The Divorce Expert: 86% Of People Who Divorce Remarry! Why Sex Is Causing Divorces!

All marital problems stem from two things. And that's What about sex? How often is sex the issue in divorce? Oh my god. James Sexton, the world's number one divorce lawyer, specializing in billionaires, athletes, and celebrities for over two decades. Giving him a unique insight into how relationships fail and succeed. There's about a 56% chance that your marriage will end in divorce. Yet, 86% of people who remarry within 5 years. But most people have no idea what they are getting themselves into. And a great example of that would be Prenups. Who gets what when they break up? Correct. And the most shocking prenup I've ever seen said that for every 10 lb the wife gained, she would lose $10,000 a month in alimony. 10 lb of weight. And that was enforceable. Do good money issues lead to divorce? Oh, it's controversial. What's the quickest someone's gone from marriage to divorce? To 48 hours. Who cheats more, men or women? You'll be shocked to hear it's Have you ever seen violence during a divorce? They ran her over four times and stabbed her. Jesus Christ. So here's the question then. Should we get married? And then do you think love is a terrible idea? I think it's insane to love anything. Because someday that'll be gone. And this thing's going to break my heart. No matter what I lose. But that's not a reason not to love. And I I think there's something really important there. Congratulations, Diary of a CEO gang. We've made some progress. 63% of you that listen to this podcast regularly don't subscribe, which is down from 69%. Our goal is 50%. So if you've ever liked any of the videos we've posted, if you like this channel, can you do me a quick favor and hit the subscribe button? It helps this channel more than you know, and the bigger the channel gets, as you've seen, the bigger the guests get. Thank you and enjoy this episode. James, I've never spoken to somebody that does what you do. What do you do? I'm a divorce lawyer. I'm a divorce lawyer who represents people in contested divorce and custody proceedings in court. So, it's the fact that you've never spoken to someone who does what I do is a good thing. It It It means that either you've not married or it means that you've successfully married to the point where you would never end up in my office. By the time someone sets foot in my office, something's gone terribly wrong in their life because no one ever meant to meet me. No one ever meant to be in my office ever. What is the probability that someday I do meet somebody like you and not in this context? Well, if you marry, there's about a 56% chance that your marriage will end in divorce. Now, that doesn't take into consideration how many people may consult with a divorce lawyer because they're having difficulty in their marriage, but they choose subsequent to meeting me not to divorce for some particular reason, whether that's they don't want to part with half of their funds or they've just decided it's easier to stay miserable and with a person, or they're staying together for the kids, but they wanted to know what their rights were. So, if you marry, the the chances of meeting someone like me are are more likely than not if we look at it that way cuz it's more than 50%. So, it's a It's a high number, you know. But if we define failure as all of the other things you've described that where we kind of stay together but we're miserable or we stay together for some other reason, how what percentage of marriages on that basis do you think actually fail? I mean, if we consider the part If we consider failure staying together miserable for the children or staying together for financial economic reasons, and then we add that to the 56% that end in divorce, then I mean, it would be very hard to track that, but I I think it's generous to think it's another 20% probably. But but I mean think about what that adds up to. That means that you've got you've got something that fails 70, 75% of the time. That's a that's a negligent activity. That's you know, that's that is more likely than not to cause significant harm in your life. So I I I don't say that to sound like the Grim Reaper when it comes to marriage. I I actually really think marriage is a lovely thing and I get misty-eyed at weddings like anybody. Um and not just for you know, future business purposes. Um I I I I think I think the statistic that's even more interesting to me than how many marriages end in divorce or how many people stay together miserable is that 86% of people who divorce remarry within 5 years. So think about that. Now you've you've done this thing. It's failed. You've gone through this difficult process of having to undo it. And now within 5 years, 86% of people remarry. I mean so that that tells you how important this is to us as humans. How drawn to this idea, this technology of marriage we are. And and that to me is fascinating because I I've often said like I'm not sure what marriage was designed What problem is marriage designed to solve? See, the fact that it takes this long to think. If I said to you, what what purpose does this technology, this mug, what does it serve? Well, that's easy, right? It's hard to drink out of your hands and someone would have to keep coming up and pouring things in our hands. Okay, well, that's pretty straightforward. What what problem does this solve? Well, that's easy, right? We we don't want to get you know, the ring stains around and get yelled at by our significant other for not using a coaster. So these are easy things. But marriage, something so ubiquitous that it's assumed, it's assumed if you're dating someone for a few years and you say guess what, we're getting married. Everyone goes, of course, phenomenal, congratulations, that's great, of course you're going to do that. You know, you're making an honest woman of her, of course. Whereas if you say, you know, we we've been together for 3 4 years, we decided we're not going to get married, people go, what's wrong with this guy? He's got intimacy issues, he's not getting married, you know, what's the problem that you don't want to get married? Whereas rationally, the response should be, you know, oh yeah, we're getting married. What, are you kidding me? Why are you doing that? It's like someone saying I'm going to go skydiving, it's like, wait, are you crazy? That's a dangerous thing to do, you know, and it's not even, I mean, listen, skydiving, it's not like it's 75% 76% of people die who go skydiving. So, the truth is, like it it it makes very little sense to me that marriage is assumed to be a thing you will do when in fact we as a species are so unbelievably bad at it. That's sort of 86% that then get remarried after divorce. Are they then have they learned from their mistakes? Are they better at marriage? it's different. This time it's different. It's this time I'm really in love. That other time when I thought I was in love, that wasn't it. This time it's different. It really it's a it's it's a blind spot, you know, and again, where does it come from? You'd have to ask people smarter than me. You know, it could be neuroscience, it could be the realm of a real deep social psychology, it could just be a cognitive bias, I have no idea. It could be a delusion brought on by inadequate lighting. You know, but but the whatever it is, we go, oh yeah, but this one's different. This one I I did a pre-nup last week for a guy who went through the one of the ugliest divorces I've ever seen and that's not hyperbole. Like I've been doing this for 25 years, just to say so for me to say the ugliest divorce I've ever seen is that's amazing. That's like that's a really big that's like a Michelin chef saying this was the best meal I've ever had. So this guy had a horrific divorce that lasted four or five years. He's remarrying a woman 30 years younger than him who he met 4 months ago. And when I said to him as artfully and tactfully as I could, you know, you you've only known this person for a short time and you know, have you thought about maybe just you know, being a little cautious in terms of what you've seen how difficult a divorce can be. You know, do you think maybe it might be he did I was oh no, this is not I've never felt anything like this. I've never been this in love. I've never been so connected with someone we just get each other. And you know, that that it would be very indelicate and rude for me to say like snap out of it man. You got to get your like really you know, bring your logical brain to this this equation. Do not bring the part of you that's just filled with romance and has Christmas in your eyes. Like really you got to look at this honestly. Do you see a lot of gold diggers? Do you see a lot of gold digger sort of um patterns? I you see someone that's incredibly wealthy. You see someone that's I don't know 40 years younger than them. Yeah. Yeah, I see a lot of that. I mean I you know, I'm I'm hesitant to say gold diggers because I think that has a a pejorative like built into it that that that somehow I think that that people bring different things to the table in relationships. I I I think love is an economy. And I don't I'm not saying that in a way that that devalues love. I think that love is a verb. I think that love is an emotion. And I think that love is an economy. You know, there there is a a giving and taking of value. And and that can be incredibly symbiotic. You know, they can be incredibly healthy and wonderful. That that you know, I am way too serious and the person who I'm with is going to bring lightness and levity to the relationship and I'm going to help them be a little more serious. And they're going to help me lighten up, you know? And I'm hard charging and hard working and everything's like 10 moves ahead and and my partner's going to like help me calm down and help me, you know, not be so hard charging and and be a little softer and be a little kinder and rest my head and give me a sort of warm place to do that. Like that's beautiful. We're each bringing something different. So, if I'm a powerful, hard working, financially successful, financially secure man and I meet a young, beautiful woman who has energy and excitement and who has tremendous gifts, but doesn't have the resources to be able to do much with that, you know? Like she's a talented artist, but you know, she's busy working, you know, a thankless, awful job, you know, like slinging cappuccinos, you know? And and she she's not able to in this prime of her life focus on this thing she's so talented at. And I can say to her, "Hey, listen, why don't you focus on that?" And I have resources, an abundance of them, and I'm happy to share them with you and and feel like I'm part of your success and you in turn are part of my success because you give me this wonderful respite from the chaos of my work and and like I don't think that that's a dishonest economy. I don't think that So, like to say a gold digger sort of implies like, "Oh, she's in it for the money." And it's like, "Okay, well, I'm in it for the beauty." You know, so does that mean I'm a horrible, shallow person or is beauty beautiful? Is beauty something you want to be around? And and if we're honest about the interaction, how is that predatory? How is that unfair to either of us? You know, if if we're honest about it. Like what's harder for me to deal with is when I have a client who is, you know, 150 lb overweight, 5 ft 7, um and and there is just nothing about him that aesthetically or even personality-wise a woman would go, "Oh, that's my guy." But he's a billionaire. You know, and and he's got a young, gorgeous woman who's allegedly madly in love with him, and he really believes that it's his personality. And it's nothing to do with the fact that he's a billionaire or that that is a very small consideration. That feels to me like the worst kind of of delusion, you know? Whereas, you could very honestly say, like, yeah, we each bring different things to the table, we each bring different things to each other's lives. And then yeah, so it is it is a {quote} {unquote} gold digger. But, you know, it's also a man who wants to to to buy the company of someone who might not otherwise be interested in him if he wasn't so successful. So, I think there's a there's a give-and-take in that relationship. I think that's very fair. Have you Have you seen examples of the the latter example where you know, you describe that billionaire where there's not many redeeming qualities where they're heading towards marriage, they don't yet have a pre-nup, you're maybe advising them that they should get a pre-nup, and they're not interested because they're so deluded by the belief that the person is interested in their wonderful personality or Yeah, so so the pre-nup conversation is a really interesting one because I I I do a lot of pre-nups. Just just to define what a pre-nup is. Sure, a prenuptial agreement is a contract between two people that defines the rule set essentially for their marriage. So, so marriage, when we talk about marriage, you know, people tend to just sort of use the word marriage, and they're actually talking about a number of different things. Like, in some contexts marriage is a spiritual commitment, right? It's a religious commitment. It's tied to In Catholicism, it's a sacrament. In in Judaism, it's a covenant with God, you know, in Islam, it has its own status. So, marriage exists as a religious concept. Socially, we have a definition of marriage, right? Like I am married to this person. We have married our destinies to each other. We have agreed that we are each other's person. And then, marriage has a specific legal definition. And my job as a divorce lawyer is to take that piece apart for someone or to create protections for people who are contemplating entering into that legal status. So, like, you you've been to weddings, right? I'm sure you've never at the end of the wedding said, um, "Great, guys. I had a wonderful time. The cake was delicious. Um, I need to see the paperwork." "Can I Can I see the license now?" I I just want to make sure everything was done properly and that there were witnesses. You've never said that. You've never said to your your parents, "Can I see your marriage license? I'd like to make sure everything's in order here." That's not how it works. Like, we don't do that. So, you could go have a wedding and tell people that you're married and never actually legally marry. You could just tell people that you're married. You don't check people's paperwork. Like, you could just wear a ring if you want to. And similarly, if you don't wear a ring, it doesn't mean you're not legally married. Like, you could be legally married and still take your ring off and you're still legally married. If it was just as easy as taking the ring off, I'd be out of a job. So, marriage is a legal status. That's one of the meanings of marriage. And a prenuptial agreement, the way I would describe it is two people deciding that they, having picked each other out of 8 billion people to choose from in the world, are in a better position to make the rules that will govern the economics of their relationship than the legislature would be, than politicians would be. And anyone who's ever been to the Department of Motor Vehicles, or who's ever been to, you know, any government agency, very rarely would you interact with a government agency and go, "We should definitely put these people in charge of our our family life. Like they're going to do a great job. They're they're really crushing it, you know?" Like that's not something people Yet, most people who are married have almost no idea what legal rights and obligations were conferred on them by getting married. They they just have no idea. It's the most legally significant thing they're going to do in their life other than die. And they have no idea what their rights and obligations are. And those rights and obligations can change. So, like politics and the legislature and the way that rules that govern the spousal support rights, child support rights, the division of property, those are subject to change by government change. So, for example, in the United States, um alimony, spousal support, maintenance, whatever we want to call it, which is a payment a person makes to their spouse when there's been an economic disparity in the marriage and now they're getting divorced, that used to be tax-deductible. It used to have no formula. It was at the discretion of a judge. Then in 2016, Trump came into office and he said, "Yeah, I'm not letting it be tax-deductible anymore." So, completely changed. Now, you're already married at this point. And now the rules about what governs your marriage have changed. So, there aren't a lot of contracts in the world that people could enter into that the terms could wildly change due to circumstances beyond your control and you're still in that same contract. So, prenuptial agreements are designed for two people who at that moment have an abundance of affection for each other. If they didn't, then there's no reason that they should be getting married, that they make up a rule set that's going to govern their relationship. And that typically, as we see it in movies and such and we hear about it in culture, is really deciding who gets what when they break up, right? Correct. Now, it's hard to say in advance who gets what when we break up sometime in the future. Because we don't know what we're going to have in 10 years, in 20 years. So, what do you do? You create structures. Like you create, you know, I refer to the simplest pre-nup as a yours, mine, and ours. Which is if it's in my name, whether it's an asset or a liability, it's mine. Free from any claim by you, free from any obligation to you. If it's in your name, it's yours. Free from any claim by me, any obligation to me. Ours, if it's in our joint names, then we're equally responsible for it if it's an obligation, or we're equally entitled to half the value of it if it's an asset. That to me, just creating those three buckets. Now, here's the problem. You create those three buckets, you both sign off on it, and you get married. You can't just set it and forget it now. You actually have to have conversations with this person that you're married to, which theoretically you should be able to do, right? Like if you've decided this is going to be my primary relationship, this is the person I'm going to tie my destiny to, you should be able to talk about, "Hey, I just got this big bonus at work. I'm going to put this much in my sole account, and I'm going to put this much in the joint account." And then you should be able to say if you're the other person, "Well, why why are you putting so much of it in your personal account? Like are things weird with us or something? Or is there You know, have some conversation." Again, about why are we marrying? It's a It's that economy concept, which is, "Look, what do I owe you if I marry you? I'd like to know that in advance because people say to me all the time, you know, "Well, I married this person, and when we got married, uh he had nothing. He had nothing, and he built his business while he was married to me. And I was very, you know, there for him while he was building it. So, therefore, I believe I'm entitled to half the value of that business. Now, that's a logical argument. I don't know that I agree with it, but it's logical. But, keep going with that logic, right? So, if that was true, and I built this business and my wife, who was married to me while I was building that business, she helped make that. Okay, well, her mother and father helped make who she is. So, I owe them something, right? Like I cuz if they hadn't done what they did, I wouldn't have her and if I didn't have her, I wouldn't have my business. So, how much do I owe them? And you know, now that I think about it, her grandmother definitely influenced who her mother was, which influenced who she was, which influenced what she did for me. So, just can you let me know in advance how far down the chain do I owe people and how much do I owe them? They can't all get half. So, do they get half of the half of the half? Or do I like and and and if this is the logic that we're going to follow, then I would like to know in advance what that is because there are no other transactions where if you went in to purchase a car and you said, "How much is this car?" and they said, "Money." They said, "Well, how much?" "You know, it's a good amount." Okay, I again, we just keep talking in abstractions. I'd like to know what does this add up to? How much is it? You know, and it even if you can't make it a dollar number, it's X percent of last year's earnings or like give me a formula, something to tie it to and at least have that conversation cuz then you can decide am I going to sign up for this thing or not? You must meet a lot of people who are in a relationship where one of the people doesn't want to have a prenup. Yes. I cuz I cuz I when I think about having a prenup, I'm with a woman at the moment. We've been together for 5 years. Um frankly, if I said to her, "I want to get a prenup." she would be all for it. She would That's the type of person she is. She'd be all for it. Doesn't care. She'd be all for it. Excellent. You've done well. But I can imagine in other relationships, I'd be nervous Yeah. to even say the words, because immediately you're thinking about how you're getting out before you get in. Yeah. Well, and you know, there's a lot to that. There's a lot to unpack there. So, the first thing I would say is all marriages end. They end in death or they end in divorce, but they all end, right? And so, if you said, "I'm going to get life insurance." It would be foolish for someone who's with you to say, "Wait, are you planning on dying soon?" Like it No, but in the event that I do, I'd like to make sure that things are taken care of in a certain way, and in the event that I do, there's going to be enough things to be upset and sad about for the people around me, so I'd like them to have one less thing. You know, and I I I also know that there's a possibility. I hope I won't, but there's a possibility that I'm going to die in an hour. So, I'd really hope it doesn't happen, but I can't say it's definitely not going to happen. So, divorce, you know, when we look at statistics like that, it's okay to say, "Hey, look, you know what? I hope this never happens, but if it did, what do we owe each other? You know, what would you need? Like it's not just a conversation about what do I want to keep? What am I entitled to keep? It's also what what would what would you need? Have you seen it break down a marriage because someone mentioned a pre-nup? Have you seen it Yeah, I've seen marriage I've seen marriages that were scheduled to happen not happen because the pre-nup discussion happened. But more often than not, I've seen the threat of not marrying someone because they want you to sign a pre-nup cause a person to fold in their request for a pre-nup, which to me is a really bad start for a marriage. So, I've had a lot of clients who come in, say, "Look, I I want to have a pre-nup. I have a lot of confidence in this marriage. I really love this person, but I would like to, you know, have a pre-nup in place." And I draft a pre-nup for them, and it has reasonable terms, and they give it to their fiance, and their fiance says, "Yeah, I'm not signing that. It's not happening." And instead of saying, "Okay, like then you're choosing for us to not marry, you know, that's okay, but like I love you and I'd love to marry you, but this is something that I need in order to feel comfortable with that." Um they they just go, "Okay, yeah, never mind." And they walk away from it. And and um because they're intimidated. And I think that's a that's an awful way to start a marriage. Like I think that's much worse than having a discussion about difficult things. Like I don't think you would think it's irresponsible. You've been with with a woman for 5 years to say to her, let's say a year ago, or let's say 4 years ago, to say to her, "You know, we're going to get in a fight sometime. It's going to happen. Like we're going to disagree about something. It'll probably be my fault. I'll probably say something stupid. I do that sometimes. So, when we get in a fight someday, which again, I hope we don't. I'll do everything I can and not ever get in an argument with you. But at some point um something's going to happen. You're going to say something that's going to hurt my feelings. I'm going to take it the wrong way. I'll say something, you'll take it the wrong way. Or maybe I'm just an idiot. Sometimes I'll be in a bad mood and I'll say something, or I'll have too many drinks and I'll say something to you that'll upset you. When that happens, how do you how do you like to fight? Like what's best? Do you need a minute? Like do you need a minute to calm down? Do you need to like sleep on it? Or do you need to like we got to fix this right now. I can't go to bed angry. Like I won't be able to sleep. I won't be able to function. Like Like do we have to address it right then and there? Cuz you know the best time to talk about how we're going to argue when we're not arguing. You know the worst time to learn how to fight? In the middle of a fight. That's the worst time to learn how to fight. So, I like a pre-nup. I think a pre-nup can be a very romantic thing. Cuz it's basically saying, "Look, I love you, you love me, we want this thing to work, or else we wouldn't be signing up for it. But in the event it breaks down, you have a right to know what you're entitled to, I have a right to know what I'm entitled to. We both have an interest in making sure that we both have the things we need, so that neither of us feels like we're crawling out of this relationship instead of walking out of it. Like if I lose you, I'm going to have a lot more to be sad about than my stuff. Well, boy, let me tell you, not knowing where I'm going to live, or how I'm going to pay my bills, that's going to add a layer of pain and complexity to what is undoubtedly going to be a really hard situation. So, let's take that off of each other. Let's Let's know that because I don't ever want the person who lays their head on the pillow next to me to be there cuz they don't want to get divorced. I I would rather that it be that they like having me there next to them, that their life is better because I'm there, that they feel like I bring value to their life and they bring value to mine, not, "Well, I don't want to go through all that." In that case of that person you referenced there where they came to you for a pre-nup, their partner gave them an ultimatum and said, "Listen, no, I'm not signing that." How would you kind of draw the line between being a lawyer versus like a therapist or an adviser, sort of like a relationship adviser? Yeah, I mean, I have to tell you, it's a very seamless. I I don't um I don't think it's easy to distinguish between. We're attorneys at law. I might I have an undergraduate degree in psychology. And I think I use it as much as I use my law degree because this is so personal that it's very hard to not give human advice while I'm giving legal advice. And I'm dealing in the clay of of, you know, human emotion and human human connection and human frailty and human emotional complexity. I thought pre-nups were illegal. I thought they were like people went and got them, but they when it comes to enforcement enforcement, they don't hold up. You know, it could be true in the UK, but certainly not in the USA. It's They are They are enforceable. They are binding. Sometimes they're crazy how enforceable they are. Oh, really? Like it's Because the nature of a pre-nup is as long as it was not what's called unconscionable. Unconscionable is a contract that is so unfair that no fair-dealing person would offer it, and no sane person would accept it. So, that's what unconscionability is. So, you have to be A contract has to be unconscionable for it to be set aside, okay? Now, I have seen some pre-nups that were in their interpretation unconscionable, meaning you know, at the time they entered into it, he had nothing and she had nothing. And now they're getting divorced, and under the terms of this, he's going to walk out with a hundred million dollars, and she's going to walk out with almost nothing. But as long as it was not unconscionable at the time it was made, if it's unconscionable in its performance, it's still binding. So, I have seen the outcome of pre-nups sometimes be shockingly unfair, but you have a right to contract. As long as it wasn't fraud, as long as it wasn't duress or undue influence, or if someone was under the, you know, influence of drugs or alcohol when they signed off on it, it's a binding contract because we believe in in in human autonomy and agency and the right to make decisions about your life and your future. So, Is that exa- Is exa- Is that the most real one? Is that the the most shocking one you've seen? No, the most shocking pre-nup I've ever seen, which was enforceable, um had a provision that said that for every 10 lb the wife gained in the marriage, she would lose $10,000 a month in alimony. 10 lb of weight. Yes. Yes. So, so it it it was a very wealthy man who was wearing marrying a very attractive woman. But, he was very concerned that she was going to become less attractive and he was going to become more wealthy. So, his solution to this was in the prenuptial agreement, he wanted a clause that said she would get if they divorced, she was going to get like $70,000 a month for alimony. But, for every 10 lb she gained from the date of marriage, she would forfeit 10,000 a month worth of alimony. And it was designed to sort of create an incentive that she would remain thin. And that was enforceable. Meaning, they tried to challenge and set aside that provision. And the court said, "This is a disgusting provision. I don't know why you married this person, but it's enforceable. It's a contract. The two of you signed it and you had a right to sign it and you agreed to these rules and they may be ridiculous rules, but you agreed to them and you have a right to do that." Do you think that was love? Again, I I think it's a kind of love. I think it's a form of love. I Is it a form of love I'd be interested in? No. I think it's very shallow in some ways. There's something very honest about it. I mean, you can't argue with the fact that there's something very upfront about it. He was making very clear and putting in writing, "Here's the value you bring to this relationship. You know, I consider your physical appearance vitally important to this relationship." And by the way, don't skip the other side of that equation. Yeah. She was going to get $70,000 a month. That's very impressive number. So, you know, I I think she she also understood there was a value to be attached to him as well. You know, and and it's so it's Is it something I would be interested in on either side of that equation? No. But, do I have a right to say to someone that's not love? I I don't think I have a right to say that to someone. I think that if this is an economy the two of you have agreed on that, you know, as a lawyer see my my job as a lawyer is not to look like I don't look at it that way. I look at the engineering of it. So, like if I'm representing her in that transaction, all I could think is, okay, so we're going to want her baseline weight to be as high as possible. So, I'm going to want her to have pennies in her pockets after at the day we sign the pre-nup cuz you'd have to establish a baseline, right? Cuz if you say gaining 10 lb, you'd have to establish a baseline weight on the date of the marriage. So, she was weighed on the date of the marriage. Well, in or about the date of the marriage. The parties acknowledge that on on or about the date of marriage she weighed approximately X pounds. So, if I'm her, I want that to be as high as possible. So, I'm going to be putting pennies in my pockets and eating as many cheeseburgers as I can before the weigh-in. Now, we're getting divorced, I'm going to be like a wrestler. I'm going to be in the sauna. I'm going to be sweating as much as I can. I'm going to take diuretics. I'm going to eat nothing but like grilled vegetables for a week or two, you know? And I'm going to I'm going to take off every ounce of clothing I can cuz I want to minimize my weight. This is why this is why lawyers don't get invited to parties cuz that's how we analyze problems. Like I didn't hear that and go, what is the nature of their coupling? I looked at it and I went, oh, I could play with that. I could work I get it I get it whoever I'm representing in that transaction I could figure out a way to, you know, kind of make that work. You become a coach. Kind of is. I mean, it it turns into an engineering question as opposed to a human question. I heard about this thing when I was reading your book of these um I've watching some of your stuff online that I didn't know existed, which was fidelity contracts. Fidelity clauses, yeah. Fidelity clauses. Yeah, yeah. So, it's something people include in prenuptial agreements, and also sometimes in what's called a postnuptial agreement. So, a postnuptial agreement, you know, nuptial meaning marriage, pre meaning before marriage, post meaning after marriage. So, if you didn't get a prenup, but your marriage, for whatever reason, becomes fragile, maybe someone learns of an affair, or maybe you're starting to have difficulties with each other, but you don't want a divorce, but you'd like there to be some clarity as to if we divorce, what will the rules be? You can do something called a postnuptial agreement. Okay. And and that would, in the event you divorce, make the divorce a little less acrimonious because you've resolved certain issues. It's basically like the prenup you should have had. Okay. So, I have seen people in both prenups and in postnups put in what's called fidelity clauses, which essentially are a clause that say that if you cheat on your spouse, here's what the penalty will be. And it could be a financial penalty. It could have, you know, a support-related context. It could have be a percentage of certain ownership rights, you know, things that you have. Are they a good idea from what you've seen? Are they useful in I think they're a terrible idea. Yeah, from a legal standpoint, they're a terrible idea. For for a couple of reasons. One, defining cheating is very tricky. Uh you know, if if if if you're if we're going to define cheating as a specific form of sexual contact, I guess that's a pretty clear definition. But but even infidelity, it's not all created equal. I mean, I think we could all agree that if you if your partner when they were drunk on vacation or at a party, you know, had some kind of fleeting sexual contact with another person, and then woke up the the day and went, "Oh my god, what did I do? I regret this so much." But, they're never going to see this person again. It was just a stupid dalliance. It happens, you know. Again, not excusing that behavior, but that's different than if you were having an ongoing affair with another person. Or I think there are probably some people if they were being honest, if they said, "Would you rather that your spouse on a drunken night out kissed somebody or was texting another person five times a day for 6 weeks and sharing the most intimate thoughts?" You know, and what we call an emotional affair. Well, I mean, I think we can agree that like something about an emotional affair like someone becoming your confident. They're They're I once heard someone say and I In my professional life, I found it to be true that when men find out that a woman who they're with has had an affair, their first question is, "Did you sleep with them?" When women find out a man had an affair, their first question is, "Are you in love with her?" And I think that tells you a lot about men and women's relationships because there's a sense of, "Okay, what what was this? Was this sex or was this like I'm I don't love you anymore. I don't want you in my life anymore?" Because those are two really different things. And And so, a fidelity clause is a one-size-fits-all concept that just says, "Okay, we're going to define cheating and then there's going to be a penalty for you doing it." Now, again, in what I've observed in life, cheating is its own penalty. Cheating turns your life at best cheating turns your life into like an unbelievably complicated like jumping from one foot to another, lying to everyone involved. Like rarely does anybody get out of infidelity without hurting themselves and a bunch of other people. Like whether it's not only their partner, but even the person who they cheated with, or or that person's partner. Like there's so there's so much pain to go around when when cheating happens. And so, to say, "And there's going to be an economic penalty." You know, it's a bit like, you know, using drugs is illegal in a lot of places, but I can't imagine that there's a heroin addict who goes, "You know, I'm going to shoot up. Oh, wait, it's illegal. I don't want to get in trouble." And And I'm going to Like that's not how it works. Like you're adding insult to injury, you know? This person They're already in a very difficult position. I don't think making it illegal is going to do much except create an underground economy. Same kind of thing. I I think that infidelity there should be sufficient incentives in a relationship to not cheat. And there there are already, by definition, so many consequences for cheating, that adding to that an economic penalty, I don't know that a person's going to be about cheating and then go, "This could cost me like 20 more grand. Uh no, I'm not going to do it." Are you seeing more and more people getting those prenups? Yeah, prenups are I have to tell you, there's a generational shift happening. I I see a lot of people in their I've been doing this job for 25 years. And I will tell you, the people currently in their 20s and early 30s, like the prime demographic for marriage, mid mid 20s to mid 30s, are getting prenups at a rate that I would say is probably 5x what it was 10 years ago, 15 years ago, certainly 25 years ago from when I started. I I think there's a more pragmatic view of relationships. I think that there's there's a lot more open discussion. I mean, although there is a tremendous increase in the amount of like performative, "Look how happy we are," you know, meanwhile, it's like, you know, white teeth and rotting gums. You know, like we're we're we're doing the performative social media, look at how great, hashtag blessed, and meanwhile our life is, you know, is our relationship is is rotting from the inside. Um and we see a lot of that. Like I I I'll tell you something, I see people in my office who publicly are having the greatest relationships ever. Like if you believe their social media, they are so madly in love, and it shocks me because I think about all the people that are dissatisfied in their perfectly acceptable relationship cuz it's not as amazing as that relationship. And meanwhile, that relationship is nowhere near that amazing as they'd have you believe it. And and we've got the audacity now as a culture that people without any apology, you know, do the we're perfectly happy, these hateful rumors that we're unhappy are terrible, and then we've decided to amicably part ways. We ask you to respect our privacy during this difficult time. And you're like, okay, but wait a minute. Like a month ago when there was rumors that the two of you were splitting up, you yelled at all of us for saying it's so mean that we're speculating, and now you're like, yes, we've split up. So we were right. So we you were making us feel awful about ourselves and how madly in love you were with each other, but now, you know, we were basing our lives, like we're we're basing our our our level of satisfaction on watching your greatest hits while we live our gag reel. Do you think there's something in the idea that those that endeavor to convince the world that they're happy in their relationships are often not as happy? 100%. I'll actually extrapolate that further. My my father's a southerner, so he has a lot of southern folksy things he says, and one of them was empty barrels make the most noise. And he used to say that to me when I was a kid all the time. Whenever somebody had something fancy that they owned, cuz I grew up without a lot of money, and then someone would drive a beautiful car, and I'd say, "Wow, that car is so cool." He'd say, "You know, empty barrels make the most noise." That that the people that that have true joy in their relationship really don't feel like they have to advertise it. People who have a like I I represent some of the wealthiest people in the world. Like New York is the epicenter of commerce and finance for the United States and to some degree for the world. You know, in the UAE you're more likely to find a gold plated Ferrari, but in New York like finance, Wall Street, like it is it is the home of it. So I represent I have a client who's worth $8 billion. You would walk past him on the street, you would never know he has very much money at all. He drives a Jeep Grand Cherokee, which is like a very mid-range car. He wears like, you know, totally nondescript clothing. Like he just looks like a typical middle-aged dude and you would not look at him and go like he gets his hair cut at like Supercuts for 25 bucks. Like he's not posh in the things that he owns and does. And he's he could buy, you know, he his income annually is like the gross domestic product of a few company of a few countries. And, you know, he's not But then again I have clients who appear to be incredibly wealthy. And as a divorce lawyer I get to see the absolutely unfiltered version of people's finances and I can tell you they are deeply in debt many of them. You know, this is particularly true of celebrities. You know, celebrities have to live these big performative lives cuz if they're they don't, you know, drive a posh car and they don't wear the the latest designer labels, there's this sense of oh are they not doing well? And especially with sort of influencer culture, you know, there's just so much like, you know, everything everyone's wearing and doing has to be the best of the best and the most expensive. I I find very often these are the more people have to flaunt their wealth, the less wealth they probably have. Like, you know, money talks like wealth whispers and it's very comfortable just whispering. It doesn't feel like it has to prove to the world. In fact, it it would rather that everyone not know who it was. There was a time where fame was an unfortunate side effect of talent. So, you were really good at something. So, then everybody heard about who you were, and all of a sudden everybody knew who you were. And that was unfortunate cuz you couldn't go out to eat anymore. You couldn't just live your life anymore. Now, of course, there were times where it probably felt really nice. You know, it feels good. Listen, I I walk down the street in New York City sometimes. People today, guys said to me, "Hey, man, love your stuff." Thanks. That's great. Feels nice. Definitely nice. There's times where it doesn't. There's times where I'm on my phone. I'm I'm in the middle of talking to a client, and somebody's standing there next to me waiting to talk to me, and I know they're waiting to say something so lovely. But there's a part of me that's like, okay, man, I I got to like do what I'm doing right now. I'm I'm I'm doing the thing, you know. And now being famous is the goal for so many people. So, I I think there is definitely, when people say, "Look at how happy we are. Look at how happy we are. Look at You know, it's like, please, tell me how happy we are because if you don't tell me how happy we are, I'm going to have to look at this relationship, and I'm going to see how unhappy we are. You know, when someone wants to be famous, it's like, tell me I have value. Please tell me I have value. Oh, God, please tell me I have value. Because, you know, the the reason I was never really interested in being famous is that the praise of strangers never really felt that important to me. Like if the people in my life think I have something interesting to say, and care about me, and like me, that's really meaningful to me. And I'm touched for anyone who's ever appreciated my work or enjoyed it. But I never said like, oh, I really want to get out there, and you know, have people know who I am, and tell me I'm smart because cuz I I know I'm smart. Like it's okay. Like you don't My beliefs don't require you to believe them. And and so, I I think this performative culture when it comes to relationships is an unfortunate thing because again, we're comparing ourselves we can't help as a species but compare ourselves to the things we see around us. But you must see so much of that in your office where someone comes in and they say my marriage isn't working and they use the they use a comparative measure. They say well, you know, Jenny and Dave they're like this and we're not so But how much sex are they having? How much like how much sex is enough sex? Like honestly. Like we don't talk about these things. We don't we don't there's so much of our day-to-day life that we're constantly feeling like we're not doing well based on nothing. Like I don't think I'm doing that well. Compared to what? I'm not good-looking enough. Compared to what? A photoshopped image of a person on steroids? Yeah, you're right. You don't look like a photoshopped person on steroids. You're not supposed to. Like women are going into doctor's offices saying make me look like this and showing the doctor something that's been photoshopped. That person doesn't look like that. Like how would you know you're not having enough sex? How much sex are people having? Is that frequent one sex? Yeah, sex is huge. Sex is huge. It's well, I mean first of all, it better be because what's the difference between a spouse and a roommate otherwise? Like it was just like oh, we're going to be partners in a home together. Like you don't have to marry each other to do that. You can just live together and be I mean sex is the glue. Sex is the thing that brings you together. Sex is what makes a romantic relationship a romantic relationship. And again, it can be any number of varieties of sex. It can be preferences of sex. It can be anything. But we don't talk about we talk about all kinds of things in in polite society now if you can call it that. I mean we talk more than we ever did about, you know, transgender issues and LGBTQ+ issues. And I think that's progress. I think it's great that people can talk about anything. We can talk about kink. We can talk about like I'm a big fan of people being able to speak openly about the things that make them happy and make them feel good and, you know, not having to feel ashamed about certain things. But, baseline? Like, how how Well, we're not having enough sex. Okay, compared to what? The sex we used to have as a couple? That makes sense. That makes sense to me. Like, if we set a baseline and say, we used to have sex every day. When we first started dating, we had sex four times a day. Okay, but then the you know, luster wears off. You know, now we we we used to have sex once a day. Now, once a week. Is that okay? Is that natural? Is that part of the progression of a relationship? Or is that a sign that one or both of us are feeling dissatisfied with each other? Can we talk about that and not have it be a fight? Can we talk about that and not hear it as a as a something that we have to react defensively to? And that's that's the stuff I tried to talk about in my book is that people come in and they go, well, you know, we're unhappy with each other. I was cheating on her. I was cheating on her because she wasn't sleeping with me. Well, I wasn't sleeping with him because he's never nice to me. Well, I'm not nice to her because every time I talk to her, all she does is put me down. Okay, and you sit here going, okay, so you guys have just been in this death spiral. You know, just going down and down and down. You started at I love you more than eight billion other people in the world. But, somehow you just started to do this death spiral. And now you're right, you won. You guys you won. You're both right. You don't have to sleep with him. You don't have to be nice to her. You don't have to say a kind word. You don't have to do any of that. You don't have to be married. Great news. You don't have to be married. But, you decided to be married. You signed up to be married. So, at some point this made sense to you. You liked each other that much. And you were both pointing in the same direction and at some point you lost the plot. So, my feeling is wouldn't it be better before you completely lose the plot to just do the preventative maintenance? To just maintenance? Talk about what Are we still as connected as we were? Are we still as excited as we were? Are we still you know, are we still attracted to each other? Are we still enjoying each other physically, mentally, like emotionally? want to do that though cuz it's uncomfortable, right? Okay. Lots of things are uncomfortable that are so good for you. You know, exercise is uncomfortable until you get in a rhythm of it and that feels really good, you know? So, how how would you know if the first time you went to the gym and you worked out and you went home and you were like, "Oh my god, I'm so sore. I'm never working out again." Then you will never get into an exercise routine. You have to get through that part where everything's really sore. And you're still sometimes going to be sore. You overdid it, you know? But you start to realize, "Yeah, but it's also bringing tremendous value to my life, you know?" And so, why not? Like why not trade what you want now, which is comfort in the moment, for what you want most, which is real connection, real intimacy, like real joy? And and and that can be And again, we want it. 86% of people who get divorced wouldn't get remarried within 5 years if we didn't want it. If we didn't believe it was possible. And if you've ever met someone who is happily married over a long period of time, you won the lottery. Like they're so Their lives are just so much better because they just go, "I have this partner." Cuz this is terrifying. Like life is terrifying and it's brutal. And it and it and it ends. It invariably ends. We're all going to die. Everyone we love's going to die. Like we're playing a game you can't win to the utmost. And to me, to have a partner in that, someone who you can hold their hand and go, you know, when you're scared, I'll be here for you, and when I'm scared, you'll be here for me, and you'll help me see my blind spots, and I'll help you see yours, and let's just do this thing, we'll never be alone. Like, what a gorgeous thought that is. What a beautiful thought that is. What a worthy pursuit that is. But, yeah, you got to be uncomfortable once in a while. You got to tell it each other something other than what the other person wants to hear once in a while. But, to me, like, if the payoff is real connection, keeping real intimacy, keeping your partner happy and satisfied with you, so that the thought of splitting up or running off with somebody else is just a fleeting thought that maybe occasionally jumps into their head, like, that seems such a worthwhile investment to me. Preventative maintenance. I wanted to drill down a little bit into what that actually looks like, cuz there'll be a lot of people right now, including myself, who heard you use this term preventative maintenance. And immediately I thought, "Jesus Christ, I probably should do that a little bit more." Sure. What do you mean by preventative maintenance? It can be lots of things. I think it can be I try to give a lot of examples, but I I think some of the simplest examples are very small gestures of courtesy. I mean, think about when you first started dating. All the little things that made the back of your neck tingle about this person. Like, they would say the littlest thing about you, and it made you so happy cuz they were noticing you. You know, and they they they saw beautiful things in you, and that made you see and feel those things in yourself. You know, that that's a beau- amazing thing we can do for each other, you know? And and so, I mean, at its core level, like, the the the the example I've given to a lot of my male friends, and and several of them have done it, and I've got a lot of really good feedback on it, is leave leave a note. Just leave a note in the morning when you leave for work or wherever it is you're going, just leave a note. You know, it was so great hanging out with you last night. I'm with the prettiest girl in the whole world. Can't wait to see you again. That's it. What does that take? 10 seconds? 10 seconds. And and every guy I meet who I say that to, they go, "Yeah, the first time I did it, she was like, what is going on? Why did you leave me that note? What are you What What What is What's going on?" But then after a little while, like if this is just something you do that you go, "Yeah, I just, you know, I want to make a practice of like how I want to tell you this stuff I forget to tell you sometimes." You know, like what does that take? Like what does it take for your partner to say to you, "You're so smart. Like I just love being around you. Like you're so handsome. I'm so lucky." Like what does that take? That's nothing. Doesn't cost anything. Takes nothing to do that. Why don't we do it? I don't know. I don't know. I I think we just whoever discovered water it wasn't a fish, like I think you're just in it and you just stop seeing it. And that person's just there. And again, I don't know And I also think culture is antagonistic to it. Cuz the example I give to people cuz people love their dogs, and I love my dogs. But like dogs are a great way to look at this rationality. Because I've got a 13-year-old dog. I got him when he was a puppy. Now he's 13. And like me, he's slowed down a lot. His back hurts. He's not quite the puppy he used to be. I have never once looked at that dog and gone, "I got to get a puppy. This old This old dog. He doesn't look as cute as he used to." And like, "Oh my god, have you seen how cute puppies are?" Like I would never. That's my dog, man. I fall more in love with that dog every single day. You know? And yeah, sure, puppies are cute and they're great, and I'll pet them, but that's my dog, man. I wouldn't trade all the puppies in the world for that dog. Your partner? Your romantic partner? Like what What it become acceptable as it as it is in in culture to just just piss all over your partner. Like every guy it's like the I'm married to the most loathsome harpy ever to castrate a man. Like this one, the old ball and chain. And women, it's like the guy is like, "Oh, this idiot. Like this just lovable idiot, you know, he doesn't know. He doesn't know anything. He's so stupid. Men are so stupid." Like when did that What do you think's going to come from that? Other than this disdain that we can then have for each other and this sort of disrespect as opposed to being like so into each other, which is what you were when you were strangers. You know, when you didn't know each other, you know, every all the same women sitting around in a group of women talking about how much their husbands suck. When their female friend goes, "Oh my god, I'm seeing this guy I just started seeing. What did he Oh my god, he sounds so great." All All this is All this is is your guy 5 years ago. But somehow now, you're you're really going to buy the delusion that if she it all works out with him and they get married and they do their little fairy tale thing and the cake and the dress and the whole thing that in 5 years she's still going to be like, "He's so great." No, it's going to be "Oh, he's a uh" again. Just like the rest of you. So, we need to start as a culture you know, perhaps changing the way cuz I think there is something about that where we you know, we're trying to like not make people self-conscious. So, we just like take the piss out of our partner all the time in front of, you know, people or around other people. And I I don't find that charming. Do you think that when we get to the lovable idiot Oh my god, happy wife, happy life, all that stuff, which is part of culture Happy wife, who Whoever said that should just be beaten to death. Happy wife, happy life. Like if I hear one more person give that advice to somebody, I have to tell you, that is just the most ridiculous What does that even mean? Happy wife, happy life. If she's happy, then I'm happy. Because Is that true? I think it I I think it's used by men who believe that their wife is always unhappy. So, if she's not shouting at me, and I can just sit here and watch the football, Yeah. then all all is well. that something to aspire to? You know, man, I can't wait what? For someday for my kids to just sit there while the up person in the other room is just mildly dissatisfied with them, and they can just sit and watch, you know, the football. Get really? That's That's what we're aspiring to? That's what you hope for? Like, I got to tell I just don't I think our goals are really misaligned. You know, my greatest accomplishment in life is my children. Really? That's your greatest accomplishment in life is your children. What Let me ask you this. What will your children's greatest accomplishment in life be? Having children? Cuz guess what? This is the ideology of a cancer cell. Growth for the sake of growth for the sake of growth for the sake of growth. Reproduction for the sake of reproduction. I don't think that's the highest, noblest goal. I think there should be something in there about quality of life, about making the world where the experience of others better. Like, again, it's not for me to define, but but I certainly I don't Intelligence is hard to define, but I can spot stupid a mile away. And I have to tell you, a good relationship, you know, it's kind of hard to quantify, but man, I know what sucks. I know a bad relationship when I see one, and we all know them. So, what's more uncomfortable? That relationship where, you know, at least she's not yelling at me, and she's only mildly dissatisfied, and I can just be left alone for an hour and watch the football. Or having having conversation, again, while you still like each other, but there's a little slippage. There's a little something going in the other direction, and I don't want it to go too far. I mean, put it into the physical context. It is a whole lot easier to maintain a healthy weight than to gain 100 lb and then try to figure out how to lose it. That's much, much harder, and it's much worse for you. And the chances of you actually accomplishing them are way lower. Whereas, maintaining a healthy weight, that's not an unrealistic thing to be able to do. Is there I had sat here with a one psychologist, um, who I'm sure you'll know, a very famous individual. Um, called Jordan Peterson. And he said to me, he said he was shouting when he said it. He said, "Listen, he was you're going to have to sit down for 90 minutes a week, and you're going to have to listen to her. And she's going to tell you everything that's wrong." And he goes, "If you don't listen to her for 90 minutes a week, you'll be listening to her in divorce court." And he was he was almost shouting when he says it. The analogy he's making What he's saying is what you're saying. Yeah. Is you're going to have Yeah. I You know, Jordan I I find Jordan Peterson very entertaining. I've been a fan of his work a long time. Um, and I I loved actually your conversation with him. Um, what I will say is I think that he's sort of hyperbolic in his presentation sometimes, which I I enjoy. But I think we totally agree on this. I think that that what he's saying more than anything is that you can invest now in candor and in listening to this person in a non-defensive manner. And And so, there's a chapter in my book called Hits and Now, where I talk about exactly that, where I say, "You need to be able to have these conversations, but have them in a way that that you're hearing it, and you're saying it. You're agreeing. It's a contract that we know we love each other. So, we're going to try to say it with love. We're going to try to hear it with love. Because I'm only saying it cuz I this is important to me, this relationship, and I want it to be good for you and for me. So, I'm going to go out on a limb here. I'm going to take this risk cuz you're worth it. You are worth it for me to take this risk. It's scary. I'm not excited about having to say it. But you know what? Like I care enough. And when you say things to me, I'm going to hear it. I'm going to hear it as you saying, I care so much about this relationship, I'm going to say this harder thing to say. And it might be little. It might be, you know, you said the other night you were talking about my sister and you made that little joke about her and it felt like you were like kind of making fun of my sister and I thought you liked my sister and it's really important to me that you like my sister cuz I really like my sister. So, maybe I misunderstood you and if I did, okay, great. Let me know that. Hit send now. Just hit send now. The reason I said hit send now is when you You ever like write an email where you said something important and you like write it, rewrite it, and you craft it and you're like about to hit send and you're like, oh boy. And then you hit it and you're like, well, it's there now. Can't unsend it now. Like it's done. I hit send now. That's where I got the term hit send now. Because But I But I said like make it a technique. Like say to your partner, I want to do this. I want you to do it and I want to do it. But I want to make it clear. Like make the subject heading of the email hitting send now. Okay, so they know. So, they know this is not an attack. This is something I want to get off my chest. You don't have to respond right away. You don't have to respond in writing if you don't want to. But I just want to put this out there cuz I want you to digest it. And the key to this is I read in your book is to do it quickly Yep. and do it honestly. Yep. Yep. And And And to again, to make a point of calling this out as a technique when you're in a good place. So, when you're already in a good place, there's an abundance of goodwill between us. We're in a a spot. That's a good time to say, "Hey, look, this is good, man, and this is important. So, let's keep it good." And the way we're going to do that is if I say to you, you know, we used to I'm making an example. We used to have sex five times a week, and now I feel like it's like, you know, once a week, maybe. And I I think you're so attractive. I love I love it. Like, I don't feel any less attracted to you. And I know, you know, we've been busy and things like that, but like, I don't want to see that slip. I want you to be the person that fills all my desires and all my fantasies. I don't want to look at porn. I don't want to think about other things. I want to really be focused on you. Is there something I'm doing that's causing you to be less interested in me? Is there something I could do that would spark things better? Is there something going on that I need to know in terms of how you feel about me? But what if it's personal? And what if it's offensive? What if it's Isn't it better to know? If it's personal and it's offensive, isn't it better to know? Like, cuz I tell you, I'll come up with a thousand different reasons it might be, and only one of them might be accurate. And the other 999 might be complete garbage in my mind. Like, I might be convinced that it's cuz you're cheating. I might be convinced that it's I'm not attracted to you all of a sudden cuz, you know, my hair got grayer or I got a bad haircut or something stupid. What if it's that? Then wouldn't you rather know? Wouldn't you rather know? Wouldn't you And find some other And listen, I'm not saying, by the way, everything isn't everything, right? Like, there are things in relationships that you might just say, "Yeah, I don't know, that's changed. Like, I used to be really into that, and now I'm not anymore, you know?" Or that used to mean a lot to me, and now it doesn't. And that gives your partner a chance to say, "Well, look, it's still really important to me. So, can we find some common ground?" How frequent is sex the issue in divorce? As in not I'm not talking about affairs. I'm saying sexlessness. Yeah, that's a great question. So, And also, is it increasing? Yeah, so here's what I'll say. There There's reverse engineering the demise of a marriage is a very difficult thing for anybody to do because the two people in the relationship aren't even really fully aware of what's going on in themselves, much less each other. And then an outside observer asking them. So, like you can do all the studies you want of people's self-reported satisfaction or lack of satisfaction in a relationship or what caused them to become dissatisfied. That is so loaded up with people's delusion and people's projection and all these other things that I only even quantified. So, everything I'm saying, I'm saying as a divorce lawyer who I think is empathetic and who I think for a living puts myself in other people's mind to try to understand what they're doing and why they did what they did and come up with the best and worst possible excuses for it and then to tell that story, right? Like I'm a full contact storyteller. That's my job. So, and my job, if you're really honest, is to manipulate people's emotional state. My job is to make a judge feel good about my client, bad about the other side, make the other side feel scared, make my client feel safe. That's my job. It's to manipulate everybody's emotional state through the power of storytelling. That's what being a divorce lawyer is. It sounds sexier when I say it that way. But, that is what it is. So, when we look at that as the job, where does sex fall into that equation? It's it's everywhere in that equation. Because again, it is the thing that separates this relationship from other kinds of relationships. Sex is the thing that is definitional to a romantic relationship. Now again, will it always be the same? Will it always stay at the same level of importance? No. But, is it a great canary in the coal mine? That you know, like something's off with the sex now, that that that that that tragedy's not far behind? Yeah. Like because almost every couple when I talk to my side of the equation about when did this thing start when did the ship start to sink? There was certainly some change in sex. Because again, sex is definitional in terms of what distinguishes a romantic relationship from a platonic relationship. Cuz listen, guys, we can do this however we want as a society. We don't have to get married. We do not have to get married. We just have to We just have to reproduce. But we could just decide, "Hey, we're just going to reproduce and we're going to live in like colonies of platonic, you know, relationships and we'll just have sex for the purposes of breeding at certain times and then we'll figure out who gets to raise what kids and that'll be that." We don't do that. And And it's not like Well, we don't do that cuz we made a set of rules. Societies don't do that. They've never really done that. Like this There's somehow this permutation in the human and animal kingdom keeps coming up where we have pair bonds and we reproduce with the person who's our partner and then we sort of work together and you know, how much does the tribe, how much does the rest of the world get involved in that, how extended is the family, how extended is the tribe? That varies, right? From species to species, from culture to culture, from time to time. But we this fundamental idea of like reproduction between, you know, the male and the female of the species and there being some then continued interaction and a sharing of responsibilities towards the rearing of the young it's pretty common, right? So, what's the thing that makes A and B? It's the sex. Like there's there's there's sex. There's some romantic or sexual component to that relationship that then leads to reproduction of some kind. So, I think when you take that out of the equation or when there's a change in that, there's a disruption in the force, right? There's a disruption in the system. And then you can trace it back. Like yeah, we And again, sometimes it's not direct cause and effect. Like oh, we started having less sex and then we stopped being nice to each other. Sometimes we stop being nice to each other so we stopped having as much sex. But it's an element. It's always an element there, you know? And then that's my key piece of advice to everyone in the book that I try to say over and over and over again. If you had to like summarize it is pay attention. Just pay attention. To to what you're feeling and to what your partner's feeling. And then say it. You know, I I I say that all marital problems stem from two things. I don't know what I want and I don't know how to express it. And I think if you can figure that out, if you can figure out what you want and figure out how to express it, that's like 99% of the battle. When someone gets to you, how often do they go from getting to a divorce lawyer, having that conversation, we want to separate, to repairing and rebuilding and getting back to happiness? Yeah, it's a great question. So I as my career has progressed, I am now a guy who you hire when you're in a really bad situation. So I'm a trial lawyer. So now you know, you can do things with a scalpel and you can do them with a chainsaw. I'm a chainsaw now. Like now I'm you hire me cuz your situation's bad. Because you're more expensive? Is that it? No, I'm more expensive because I'm really good in high conflict situations. I'm really tactical. Mhm. I'm really strategic. I think 10 moves ahead and I outpace everyone with my work ethic. I wake up at 4:00 a.m. and I wake up very sharp and I wake and I'm immediately thinking about clients and cases and I'm dedicated to this work in an absolutely insane way. In a way that is in no way good as a human being. It's really really I'm a great lawyer. I'm questionable as a human being. But I'm really really good as a lawyer because I'm better at this than I've ever been in anything in my life. Have you ever seen someone get to you and then go back to perfect that like Yeah, for many years in my career, early in my career, the first decade or more of my career, when I handled more sort of regular people's divorces, you know, um yeah, I would frequently I would frequently try to steer people if I thought that that was possible. I still to this day, if I think it's possible for people to work something out either in individual counseling or in individual counseling and then maybe couples counseling, I will steer them in that direction, of course. Who cheats more, men or women? I think both men and women cheat with a tremendous amount of frequency. I think that um I don't think that you could really say one does it more than the other. I think that more more men are accused of having ruined the relationship by cheating than women are. Who's more dissatisfied with the the amount of sex, men or women? Men, generally. Men want more sex? want more sex. Just Women want more quality sex. Men are quantity-based in my experience coming to sex. And that's like men would rather have frequent sex that may not be the highest possible quality, but it like kind of gets the job done. I mean, it's the same reason why pornography is more popular with men than women. I think that men are just like I got to get the poison out of my system here. I got to get on with my day, and I'm not going to be able to think straight until I just get that over with. And so, I I think that that um women it's it's a it's a different I don't think women, you know, have don't find sex important. I I hate to make generalizations about about gender. Um but I from my seat, the number of men that come in and say to me like, yeah, like she's just not sleeping with me. Well, what did she expect? Like of course I slept with somebody else. Like, she was like sleeping with me once a week. She was sleeping with me once a month. I've had clients who came in and were like, "Yeah, we hadn't had sex in 6 years." 6 years? Like, first of all, why would you put up with that? Second of all, if you're this person's spouse, how what the hell did you think was going on? You thought things were okay? Like, "Yeah, we hadn't had sex in 6 years. We just forgot to do that." Like, I get if you didn't clean your gutters in 6 years or, you know, maybe like I get it if you didn't change your oil in a year. Like, it's a bad idea, but like I get it how it could slip your mind. Like, "Oh my god, I haven't been to the dentist in a year." But, sex? You must have heard a lot of affair stories. Oh my god. Please, if you could have like a PhD in infidelity, I would have it. Yeah, I mean, it's cuz cheating is a huge component to divorces. So many divorces. But, the the question is always cause or effect. And the danger of putting so much emphasis on cheating is that it it's an oversimplification. So, someone comes in and goes, "We're getting divorced." Why? "Cuz he's sleeping with his secretary." I get it. Like, yes, that's true. That is one of the variables that has led to your divorce. But, you you hadn't slept with him in 3 years. So, I'm not saying that makes the cheating forgivable, but you're saying you had a really super awesome healthy marriage and then this nefarious secretary came into the picture and suddenly he was wooed away. No, there were conditions that made that very likely to happen, right? And so, let's start going back a little further in the cause. Like, the truth is at the bottom of a bottomless pit. So, we can try to reverse engineer this and say, "Well, he slept with his secretary cuz you weren't sleeping with Well, I wasn't sleeping with him cuz he wasn't nice to me." Well, I wasn't nice to him because he was never paying any attention to me. Well, I wasn't paying attention to her because what did I want to pay attention to? She's hasn't changed at all or she's changed so much and she's nothing like she used to be. There And And again, everyone, you'll be shocked to hear, when they tell the story of their life, they're usually the hero. They rarely come into my office and go, "Listen, I'm a piece of garbage." You know? But, I will tell you when it comes to cheating, sometimes they do. I was going to say, you must have had people come in and admit things to you about their current affairs that you just blow your mind. Is there a particular example where you go, "That was the most shocking example that I had heard of someone deceiving the marital commitment?" Yeah, I mean I've had people come in and tell me stories that I just think to myself, like, how how did you actually like just the engineering of it. Like, I've had people who came in and they had multiple They had two families happening at once and neither of them knew about the other. Like that that the mistress who he started a family with, like, thought he was divorced and the wife thought that he was traveling for business and like he would literally have Christmas with both. He would have Thanksgiving with both. Like, he would and he just found a way to sort of logistically do it and I've I've seen things like that many times. I mean, I've seen people I I It's almost become a cliché that people who sleep with their their sister-in-law or their brother-in-law or their cousin. Oh, and I haven't seen mother-in-law yet. Father-in-law? Um I have seen father-in-law. Yeah, I have seen father-in-law. Yeah, I saw that saw that one. I There's a chapter in my book about nannies. About people sleep with the nanny, that's pretty common. Why do you you talk in the book about how wealthy clients like to sleep with the nanny? Yeah. I don't know what that's about. I mean, I do I have a theory about it and I I I think that what I call the nanny fascination I think that it's not that hard to understand. Like, the nanny is a lot of the characteristics of the wife, right? She's good with the kids. She's there to be a supportive other to the husband. Um she's a helpmate, you know, but without any of the autonomy and agency, without any of the Like, she's an employee at the end of the day. So much simpler of a relationship in the sense that it's like, you got to do a good job or I'm going to fire you, you know? So Not talking back. Yeah, don't talk back cuz I'm your employer, you know, and you're not going to So, I think I get it, you know, I get it. I also think too that And this is the This is the This is dangerous ground, especially in the year of our Lord 2024, but I think she's also a version of the wife. Like she's a version of the wife when the wife was just a woman. Like, she has a life outside the home. Like, she when she's not nannying she's out doing stuff. And so, she's got things to talk about. Like, she's gone places, she does things, there's something mysterious about her, you know? And I I think that's one of The advice I give in the book is is that I think that um wives can can embrace the part of themselves that's the nanny. Like, take the time to like don't let your spouse and your children eclipse who you are. Like, who you are is who your husband fell in love with. Like, your your your kids exist because a man and a woman found each other attractive, you know? And and so, don't don't forget in your desire to be a good parent and your desire to be a good partner, don't forget to be really good to yourself and to to cultivate your interests and your passions and to try to enjoy them as best you can, you know, without shirking Obviously, none of us wants to shirk our responsibilities to our families and to our children, but you're important. Like, I think I think people are The husband and the wife, you know, are important. Or or in a same-sex marriage, husband-husband, wife-wife, so you're important to each other, you know? Remember who you are. Remember the value you brought to the relationship. People often go to divorce lawyers when their marriages break down. But listen, I'm a huge fan, maybe the biggest fan you'll ever meet, of serial killer documentaries. Sure. And just murder documentaries period. There's not one I haven't seen. I've seen them all. And in those documentaries, the first one of the first things you learn is that if the wife goes missing, Like 80% of the time it's it's the husband. Um and I was I was just thinking about how that kind of some people might see it as a choice. Good for you. Yeah. I shouldn't be laughing here, but or take care of myself. Listen, there's a reason because I I understand how trapped people feel. I think that you sign on for this thing that feels so good. Love we fall in love so fast. Have you seen that documentary on Netflix, American Dream? Was American What was that documentary on Netflix where the guy has a wife and two kids and then he meets a younger woman Mhm. out and about at work and he instead of getting a divorce, he decides to murder his wife and the two baby girls, smother them both, and dump them in a barrel at work. And he's seemingly And I obviously he's not, but seemingly He's still working. No, he's still seemingly a normal guy Yeah. who, as you say, just looked like he was trapped in a situation where he met someone new, had this family, didn't know how to handle it, and made this horrific decision. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think um I mean, that's an extreme example, but I I actually, when you spend enough time with people who are in horrifyingly awful situations, like they've they're having an affair for many years, they've hidden money, or they've done, you know, like they they've engaged in transgressions that if their spouse found out about it, they would just be like, are you kidding me, you know? And I think most of the time like it starts with just one sort of bad choice, you know, and then that bad choice leads to a series of choice like it you know, they always say I mean if you watch enough serial killer things, it's not the crime, it's the cover-up. Mhm. You know, you don't get caught for the crime, you get caught for the cover-up. It's like the things you do to try to cover your tracks is the thing that leave the tracks. And it's it's the same. I I I think Have you seen murder in your practice? Do you deal with that? Is that part of your work? I you know, thank God, I I've only had one client in 25 years of practice who there was an active effort made by their spouse to try to kill them. And they they ran her over four times and stabbed her. Um thought she was dead, left her for dead, and 6 months of surgeries and all kinds of things later, she survived. She's well. She has injuries for the rest of her life that will plague her, but she is alive, and he is in prison for the rest of his life. Uh that's thank God the only time I've ever seen that happen. I mean, I see a lot of domestic violence. I see a lot of intimate partner abuse. She was your client in that case? She was my client in that case, yeah. She was your client before that happened to her? Yeah, she was my client before that happened to her. He was a he was a a perpetrator of domestic violence for many years, but there was nothing in his history that would lead you to believe that he had that propensity towards violence. The divorce was going very badly for him. I was doing my job very well. Um and he you know, he I don't want to say he snapped cuz it gives it too much credit. Um I I I think he just got it in his head that she was his enemy and the cause of everything bad that had ever happened to him and that killing her would be better choice, and he got her to meet him in a a a a sort of remote location, a parking lot of a hotel under a false pretense that he wanted to give her something related to the kids or something. And uh he stabbed her several times, then ran her over several times. He did it himself? himself, yeah, he did it And it was it was shocking. I mean, you you don't want it What's happened more commonly is I've had clients who've committed suicide and self-harm. And I've had clients who their spouse you know, committed suicide. That's happened many times where people I think feel they've they're losing everything. Their whole life's falling apart. They can't imagine what their post-divorce life will be or they're so horrified by the behavior they engaged in during that they they think that it's just impossible to get out of this situation. So, you would be working with a client and then you get a notification, an email, a message saying that they've ended their life. Yeah. Yeah. It's more commonly happened to me. It's only happened to me where I a client I lost a client that way once. It's happened four times on the other side. Where I got an email saying this person's been found and um you know, it ends the case, obviously. So. It's a hard thing as a professional because I know that I've done a lot to make this person's life very difficult because that's my job. But if that person had hired me you know, a month before their spouse did, I would have been arguing for their benefit. I would have been arguing as their advocate. I would have been trying to help them as best I can. And instead I was hired by their spouse and my job's to kind of take them apart as best I can. Like I'm a weapon. You know, a divorce lawyer is a weapon and a weapon in the hands of a good person is protects things and a weapon in the hands of a villain is very harmful. So. Has your work ever made you cry? Yeah. Sure. Absolutely. I think I've cried for a lot of reasons about my work. I've cried from frustration when I couldn't when justice wasn't served and and I felt that I could have done more or different um out of frustration I've cried. I've cried I think I've cried more often out of beauty. I I I I'm much more welled up by what I by things that are beautiful to me than things that are upsetting to me. Like I I'm astounded by the strength of people sometimes. I'm astounded by the resilience of people. Um Can you think of an example? On either end of the spectrum? Yeah, yeah. Um You know, I had a client I got him his dog back. You know, there's something about animals that I think is just so like it's just so pure how much we love them. Like they don't really they don't care what we make, they don't care if we're impressive or not or if anybody bought our book, if anybody how many views we have or clicks we have. Like they don't They just love us, you know? Maybe it's cuz we feed them. Maybe it's cuz we scratch them the right way, but I want to believe that it's just that they're just so much heart and so much love, you know? And I had this guy who at the beginning of the case he just said, "Look, man, I don't care. Like I don't care what I have to pay her. I don't care what it get me my dog. Like just get me my dog. She doesn't really love the dog, but she took the dog cuz she knows how much I love the dog. So just get me my dog back. Like I just want my dog back." And he was this older gruff guy. He's like the last guy you would think, you know, would like that the dog would be that important to him. And we fought really hard. We And we got him his dog back. And I remember when I came out and I ran down the like, "Okay, I got you this. We got you this. We got you this." And you And the dog and he started crying. And I started crying like a child, you know? Because I There was just something so beautiful about like that Yeah, that's what mattered to him. Like that he got his dog back, you know? And And I I could imagine in my head like the the reunion between those two and that was very moving to me. The impermanence of a relationship with a dog is something that I've heard you talk about before. And how we can sort of the impermanence, the fact that we only have dogs for a short time. I've got a dog as well and I've had it since it was a puppy and and now it has gray hairs and it's older and it doesn't run like it used to and little Pablo I'm get I'm now realizing that he's in the last season of his life. Yeah. Um and it just makes you want to play with them more and cherish those moments more and be kinder and give them another treat and Yeah, and we're we're if we're honest we're we're always losing everyone all the time. Like and and that's why to love anything is insane. Right? Because to love anything is to expose yourself to the inevitability of losing it. And I've learned that I learned that as a hospice volunteer for many years and I've learned that as a human being and I've learned that as a divorce lawyer. That like we're all losing everything all the time. Even our child. Like you have a child that child tomorrow the child they were the day before is dead. It's gone. They're a new thing every day until you know, until all of us are ghosts. Until all of us are gone. And so to me keeping that awareness in your mind is everything. Like like you you honor that dog by saying, you know what? I I took for granted when this was a puppy peeing on everything and running around and eating all my shoes, you know, like I I didn't realize like there was a limited amount of time. Like there is a there is a finite number of times you will watch the sunset. You don't know that number but it exists. You just don't know it yet. There's only so many more summers that you will be here to see. You just don't know the number. It could be one. It could be a hundred. I I It's probably not a hundred. Right? So, I think to me, when people say like, "Well, how is a divorce lawyer so like, you know, into love and such a romantic at heart?" Like, how could you not be? How could you not be? When you're confronted every day with how fragile love is and how transient it is and how powerful it is. It's It means so much to us. So much of what we do all day is to find love and to be loved and to feel worthy of love. And And And then we have it and we just kind of forget we have it until it's going away. And then it's too late or it's gone and now it's completely too late. Like, if you realize it was Pablo, You're done. Yeah. If you realize how amazing Pablo is when Pablo's gone, shame on you. Like, you should When you pick him up and smell him, you know, like that's the To me, like that's everything. There There's a I don't know if you ever read Thich Nhat Hanh's work, the Buddhist monk. So, Thich Nhat Hanh was a a a um a Vietnamese Buddhist monk. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in like the '80s. He wrote some beautiful books. He passed away a few years ago, but he wrote um several books. One of them being Peace is a beautiful one. He's written a whole bunch of books. Peace in Every Step. But, he he as a Buddhist monk has this mindfulness exercise. And I've said it to people I've shared it with people a couple times. They always look at me like I'm insane when I say it. So, I'll share it with you because you you brought up death. If I bring it up too much in polite conversation, people just think I'm morbid and then they're like, "All this guy does is talk about death and divorce. We got to hang out with like nicer, more fun people." But, he has this mindfulness exercise and it's this. He says, when you hug someone, think about the fact that they're there and you're hugging them. Then, close your eyes and they think about that they've died. And this is the last time you're hugging them before you let go of their body and it's taken away. And then remember that they're alive and you're hugging them. Like, how could that not choke you up? Like, how could you not Like, when you hug your dog, you you will someday most likely have to put your dog down, right? You will have to make the very painful, but very responsible and loving decision that the best of this dog's life is over and that there's nothing but pain ahead. I've had to do it several times in my life. It's heartbreaking, but it's the final act of love and service to something that you've had dominion over and taken care of and have the duty of taking care of. And I I know every time you I've had to do that three times and just smelling it and going, "Oh, that's it. Like, that's it. It's gone now." And the memory of that scent, it'll fade. But like right now, that dog's alive. Pablo's alive. And you can smell him. And and and and you're not letting go of him now. He's there. He's there right now. Like, so how do you not right now just breathe that in every chance you have? Because you don't know how many more times you'll have. And and I don't when people say to me like, "Well, how can you think so much about death? Or how can you think so much about breakups?" Like, how can you not? Haven't you ever lost anything? Have you forgotten what it was like to have it? Like, did you not keep in your mind like how beautiful this was and how it's gone? Like, my mother died 8 years ago. And I I found a old video tape that I didn't even know like existed and it was my dad had like gotten a video camera and he'd like shot, you know, all these video and I could hear my mother's voice. And like hearing it, I went like it Oh my god, like that was her voice. Like, I haven't heard it in 8 years. And I heard it again and it was so familiar, you know, and I thought to myself, "Oh my god, like I'm so glad I got to hear that." But when she was alive, I never thought like, "Oh my god, she's here. Like, I get to hear her voice because someday that'll be gone. Like, it'll be gone. The memory of her voice will be gone. It will fade. Every like tears in rain, it will just fade." And so, to to me, like that if we could just have that presence of mind when it comes to love, like love is not permanently gifted. It is loaned. And the people you love, the dog you love, the people they're loaned to you and you're loaned to them. And if you could just remember every day to treat it like something that's impermanent and that you're losing all the time. Like, cuz I I'll tell you something, I think it's insane to love anything because of the pain that it's going to cause. But oh my god, man, I love that pain because it means I got to feel it. Like, I I I know when I got my dog Coba, I only got Coba because Buster died. If he hadn't died, then I never would have had room in my life to get another dog. So, in some horrible way, I guess I'm glad that he died like but that's not how it works. How it works is that he died, Buster, and I went, "I will never love again. I will never do this to myself again. I will never feel this pain again. It's the worst thing in the world. I will never expose myself to that." And then a friend called me up and said, "Hey, man, we're doing an adoption event with this dog, and I just need you to watch him for the night. He's a puppy. He's got mange. He's a little goofy thing, but like I just need you to watch him for the night." And I was like, "Yeah, you know what? I don't have the kids this weekend. Like, I'll watch a dog for a night." And then You fell in love. brings this stupid dog, this little stupid mange-ridden worms, and he walks in to my apartment, and he pees immediately on the floor, and I thought, "Oh, I just got a dog. I just got a dog again. I'm doing this again." And that was 13 years ago. And man, I'm so glad. Like, I'm so glad. And and he'll he'll sit there, you know, with his little gray face now, and he'll sit there next to me, and he'll look at me. He's as as crazy about me as I am about him, cuz he knows I saved him, and I know he saved me. And he looks at me, and I think to myself, "Oh, you're going to kill me. Like, you're going to kill me when I lose you." And it's going to happen sooner rather than later. I'm not going to have another 13 years. I'm lucky if I have another year. But man, like I don't know. I'll I'll do it I I'm so glad I did it. He saved you. Yeah. Yeah, cuz he he he reminded me of a thing I forget, that we all forget, that I have an infinite capacity for love. No matter what I lose. Cuz we're just losing all of it all the time. But that's not a reason not to love. That's not a reason not to like it's it's so brave to love. And it's only brave because it's scary. Like if you're not scared, it's not brave. It's only brave cuz it's terrifying. It's terrifying to know like this thing's going to break my heart. Then I'm going to let it. I'm going to let it break my heart because the joy that it's going to give me in the interim like I wouldn't trade that for anything in the world. And you know, right now if you say to me when Kaba passes away will I ever do it again? I'm like, nope, absolutely not. Absolutely not. But you know what? I'm lying. I'm lying. Like I'm lying. I'll I'll love again. I know it. I know it. And and I think it's the same thing with romantic love. Our hearts get broken. We we we you know, we fall apart. We break in relationship and we heal in relationship. And we recover from that breaking in relationship. And I I think there's something really really important there. You You've really accomplished something. You're the first person to get me to cry on a podcast. It's pretty it's really something to be proud of. I cry all the time though to answer your question. Yeah, I cry constantly. For a guy who's like tattooed up and down and does Brazilian Jiu Jitsu for fun, I cry constantly. Usually because something's beautiful. I think that that's what moves me the most is how beautiful it all is. Like I I think this is all it's a game we can't win, you know? And we just keep playing it. And that's so lovely. Like it's so brave. It's so it's so cool that like it's all ending all the time and we just keep doing it, you know? We just keep doing it cuz if there's something in our hearts that wants it, you know? Maybe that's I don't know. Like I'm not a religious person, but maybe that's some insight into the nature of God that that like we we come from something and we disconnect and then we spend all our life trying to reconnect to something. I want to talk to you about our sponsor LinkedIn. For all of the entrepreneurs and business owners that listen to this podcast, you'll probably want to hear this one. So, stay tuned for a second. Whenever you're scaling and building a business, your business needs are completely unique and I've been there. I know what struggles you're facing and what allows you to land your next dream client. And one tool that is an absolute must is LinkedIn Ads. You'll have direct access to a billion LinkedIn members. Yes, a billion members. Access to 70 million decision makers and 10 million C-level executives on LinkedIn. The pool of individuals that LinkedIn allows you to access is insane and uncomparable. And you'll know, if you follow me on LinkedIn, how prolific I am on LinkedIn. LinkedIn to me is actually the highest returning paid social platform and I don't think people quite realize that. So, I'm giving you, the Diary of a CEO community, a $100 credit on your next LinkedIn ad campaign. Head to linkedin.com/doac24 to get started now. The link is in the description below. It's interesting cuz you're I saw in your face when we halfway through the conversation that um you were talking about how beautiful love was. Yeah. And I could see the emotion in your face when you're talking about how beautiful love is. And it's it's contrasting because at the start of the conversation, I would have thought that you thought marriage and love was just this like terrible idea. Obviously, there's there's a distinction between the two. It's everything. No, it's everything. I I think I think doing what I do for a living, I see that better than most people. Like they because we just keep putting these giant bets on the table. And we wouldn't do it if we didn't think the prize was worth it, you know? But see, I also believe too that we need to start looking at romantic relationships like chapters in a long book. Like I don't Soulmates. We But but then Well, see, a soulmate I have to tell like I owe them a tremendous debt of gratitude because they they really helped facilitate divorces an industry. Because the idea that we have a soulmate and that that's the one always creates the possibility that A, this person's perfect for us. Well, how could I be dissatisfied with them if they're perfect for me? I must have picked the wrong one. And look, that one over there, that might be the perfect one. Why? Because I feel as great about them as I did about this one when I first met it, but I just don't remember that as much anymore. So, the soulmate thing, oh, it's great for business for me, but I think it's terrible for human beings. I think you probably could have a whole bunch of people that you could have had a very satisfying romantic relationship with. Again, not to keep comparing things to dogs, but like because you love the dog you have now, does it mean you didn't really love the dog you had before? Like, that's ridiculous. It's like people have children don't go like, well, I you know, I couldn't love anything more than this other child, so I'm not having any more children because, you know, I couldn't possibly love. It's like, no, you have an infinite capacity for love. So, if you have two children, you have five children, like you love all the children that you have, you know? So, It's chapters. You're saying it's I think you should look at relationships as chapters. Just because a relationship ends in something other than death, right? It ends in divorce, it ends in a breakup, whatever it might be. It doesn't mean it wasn't successful. Did Did you leave it a better person than than you came to it with? Did Did they? Did your partner? Did Did you learn from it? Did you learn what you want or don't want? Did you learn how you should behave or how you shouldn't behave? Did you learn something about how you want and need to be loved or how you fail in your attempts to convey love to someone else? Like, it Why not look at it as what was good for me in this chapter may not be the sustaining thing. Like, who you find attractive and what's compelling in your 20s and your 30s and your 40s and your 50s is going to be different. You talk to a lot of 20-something year olds and say, "What car do you want when you're in your 20s?" Lambo. "I want the Lambo." Great. You going to put a car seat in a Lambo? If you get one car and that's car you're going to drive for the rest of your life, okay? And you've never been 50 yet. So, you don't know what you're going to want when you're 50. Now, there's this idealized thing where everybody goes like, "Well, but you know, you'll grow together and then what you'll want you'll grow together and you'll change to you." Okay, where what are you basing that on? Like, is that is that a thing? Is that demonstrably true? Or is that just like your hope? Like, we we hope we'll grow together and we'll grow in complimentary ways. Cuz why? Cuz of proximity? Cuz we're near each other, we're going to grow in complimentary ways? Like, is that naive? I think that might be naive. Like, I don't have any proof of that. But, so many of the couples you see, they must be confused as to whether this relationship is actually broken or we're just like not doing the work. I think that about a lot of my friends. Like, they'll they'll come to me and say, "My relationship is struggling." And the first thing you try and figure out is whether this is something that is fixable or it's they're the wrong And what do you do in that equation? You compare, right? Yeah. You compare. And what are you compared to? Something fake. Yeah, you compare to something fake. You compare it to the rom-com. Yeah. Which is basically porn for women. Yeah. Right? Like, it's it's an idealized, stylized version. You saw Titanic. You You know why they had that perfect romance? Cuz he died before he could screw it up. You think 10 years later she'd have been like, "Keep painting your French girls." Go, "No, she wouldn't have." She'd have been like, "Forget it. What are you doing? Get a job." You know, there would have been issues in that relationship. So, it only was perfect because it ended. It ended before they could screw it up. You know, they end the movie like the the old thing I think was Orson Welles who said, you know, whether something's a comedy or a tragedy depends on when you end the story. You know, so it's relationships. Like, you ever want to test that theory in the reverse? Go out with a couple that's unhappy with each other. And then say to them, "So, tell me about how you met." All of a sudden they like soften tremendously. And they start like talking about who the who they were and who their partner was back in that day when they when it was all a possibility and and they were choosing each other, you know? And so, I think there's tremendous value in you know, a great example. I always try to like take non-relationship examples of relationship items. So, one of my sons, when he was a teenager, was very critical of me as a father. He was very like sort of dismissive of me as a father. We were talking about something and he sort of said like, "Well, Dad, you know, you're not like the perfect father." And I said, "Well, first of all, like, I don't know what a perfect father is." I was like, "But, what are you comparing me to? Your idea of a perfect father? Or like a father you actually know and have seen? Because here's the thing, if you compare me to your perfect father in your imagination, I'm going to compare you to my perfect son in my imagination. And guess what? You suck. Cuz cuz we all suck compared to the ideal of our imagination. And by the way, I said to him, "Learn this lesson now. Because if you compare a woman you're in a relationship with with your imagined ideal of a woman, I promise you you will be dissatisfied for the rest of your life in your relationship. And if she compares you to her idealized imagination of what the perfect man would be, she's going to be disappointed. We need to start comparing relationships to real relationships. But how are we going to do that if we're so deeply committed to lying to each other about how great our relationship is? What's the quickest someone's gone from marriage to divorce that you've seen? In terms of how long the relationship lasted? Yeah. 48 hours. You're joking. No, 48 hours. But that's usually an annulment. That's I mean, Vegas, baby. Um yeah, that happens sometimes. That happens sometimes. Where people just have like immediate immediate regret, you know, or they married on a whim. I mean, you can there's no Like there's a waiting period to get a firearm, you know, there's a waiting period for almost anything. Marriage, go right now, get married, no problem. You just go You just go to justice of the peace, pay $40 license fee, and you're married. That's it. Go to Vegas, you can get a guy named guy dressed like Elvis will marry you for 50 bucks. You said there's two main reasons why people get divorced. Infidelity, which we've talked about, and the other one we haven't talked about, which is money. I found this very interesting because um I wouldn't imagine that money issues, and it's not the money issues we think about. It's not someone going broke. Yeah, it's not that. In your book, you talk about it being transparency. Yeah. So so I mean, money is power, right? Money has a lot to do with power. And I I think there's a lot, you know, there's a it's a misattributed to Oscar Wilde, but it's not something he would have said. There's the saying that that everything in the world is about sex except sex, which is about power. Mhm. And I think money is about power. Money is about control. Money is about opportunity, security. It's about a whole bunch of things, but it's not really about money. Like money's just a a a currency, right? That we trade in. So, I think money has a whole bunch of complicated stuff tied up in it. It's why we can't in polite conversation like talk about what did you pay for that? How much do you make? You know, it's it's considered sort of indelicate to do that. Because we've loaded it up with all kinds of emotional things about worth and relative worth and so, you know, it it's not uncommon that people are dishonest with themselves and with each other about money. It's also not uncommon in a relationship that one of two dynamics emerges. Either one person has a tremendous amount of economic disparity like leverage or they have economic power that they can or or can't leverage because of marriage. Or both people have somewhat equal bargaining positions and then something changes. So, like I see a tremendous number of divorces when husband and wife are both working and husband loses job. Big big precipitant for divorce because men it sends them spiraling into a depression that they've lost this job, that much of how they define themselves in sort of the traditional masculine gender role is that of a provider and a protector and now I've failed at that through no fault of my own. They laid off the entire northeast region. It's not my fault, but I no longer have a job and then I have to go around and try to find one and redefine myself and at the same time my spouse has managed to keep their job. And I've seen a lot of women that when their spouse loses the job and they become the breadwinner they find that very unappealing. That they they that a man as the breadwinner was appealing, the man as economic equal is appealing, the man as I have to take care of him financially and provide for him, very uncomfortable. So, I see when a man loses his job, I I would love if they kept statistics on these kinds of things, but I can tell you in my practice, I've seen plenty of women lose their job, it has no impact on the marriage. Men lose their job in a heterosexual male-female marriage, it it it is it is disastrous consequences a great deal of the time. And I think that has a lot to do again, it's not about money, it's about what the money symbolizes, it's about providing, it's about power, control, respect for the ability to to to go out there and like forge something from the world. We said at the start of this conversation, on the subject of money, sometimes you give legal advice and sometimes you give human advice. As it relates to money, should I be telling my partner how much money I have? Because I imagine there's kind of two different legal There's a legal answer and a human answer. Yeah, I mean, they're entitled to find out. So, like part of Yeah, part of part of Well, in a divorce, you have what's called mandatory discovery, which is that I have a right to review all of your financials in that process. So, a tremendous amount of what I do all day and my team is they we go through people's books. Like we go through the credit card slips, we go through all the economics to find out like where the money is, where it went, you know, and and that's how we find out what everybody spent on their girlfriend or boyfriend and all the Only fans. credit card receipts really. When someone says, "I've got the receipts." Like, "No, I've got the receipts." Because I can I can subpoena them, meaning I can get them directly from the credit card company. I can get them directly from your employer. All your information about what you actually were given. And it's very hard to move money around without leaving a trace these days. Like Well, a lot of people then must be trying to hide money cuz I think I've I've heard of cases where There was one particular case of a footballer who apparently put everything in his mother's name. Did you see that meme? Yes, and the problem with that is it's a great story, makes for a great story. But there are in most jurisdictions protections against that because it's what's called a a transfer in contemplation of divorce. So, it's essentially a form it's like a fraudulent conveyance. It's it's designed to thwart someone's otherwise appropriate legal remedy. So, if I know I'm being sued and that this person has a valid claim. So, I sell my Lamborghini for $5 to my brother, the court can void that transaction. But, what if I before that, before there was any, you know, suspicion of divorce or any issues, I put everything in my my brother's or my mom's name? You can do that. You're allowed to do that. As long as it was not Yeah, I actually have seen that many times. I I've seen Well, I represent a lot of people in finance and people in finance have a way of seeing money very differently. And I've seen people who over a 20-year period like did things to take things out of the marital estate so that they were beyond the reach of the court. Must be quite surprising when you're the other partner and you assume that your partner's super rich. You go for the divorce and you find out that they they have nothing. It's more common that people don't realize the debt structure that they're living under because a lot of people live under a tremendous debt structure. This happens in celebrity divorces a lot because a lot of it is the appearance of wealth, but it's not actual wealth. Mhm. And so, you know, they're they're highly leveraged. And so, that mean for the average person? That doesn't know what leverage card debt primarily. Credit card debt is a big thing or the cars that you don't own the cars, you lease the cars. So, they're actually owned by the bank. Even your home, if your home, you know, 70-80% of the equity in your home is the bank's mortgage, then you don't really have much. You don't own your home, the bank owns your home. I think this is something people misunderstand is that you get 50% of your partner's assets and you get 50% of their debts. Of course. Well, you get your you get the assets net of liabilities. Yeah. And most people like their net worth is what do you own net of liabilities. So, there are a lot of people making a very, very good living, but they don't really have a lot of assets because what they've done is they've leveraged in a tremendous way. They have they have mortgages and and they have debts accumulating. They have leased automobiles. They have, you know, jewelry that they took a personal loan to guarantee where that they purchased jewelry knowing that it will immediately depreciate in value. You know, that the resale on it is much, much lower than the value that they just paid for it. So, it's a it's a it's an illusion in many ways. What about the opposite of that where someone was in a relationship and their partner thought they were like broke or didn't have much money and it turns out they're selling a fortune. Yeah, what's actually funnier is when somebody when someone really through no fault of even their own comes into some massive amount of money. Uh Like I've had people I actually had a client who won the lottery. And so, he went from like nothing. He had like a minimum wage kind of a job and they lived a very modest life. And they were unhappily married, but they were like, well, you know, can't really afford to live as a couple. We certainly can't afford to live apart. Like it's bad enough we can't pay with our electric bill to have two electric bills. We'd have a hell of a time. And he won the lottery. He used to play the Powerball and he won like, you know, it was some insane amount. It was like I don't know, 50 million dollars. So, then after taxes, it's like a 50% tax, it was like 25 million dollars. And he was beyond thrilled until he got told, "Yeah, she gets half." She gets exactly half. And he was like, "Wait, why? I bought the ticket." I'm like, "You are one person in the eyes of the law. If she won the lottery, you'd get half of it. You won the lottery, she gets half of it. That's how it works." Did they stay together? No, of course not. She was like I would they're miserable with each other. I mean, at that point he was suddenly very motivated that maybe we should stay together. But she was like, I get Wait a minute. I get I get, you know, half of 25 million and I don't have to deal with you anymore? See you. And that was it. That was it. That's why he was in my office. She had served him with divorce papers. What about LGBT couples? Yeah. Does everything we've said apply in equal measure? Do they Do they get divorced in the same Do they have the same issues with talking about sex? Do they Yeah. I You know, I don't I I don't think I think a lot of the same things are true. Meaning impermanence, soulmates, all of those kinds of issues. But I think because gay and lesbian couples were forced to the outskirts of the culture, they were the outsider for so long, so much of my life even as a 51-year-old man, so much of my life I saw my gay and lesbian friends ostracized, marginalized, and put on the periphery. That when you are put on the periphery, there is, as awful as that is, it is unfair as that is, an injustice that is, and how much it should rightly offend our sensibility to see people marginalized and ostracized, it creates a certain freedom where it's like, okay, then we we don't have to follow those rules. We can make our own rules. Invention. Yeah, we can just we can do it how we want to do it. Cuz you know what? They think we stink. They think we're the worst. They think we're just, you know, okay, so then we can we can do it how we want to do it. Cuz no matter what, they're not going to accept us. So we might as well do it the way that makes sense for us instead of, you know, tradition is peer pressure from dead people. So, if you're someone who's like, my parents have rejected me, Sorry, tradition is is peer pressure exerted by dead people. I mean, it's really what it is. I'm not saying traditions aren't valuable. But at their core, tradition is peer pressure from dead people. Like your grandma did it this way, so you should do it this way. Like okay, your grandma lived in a whole different time. Your grandma did not have the entire totality of human wisdom in her hand that she could press a few buttons on. So to say, "Oh yeah, like the same rules, the same institutions, the same ways of being, they should be exactly the same." That's insane. We didn't make rules for non-heterosexual relationships, so they they're getting to make their own rules and it turns out And they did. And they did. Like I have a lot of gay male friends. I live in Chelsea, which is a section of New York City that for many years was a primarily gay male section to live in. And so I happen to have a lot of gay male friends. And it's very funny to me because when I would talk to them even before marriage equality and before the sort of widespread acceptance of gay and lesbian families um and gay and lesbian lives and relationships as being valid. Like it wasn't that long ago that Will & Grace, like Will couldn't kiss his boyfriend on TV. This was like the '90s that that was going on. So this isn't that long ago. Yeah. I have suits older than that. Like this is a thing. So what you know, they they used to my gay male friends used to have these very kind of non-conventional permutations of relationships. They were like, "Yeah, you know, we we can kiss other people, but like we can't have sex with other people or we can do oral sex with other people, we can't do but we have to let them know that we're doing." Like it because they were like, "Hey, we're on the outskirts. We get to kind of make up our own rules." And there's something very and what's funny to me about that is when marriage equality was coming about and I I've been a consulting attorney for for something called Lambda Legal, which is a a gay and lesbian legal defense, which you know, 20 years ago it meant like the right to exist. Like the right to like not be fired from your job because you're gay. Like that seemed to me like basic human rights. You know, the idea now like we've gone quite far in terms of now there's some controversies that I kind of go, okay, wait, I'm not quite sure. Even as someone who's identified as a progressive liberal for quite some of my life, I don't know that I can go this bridge too far. But but the basic fundamental right, like the right to marry, I always felt, you know what? If you want to be able to participate in this unbelievably failing technology, you have every right in the world. Like if you hate gay people, let them marry. Why should they be having all the fun? Like let them marry. And I remember sort of thinking that jokingly. And when marriage equality finally happened in the United States, I went to a good friend of mine who will remain nameless and I said to him, he'd been in a long-term relationship, maybe like 2 years. And I said, so man, are you psyched? You like, you know, you get married? He goes, no, I'm not psyched. Why would I be excited about this? And I said, what do you mean? Like you can get married now. He goes, yeah. Like I never had to deal with that. I never had to have the conversation. It never had to be like, you know, where's this going? You know, are we going to have He's like, I I I if anything I could go like, oh, I would marry you but oh, the government, they won't let me. Oh, I wish I wish we could but the government, it's out of my hands. He's like, now now I have to have this conversation. Now I have to like, well, where is this going? And are we getting married and what do you think? And if we should we move in and should we have even kids? Should we have kids? Like it used to be we were barred from having kids or adopting kids. Now we can adopt kids, it's no problem. He's like, great, now I got to have that conversation. So again, I'm not suggesting that that we shouldn't have marriage equality, we shouldn't have the freedom to adopt and to have children. But I I think it's a Faustian bargain for everybody. And and so, my experience of of gay and lesbian couples currently, cuz I'm currently doing a number of divorces for lesbian couples and gay couples, I think that, you know, the honeymoon period isn't quite over yet. Like marriage equality's only been the law of the land for like, you know, 10 years, something like that. So, give it some time. We'll see. Maybe they're better at it. Maybe they'll be worse at it. Maybe they'll be just as equally awful at it as we are. What about open relationships? Do they work more? You know, I'm I'm not qualified to answer that question for the following reason. I meet a lot of people who have tried various types of ethical non-monogamy, polyamory, but they all have in common that they're in my office. Yeah, of course. So, I see all the ones that didn't work. Yeah. So, me saying, well, I've met a lot of couples where they tried the polyamory thing or they tried ethical non-monogamy and it didn't work and it led to divorce, is like an oncologist saying like, "Dude, everybody's got cancer. I met like 10 people today who have cancer." Right, you're an oncologist. Like, of course you meet a lot of people that have cancer. Like, a guy who's a cab driver doesn't meet that many people who have cancer. Like, he might meet one or two, but he's not going to meet all of them. But, you work in cancer, so you're going to meet people. Like, I happen to meet people getting divorced. So, all of the I've met a lot of people that gave that a shot and it did not work. Now, again, was that the like in case of emergency break glass, like let's just try this? Have you ever seen it work? I've never in any of my friendships, in any of my personal relationships, I've never seen non-monogamy successful, but I don't think we're quite at a place as a culture where we're really being honest about monogamy. Like Esther Perel, some of her work I think is brilliant about monogamy, infidelity, because I I don't think it's quite I think there are a lot of couples where there is non-monogamy happening, but there's sort of a don't ask, don't tell policy. And there's a sense of, you know, if this is what you need to do to sort of stay happily committed. Cuz if we're honest, a a marriage is a whole bunch of different relationships in one relationship. It's your roommate, it's your co-parent, it's your travel companion, it's your family companion, meaning like they have to deal with your mother-in-law and your father-in-law, too. And like it's a whole bunch of relationships. And it may be that men and women, or a particular man and a particular woman in a relationship, have a different sense of how important sex is. And, you know, it's okay to delegate. It's okay to say, you know, "Listen, I don't really like football. So, go watch football with your friends." Do you see that a lot, where the the partner or the the other partner that you're not dealing with has accepted Yes. the other partner cheating? Or well, not cheating, but they've allowed them to just quietly go and had a lot of people who come in and say to me, "He had a bunch of affairs over the years, and I just let it go." Like or she had a bunch of affairs over the years, and it wasn't we didn't make an issue of it. Yeah, really? And see, just the fact that you, and it's understandable, I'm not criticizing you, but the fact that you go, "Really?" is Okay, why would that be that shocking? Like people cheat all the time, people step outside of their relationship all the time, people like diversity of sexual partners. Okay, so here's the question then. Have you ever seen an affair in the presence of someone being in love? I don't know that I'd be qualified to say whether someone was in love or not. Here's what I will say, because love is an emotion and love is a verb. Do you know what I'm saying? I've seen I've certainly seen people that were having affairs and in every aspect of their outward life appear to be deeply committed to their marriage. Okay, so they were Okay. They were an economic provider, they were a diligent parent, they were attentive to the emotional state of their partner, they still had an active sexual relationship with their partner, but it wasn't a let's say a terribly prolific one perhaps. Um So you can cheat and be in love? Sure. I mean, listen, just the term cheat, you know, like like Okay, well, then a cheat meal. Like you can be on a healthy diet and enjoy a cheat meal. You know, and and it There's something great about it cuz it's a cheat meal. It's like a little thing you do to treat yourself and then you go back to eating healthy and regular, right? Cuz Look at there's something about the human desire for variety. There's something about passion. I mean, you know, I always say this. I'm not a religious person, but like we're all familiar with the 10 Commandments, you know? And and theoretically, if that story is true, which again, it's not provable or disprovable, but God handed down 10 rules. Like that's a talked to humanity and said, "Here's 10 rules. Don't kill." Good one. Honor the Sabbath. Good one, okay? Don't cheat on your spouse. Don't covet your neighbor's wife. It got two. It got two rules. Like he didn't say thou shalt not kill. Like seriously, don't kill. That's No, but but don't sleep with other people got two out of 10 rules from God, theoretically. Like that's amazing. That should show you how long this has been a thing. How human of a problem or issue or compulsion this is. It's the most human thing. This desire like yeah, we want to you know, Freud civilization and its discontents. You know, all of these all of these brilliant minds from all over the world over the whole span of time have struggled with monogamy. Have struggled with sex. Have struggled with the desire for sex. Wars are fought over sex. People rise and empires rise and fall. People rise and fall. I I I used to say that like I think 90% of what most of the men I do they do to get laid. They do. They Why work hard? So I can make money. Why? So I can get a nice car. Why? So I can attract beautiful women. Like look at look at the red pill space, the manosphere, all that stuff. Everything is about making yourself appealing to women or making yourself appealing to potential sexual partners, whether it's just one or a whole diversity of them. Okay, that's a different thing. But it's about that. It's about that. So should we get married? Should we get married? I mean from a job security place I hope people continue to get married because if they don't I'll be out of a job. But in seriousness, I I don't think I think we will continue to get married. Should we? I don't think we should say all of us should. I think we should ask the question. I think we shouldn't assume we should get married. That's what I think. I think that we should ask the question, what is the problem to which marriage is a solution? And do I have that problem? And will it solve that problem? Because the fact that it's an odd question to say when someone says, I want to get married. that it would be odd for me to go, "Why?" Yeah. Why is that weird? Like, if you said, "I want to have a podcast." "Why?" It's perfectly reasonable question. "I want to go to Florida." "Why?" "I like the weather. I have a friend there." Whatever. "I want to get married." "Why?" What do people respond when when you typically ask that question? What's the most frequent response to the reason for the invention of the technology of marriage? Cuz I I posted many years ago that I I was suspicious about marriage, and I remember all the comments that I got, and different people arguing different things. Well, it's it holds them it holds the It's super controversial. People get a very attached to it. I remember One of them I remember was a case that it's the best environment to raise kids in when the parents are in that kind of bond. I heard another one which means that you stay and you solve the problems instead of running away, so marriage is really good for that regard. But you know the reasons why people say marriage makes sense. What are those key reasons why? I think that there's religious reasons. That's a big one I get all the time. Like, like in the comments there will be like a billion people that go, "Marriage is a covenant between God and as if like I hadn't heard of this." You know, as if I didn't go to Catholic school my entire life. Like, yes, I get it. I get it. That's the belief you have, and that's okay. Like, my beliefs don't require that you believe them. Yours may require that I believe them, and that's okay. Like, we're just going to agree to disagree if your fundamental thing is that God spoke to you and told you a thing, whether it was in written form or verbally. Like, I can't argue with that. You sound like you're a big fan of love and not a big fan of marriage. I'm a fan of marriage to the extent that it facilitates love, but I just don't see a nexus between those two things. I don't think these two two things have that much to do with each other. And I think to the extent that they have something to do with each other, they probably could have existed without the marriage. Like I think I think marriage is a symbol of something, and I don't think you need the symbol to have the something. It's confusing a finger pointing at the moon with the moon. Like it's it's confusing the the the symbol like marriage is supposed to be, I think, a symbol, and I love it for that. I love the idea of two people who are so excited about how they make each other feel and how the effect they have on each other and the effect that the other has on them, that they want to get up in front of a bunch of people who they know and say, "This is my person. I found them. And I'm I'm going to stick with them through good and through bad, and I'm going to see their blind spots, and I'm going to not be a yes-man. I'm going to tell them when they get it wrong, but with love. And I want them to do the same thing for me. I want them to to cheer for me, and I want them to be on my side, and I want them to disagree with me when I need to be disagreed with, so I don't make really dumb decisions just cuz I got a cheerleader all the time behind me. Like I got a cheerleader cuz I need one. The world sucks, and everybody's always criticizing me, and I criticize myself constantly, but having this person next to me who goes, "Man, you can do this. Come on, get up. You can do it, you know?" Or "I fell down. It's okay, people fall down. You're great. Get up. Come on, you can do it." Or who's going to say to me, "You know, yeah, that's I know you're doing this for this reason, and I get it, but I don't I don't think it's going to make you feel what you think it's going to make you feel, so maybe don't do it." And I'm going to go, "Okay, they wouldn't say that if it wasn't out of love, so I'm going to hear that, and I'm not going to be afraid of it." Like and I want to get up and we're going to say this to a bunch of people, and then we're going to wear rings cuz it'll be a reminder for us and for the world that I got a person. I got a person, and that's my person, you know? Dude, how do you not cheer for that? That's incredible. It's great. But you can have that without the Yeah, of course. Without the contract. want to get the government involved? Like, would you have to get the government involved? Really? Like, you That story I just told That's That's the story. That's the feeling. That's the interpersonal connect When you say to most people they say, "I'm getting married." You go, "Why?" They First of all, they look at you like you have lobsters coming out of your nose. Like, they've never The question never even occurred to them. Why? Well, cuz you get married. That's what you do. That's insane. But, if you say to them, "Why?" They'll usually say something that's a total non-answer. Well, I'm in love. Okay. What What does that mean you have to get married? Well, cuz I want to you know, I want to maintain that connection. Okay, but how How specifically is marriage going to maintain that connection? And again, if it's a public declaration, okay. I think there's value in a public decla- If I want to I don't smoke cigarettes, but if I wanted If I was smoking cigarettes, I want to quit smoking cigarettes, there's value in getting up and saying, "Hey guys, just so y'all know, I'm going to quit smoking. And if you love me, I want you to help hold me accountable. So, if you see me smoking or if I ask you for a cigarette, don't give me one cuz I really do want to quit smoking, you know? There's value in that. There's value in the tribe all going, "All right, man. You know, that's what you want. Let's do it. We're going to We're committed to it." It's the same thing with marriage. If mar- If the purpose of marriage is to say, "Hey guys, it's really hard to be monogamous. I don't know if anyone's noticed. So, and like the world is really antagonistic to marriage. But, like I really want all the great things that come from having a person who sees my blind spots and who's supporting me and I'm supporting them and the symbiosis, the beauty of that relationship and the connection of those two people. So, I want you to hold me accountable. I want you, my friend, that when I you see me looking at the other girl that you go to me, 'Hey, hey, hey, bro. Forget about what you got at home. Come on, man. You got a good You got a good one. What are you doing, you know? Like, I want you to hold me accountable. I want women out there to see that wedding ring and to go, "Yep, not him. Not him. Even if he talks to me, not him. He's married. Let's let's leave that one." Why? Cuz if if it was my one, I wouldn't want him talking to some other girl, so I'm not going to talk to him, you know? Instead, it's not what we do. That is not what we do as a culture. You ever want to get laid, put on a wedding ring and go out. Suddenly, you're safe. Suddenly, you're a guy they can talk to and he's not on the make cuz he's married. He's obviously wearing an outward symbol of his relationship. Again, like this is crazy. It's crazy because we're just not being honest about what this thing really is. Marriage is a legal status. It's a government intervention. It's a it Everything else is just stuff we're putting on top of it and calling it that thing, but you can have all that stuff without having legally the status of marriage. James, we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest not knowing who they're going to be leaving it for, but I might have told them who they're leaving it for. And the question that's been left for you is a brilliant one because it's very on topic and once in a while this happens. When was the first time you experienced true love? Oh boy, you made me cry again. Um When was the first time I experienced true love? Gosh, that's a great question. And just the fact that just the experience of being asked that question is running my mind through the most lovely slideshow of so many times I felt loved and felt deep love. So, boy, what a lovely thing to ask every morning if I could. Like that's a lovely question because just the fact that there's just the fact that there's a competition going on in my brain right now is the greatest thing in the world cuz all the stuff that's running through my head and it's so diverse. There's me kissing an amazing woman for the first time and feeling that. There is my sons, each of my sons kissing me or hugging me. There is Cava and Buster Pickles and Lady and Maggie, every dog I ever had. And there's an image I can imagine of it. There's my The first thing that popped into my head, which is going to sound crazy, but maybe it's the stage in life that I'm in. When I was a little boy my my father my father was a not a particularly effusively loving guy. He was a Vietnam veteran. He was a bad alcoholic. Um he's been sober now for 8 years. I'm very proud of him. Um and he's in his 80s now. But growing up he was very unemotional to me. And I remember um I had this best friend Tommy and we had pizza one night at my my parents house and um you know, pizza's cut into like eight slices. And Tommy and I were like, you know, growing boys. We wanted to eat, you know, like crazy. We ate really fast, you know, we each ate our three slices and my dad would have two left, you know, for him. And uh we ate so fast that that our six slices were gone and there was just two left. And I I know my dad was like super hungry. But he was like, if you guys want, you can have you know, you can have them. And I remember, you know, we just ate them like you would obliviously like a kid. And a couple of weeks later, I was at my friend's house, same friend. And his they ordered pizza. And there was like, you know, same thing, eight slices. And and his dad ate like four slices. And I remember thinking my dad would never do that. And I remember I felt very loved. Cuz I remember thinking like this is a guy who had never said he loved me. Like ever. It just wasn't his vocabulary. It wasn't who he was. But I just remember thinking like oh, he loves me. Like it it satisfied him more to see me eating that extra piece of pizza than what eating that piece of pizza would have given to him. And I remember thinking like oh, he loves me. So I would say to me that was a very pure and true kind of love. And when I had my sons I remember thinking oh, I get I get that. Like they can have the whole pizza. So to me that's you know, that's true true love. Is when it's it's not even sacrificing to give that the joy of the other person just gives you so much joy and fills you so much that that it's just the greatest thing. James, thank you. Thank you for um all the work you do. You've given me so interesting. You know, I went into this conversation thinking I'd learn about divorce and relationships, but I leave this conversation with a profound appreciation for love. That's great. In a way that I don't think I've ever had before. And I also with that profound appreciation, I think causes you to want to take a certain set of actions. I hope so. The and you I think about the what you said about the impermanence of love. You've made me want to cuddle Pablo cuz I know that I don't have many years left with him. But also there's many people in my life that maybe I do have many years with. I don't know how many years I have with them. You don't. And I have to tell you I I think I'm really grateful to hear you say that. I hope you do that because I really think we are the most we are the most aware of the joy of our good health when we're in the presence of illness. We are most aware of the beauty of life when we're in the presence of death and the impermanence. And we can be the most aware of the power and presence and beauty of romantic love when we remember that that it is impermanent, it is not permanently gifted, it's loaned, and that we're blessed to have it for however long we have it. So, if if that's what anyone walks out of talking to a divorce lawyer thinking about, then then mission accomplished. Thanks for having me, Steve. We released it the first time and it sold out instantly. We released conversation cards again and they sold out instantly for a second time. We've updated the cards, put all the new questions in, and we've introduced a twist. On the back of the conversation cards now, we've got different levels of vulnerability. So, level one, these are more sort of surface level questions. And by the time you get down to level three, the questions become a little bit more challenging, a little bit more vulnerable, and that's really where connection happens. The brand new version two updated conversation cards are out right now at the conversationcards.com. Oh.