Divorce Lawyer Reveals Harsh Truths About Love & Marriage - James Sexton

why are so many marriages failing today it's a it's the that's the billion dollar question I think you know and and I think I think there's a simple answer and then I think there's a complicated answer I think the simple answer is people disconnect and and I think that's the simple answer but drilling down into that why do they disconnect you know that's the bigger thing people say to me all the time you know like oh we're splitting up because he's sleeping with his secretary or we're splitting up because she spends all my money and she's you know imposs and she's dishonest with me about things and really you know that's the marriage killer right that final nail in the coffin but when you sit down with people and you talk to them about how did they get to that point you know where sleeping with your secretary was anything but a remote thought that might cross your mind you know when you saw her by The copier or you know when when being dishonest about the finances in the family was just something that oh I would never do that like when did we get there that that suddenly that was on the table that's the more interesting question and and and in my experience of 23 years of of being on the end of it you know being in the people are in my office it's done now the thing is dead you know it's like I'm the guy burying it when when you talk to those people you hear about a lot of small disconnections that led them to the final disconnection so I think the answer is disconnection and the question of how do people disconnect is very slowly and then all at once it's interesting to think how important communication is that if that begins to break down and if you start to have small secrets and oh God if I say this to her she's just going to chew my ear off again I don't want to have a fight tonight which causes you to hold things back which causes her to feel disconnected which causes her to hold things back which so so many of your past guests if you distill what they have to say about how to live your your life to like the the the key concept it's actually the same as what I would say which is the hard thing to do and the right thing to do are almost always the same thing almost always so David Goggins will tell you you know yeah the hard thing to do is to go out and run a bunch and do a million push-ups or Joo will tell you you know the hard thing to do is to just get up and get after it but it's the right thing to do you know trading what you want now for what you want most look none of us wants to have an uncomfort a conversation with our romantic partner when we're with our romantic partner we want to have fun we want to have sex we want to have closeness and warmth and all the good stuff right but look you know you you can't have chocolate cake all the time you know like it's what makes chocolate cake so special is that you have it on special occasions so you really have to to treat your relationship with the kind of respect it deserves and the respect it deserves is is the respect to not always do what feels good in the relationship but sometimes do what's necessary in the relationship you you wouldn't parent your children you know or or if you did parent your children irresponsibly you know Jordan Peterson would Pummel you if you said well anytime my child's unhappy with something I sto doing the thing okay well then you're a terrible parent so realistically what you have to do is say okay I know we don't want to do this right now but we got to do this right now and sometimes having those challenging conversations with your partner early on you know early on in the proc when it's just still a little smoke not a fire that's really I think when we have to have the the foresight and the strategy and the thoughtfulness to do it and look that's something that you know in in traditional gender roles you know a man is a hero because he takes on the task that other people don't want to do he's selfless you know he's heroic he steps up he's scared but he does it anyway you know it's if if you're not scared it's not brave it's only Brave if you're scared so yeah I don't want to ruin this lovely day I would like to have with my romantic partner but you know what I want a long-term strong happy relationship with this person so I have to have the strength to say no or the strength to say yeah what you did was not okay and we have to talk about why that's not okay and how we're not going to do it again and and I'd like to think that our romantic Partners will be intelligent enough to see our desire to walk into conflict of that kind as a sign of how seriously we take the relationship and maybe we need to remind our partner of that you know maybe we need to remind the woman in our life that Hey listen I love you enough to disagree with you I love you enough to tell you the truth you know I'd rather have an uncomfortable truth and a comfortable lie and I think most women would too in their romantic relationship but it's a costly signal of Truth and investment right to go and do something like that you have to pay a price well why am I paying the price well presumably because I think that the thing that's on the other side of it is worth it right right it's what you want most you know what you want most is to make look it's it's a whole lot easier to stay happy than to grow miserable and find your way back to happiness by the time that's why my my book was called if you're in my office it's already too late like if you're in a divorced lawyer's office something has gone horribly wrong so so you really want to try when this is just a small thing that's when you want to to take those steps now again I understand nobody wants to do that like it's not you know look I've trained Brazilian jiu-jitsu for you know 15 years and the first few years you trained Jiu-Jitsu you're just you're not the hammer you're the nail you know you're just getting beat up but you realize listen I have to get beat up I have to be uncomfortable I have to be and and we all know the guys at Jiu-Jitsu who just have like three solid moves they got a good guard they got a good pass they got a good submission and they do them over and over and over again they have tremendous holes in their game you know what you have to try to do is you have to try to train your weaknesses over and over compete your strengths train your weaknesses I think it's the exact same thing in relationships I think in relationships you've got to be prepared to work on the things that need work and and that's again it's not always the fun thing to do look we don't have a lot of free time with our spouse or partner like we don't have you know Saturday comes around the last thing you want to do is have a lot of heartfelt discussions and a deep talk and upset her rather than you know have her feel in the mood to to be romantic with you but you know what man long-term happiness is is more important than when people do arrive in your office even if it's not disconnection because that's not front of mind that was what happened previously not what has happened now what are the most common reasons for divorce that you're finding you know infidelity is huge infidelity is a giant sign that that the relationship is really over that you're no longer finding the connection that you once had or that you want with a romantic partner with your primary romantic partner so that's a huge huge piece of it and who's who's who's the most common uh infidelity partner who are people cheating with uh co-workers you well let me say it's changed in 23 years so so 23 years ago when I started doing this job Facebook was really like kind of it hadn't even started I don't think really so um and and and there's a chapter in my book called if we were going to invent an infidelity generating machine it would be called Facebook um I would change that now to say it would be called Instagram but it's still a meta company so sorry Mark um the reality is or congratulations Mark I'm not sure which um the truth is we now have conversations with people we have absolutely no business having conversations with you know and we have entry points that are entirely benign you know that we have the permission of our own conscience to do you know like when you used to have to like go to a bar and pick up a woman you know if you wanted to cheat on your wife or you had to like you know at the office you had to risk the HR complaint that came with that that's different but now now you know you're on Instagram you know nobody's looking at their phone in a high moment of their life you know it's always like you're on the toilet you're on the couch whatever so you're not at your highest point you're kind of living your gag reel and you're looking at everyone else's Greatest Hits and what do you see you see the socer mom on your son's team in a bikini oh she's in AR Ruba you know do you te do you send her a message in her DMS and say Hey you look hot in a bikini no you say wow how was Aruba looks like a great time where'd you guys stay now totally entry point nothing wrong with that you know but what happens it starts a conversation and that conversation suddenly you're you're you're you're round another person that you're having some intimacies with you know some secrets with some laughs with and it's not a long jump from that to infidelity to actual infidelity so you know fundamentally I think we're cheating with the the just massive number of people we're interacting with now I mean and and online you know these devices we all have a supercomputer in our pocket guys like come on you think our biology was designed to have that many mating choices out there you've talked about this a million times in the show you know the truth is is that we have we have created such simple conditions for infidelity it used to take some effort you know there was a home phone bill you couldn't call from home you had to use a pay phone you know listen you want to get a laugh listen to Stevie Wonders song Part-Time Lover sometime it was a song about a guyy talking to his lover and he was like you know call Up Ring once hang up the phone to let me know you made it home like all the weird Hoops people had to jump through to cheat now you'd be like yeah send me a text when you get in so I know you got in safely like you can be sitting across from your spouse cheating you know and what are you doing oh I'm looking up that restaurant we're going to this weekend I want to see what's on the menu like you know you can come up with a million simple excuses that are in no way going to create red flags so I think fundamentally we we're cheating with the people around us like we always did except the number of people around us has exponentially grown so that makes it you know far more appealing and far more challenging to to to infidelity proof your marriage yeah although scrutinize the co-workers first or have them work somewhere with lots of ugly people maybe it's entirely POS well I I do I do say in in one of my chapters that um a lot of people are sleeping with the nanny and I say if you think hiring an unattractive nanny is going to solve that problem I would point you to Arnold Schwarzenegger's situation because you know his his then wife and the person who he was sleeping with if you look at the two of them in terms of rankings of of attractiveness there's a disparity there so yeah yeah well I suppose getting an unattractive Nanny if Nanny's a ground zero for cheating doesn't necessarily protect you from cheating it just damages your self-esteem when you find out that it's happened right and I don't think think anything 100% protects you from cheating and and I I don't think that's a bad thing I I think that it's always good to have a little bit of that sort of democles hanging over your head it keeps you on your toes I mean you know I I I've said before like you know you you you're a little kid and they tell you cross on the green and not in between and you know uh look both ways before you cross the street don't smoke cigarettes try to exercise don't eat too much sugar don't [ __ ] the nanny yeah don't [ __ ] the nanny and you think okay I've got some control over things and then at some point they tell you about aneurisms you know we like what is it well you're just there and then you're dead wait what like well well I'll see it coming no no you'll just die well okay well what can I do to prevent it nothing absolutely nothing you know well is there anything I could do yeah no not really you know it's just YY meeny miny mo like that's it and so you can respond to that by saying well if there there's nothing I can do to 100% prevent myself from just spontaneously dying then I might as well just smoke him if you got them you know get out there and just do whatever the hell you want but I think we all know that that's that's not that's not the way to do it um there is something to be said for the benefit that comes with being vibrantly healthy even if it's not a guarantee that you're not going to be you know perfectly healthy your entire life and then death is still inevitable look all relationships all marriages end all of them they end in death or divorce but they all end so the question is it's one of the only things in the world that you say I really hope this ends in death you know but but it's true like you really hope your marriage ends in death but 56% of them end currently end in divorce and that's not accounting for the percent of them that don't end in divorce but end in misery that end in staying together with someone who you're very unhappy with who doesn't love you or make you feel like the best version of yourself and you don't make them feel particularly good but you just staying together for the kids or because you don't want to give half your [ __ ] away and I don't know that that's you know I don't know that's a win you know but even if that's 10% I think I'm being generous 10% now you got a technology that fails 66% of the time that's insane that's insane what is your position around kids I've had Brad Wilcox on from The Institute for family studies recently his new book get married uh might be the antithesis to a lot of the the insights that we get today but one of his key insights same comes from Melissa Cary as well in her book the two parent advantage or two parent privilege is that kids who grow up with loving mom and dad or two parents in the household ideally biological ones because you've got a 50 times increase in childhood mortality infant mortality risk if you've got a non-biological parent in the house etc etc etc what do you think stay together for the kids what's your belief that I I don't believe that um because I believe you know having read you know the unexpected Legacy of divorce and some of the other books out there that talk about the impact of divorce in a long-term way on children because there's a lot of data out there about outcomes for Children of Divorce and what what it basically distills down to is that parental conflict is bad for kids now there happens to be a fairly strong correlation between parental conflict and divorce but it does not have to be you know people can effectively co-parent and have a mother and a father who are devoted to their care who are Cooperative co-parents who are good with each other communicate with each other work in a unified manner for the best interest of the children but don't reside in the same household and so I I I find it um very hard to believe that two genuinely unhappy people residing in the same home are going to do a better job raising children and modeling relationship ships to those children who then than a couple that has the insight to say look we're not me we don't love each other in the very particular way that married people are supposed to that doesn't mean we don't love each other it means we don't there's a lot of people I love I wouldn't want to be married to you know so what we're saying and and the way that I often tell my clients to explain their divorce to their children no matter what their age is to say we don't love each other in the way that married people are supposed to because I don't think it's healthy to tell children I don't love your mother because they love the mother so why would you say that I don't love your mother the way married people we don't love each other way married people are supposed to but we both love you and you're always gonna have one mom and one dad and we're always going to be a family and that's the truth I tell my clients from day one whether it's a knockdown drag out litigation or the friendliest divorce in the world I tell them you're gonna have grandkids together if you have kids you know a divorce with children is a knife fight in a closet and if you just start stabbing because you think you're going to stab your ex you're going to stab your kids you're going to hurt yourself you're going to ruin everything in your life so it makes a lot of sense to just stand down focus on the kids get them out of the conflict as much as possible and try to live the best life you can what does stabbing in the closet constitute when it comes to kids and separation well I think you know creating loyalty binds for children you know alienation I mean it's a spectrum right there's straight alienation right where you say to a child you know it's not okay to love Dad he's a bad person you know um that's a special kind of psycho there's a lot of them there's a lot of them but it's more common that it's a little more subtle than that so it takes a special kind of crazy person to say your dad's a bad person but a lot will do this hello here it's your dad okay you just said Dad's a bad person you roll your eyes when you hand the the kid the phone you just said Dad's a bad same same thing kid comes home from a visit with Dad and you say oh do you have a good time yeah what' you guys do oh we had so much fun we went to the park oh that's great all right well go upstairs and wash up we're gonna have dinner shortly or oh you're back oh I missed you so much did you miss me too yeah where did you go oh you went to the you went to the park today Dad it's so cold out dad took you to the park that's well I I guess maybe he wasn't thinking about it so boy I missed you so much I'm so glad you're home you must be so happy to be what are you doing you're telling this kid it's not okay to be happy with Dad you're telling this kid dad is something that I'm worried about you being with but you're not explicitly saying it if you ask that child if a judge asked that child does mom talk bad about Dad the truthful answer is no she doesn't she didn't say one bad word but she sent the message home clearly it's just listen we all know what this is like I mean you know you say to your girlfriend how how you doing fine okay cool no no you're not well what's the matter no nothing it's nothing it's fine okay so you're you're getting it across you're getting your point across and that's what it it looks like to harm your children I'll take it a step further something that's really come into sort of the judicial and legal zist right now is this idea of what's called negative gatekeeping which is a much more common form of alienation which really is you could have been helpful but you were so much more you know like you you had an opportunity to build up or bolster your co-parent with the child and you just let it fall flat instead you know you could have been helpful but you choose not to be an example great example is your partner you know your co-parent gets into a new relationship now look none of us are going to be thrilled when our ex gets involved with somebody new but it's a reality of Life 86% of people are remarried within five years of their divorce so the likelihood of people remarrying or getting into serious intimate relationships after they divorce very very high so why why you know when when the child comes home and says oh I met you know mommy's new friend Tom you can say oh that's great was he nice oh that's great I'm so glad you liked him that was there what' you guys do oh that's really good or even better gold standard the parents communicate with each other and say hey he's gonna meet my new boyfriend Tom you know Tom's a mechanic uh and uh you know he he's a really nice guy you know I thought maybe he could even help fix our kids bike or whatever and then when the kid says oh I met go oh that's great I heard you were going to me time I heard he's so nice I heard he knows how to fix bikes that's awesome you know did so you could be helpful and instead I met you know mom's friend Tom okay nothing you know just nothing helpful nothing to tell this child how you because look children look to us about how to feel about things I mean it's why it's like the classic joke when a little kid falls down you know they fall if you go oh my God are you okay they instantly start crying whereas if they fall down and you go oh oopsie you're okay you're okay they GNA get I guess I'm okay you know because they look to adults as to how how am I feeling so it's really the same thing as a co-parent look you're supposed to love your kids more than you hate your X so really what what I always tell people who you marry I mean if you have a prenup marry whoever the hell you want but if if you don't have a prup who you marry the worst they can really do is hurt you financially you have a kid with someone they could torture you for 20 plus years easily you know and in real ways like really profound ways because most people love their children more than themselves you know and and thankfully most people love their children more than they hate their ex but I will tell you most of the people in my office who screw their kids up really badly in the divorce they don't mean to they don't mean to you know I don't believe that people are you know engage in evil Behavior because they're evil I think they mistake it for happiness I think they have the permission of their own conscience and I think as a culture we really do glorify you know that sense of like oh screw your re screw them they're an idiot you know as opposed to looking at relationships like chapters in a long book you know and that yeah look you know what we we loved each other for a time we loved each other in the way we loved each other we did our best maybe it wasn't the best we could do but it was the best we could do at the time and you know we we left the relationship hopefully better people for having had the relationship and now we move on move forward to the next thing and hopefully to to more love or different love with someone who's well suited to us or better suited to us what do you think about prenups are they actually protective absolutely absolutely I can tell you for certain they are protective because they they cost a divorce lawyers a lot of money they're not expensive to do we no there is no divorce Mo lawyer saying man I'm crushing it on prenups financially like litigation one day of litigation I'm going to make more money than I would in a month worth of doing prenups like prenups are a couple thousand dollars worth of work even the most complicated ones so and if they're effective and and most of the time they're effective I mean there are very specific and limited grounds on which a person can set aside a prenup and any decent lawyer knows what those are and sees them coming and has a variety of ways to control for them I mean most good divorce lers were paid to be paranoid so we wear suspenders and a belt when it comes to the preup like I have you know all the vulnerabilities duress language problems you know we find in in the document itself five different ways to solve for that issue and we follow what goes on in the appell at division the court of appeals the higher courts so that we control for we look at how did a prup get set aside and how can we bolster up that defense and Shore up that hole that that's created or that the higher court is telling us is a basis to set aside a prenup and I have to tell you I mean I have seen some prenups upheld that I think fairness would have dictated that they not be upheld like more often it is much more likely if you ask a divorce lawyer that they have seen cases where the prenup should have been set aside In fairness and it wasn't than cases where they've seen a prenup set aside there very few where is this meme on the internet coming from that even a prenup doesn't protect either person's possessions and finances and all the rest of it and if you marry him or you marry her they're going to take you with them for six months and they're going to take half of everything for the rest of time and you're going to be bankrupted with a gluten intolerance living under a bridge where does that come from I I think it comes from the same place that most extreme points of view come from and that is a wildly defe attitude that doesn't want to actually read or look anything up or or or that creates like treats Google the same as a law degree in 20 years of experience you know and that's unfortunately a widespread problem like I can't tell you how many people come in and say well I downloaded this off of the internet and that's what we did as a prup and you look at it and go yeah this isn't worth the paper it's printed GPT to write congratulations you saved a couple of hundred doll and you've cost yourself hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of litigation now so I I do not know where that comes from except that I I do think that people are quick in all fields to say ah there's nothing you can do about anything everything sucks no matter what you know yeah you could quit smoking but you know what you get hit by a bus so okay you're right so just do whatever right do I just think it's a defeatist attitude and it's just easier it's easier to do nothing it's easier not to get a prenup by the way it takes some courage to get a prenup it takes some courage you have to have a tough conversation with your part how do you uh how do you suggest that a person who wants to get a prenup have that conversation I think it can be my personal belief is that it it can actually be I think a very romantic and connected conversation I know that sounds crazy but I genuinely think it is because I think what it's about is saying to your soon to be spouse that we're gonna we're gonna have to have hard conversations I don't want to just be with you when it's fun I want to be with you when it's hard too I want to not quit when it's hard like I want I want I want us to make each other a promise that we're with each other whatever life throws at us and it's going to throw a lot of stuff at us but I think we both have the right to never feel afraid that we could weaponize against each other at a level where one of us walks out of this marriage and the other one crawls and so I think it's about talking to your partner about I want this to be forever if I didn't I wouldn't marry you but if it's not what would we owe each other what do we need what would you need you know what would I need from you like what what would be fair what's our sense of what would be fair and Having the courage and and having the love for your partner to be able to look at them and say hey look you know like let's look at the wha ifs you know let's look at the and by the way we do this in relationships come on women love this how many times have you been dating someone and they do the like if I lost an arm would you still love me if I had had to have a double masectomy because I had breast cancer would you still find me attractive you know would you I mean and look you know men make jokes about that you know Daniel TSH has a great joke about how like you know his girlfriend said to him at one point like you know if I lost a leg would you still love me and he's like you break a nail I'm out of here like a leg your whole leg Yeah no forget it you know but the but the truth is what what a woman is saying when she says that to you like if I lost my arm would you love me if I had breast cancer and and my breasts were gone would you still find me attracted I is is how deep is your love for me and what would it endure you know well I I don't think it's an unreasonable or unromantic question to say if we hurt each other we hurt each other right are we gonna go nuclear on each other like because I never understood I never understood I mean you want to talk you know reality TV you know that that that's a great litmus test for this like when people are on the Bachelor or love isol or any of those things right and go from well I really think I like him and he might be the one and then when he goes yeah I'm sorry I chose somebody well I never he's a piece of garbage and I know wow because like a minute ago you were saying if he proposed to you you'd say yes like so what how did you go from there to there like if that was true your reaction would have been well my heart is broken because I really think you're the one and now you've heard me but you know what I love you and I want you to be happy and find joy and it makes me terribly sad that it's not with me but you know I wish you well because when you love someone you wish them well even if it's to your detriment you know and so a prup is saying listen I don't want you to be here I want you to lay your head on the pillow next to me because you love me and you want to be here not because you're afraid you won't be able to survive financially without me or because you're afraid I might weaponize against you in a court of law like it really there's something wonderful about saying like no no if we split up you'll get this you'll get that I'll get this I'll get that and we'll both be okay but you know what I won't be okay because I won't have you what is the best way to construct a prenup I think the simplest way is actually the best way and that is because you don't have a crystal ball you don't know what the future holds and if you want to make God laugh tell them your plans so I really think the way to to structure a prenup is to just have like tranches have buckets and I call it you know Yours Mine and Ours which is if it's in my name it's mine whether it's an asset or a liability if it's in your name it's yours whether it's an asset or a liability and if it's in our joint names we're going to split it 5050 so if it's an asset we'll divide it 50/50 or if it's a liability we'll each be responsible for half of it and that gives you the ability both of you throughout the marriage to have conversations right there's no prenup there's no contract that you can sign and set it and forget it you never have to have a conversation about money or about anything tough in the marriage ever again if there was believe me i' I'd make a lot of money selling that document but the truth is the best thing you can hope for is something that creates a structure that the two of you can then work together on and understand clearly does that work does that not then create another ground for a reminder of the lack of unity potentially or the future impending potential uh separation that if every time that a piece of money comes in such and such has got to to draw down his dividend for this year well is that going in the personal or is that going in the joint a car but I mean he's he's working because she's the stay-at home mom and then there's this sort of financial prisoner type scenario but but wait you know again like momento Mory doesn't have to just exist as to the individual it should exist as to the couple like remember your going remember that love is not permanently gifted it's loaned you know remember that that that like I don't think there's anything bad about having to have ongoing conversations like if she's a stay-at-home mom and he's the bread winner it is worth having conversations along the way about the value of those two roles you're not doing yourselves any favors pretending that Dynamic doesn't exist or forgetting like most couples do that those Dynamics exist and just being resentful towards each other well all she does is stays home and does nothing I have to go out to work every day well he's never here at helping with anything with the house he's always just out he gets to be in the world interacting with people instead of looking at hey look we each bring something to this relationship and we're each losing something for the bringing of that something right like like the the the the the tragedy of our current dating and marriage situation and the chaos that's come from comes from the fact that there is no longer clarity as to what anybody's supposed to be you know if a man's a bread winner but why aren't you home with your kids and taking more care of them and if a woman wants to stay home with kids how dare you Bella abzug would be disgusted by Gloria Stein would be disgusted by you which by the way isn't true you know feminism was not born of the idea that you know women should all be capitalist cogs in the workforce and the couples should both devote all of their energies to to the bottom line financially rather than the devotion that they have to each other and to their children you know but yeah a prup is about having ongoing having an original conversation than having ongoing conversations about why we're doing what we're doing financially you know when you got that big bonus at work why did you put it entirely in the account in your soulle name I'd like to have that conversation while we're still together rather than in a divorce lawyer's office in the proceedings of the divorce why not know where you stand with each other yeah what are some of the ways that people go about divorces in terms of behavior or structure or announcements or whatever that cause everyone more financial or emotional or litigious pain than is needed yeah I think I think you just tapped on it which is going going to litigation from minute one is really a bad idea I mean I jokingly tell people that you know if you if you divide your assets with a mediator or with two lawyers negotiating on your behalf you're doing it with a scalpel if you do it in court you're doing it with a chainsaw hang on hang on just explain to me what's a mediator sure what's La what so there's a lot of paths up the mountain of divorce right and and and so the the the going from like the friendliest to the most extreme and then everything in between the friendliest is two people sit down at their kitchen table and they map out on a piece of paper here's what I need here's what you need here's what you'll keep here's what I'll keep and they go to one lawyer and say can you write this up for us they both sign off on it and it's an uncontested divorce that's the simplest you do that with kids as well of course yeah of course of course court system is not going to get in the way of what two people agree upon you know if if what they agree upon is not unconscionable meaning it is so patently unfair that no rational person would accept it and no rational person would offer it who was acting in good faith so as long as it's you know it's Unique to your situation it's totally fine courts aren't going to second guess things the next stage from that more likely because a lot of times people don't know what questions to ask they don't know like what issues so they go to a mediator a mediator is either an attorney an accountant therapist someone who's trained in conflict resolution who doesn't represent either person individually but instead represents the transaction and they sit with the couple either in together as a group or they do shuttle diplomacy you know where they kind of canvas back and forth between the two and they try to reach resolution they try to identify all the issues that have to be resolved and then they try to resolve them and then they can write that up and make it binding that's a lovely thing when people can do it I try to send people who come into my office who could potentially mediate I try to send them out to a mediator even though I that's sending money right out the door but my attitude is if you can go to a mediator go to a mediator problem is is mediation somewhat self-selecting most most people can't advocate for themselves they don't feel comfortable having that discussion directly with their spouse even with the mediator in the room so more commonly the majority of cases resolve the next step in the kind of Continuum and that is where you have two people who each hire their own individual attorney attorneys and the attorneys educate their individual clients as to their rights and obligations their upside reward their downside risk you know here's what you might get in court because really it comes down to what do you need what do you want what are you entitled to what you need you're going to get what you need you need food shelter to see your children what do you want there could be no limit to what people might want so what you want is informed by what you're entitled to so a lot of what a lawyer does is explains to someone better than Google could what it is that they are entitled to and then the two lawyers work with their respective clients and with each other to try to reach a mutually acceptable resolution or one that everybody's equally unsatisfied with the next stage in the Continuum is if there's something we can't agree on who's the tiebreaker the judge right so one of us has to file one of the lawyers files what's called an rji a request for judicial intervention a judge gets assigned to the case and then that judge weighs in a little bit and says well here's what I would do with this issue or with these facts presented here's what I might be inclined to order if we had a hearing and nine times out a 10 you know actually 98% of the time is the less statistic I heard on this of divorce cases resolved before the entry of a final judgment now that's a little misleading because it gives people the the mistaken impression that like people don't litigate divorces they do it's just what happens is you litigate for a little while and then everybody kind of gets the answers they wanted from the judge and now you know what the judge might do so sometimes you got to do three four days of testimony and trial and then you resolve the case because the judge kind of waves everybody off and says all right look here's what I'm probably gonna do um and then of course the furthest extreme is knockdown drag out litigation which again is kind of what I specialize in and it's what I do for a living is I'm I'm something of a weapon you know you point me at the spouse and my job is to just go after them and sort of you know take no prisoners cross-examine people um and that's not you know if if you're in that position it's unfortunate it's unfortunate under all circumstances either if you're on the receiving end of it and you need me to be the the person defending you or if you're the person who needs to weaponize against another person you've lost already to some degree um because you're spending hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars depending on the scope of the issues presented I mean I've had cases where the legal fees go into the two and three millions which do you prefer to do defend or prosecute I like both the same it's kind of the exact same skill set that's like asking someone who does Jiu-Jitsu do you like you know top game bottom gam like kind of man just two different Paths of the same thing and the goal ultimately is to get to roughly the same place to get to the submission so it's really the the the same kind of thing I personally I I kind of am like a legal version of Steve Prefontaine like I I think you set the pace you control the race so I like to be a front runner like I like to be the one who's making everybody work real hard but you know Prefontaine didn't win the Olympics for a reason which is you you actually if you're SM smart and scientific you let people you know drag and you let people create you know that th and and and you know from a physics standpoint it's not the best way to do things but I you know I I like litigating cases I'm a trial lawyer at heart I like cross-examining people I enjoy the sort of full contact storytelling that is a trial um and and it's a it's a very exciting type of thing it's a very exciting line it's an intellectual it's a chess match in the same way that chess or Jiu-Jitsu is it's it's really about faints it's about you know taking risk it's about every time you give something you give something up at the same time so it's it's a very very exciting career but again I I never want people to have to get to that place I do everything I can to prevent it and I think that's you know it's the it's the nature of violence for example you know like it cops carry guns so they don't have to use them you know if someone's a really good fighter you're going to be less likely to take a swing at them them so people hire trial lawyers because you know it's better to be a trial have a trial lawyer and not need them then need a trial lawyer and not have them and instead you have somebody who's not a litigator at heart you know it's better to be a a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war so um being a trial lawyer it's a lot of fun you don't always get to use that skill set um but sometimes you need get to the place in the career where I am where people hire you because they have a complicated case if somebody calls me up and they have a very simple case I'll say listen there's better choices than me for for that type of case because I'm more expensive because I'm a more um I'm I'm more of a weapon what are some of the more complex or uh outrageous cases that you've had to go through you know i' I've seen every variety of of human chaos and misery I I think in 23 years of doing this I mean I've I've seen people just emulate themselves you know and and it's everything from the the the humorously Absurd you know like a fabri egg or something like that yeah I mean I once saw a multi-million dollar settlement breakdown over a toaster oven a toaster oven was it like a $32 toaster oven and I remember saying to my client like I will log on Amazon right now and buy you three of that toaster oven if you just settle the case like what are you guys doing you're arguing over a toaster oven and they just you know it's it was just the hill they both wanted to die on and it broke the whole settlement down and they ended up litigating all the way through but I mean I've seen all manner of chaos i' I've SE I talk about in the book I I I tell a story about a trial that I once did where um this person had had clearly married my client solely for their green card and as soon as they got married he vanished and uh my client who had married in good faith um was devastated by this she wanted to anull the marriage and he refused to Grant the annulment and he was pretending that they had been married um and that the marriage was a legitimate marriage and she shared with me that they had not consummated the marriage that they had not had sex and I said well you can't prove that you guys didn't have sex you know that's not you know there's no way to prove that and she said well my you know I'm I'm I'm a virgin so I said well you know you're also a 30-some old woman like the chances of your Heyman being intact are minimal like if you ride a horse if you you know fall dead like there's million things that after a certain age that that can happen um so she went to her gynecologist and and came back about a week later and my secretary said oh she's here she's in the conference room and I went in and she was like weepy and I said look you know it was unlikely that it would and she said no no it's it's intact you know she was like I'm just crying because it's like shocking to me that it's intact and that so we went to trial and and the guy got on the witness stand and and I cross-examined him and I said and you you know you you had sex with my client is that your testimony and he said yes and I said now sir how how large is your penis and of course the other side objected and I said your honor I'm going somewhere with this I promise she said all right I'll give you a little leeway Mr seon but not much this is not going to turn into Penthouse forum and he said it's normal size I said you know I'm fuzzy on what normal size means sir do you mean it's 5 Ines 6 Ines seven inches how big roughly and he says well it's about six or seven inches when I okay and when you say you had sex with my client you had you had regular sex you had had vaginal intercourse yes and you had no problems at all inserting your penis again posing Council of Ja the judge says Mr jaon where you going with this and I said just give me a little leeway your honor and he insisted that yes they had sex so ended the cross-examination called her OBGYN to the stand and they testified to the fact that he would have to have a micrus meaning a penis of less than one inch in order for him to have not penetrated her Hyman so then he got back on the stand and suddenly he misremembered and his penis is much smaller than he testified to it's actually quite small and before I could say your honor I want an independent medical examination of this man's penis the judge waved us both off and said all right Hang on we're we're we're and she took us all the two lawyers in the back and she said you're settling this case give her the analment or else I'm going to sanction this guy I might even put him in jail for perjury and sure enough we we got her the an nment but that was one of the craziest cases I mean to have a man get on the stand and and suddenly testify to the fact under oath that he had been lying about the size of his penis and it was actually only about an inch um I never thought that you know I did not go to law school with that in mind um but yeah I mean I've had so many bizarre cases and and and and you know some are tragic some are you know you see things in this line of work that you can't unsee um you know the way people treat children the way people treat each other um I had a case recently where I had a a represented a woman who her husband was a perpetrator of domestic violence for many years but he was incredibly charming and incredibly handsome and he just no one would have believed that this guy was violent or abusive I I kind of didn't believe her I'll be candid I mean my job is to advocate for her and I advocated very well for her but I I remember meeting this guy and seeing this guy in court and sort of dealing with him and thinking like I don't know I just can't picture it you know it he seems so lovely he seems so nice you know um and thank God they had a ring doorbell because it captured unbeknown it'ss to him um him beating the [ __ ] out of a six-month labber go uh uh black lab puppy that they had and just like kicking it throw whacking it against the wall which I'm a dog lover so having to watch that and listen to it was nauseating to me you know it's nause it was horrifying to me but it was the piece of evidence that we destroyed this guy with because you know he got up there and he presented so well and then you see this video of him just brutally beating an an a helpless defenseless animal and you realize okay this guy's like capable of atrocity so you know I I my job is never boring which is a wonderful thing um but it is sometimes I I bump into the absolute worst parts of humanity and the absolute just people at their absolute you When Love Goes South it it brings out something really really vicious in people um and the way we treat each other is shocking to me sometimes I I I'm I'm very blessed like I every ex I've ever had every ex-girlfriend my ex-wife like I I have tremendous love in my heart for them they're all friends still to this day like I still stay in touch with them you know um I wish them every happiness I know they they would wish me happiness as well even when we heard each other even when we weren't right for each other even when we failed by our own weakness and our own you know foolishness as humans like we still we still cared about each other you know and and I I don't understand the level of brutality that people unleash on each other in themselves when their hearts are broken I mean I get it it's it's very human but it's uh it's shocking to me how people can lose their minds when they get their heartbroken have you struggled to protect your personal view of romance given the daily exposure that you deal with in your professional life you know there's a great line in a Joseph one of my favorite poems Joseph Brodsky has a poem called the song He wrot it when his wife died and the poem's very pretty it's worth looking up but but the the refrain of the poem is I wish you were here dear I wish you were here I wish we sat in the car and you sat near it's about missing someone and longing for someone and one of lines in the poem is I wish you were here dear I wish you were here I wish I knew no astronomy when the stars appear and I always loved that line because I I wish I knew no astronomy when the stars appear like when when you don't know astronomy the Stars Are So Beautiful they're these little pinpoint lights in the sky you know and you can understand how all these ancient cultures like believed it to be that heaven was there and that this was holes in the blanket that covered heaven or that the stars were the Gods in some way all the Myriad of things we came up with to explain it and when you know astronomy you know that this is a ball of gas you know what this is so to me you know I I wish I knew no astronomy sometimes when stars appear I think I wish I I wish I'd known I shouldn't say I wish I'd know I wish I could look at I love going to weddings I love weddings like I still get Tey at weddings I'm still cheering for these people when I go to a wedding but I kind of wish I didn't see what I see it it can't help but beat some of the Romantic out of you doing this work but it it doesn't take away you know the beauty of it I had a conversation with a gynecologist friend once and I said to him he's very happily married guy and I said to him like come on man seriously between you and me do you like get home at night and like say to your wife like babe if I see one more I'm just I can't you know and he said yeah it's not the same thing he said it's not the same thing he's like it's like it's a totally you know your brain just doesn't even process those the same way you know and I think it's the same thing I I I I definitely learn a lot of lessons about what not to do um I think the divorce rate among divorce lawyers I I don't know if anyone's ever studied it but I'd imagine it's lower even though the profession is a demanding profession and and therefore it's a Harsh Mistress I I think divorce lawyers are very acutely aware of of uh you know just how hard it is and and and and all the mistakes that people make unintentionally so I don't you know I I I don't like ignorance I like an I would prefer an uncomfortable truth to a comfortable lie so I I like going in knowing that you know yeah we might we might crawl out of this thing we might hurt each other but you know what like it's it's worth trying you know it's worth doing so like it's you know there's nothing great ever achieved without some enduring and without some risk so you know I think love is one of those things you just keep trying and you just keep going after it and you know maybe you never find it and that's what's meant to be and that you just have a lot of really good scars to show for it like there's a school of thought that would say that you know that only unfulfilled love can be truly romantic you know that I love I mean I listen I've I've been madly in love and I've had my heartbroken and I think both were beautiful you know both were some of the greatest poetry some of the greatest art came from heartbreak some of the greatest Insight in life came from heartbreak you know like from Lo from loss from Pain you know and you know when when I sat down with uh Lex Friedman you know a couple months ago Lex and I were talking about dogs you know we were talking about we both have had and lost dogs who we loved very much and I said like you know but like I I I don't know it's a pain worth having you know like because the alternate is the pain of never having experiened the joy and the closeness of that like and I don't I don't know I don't want to die with any without any scars like I don't want to tiptoe through life and arrive safely at death like I wanna I wanna you know give it give it my all and and and and if I succeed or I fail like I felt big you know so I think it's good to not be wildly Reckless with your own heart or anybody else's heart but I don't think that you know that I think love is worth the risk I believe that what about I've always wanted to ask someone that stands up and just cross-examinations or spends time working for people because they are the clients not because they have elected them as some Paragon of virtue or whatever yeah how morally conflicted do you get when you need to defend or work on behalf of somebody that you have doubts about their their character or about how virtuous they are or you know you maybe don't even particularly like them or respect them as a a person or a human being um or or if you destroy or annihilate somebody in Cross examination like is there a is there a difficulty doing that well so those are two different questions so the first one I would say is what is it like to represent an [ __ ] or someone you don't believe in right or to weaponize against a nice person right so when you represent someone you know is guilty or you know is a jerk or you know probably doesn't deserve the relief like someone is just putting the kids right in the middle to gain tactical advantage or financial advantage you know I was once described and I think the person meant it as a compliment but they wrote in a review of me and it's stuck that I was the sociopath you want on your side that's what someone described me as and I don't think I'm a sociopath but um I I will tell you I believe in our system I believe in democracy I believe in our legal system it's not perfect but just like democracy our version of democracy you know it's it's awful except for all the other on you know um I I think it's a good example of how to do things right it's not perfect but it does things right A lot of the time and a and and a absolute key to it is vigorous advocacy you know that everyone is entitled to vigorous advocacy whether it's if it's criminal proceeding the state has the burden of proof and and you have the right to vigorous representation to confront witnesses to elicit testimony you know to to a vigorous defense so I believe in that and I I lean on that when I'm representing someone who I I you know I look at them and I go yeah this is not a nice person or a good person I will tell you the truth has a way of coming out sometimes despite my best efforts the truth has a way of coming out like I can throw up a lot of smoking mirrors I can do a lot of real great show I can put on a show and you know people buy the sizzle as much as they buy the steak but at the end of the day it's the steak you know and you can taste if it's garbage you can taste if it's rotted and so the truth has a way of coming out the truth fears no trial in my experience now the the other question that's an interesting question I don't think I've been asked before is what is it like to weaponize against a person who you know is probably a nice person and to eviscerate them on the stand and and that's I will say it's not it's not pleasant to do from a interpersonal standpoint but you get very in my line of work you get very interested in like the technique of argument so you're really thinking more about how you're doing what you're doing than the morality of what you're doing you know and again you know I feel sort of like there's there's in Gross Point Blank the John kusak film about an assassin he's uh you know he's breaks into the guy's hotel room to assassinate him and he's like over him with his bed he's got the gun and the guy wakes up and he looks at him he says please whatever it is like I'm sorry whatever it is don't do this and he says I'm not the one who has a problem with you pal and then he shoots the guy you know and it's it's kind of the truth like I'm not the one you know I didn't tell you get in the ring you know like I I I would have told you don't you know but but you partly get very caught up in the technique of it you know i' i' I I love trial work it's just like I said it's it's an intellectual kind of combat it's like debate with higher Stak in some ways and it's with you know it's real time like it's it's a it's a real it's a really um it's an art form I mean it's a it's a blast to do you know so I I I really get caught more in the technique of it than the morality of it but I have a chapter in the book where I talk about a case that I should have lost and I won and that I felt quite badly about because the reason I won was that the lawyer I was against was very inexperienced and not very talented and they couldn't get a piece of evidence in and I won as a result of that and really I shouldn't have and my client who was a a vicious human being who had brutally beaten this woman up um he walked out free you know and he uh he actually paded me on the back as we were walking out of court and he said you know one good lawyer is better than 20 stickup men and I remember I kind of felt dirty at the end of that case and curiously enough like I I I wrote about it in the book about I don't know 10 years later maybe more and when I read my audio you know when you're recording an audio book you know you sit in a booth and you have to read your book and and you you've never read your book out loud like who the hell reads their book out loud you know I wrote it but I never read it out loud and you read the whole book out loud to yourself and I I got about halfway through that chapter and I got choked up and I had to like take a break and I remember thinking that's weird you know like that's I did not see that coming like I wrote that chapter and I didn't feel that way I've read that chapter feel that way but something about reading that chapter out loud made it feel real to me that like I had been part of some of Justice not being done and that felt ugly yeah what's the reality of the American divorce law in your opinion just how good or bad is it because again if you were to take the internet or YouTube comment section or a Reddit threads perspective it would be completely biased it would be be totally Ender blind it would be very swayed in One Direction or another that's not entirely inaccurate I mean it's it's terribly flawed in a number of ways I mean one it's flawed in in a general way the same way that a lot of other things in our society are flawed and that is that you get as much justice as you can afford a lot of the time like it's it's not a fair fight if someone can afford me or one of my colleagues who's experienced and knowledgeable and the other person can only afford you know a person who's like a real estate lawyer and also does divorce from time to time and he'll charge you, 1500 bucks to do your divorce it's not going to be a fair fight you know um and so that's not good there there needs to be some ways to control for that better um and yeah it's definitely not gender blind because our society's not gender blind I mean it's just not you know I have clients who call call the police when their spouse has violated a court order and if it's a male and the police come they'll say well it sounds like a family court matter and if it's a woman and the police come nine times out of 10 they do something about it they call the guy and they say you have to return the child or hey if you don't you know could leave this room we're gonna have you arrested like it's so it isn't gender blinding I think it's biased against men in Fairly significant ways I think anyone who's not being naive would admit that but but you know people don't want to say that I mean it's you know I I hate to say that that you know heterosexual males particularly white heterosexual males are are not exactly a protected category anymore um and the system is is very much designed against them to some degree because you know they the the financial promises that a man makes during a marriage if he's the breadwinner which still the majority of Breadwinners in households are men in a family where there is a bread winner and a care provider for the family for the children it's typically a Man by a fairly significant majority um and those promises are enforceable at law so if if if I marry a woman and what she what I bring to the table is I'll provide for you I'll give you food shelter and and and funds with which to care for the things that you need and what you'll provide me is affection and love and okay the law can enforce my end to that bargain they can't enforce your end of that part they can't force you to be nice to me they can't force you to love me or sleep with me but they can force me to pay you and so that creates a a bias it creates a problem when only one side of a contract is enforcable by force of law that's a problem so I don't um I don't think the the system I think it's a very easy thing for people to say oh I didn't get custody to my kid because the system's biased okay I I don't think that's true that's like a person who says well the reason I'm overweight is because I have a slow metabolism okay well that's easier than saying because I'm lazy and I don't actually like to to work out or I don't want to work out more because I have to work out more because I have a slow metabolism or I have to watch what I eat more because I have a slow metabolism these are all it's just a way to go yeah well it's not my fault I I don't believe that's true but I do still think it's tilted in a different direction and there's things that people have to do to control for that I think that you know you have to as a father as a parent you have to you know make sure that you participate make sure that you go to the parent teacher conferences you go to the doctor's appointments I know that's not easy necessarily if you're working and all those things to take time for those things but remember if you end up in litigation those are it doesn't matter what you know it matters what you can prove and people don't live their lives that way people don't conduct their marriages and their family life that way they don't look at it and go how am I going to prove I'm a good father you know and that's a very scary thing to have to do but look we're you know we talk about Downstream effects all the the time you know all the people that are talking about institutional racism and reparations and Concepts like that well what they're saying is is that I appreciate that now we're running the race fair but you gave this group a head start you gave white heterosexual men a gigantic Head Start so the rest of us are trying to catch up and although maybe the rules are fairer now for everybody and maybe it's okay but they still got to catch up okay so if you believe in that concept and this idea of institutional racism or institutional sexism patriarchy all those kinds of Concepts up until the mid 1970s we had what was called the maternal presumption in divorce which is that children would go to the mother automatically unless you could prove the mother was an unfit mother we had something called The Tender Years Doctrine which meant that a mother would automatically get custody If the child was under seven unless you could proved that the mother was like insane suffered from serious mental illness or had serious drug addiction issues so that wasn't that long ago the 1970s I was born in the 1970s so to suggest that we're now 40 years 50 years out from that and it's gone there's no Downstream effects there's it hasn't affected the Judiciary at all it hasn't affected the body of law that's naive and for the same people who would argue that patriarchy and sexism and institutional sexism and the fact that Harvard didn't let women in until a certain time and Yale didn't let all of the you can acknowledge that but you can't acknowledge that A system that until almost 1980 said fathers were automatically second class citizens you can't acknowledge that it might take a little while to get that out of the system that's dishonest it's intellectually dishonest and I have a problem with that but again we always in this culture we teach treat dandruff with decapitation you know we have the tendency to just say well it's either the system is screwed and men are just screwed and don't bother or there's nothing wrong with the system it's totally gender blind and both of those are just totally naive and totally false yeah it's very interesting I guess it's it's it's weird to think that the dramatized versions of some of the things that we see in some of the metam memes actually end up playing out in a courtroom that you are you know if you've got this unbelievably ludicrous toaster oven scenario or people using private investigators or yeah people hiding money from their spouse by sending it to a grandmother in Switzerland or whatever it is they selling their Ferrari to their brother for $20 or transferring money to I mean there's so many things you see and what's interesting too Chris is you you I started out my career representing you know typical people for lack of a better term you know a cop and a teacher they got two kids 401k and a little bit of equity in their house and some credit card debt and now I represent ultra high net worth clients some of them so I have clients with literally billions of dollars on the line hundreds of millions of dollars you know because New York is the home to finance and that's you know listen the finance in La you know my my colleague Laura waser is an LA phenomenal attorney and she represents a huge number of people in in in Hollywood you know and celebrities and so a lot of people know Laura's name you know because she's like representing Brad Pit representing you know she's represented some of the most amaz Kevin Cosner most recently she's represented you know half of Hollywood her father as well has represented huge amounts of Hollywood stardom in New York we represent people that could buy those people 10 times over and you've never heard their name you know and they they're happy that you've never heard their name they don't want you to have heard their name you know um because that's you know that they become that high bladed grass that gets chopped but when they divorce it is a really really when you have a client whose portfolio fluctuates in the tens of millions every day like what day things get divided becomes really important you know um a difference of 3% or 4% is a giant difference when you're talking about A7 billion marital estate so you know it's a it's a very but but what you come to learn is that people have like all the same problems like it's what's amazing to me you know I I didn't set out to do all this Media stuff you know I I I'm a divorce lawyer I love being a divorce lawyer I'd heard a podcast years ago like 2017 with Stephen King where they said you know how does it that you write like two books a year three books a year and he said well if you wrote one page every day in a year you have a book and I thought oh let me test that theory I get up early I get up at 4: am so every day I wrote a page and within a year I had a book and then I sold the book and then I started doing some of this Media stuff as like a part-time thing you know just for fun just to use a different muscle after 20 years of doing the same job and I'm still sort of astounded how interesting people think it is but I'm also astounded by the people I've come in contact with because I've I've interacted with some of the you know incredible celebrities people who I've admired intellectually people who were I mean you're an EXA I enjoy your work I've watched it for ages you know and I mean when I sat down with Lex it was like a little surreal because I've listened to so I was actually on the subway listening to his conversation with huberman on my way to a courthouse in Queens I got off the subway checked my email and had a message from him saying hi I'm Lex Reedman I have a podcast and I'd be interested in having you on and I thought yeah I know you I was just listening to you for an hour on my subway ride like this is surreal but but the truth is like this is something that you know nobody's particularly great at it just because they're great at other things like you know I don't know him personally but like look at Elon Musk like he's had a number of relation relationships he has children with a number of people but he's not you know necessarily settled into one person and you know that's maybe maybe totally by choice or it may be that he's found challenging you know this thing there's a person who can do such a the depth of that man's mind you know the things he can understand that I couldn't even try to understand and yet this is something he struggles with I represent Quant people in finance who can turn $10 million into to $500 million in a couple of years with their trading algorithm that they came up with themselves and they just suck at marriage or relationship and and they're stepping on the exact same landmines as like the guy who digs ditches you know and and to me there's something so amazing and kind of beautiful about that that that those are the things that we all struggle with and that we all want to know more about or get some Edge on and yet and yet we have to like pretend we don't need help with it like like my book the audio book outsold the book book by like 50 to one and I said to my publisher you know why why do you think that is and they said nobody wants to see your book on their coffee table yeah and I thought about it and the truth is if you came to my home and you saw the seven habits of highly effective people or you saw the Power of Habit by during you'd go look at Jim man he's successful he's at the top of his game but he still wants to sharpen the point of the sword this guy look at him you know he never never satisfied if you walked in and you saw how to make love last you'd be like oof what's going on with Jim like what some trouble in Paradise with the uh with the better half there what's going on and I don't know why like why is this a skill that there's any shame in talking about like why you know even among like sort of the manosphere and the red pill like they're very good problem identifiers not good problem solvers great problem identifiers okay so listen guys you want to go [ __ ] a other like because that's your option now like if you've decided women are irretrievably awful you know and that the system is rigged against us and okay cool then either start sleeping with each other or don't sleep with anybody become the like weird black pill people well that's that's the whole that's the the whole perspective of mow right the only way to win the game is to stop playing that's that that's that's that's their worldview but really like what a defe way of viewing this I don't know man like for me I I've railed against cynicism on the internet and then drilled down and railed specifically against cynicism in dating advice on the internet uh because I think that you I think you're right I I don't understand how men are supposed to be both heroic and able to overcome anything but bow out because a girl at age 19 broke their heart and how men are supposed to be disciplined and able to overcome difficult things and go and do their Brazilian jiu-jitsu and lift their hard weights but their discipline completely stops when it begins at the base of their penis sure it's like well and and what I'll tell you is one of the things I like about Jiu-Jitsu is that you have to suck at it for a long period of time and even when you're great at it there's still going to be somebody who's better at all times maybe unless you're Gordon Ryan so like everybody is going to be find somebody better than them and by the way Gordon Ryan Jump Ahead 30 years there's going to be a 20y old that's going to tap that guy out because he's going to age it happens to all of us you know so the truth is like I I have to believe that the solution to this starts with us being able to talk about it like we do anything else like we talk about how we exercise we talk about what we eat we talk about you know how do we get further in the workplace but we don't have honest conversations among men among men in conversation with women among women in conversation with each other about what's going on in our relationships and we all know this any single man in the dating world knows how many women on their Instagram or hashir boss hasag I don't need a man and then when you get them alone they want you to be a dominant man they want you to be someone and they'll tell you oh yeah I would actually really love to like be home and have kids and and by the way all the guys that on their Instagram they're hard as nails they're tough as Nails the women in their lives will tell you behind closed doors they cry at things they they're sad they're vulnerable but we've created this game where like we all have to play these roles with each other and we're never GNA get better at it we're never GNA get better at it if we don't and I'm again I'm not saying we have to walk around like an open wound sharing our feelings all that like come on it's okay to just say look this is a skill this is a skill you can take pointers like my book was designed to say here are some practical things you can do to stay connected to your partner here are some little things you can do actually do that have value because when all of these platitudes people give a well you need to really like pay attention to your what do you mean pay attent what does that mean pay attention you need to show them that they're loved what does that mean do you want me to take them to the beach do you want me to buy them flowers like what am I supposed to do practically like if you tell me I'm great like tell me what to lift and how often to lift it and I'll do it tell me what to eat and what not to eat and I'll do that you know but with love none of the no one is allowed to give any rules all anyone does when someone tries to offer a practical suggestion is [ __ ] on it and tell them how oh it's never doesn't matter anyway because the game is rigged and forget it the only way and you're right the the mgtow people absolutely best way to not get your heartbroken is to never give it to anybody else never expose it to anybody else that's great man and you know what ships in the port nothing bad ever happens to them they never get lost they never get stuck they never sink but that's not what ships are for you know and this is not what we're for it's not what our lives are for our lives are for vibrant enjoyment of life and and that requires connection with another person it does we know it does James seon ladies and gentlemen James I really appreciate you I love your energy I love the work that you've done where should people go they want keep up to date with the stuff that you're doing NYC divorce lawyer on Instagram I don't put much up on there you can go to my firm's website NYC divorces and if you're in New York um I tend to to do a lot of speaking and media stuff in New York but other than that um my book's out there you can pick it up or listen to me on Audible for eight and a half hours if you feel like it um and uh I have some other things in the works coming up so just stay tuned if you go to the website you know it'll tell you about that but thanks for having me Chris it's I've been a fan a long time I love your point of view I I really think you have a unique voice that that lands in this middle ground that the world needs right now so I I I really appreciate you and I appreciate the chance to sit down with you thank you I appreciate you too mate take care man if you enjoyed that episode then press here for a selection of the best clips from the podcast over the last few weeks and don't forget to subscribe