both know people take it out of the romantic context who just get rich quick. Like they make one cool decision and it just pays off. They make one good bet and it pays off. And I know other people, man, they had to take the stairs. like they had to take they 15 versions of it and it went bankrupt three times and then one of the things hit and that was the one and then everybody goes I always knew you were going to be successful you know I always knew that really cuz I didn't like it was a series of near misses until I hit so I think it's the same thing I think there how you use the time is what really matters love it last question oh boy some people listening to this are in relationships some are married some are divorced some are not in relationships. Is there such a thing as a postnup for the people who have already been married? And what are the pros and cons of opening up that conversation and um the the contract itself? And for people who are still in the you know looking for partner exploring a relationship uh or relationships what whatever their life structure happens to be. um what do you think are the questions that they might ask themselves and the other person that would give some insight into um into not necessarily like should there be a a prenup for the dating um period but you know a lot of the things you're talking about are are in the circles of like close intimacy like what are your real flaws what are you afraid of what are you afraid I'm going to do that's not the kind of conversation maybe nowadays people do that that typically people will have on their you know uh fifth date or sixth date, but at some point it makes sense to have real conversation with somebody to try and make sense of whether or not you go forward. So, I just threw a lot at you. I realiz shot. No, but those are all really important questions, but for the for the uh committed and non-committed folks out there. Yeah. I mean, I I'm paraphrasing Jung when I say that the thing you seek most is in the place you least want to look. So, I think that, you know, a friend of mine once said to me that um the the most important or really the only question that therapy is designed to answer is what is it that you're afraid to feel? And so, I think that there's tremendous value in sharing with a partner and learning about a partner what it is they're afraid to feel. and and looking at the things about yourself that you're afraid to share. I I think in my own experience and I think in that of most of my clients, you know, I'm not religious like I'm not religious anymore. I was raised religious, so I don't really believe in the devil. Like I don't I don't think that there's like this malevolent creature that's out there trying to convince people to be evil. But if there was a devil, I think the principal function of the devil would be to convince us that we're so beastial that God couldn't possibly love us. Like I think I think the the the greatest mistakes of my life I always made. And the most selfish awful decisions I made, I made because I convinced myself that I wasn't good. Like I convinced myself that what does it matter? like nothing means anything like just do whatever who cares no one's looking just do it doesn't matter and when I when I look at whether you want to call it the presence of God in me Buddha nature call it anything you want to call it but when I when I hold to the the angels of my better nature like the part of my heart that is good and loving and compassionate and I let that be my compass right that's when the greatest victories the greatest joys like the best things happen. And I'm not suggesting being like ignorant and being like, "Oh, the whole world's full of like puppies and sunshine." It's listen, I I'm a divorce lawyer, man. I I live in the world of misery. But it it has not robbed me of the belief in the good and and the depth of the power of love, right? And how badly I want it and how bad we all want it. And so I think the most valuable thing that people can do is when you're not in a relationship or whether you're in a relationship is when do you feel the most loved and when do you feel the most loving, right? And then when you connect to another person, find out the answer for them cuz it's probably different. Like it might be some things that are the same, but there might be some things that are completely different. You know, there's a good possibility if you told the creamer story that she would be like, "Oh my god, I don't even remember that." Like, "I don't even remember that happening." And yet for you was such a So I think there's a lot of those things. Like sometimes when you ask somebody, "What's your favorite memory of me?" Like the thing they'll tell you, you'll go, "I don't even remember saying that." Like I've had people say to me like, "Oh my god, you said this thing on this podcast." And I'm like, "What? What was it?" And they say it. I'm like, "I said that?" I'm like, I mean, it sounds like I agree with it. Like, I I have absolutely no recollection of saying. I mean, partly I talk so much it's hard to remember what's important. But I I really think that there's tremendous value in being brave in the conversations we have with ourselves about love. I I I think that lying to yourself, because here's the thing, if you can be authentically yourself with another person, then you're going to feel their love. Like that's what I mean about the devil is the idea that like if I just show my partner the best parts of myself and I don't admit to them or or or let share with them the things I'm afraid of the [ __ ] I need to work on all that kind of stuff then I'm never going to feel their love because they don't love me like they love the character I'm playing like they love the persona that I've developed in this relationship and I'll never feel their love you know whereas if I if I'm brave enough to share with this person, the parts of me that I don't understand, I'm afraid of, I'm I'm I'm unhappy with, I'm I'm ashamed of and they love me anyway, like then I'm going to really feel that love and that love can be a transformative kind of love. Like that's a love worth having, you know? So I think anything that deepens your ability to know yourself and deepens your ability to know your partner and let your partner know that you want to know them. Like the whole thing like I want to know what you need to work on. I want to be here to help. Like I'm here for you. I'm here. It's just like friendship. Friendship's easier. You know, friendship's easier than romantic love. Like it's super easy to say like, "Hey man, I you know I'm cheering for you. You know I am. I wouldn't be here. I don't have to be here. Like, I don't have to be. That's part of why I like prenups. Like, I don't want you here cuz you have to be here. I want you here cuz you want to be here. Cuz you're in, man. Like, there was a time where we were in and we decided to do this thing. And that to me, like that's the whole thing. So I I think that's the secret in terms of a if you're already in a relationship and you go okay like postnups there's problems with postnups because from a contractual legal standpoint contracts fail for what's called want of consideration meaning that that in every contract there has to be an exchange of value like so to use the car thing again I'm giving you money you're giving me a car like we're each exchanging we're each giving and receiving value the The consideration for a prenup is we don't have to get married but I'm willing to marry you if we amend the rule set in the following way. So that has a mutuality of consideration. There are some courts that have held that a postnup there is no consideration and it fails as a contract because staying married is not consideration. It's assumed that you would stay married legally. So that's why postnups can fail. Now that being said, do I think the message that I have about connection and how to interact with your partner and the things I wrote in my book, like you know, my book, How to Stay in Love: Practical Wisdom from an Unlikely Source, the idea was not to to to just talk about people in troubled relationships or to approach people who were not yet in relationships and give them a rule set to start with Like I trained Brazilian jiu-jitsu for many years and people will often say because you know people are 30 40 50 and they want to get into Brazilian jiu-jitsu and you know there's an old joke I don't know it was one of the Gracies who first said it I don't I don't want to offend Her or or I think it was Hiler but I'm not sure might have been Hixon where someone said um what's the best age to start jiu-jitsu and he said five or now. And I think that's the answer. Like, so all these techniques, all these things we're talking about, what's the best time to implement them? The day you meet this person or now. Like, I don't care if you're married 10 years, 20 years, 30 years. You're you're telling me that right now there wouldn't be value in seeing your partner, allowing yourself to be seen by your partner. like a lot of the the practical wisdom I think that's so simple of like like in my book there's a chapter where I just talk about it's called leave a note and it basically just says like leave your partner a note like when you leave for the office in the morning leave a note like hey you know it's so fun on the couch with you last night watching TV I I married the prettiest girl in the world can't wait to see you again what does that take 30 seconds 30 seconds right nothing such a minimal investment didn't cost you anything. You That's why you won't see it on TV advertised, by the way, because it didn't cost anything. You don't have to buy anything. You don't need anything to do that thing. But what does it say to your partner? I see you. You're important to me. I took the time in the middle of the things I'm doing to to to to let you know you're important to me. Like, and who wouldn't want that? Who wouldn't want their partner, even after 20 years of marriage, especially after 20 years of marriage, to say, "God, you're handsome. Hey, like I'm just I don't know something about you. Like who wouldn't want to hear that? Like who wouldn't have their day brightened by that a little bit? And again, maybe at first your partner would go, "Are you all right? What what what are you doing?" Like I had a buddy who actually did the note thing and he said he was like, "Yeah, for like the first week she was like, "What's going on? Are you having an affair? Like are you dying? What's going on?" And he said, "But after like and I just said,"No, I, you know, I just I want to make more of a point of like being present, you know, and he said after like three weeks, four weeks, he was like, "Dude, I'm having like we're like having the best chapter. Like we're having more sex. We're having more fun." Like he's like, "And now she's like texting me in the middle of the day." Like, by the way, like again, not to gender things, but like leaving a note or sending a text in the middle of the day that just goes, "I was just thinking of you." Like I just wanted you to know I was thinking of you. It's the equivalent of sending a man nudes. Like it it because what does it say? It says, "Hey, like I know that the world's crazy and everything's kind of but like it's you and me. It's you and me and you're this special person that gets to hear these things from me or see these things of me that other people don't get to see cuz I'm yours and you're mine." Like and that what is better than that? And what is the downside to trying to giving that because worst case you spent 30 seconds of your life and you didn't get a return on your investment. Okay, you're no worse off than you were. So even though you may not be able to avail yourself of the rule set concept that can happen when you haven't married yet and you have a prenup and you have that discussion, I think you can still have that core conversation. Again, not about if we split up, how do we divide our assets? That's not what this is about. It's about what do we owe each other? What do we bring to this economy, this relationship of the two of us, this exchange of value? What what I have a I have a a a friend who's been married probably about 10 years, happily, really happily. And he was telling me how they they call it a walk and talk that once a week they just go for a walk, like a hike together. They live in Colorado and they made a practice of telling each other like two or three things that they did that week that like were a big win, like two or three things that like made them feel loved or whatever it might be. And then they try to have at least one or two things that they could have done better or where they might have crossed wires and they kind of do a praise sandwich, you know, like so they do the good and then a few of the bad and then back to the good again. And I said to him like, "Is there a discernable impact?" And he's like, "It's like the best thing we do." He's like, "Because it it really helps us course correct in real time." But the most valuable part is actually not the here's what you got wrong. It's the here's what you did right. Like here's the stuff that made me feel loved. And and cuz that death spiral that people get into in relationships where it's like, well, I'm not happy. Why should they be happy? And like, well, I didn't get to go out with my friends. Why should she get to go out with her friends? You know, and why I had a miserable day. Well, I had a miserable day, too. Well, it's like, well, why is your miserable day more important than my miserable day? You know, like that death spiral. You can reverse that. It can it can work the other way which is like just keep meeting this with an abundance of love, affection, compassion, positive reinforcement. It can and again not always like there are believe me I I work in the clay of domestic violence, intimate partner abuse. Like I've seen it up close and personal. I know there are toxic awful people who are just not going to be able to have a functional relationship. But find that out sooner rather than later and then cut your losses and get out. Like cuz I have to tell you something. I you you say how you know you see like a couple that's 70 or 80 and they're getting divorced and it's the saddest thing. It is. But it also begs the question like what would have happened if they were ills suited for each other. How long did they hold on? Cuz I got to tell you man, I'm not impressed when somebody says, "Oh, we were married for 60 years. We were miserable for 45 of them, but we did it." Like, oh great. Like great. Like I don't that's like that race they run in Death Valley where it's like I ran 150 miles in a okay like what do you that's great that's insane like but okay like congratulations you did something that sounds horribly painful and in no way positive like but if you feel good about it cool like that's not to me a successful marriage. A successful marriage to me is we made each other's lives better. We made our our our own lives and each other's lives better for our coupling for the fact that we were together. Maybe we created life and cultivated life together by birth or adoption. Or maybe we just radiated joy to the people around us, you know, or maybe we had pets and we gave them a wonderful existence together. Or maybe some combination of all those wonderful things like but do I think that the solution is like longevity and say no because I I I don't think that the duration of something is the success or failure of it. Listen, if you make a six-hour shitty movie, I'm not going to be like, "Well, but it was six full hours. That is pretty good." Like, no. Whereas, if you if you make a six-hour movie that holds my attention the entire six hours, that's a damn good movie. That's a that's a movie worth making, you know? Like, I'll watch Casino or Good Fellas every time it's on and it's like a full three hours almost, you know, and I don't care because it's that good. So, I think that longevity, like endings and how relationships end, the fact that something ends does not mean that it wasn't valuable, like at all. I think that's a really crazy thing. Like, every movie I've ever enjoyed ended. And if somebody said to me threequarters way through it, you know, this is going to end, I wouldn't be like, what's the point, you know? No, I want to watch the whole thing. I want to And knowing that it's going to end is part of what makes it beautiful. So, I I think that protections are really important. Prenups are really important. It's ideal as early in a relationship as possible to have some of these conversations about the painful things that I have to help people wrestle with every single day. But I I think the value received from that conversation is immeasurable. Jim, what I love about you so much is that you're willing to and maybe you just reflexively look at things through every possible lens. So if it's something dark like divorce, you look at it through the lens of that, but also does it always have to be dark? You look at it through the lens of a a lawyer's eyes. Well, I think that's part of lawyering is you have to argue both sides of everything. But I would also say that, you know, if ever uh, you know, people had the stereotype in mind that all lawyers are heartless and cutthroat and it's all just about money, I mean, you clearly shatter that because I mean, so much of what we talked about today wasn't about divorce. It was about contracts. And it wasn't just about contracts. You know, really what I kept hearing over and over is that by asking what at first are practical questions, you can really get to the emotional layers underneath those that really speak to what people need most in order to make things work, even if the relationship doesn't last forever. And I think that's such a an important lens on, you know, the kind of overwhelming thing that we call relationships and marriage and prenups and divorces. And, you know, I think it's enough to make anyone terrified. It's also enough um as you said to make some people bitter and I think we didn't talk about it too much because it's such a potent word didn't have to but this notion of bitterness is really the thing to avoid most right because it contaminates the thing that uh that you embody so much which is you just have such a a huge forward center of mass full tilt arms around all of it love of of life and people and dogs and and it's it just comes through over over and over in everything you do. And in every way that you describe it. So I see you as a Yes. a lawyer. Sure. Um not just a divorce, but a lawyer. You're certainly a psychologist. You're definitely on the adventure of life. There's no question about that. For sure. You're an anthropologist, which reflects some of your prior prior training. And you're just a really amazing human being in the way that you're willing to just launch yourself into all of it and consider all of this. And like you said, you see some really unfortunate things, but it's clear that you also see a lot of really wonderful and beautiful things. And I think some of the awful things are really beautiful. There's a line from U. Hemingway from uh a farewell to arms where he says the world breaks everyone and and some are stronger in the broken places. And I think divorce and and and heartbreak like heartbreak is like that. Like it heartbreak breaks everyone. And and sometimes we're stronger in the broken places. Like I I think I've learned so much through love and I've learned so much through loss. And I don't want my love of love to make me forget that loss exists. And I don't want the pain of loss to make me forget that love exists. Well, I and everyone listening uh really appreciate you taking the time to come here. Look, you you make a living doing something else. You make a you know, a fulltime day job. Yeah. You don't need to do this. um traveling across country. I Well, I so appreciate it on I love talking to you in general, but but we've never done it on mic, which is really funny. You know, we had some good conversations and you've been a wonderful uh and trusted friend to me. I also trust that if I'm going to make a dumb decision or if uh um or if I've made a dumb decision that you'll let me know. I'm there. I promise. Right back at you. I will in the future. Yeah. Well, you have for me. I don't have your legal wisdom, but right back at Well, I haven't yet. You have plenty of wisdom. a trusted and and amazing friend and uh you just have so much wisdom to share. You know, my dad has this saying uh that you know some people when they speak they just might as well have exhaled. He's Argentine. He's a little cynical but he also says but some people when they speak just wisdom falls out of them. And that's how I feel every time I'm in your presence or I hear you on a podcast or even a short clip. I I prepared a lot for today's uh episode by just watching as much content of yours as as I could possibly consume and I was like, "Wow, the density of value per unit time for your for your speech is it is unbelievably high." So that was the most humor description of me. I love it. So the density of value within the I I love your your uh the scientific lens through which you even look at the un unscientific although I guess everything is scientific in some ways. So, but no, man. I I I'm really glad we had a chance to do this and uh um you know, I I love all of our conversations and I thought to myself, it's going to be interesting and odd to have one, but I sort of immediately forgot that the microphone's here and the camera's here and and that's really lovely. Like that's the best thing, you know, is is when um like if you said to me, "How long have we been talking?" I would imagine it's like an hour, but I know it's way longer than that. I have no idea, though. I've completely and that's that flow state, you know, that happens when when we're wrestling with these ideas that are the most human ideas. And and I love um I I want to pay you a compliment. Um, you know, I've before we were friends, I I listened to your your program in the earlier days of it and I love how the journey of becoming fully human and exploring the depth of our full humanity has become like because something that was always very science-based tools and it's very easy to sort of just keep yourself in that box. you've really stepped out of your comfort zone, especially in recent years and brought in these things that really are the totality of the human experience. All these relationship things, the pet thing I just listened to, I loved. Like, and I think that that um we're coming to a time where we realize that like, you know, we're we're what's the old saying that we're uh you know, we're not uh thinking machines that sometimes feel. We're feeling machines that sometimes think. You know, I think that you're really starting to get deeply into the totality of our humanity, the physical state, the emotional, spiritual, all of those things. And I think that's what we need that if there is a cure to the ailment of our time, the partisan hyperartisan environment, the misery and anxiety that so many people are feeling and the yearning, the spiritual hunger that has people consuming opinions and podcasts like deeply. I mean, who would have ever thought podcasts would be what it is, right? like long form audio conversations like we would go back to the radio like when we have when we can world build with AI now and make anything visual for us that we would go back to finding wisdom in this and the fact that like we that hunger is being fed by people like you who are saying hey like this isn't science won't save us spirituality won't save us. Love won't save us. Anger won't save us. All of it. We need all of it. And we need to try to wrestle with it and figure it out. And and no one is necessarily better at this. Like you can whatever car you drive, whatever profession, how much money you have in the bank, you may not be better or worse at this. So I think it's really beautiful that you're you're you're the pallet of things that you're discussing has become so broad, but you have remained very much you and very able to like bring it to a lens that is authentically yourself and I I love that about the show. I like I I remain a friend, but I also remain a fan. So thank you. I'll take that in and right back at you. Thanks, man. And please come back again. you have a very exciting project that we didn't get to today. So save that for a future episode. It's super cool. It's completely different than this. And um like everything you touch, it turns to platinum. So thanks, brother. Thank you for joining me for today's discussion with James Ston. 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And last, but certainly not least, thank you for your interest in science. [Music]