“Why 90% of Relationships FAIL!” - Divorce Lawyer on Lies, Cheating, and Love | James Sexton

anger is reaching into a pile of hot coals to throw them at the other person you may or may not hit them but you're going to burn yourself for sure I represent victims of domestic violence and I represent perpetrators of domestic violence you spend enough time in the room with people and you start to figure out that like they're just hurt people hurting people and sometimes it's really obvious like oh yeah he's sleeping with his secretary okay you haven't slept with him in four years what was he supposed to do the line of Good and Evil runs through the human heart and all marriages end all of them they end in death or they end in divorce there are people that are not meant to be together I've been a divorce lawyer for 23 years and I'm divorced myself I believe in divorce so why is it do you think that most relationships [Music] fail Jim seon publicly known as James ston welcome to the iced coffee hour that's great I was excited to be here I I love you guys content and I I actually was really excited when you reached out so we're super stoked to have you on we saw the soft white underbelly interview we saw Lex Freedman and they've just absolutely loan up people love you they love hearing all the tea the drama about why people get divorced how settlements happen and they love you too yeah it's kind of funny to me I I didn't think I was that interesting you know mostly the judges of the state of New York have to tolerate me and I didn't really know that it was going to catch fire the way that it did I did a lot of Media stuff when my book came out in 2019 you know I do segments for Access Hollywood and some of the other shows every now and then where I talk about celebrity divorces and things like that but I hadn't really you know I have a full-time job you know being a divorce lawyer is like more than a full-time job job it's it's a really really agonizing constant grind it applies to so many people because practically everyone is in a relationship yeah almost everyone at some point will get married half of those will end in divorce and even before this like you were giving me great advice of just keeping a successful marriage together yeah it's a tremendous equalizer it's it's not a rich person's problem it's not a poor person's problem it's everybody everybody again heterosexual you know same-sex couples everything like we all have this desire for love and connection bonds figuring out that permutation and and it's one of those problems that like having an abundance of resources only makes you slightly better or maybe slightly worse at it like there's not like oh rich people have much better marriages or poor people have much better marriages like there there's nothing out there that suggests that in any really significant statistically significant way so I think it is something that it's got a very broad audience where all of us whether we're people who are in unhappy marriages and want to hear about what divorce looks like or people that want to avoid having an unhappy marriage or people who are single and going who should I be looking for and pairing with in order for me to not have those kinds of problems I think that's a very big basket of people out there so I I I'm surprised by it I'm gratified by it but I guess when I think about it I get it so we'll get into the recipe of having a wonderful and successful relationship but first we got to know what is the craziest divorce you've ever settled or like the muddiest divorce I mean I've been doing this for 23 years so I have seen some amazingly good people at their absolute worst I mean I've had people who you know I I've watched The Other Side just imilate themselves and end up in jail you know over how much they dislike yeah I've had people who VI you violate court orders I mean I would say for from my perspective the the disliking someone else so much especially someone you used to love right like that's the thing that makes it weird like we everybody's got like a cultivated enemies list maybe of people that you go I don't care for that person but it's rarely someone who at some point you went hey there's eight billion people in the world and I want this one to be my partner so when that goes south it's like intimacy weaponized and so that often I would think you would it would bring out like softness in you like I'm a divorced man myself my ex-wife you know was one of the great loves of my life like she has a tremendous place in my heart still like we weren't right for each other like we're both happily in other relationships now she's been remarried for 12 years but we have a tremendous amount of affection for each other you know um I've never had an ex that I looked at and went like I hate them like I've never hated anybody but I get it because if you get betrayed by someone who you deeply deeply trusted that can create a a violent sense of like anger right so I get it so does that mean you've never been betrayed by an ex I've been betrayed by an ex but I I generally don't I don't think people do evil things cuz they're evil I think they mistake it for happiness I represent victims of domestic violence and I represent perpetrators of domestic violence I represent people who are married to someone with substance abuse issues and I represent people who have substance abuse issues and and you spend enough time in the room with people and you start to figure out that like they're just hurt people hurting people like they're just trying to figure it out you know and and maybe they grew up in a home where violence was acceptable or and I'm not excusing Behavior I think there should be consequences for Behavior without question but if it explains it it doesn't excuse it but I still like to understand it so like a lot of the really Haywire crazy cases where people violate orders I mean the craziest case I've ever seen my client was run over six times by her ex he tried to kill her while the divorce was pending and thank God she survived after many many surgeries and then ended up he went to jail and he's still in jail be in jail for the rest of his life for attempted murder so that's the craziest one I ever had was that while you were working on the case yeah yeah why so you were seeing her all the time and then randomly she was in the hospital well I was even more than that I got the call from her brother saying that this had happened and they believed it was him because she had no other enemies and um oh she was unconscious and everything she was unconscious for days she was in the hospital for six months I think she she was run over six times why does someone become so self-destructive like did this guy have a history of abuse like this he was the perpetrator of domestic violence intimate partner abuse yeah but not at such a level like he was not a guy who was routinely harming her in that way um I think the the way that it happened you know I think he lost it I mean he was he was a pretty crazy guy to begin with um but I I you know there was no way to really see that coming see I I see that kind of thing often that was an extreme example of it but anger you know the doy Lama said that you know anger is reaching into a pile of hot coals to throw them at the other person like you may or may not hit them but you're going to burn yourself for sure and this was a guy who was just so consumed with anger and resentment and he had pointed all of it at her and I see that all the time in divorce where people just blame everything in their life that they are unhappy about on their spouse or soon to be former spouse and I don't think it's rarely honest it's rarely honest to say this person is the singular cause all do you think that's a coping mechanism that they have to do that to justify this is a person that I loved so deeply how could I get rid of this person let me demonize them in my head to justify everything that I'm doing yeah that that makes sense to me I mean I think that's as good a theory we're both you know neither of us is psychologist but that makes sense to me I mean the only analogy I can give is when my sons both of my sons when they were getting ready to go off to college for that like six months or year before they went off to college we would get in like much more arguments and they were much more hostile to me and I remember saying to their mom like man I don't know like they they're we used to get along so well and now they're like so kind of defiant to me and she was like you know maybe they kind of need to push away so they can go you know like they they love you but they're not going to be living with you anymore they're going off to college like they got to leave the nest and to do that they they have to like dislike you a little you know and when that was said I thought oh that makes sense like if you love some so much you just want to hold it so close to you always and so I I do think when you're going to lose something you maybe you have to to in your head say okay it has no value it has no value I don't think it has to be that way I think some people that's how they process loss you know like some some people like you're gonna die I'm gonna die we're all GNA die I hope that's not like news to you but you know you can either see that as something to be terrified of or or as an invitation to like live your life because it's the clock is running you know and I think it's the same thing I think when you're losing someone you can either say this person gave me unique gifts like their their their presence in my life created certain unique gifts for me or you can say like oh man my life without them would have been so many I would have done all these other things if I knew it was going to end this way but I just I just don't think that's honest what is your background how did you get into this were you always so good with people and negotiation you know I was a Psychology major in college um I wanted to be a therapist and then I figured out that therapists have to listen better than they talk and I talk better than I listen so um and I also found out what they make compared to lawyers now I I uh I was going to go into mental health I was going to be a psychologist I I was Psychology major with a minor in East Asian studies and um substance abuse was the name of the thing whenever I tell people I minored in substance abuse in college they always thinking drank a lot right um but that was what I was going to be as either an addiction counselor a psychologist therapist of some kind and then um I I just ended up I went and got my Master's Degree at NYU I was teaching at NYU for a little while I was going to work on my PhD and then I decided to take the elsat because uh my then wife was pregnant with our first child who's now also an attorney uh and and I said you know what I did really well on the outset I got to go to law school for free and as soon as I went to law school I said I think I want to be a divorce lawyer and that was weird if you say to someone oh you know how did you a divorce lawyer they always say well I ended up it's always got the word ended up in it which I always thought was funny because ended up is always like I made a wrong turn like you never say like I I ended up in it's like I thought I was doing this I got drunk and I ended up in Tiana like it's always it's never like I meant to do the thing so for me it was a deliberate Choice like I really wanted to because it was the best parts of of what I liked about being a therapist which was working with people in a really difficult moment in their life that they kind of couldn't pretend they meant to be in you know like no one meant to get divorced yeah you can't you can you're full of if you say you know I I intended to get to no you didn't you intended to stay together like you consider divorce was a possibility maybe but you didn't mean to so I liked that about it and I always liked speech and debate and extemporaneous speaking I always had a performer streak so I always enjoyed that and being a trial lawyer it's it's just all the things I love it's it's you know it's extemporary speaking it's debate it's very fastpaced it's never boring it's I mean I 23 years I've been doing the same job and I still look forward to going to work every day but before we go into that I want to take a moment and talk about something that's incredibly important to all of us and that would be mental well-being so I've mentioned this before briefly on the show but I've had ADHD my entire life so when our sponsor better help reached out wanting to work with us I was super excited to try it out I actually signed up for several different sessions and I was extremely surprised with how much they can help with this and how I can actually leverage my ADH to now benefit me rather than beforehand when I felt like I just couldn't get my thoughts together it was so easy to use you can talk to your therapist by text chat phone or 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thank you so much and now let's get back to the episode are your parents still married my mom passed away 8 years ago but she uh after a long battle with cancer but they were married for 53 years until she passed away wow and they had a lovely love story and they had a lovely life together and um after she passed away uh my dad remarried a couple of years later to a very nice woman who' lost her husband and who had been a friend to my mom and my dad and my dad's in his 80s he's of a generation where he needed someone to take care of him and his new spouse is of the generation where she needed someone to take care of and so they're a lovely combination you know and he's very happy but yeah my parents were married for 53 years what did you learn from your parents marriage that you wanted to apply in your marriage or some advice maybe that you give to some people you're you know my parents were an interesting amalgam my dad was a Naval Academy graduate and a Vietnam veteran and he was a Reagan conservative and my mom was a left-wing lunatic like like almost a Marxist um she was the most Progressive liberal person you'd ever meet and so I think I had no choice but to become a lawyer because I had to see both sides of everything from infancy you know because my parents just never voted for the same people were never on the same side of any political issue I learned a lot from that because I knew they were both smart and good people with good hearts and I knew they loved each other but they didn't agree on most political things and social things but they still respected and loved each other so I think I learned a lot about you know about the You can disagree with someone and they're not your enemy you know that you can still love someone and disagree with their point of view and and um I also learned a lot cuz my my mom was a stay-at-home mom she had been a nurse and then when my sister and I were born my sister's six year older than me when my sister was born she stopped working and was a stay-at-home mom which of that generation was a common thing to be and my dad was a Salesman for a a medical device company he worked really really hard but he never ever once said that my mother didn't work he he was very mindful of reminding my sister and I that he and my mother both worked that he worked outside the home and my mom worked inside the home and he was always reminding me like at dinner did you thank your mother for making this beautiful dinner for us you know did it like it was it was ingrained in me that she provided tremendous value and he provided tremendous value and they were never counting the cost they were never I never once heard my father say well I work so hard you just sit home all day it was nothing like that and I never heard her say you know you're always working you're never they always had tremendous respect for the role that each of them played in the family and I really I think I I got a tremendous amount out of that would they have those conversations behind closed doors do you think or you think they just didn't do it in front of like I think that they didn't have those I don't think they had that resentment I think my father was very appreciative for the value my mother brought to our family and my mother was very you know considered his value as a provider as a very real thing I don't think it was insincere at all or performative I think they really you know it it it translated into my own relationships like I I really I worked in restaurants you know all through I I grew up without money and so I worked in restaurants all through college and and part of grad school and you know what you learn when you work in a restaurant is like if anybody goes down we're all going down like so if the hostess isn't seating properly it's going to have a ripple effect it's gonna and we're all going to be in the weeds so like the servers the bus boys the chef you know the the the grill Cooks like if anybody falls off we're all going down so there's this tremendous sense of like hey we all got to support each other as best we can while doing our individual job and so I think there's a lot of value to that I think that that um my parents saw that very early on that like hey we all have a role in this family and we all have to perform our role do you think people are losing that respect today because it seems seems like a lot of grandparents have been together for a very long time we don't quite see that to that extent today I don't think anybody knows how to behave anymore I think everyone just now feels awful most of the time I think because I I really do think there is a a greater Discord out there I think that you know women who stay at home are constantly told well why aren't you a boss babe why aren't you out in the world making money or you under your husband's thumb you're dependent on him and women who are out in the Working World are like yeah you're in the Working World you're making lots of money and you're a girl boss but what's your home life like and are you really there for your kids or they being raised by nannies and are you really there for your partner like everyone all the time feels like they're doing a terrible job because whatever you're doing there's someone out there who's going to say yeah but yeah but what about you know instead of sort of look there was a problem when everyone was expected to do the exactly the same thing women stayed at home and had babies and men went to work and that was unfair because there are women who wanted to be in the workforce and men who wanted to be home with babies or men who wanted to pursue creative Enterprises and things like that so that was terribly unfair but it certainly created a c a stability people didn't have to be so apologetic about the choices that they make like they they just felt better in their own skin now personally I I think what the greater culture thinks of the dynamic of a family isn't as important as the two people in the relationship and so you know most of the people who end up in my office are people who have either either convinced themselves or been convinced by the world that the grass on the other side of the fence is going to be greener and and very often you know that's a side effect of like not just paying attention to what's going on in their own house and their own Dynamic if the two people in the relationship are happy and they're the best version of themselves and they're supporting each other you know I don't think that Society should have much to do with it so do you think people are more influenced today than they were 50 60 years ago well of course I mean how many people do you interact with now I'm not talking about interacting with in person I'm talking about interacting how many women do you see my father would see what the women who lived on his street the women you'd see in church on Sunday and the women you might run into in the grocery store yeah you take out your phone right now scroll through your Instagram there's 200 women going to come up on your Instagram either ones that are absolutely there to show you their half naked body or ones that are just sort of in the background or married to someone you know or whatever it might be or suggested by the algorithm you know so yeah we're we're constantly we're seeing so many other examples of everyone else's Greatest Hits while we live our gag reel yeah and so of course I think that's going to create a an endless number of comparisons right and comparison is the thief of Joy so you're going to spend so much of your time going wow that guy looks so much better than me wow that woman look at what the woman he's got and oh my God look it's constant and again it's everyone's greatest hits It's a curated performative look into their life I can't tell you how many people people come into my office for a consultation and then I look at their social media and their social media is you know hash blessed like they're greatest husband ever you know hash best wife ever I'm like you you're sleeping with three different people I know CU you just told me it in my office but you're not going to put that on your Instagram you know you're not going to tell me that yeah on our last vacation like we got in a screaming fight and he broke a lamp at the resort when he threw it at me no no there's great photos from that vacation that vacation was wonderful if you look at social media so if you're comparing your vacation with your significant other to that vacation the social media version of it your vacation sucked but it didn't show the throne I was thinking so much is reading other people's thoughts that it's a lot easier to go and Reddit let's just say and post something and get hundreds or thousands of different perspectives whereas 60 years ago it would just be your circle of influence who knows you in your specific situation knows who you are as a person what's important to you maybe it could give you more tailored advice than someone just commenting something but advice just falls out of the sky now too doesn't it I mean I I I think having a defined sense of self was easier because it was clearer what was expected of you like like I don't think my father ever really sat around and went I wonder if I'm a good father like I wonder how I'm doing as if am I meeting my child's emotional needs like I don't think that ever crossed his mind he's like my job is to get keep the bills paid and the lights on and make sure you have clothes and food like that was his role so anything you did other than that was extra if you went fishing with me it was like now I'm like the gold standard dad you know but even like I have friends who are fathers in this modern sort of zist and they're jumping from one foot to the other and they still feel like failures because it's like well yeah you this but you didn't take them to this well you took them to that but you did you spend the whole day and you're like oh my god really like what do you expect of people so I I think a lot of the time now we all feel like we could be doing much better and we were not working hard enough at our relationship at our job at our side hustle at our parenting whatever it might be but the truth is like we're comparing ourselves to such ideals as opposed to the people actually around us like I I never felt as handsome as when I went to Disney World I took my kids to Disney World you know I live in Manhattan so when you live in Manhattan there's just gorgeous people everywhere like it's unbelievable so I I live in ch I live in West Chelsea so I live in a primarily gay neighborhood so some of the gay men of Chelsea they look photo shopped like this is the best looking men I've ever seen in my life and I'm in the elevator with them and I'm like cuz they just compare to these guys I you forget it six AB oh six ABS chisel just gorgeous like they're just yeah perfect hair they have a skin regimen because unlike heterosexual men who are like you know like I want to talk about my skincare regimen they're like hey we're not bound by these strict gender roles we can talk about this stuff so I really am you know but you go to Disney World and you're like oh this is America you know and I'm like hey I'm not everyone's thought it though that's the thing it's a true listen man there's people in in Disney World going around on those jazzes because they're so obese that they can't walk around and I'm not saying those people are terrible people I I I'm just simply saying compared to if you hang out in a room full of supermodels you're going to feel bad about how you look you know so if you want to feel skinny hang out with overweight people you know if you want to feel fit you know so I I really think that that is a little bit of this is that people are now comparing themselves to a giant pool of performative relationships as opposed to looking at their relationship compared to their friend right like look when you're in a relationship how much sex is a good amount of sex none of us know yeah none of us know like your friends don't how many of your friends really sit around and say even your closest friends how many of them really tell you how many times a week they have sex and who initiates it and are they doing like all kinds of stuff or do they just do like the straightup act or is it like like how often do you have oral sex how often do you no no one's going to talk about and to the extent that they do are they really being honest about it so what are you comparing it to right and and we're we're it's so natural to want to compare to other people but we didn't have anything to compare it to for so long now we compare it to this idealized image of things when really the answer is are you happy do you feel satisfied does your partner feel satisfied great that's all that matters doesn't matter keep your eyes on your plate it doesn't matter what everybody else is doing you know I would say that when it comes to Mone money it's like listen it where you are at financially guarantee there are I have clients worth hundreds of millions of dollars who are jealous of my clients who are worth billions of dollars okay now they already both have more money than they or their grandchildren will ever need but if that's the metric by which you're measuring your success there's always somebody who's going to be richer there's always going to be somebody who's richer and younger or the same rich but younger so they can enjoy it more like come on you know so if you can get a sense of there's only two amounts of money enough and not enough that's it there's only two amounts of sex enough or not enough so that's really up to the two people in the relationship I'm so sorry we had to cut in right here but this next part is going to blow your mind but you know what blew my mind I have to say is I just learned that you could build credit with a debit card 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laugh whereas you know you're together for a bunch of years and it's like what is this snort what was that you know so you start to really and I don't understand really why we do that in romantic relationships because we don't do it in other kinds of relationships when you've had your kid for five years you don't go like this freaking kid like I got to get a new one you know or you don't have like a dog like anybody who's a dog owner like if you have your dog for 10 years you're not like oh I've had this dog I got to get a puppy man they're so much cuter and fuzzier you know like you go oh my God it's my dog like I've had it for 10 years I love that talk relationships were very quick to just stop being grateful for the value the person brings to our life we're very quick to stop noticing that they're even there and that they're what they're there for and then we stop being kind to each other we stop being attentive to each other and I I think relationships are all about little things I think it's all about little courtesies and little compliments and little ways of like if you talk to most people about their love life they will remember giant things like when we went on this vacation or when we had this candle lit dinner on the beach these dramatic gestures because those are super interesting stories but really love is like little day-to-day things you know it's just like Finance like Finance is not you know yeah there's is there the person that bought this crypto at this price and then suddenly they're a billionaire sure but that's the exception not the rule most of the time it's just a grind then a grind then a grind the first million's the hardest and then once you got that if you're smart about it and disciplined as an investor you're going to be fine you do really well but it's not sexy it's not sexy like you know everybody wants like the Crypt billionaire story but they don't want to hear they're like oh yeah municipal bonds might make sense for you for a certain percentage of your portfolio from a tax place like nobody wants to hear that they want to hear the like yeah this stock was 10 cents and now it's $50 so I think it's the same thing with Rel relationships like we those little boring pieces of advice I could give you tell your partner how much you value them tell them how beautiful they are to you tell them you know what things you're thankful for in them you know why why not like what what do you what does that cost do you think this is just romantic relationships or also friendships all relationships I think it's human Rel Rel these are human relationships I mean I think there's different things you convey to a romantic partner you know it should be easier with a romantic partner because a romantic partner there's so many other spheres of connection like a spouse is your roommate maybe your co-parent or your pet co-parent they're your travel companion they're your sleeping companion like so that's a much larger field of things to feel like they're getting wrong but it's also a much larger field of things to be grateful for you know deeply grateful for and to express that gratitude for you know and I I do genuinely look there are people that are not meant to be together I've been a divorce lawyer for 23 years and I've divorced my myself I believe in divorce I think there are people that with good intentions and good faith tried to make it work and they realize you know what we are not bringing out the best in each other and there might be someone else who would be able to do that for us do you ever see or can tell instantly these two people aren't going to be together in a relationship yeah yeah I can I can I got a pretty good radar for that and what do you notice in that like I the way I Hon that skill was watching The Real Housewife shows on Bravo I used to watch those shows on Bravo Watch watch the first season of each of them and I'd go they're getting divorced they're getting divorced and they're getting divorced What specifically stands out it was the way they talked to each other and it was also the way that they talk about each other when the other one's not there those were two things that stand out I I have to tell you I genuinely believe that if you are not the cheerleader and fan of your partner that you're you're not that far away from the ruin of that relationship like there are 8 billion people in the world and you picked this person as the one you're going to have the most intimate relationship with if you can't have kind words for them the majority of the time whether to them or to third parties talking about them you made a you've made a wrong choice so do you think that's a sign of maybe disrespect for the other person I think it's disrespect I think it's also just the lack of affection and gratitude for that person and their role in your life I mean it's a glass half full half empty kind of a thing like this this person look we're human we're flawed we're all flawed and I don't want a partner who doesn't know that I'm flawed I want a partner who knows I'm flawed and loves me and loves my flaws and sees my flaws as as a sign of my humanity and weakness that's also in them that they have humanity and weakness in them but they also have tremendous Beauty and power and strength in them so I I want a partner who inspires the best in me and I Inspire the best in them and when I fall they don't stand there and go look you fell I knew you were going to fall they say like all right yeah you fell hey man people fall come on let's get up let's get up or they just are kind and they just say hey you fell that looks like it hurt you okay like because the rest of the world will be real quick to point out when you fell and real quick to just cheer for the fact that you fell or to say like I didn't fall he fell but I didn't fall like so to have a partner who's there for all those potential possibilities but look you know again if your partner isn't the one who's cheering for you and trying to help and trying to prevent you from falling or helping you once you fall you know I don't I don't think that there's anything Noble in staying miserable together why do you think it is that most of the people that initiate divorces are women you know I get so many questions about that statistic and I see in like the red pill space and the manosphere people who I really like and respect like Rolo and and Mike like these are all like bright people in the sort of manosphere space who I I I they quote that statistic and I know how people take it and that is that they're like oh women are just getting married and then they kind of cash out because divorce is so favorable to women and then that's it you know women are just so they're never happy they're never satisfied and that's why they're getting divorced and they instigate the divorces I I I have not seen that to be my experience as a divorce lawyer for 23 years having handled thousands of divorces what I find is there are a lot of men and women who initiate divorce right but but the question is is that's who files for divorce right right that's who files the papers so I have lots of women who filed for divorce the husband left started sleeping with someone else barely visits the kids or doesn't pay any child support and they come to my office and they go hey how do I you know like like he moved out six months ago and he was paying and then he stopped paying and now he's dating and I go we have to file a divorce action and they go well but I don't want to do that cuz I really hope it'll still work out and z i go we have to file we can't get a judge assigned to a case that doesn't exist we have to file for divorce so we file a divorce action now you tell me is it her fault they're getting divorced no she just was willing to pay the $385 filing fee and he just went out for milk and never came back so I'm not I don't think those statistics say what they I'm not suggesting there's not something to look at in the plight of modern men and modern women and how they relate to each other and how favorable divorce is to women versus men and how the traditional role of women is protected by you know is not protected by the state in divorce but the traditional role of men is so you know if we're married and you're being nice to me and sleeping with me and I'm paying your bills and protecting you if we get divorced the state can enforce my end of that bargain where I have to continue to provide for you financially but they can't enforce the obligation for you to be nice to me or have sex with me so I there's a conversation to be had about men and women and who initiates divorce and bl but it's not who files for divorce that tells you anything about what what's going on in male female relationships that's just who who's willing to do the paperwork that's what I was telling Jack about in the car I thought it was who's more culpable of that divorce and if women are the ones initiating are men the ones who are doing things in the relationship to cause the women to file for divorce right I think right and that's I think that is something you will never be able to study because the truth is at the bottom of a bottomless pit like if you ask people who's to blame for the marriage you you'll be shocked to hear most people are the hero of Their Own Story if you ask them and the other side's the villain but but you talk to enough people and you go yeah like this is a marriage like there's two sides to it and sometimes it's really obvious like oh yeah he's sleeping with his secretary okay he's sleeping you haven't slept with him in four years what was he supposed to do was he supposed to just divorce you you got kids together he didn't want to do that you know so yeah he's human he took the bit he slept with somebody else I'm not saying that's morally acceptable but you can't say it's his fault or getting divorced cuz he slept with his secretary okay but but wait a minute that's that's a symptom of a greater problem and that is that the two of you disconnected at some point you know you didn't have the relationship either of you intended to have so you know whose fault is that so I don't think who files more is all that instructive about anything I get it that it makes for like a really easy thing to point to but all of these people now talking about no like I'm hearing in like the very traditional you know in the tradcon world everyone's like we got to get rid of no fa divorce we got to get as if getting rid of no fault divorce would somehow magically make people be happily married or not get to that's like saying we got to get rid of all these emergency rooms because there's so many these sick people go into this place and if you just got rid of those emergency let's get rid of homeless shelters because that'll get rid of all these stupid homeless people you know it's just creating the opportunity for people to just go to homeless shelters like it's stupid that makes no sense no fault divorce all that it did was took money out of my pocket ET as a divorce lawyer because divorce when it's fault-based you have to prove fault so we used to do fault trials and it was great I made an extra 10 $20,000 to prove why someone was to blame in this divorce which by the way what does it matter do you think forcing if one person wants to get divorced in the marriage do you think forcing the that person to stay married to the other person is going to benefit that family that person or our society one bit it's not you want make barriers to entry of marriage if you want to protect marriage make barriers to entry not exit right make barriers to if you want to get married you got to take a class or you got to have a waiting period like you do with a gun or you have to like there there make barriers to entry not barriers to exit but before we go into that as I'm sure you've seen behind every business is an inspiring success story and if 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that you're doing is it the legal benefits of marriage most people it's not they couldn't even tell you what the legal benefits of marriage are so if if I gave you like a multiple choice quiz you couldn't you'd probably get a 50 on it you know if even so really what it is is you want to tell the world something about your relationship that's what I think most people are getting married it's a public Declaration of we are the person's other like because it's a different thing if I say to this is my girlfriend all right could be my girlfriend for a week what is that but if I go this is my wife you go okay take that seriously you know if I'm your boss and I say this my girlfriend you be like she might not be around in a week she might be like the goldfish that you know in a week she'll be Belly Up in the in the bowl you know but a wife it's like hey you know a wife's somebody that's got status you know I get hit by a car she gets to come into the hospital room you know so that that's what most people are looking for when they marry the problem is the state imposes a tremendous amount of legal rights and obligations on the relationship of marriage and most people don't even know what that is so my advice to a person who is engaged is a understand why you're getting engaged you personally and why is your partner getting engaged like why is your fiance interested in getting engaged you why does she want to get married and see if those interests align or if they're in contrast to each other do you think this is is going to change the nature of your relationship that you'll take each other more seriously like oh he's cheating on me while we're boyfriend and girlfriend but once we're married he won't anymore like that's naive you know so ask yourself why are we doing this educate yourself as to what are the legal implications of it that's why I like people who do prenups because prenups force people to have conversations about a difficult but real thing that I think is an invitation into talking about some of the most important things in a relationship for it to be successful yeah why does the state put so many limitations on marriage why do they do that what's the point if someone's let's let's say together for 20 years as boyfriend girlfriend versus someone who has met each other for you know a few weeks and signs a paper what's the difference between that why does it sayate say one is more important than the other you know I think the state designs laws based on the most irresponsible people right like if you wanted to be honest about the sign on the Highway it should say drive as fast as you feel comfortable based on the weather conditions the flow of traffic and your abilities as a driver but that's a a very long sign and B a totally subjective standard so what does it say 65 miles hour is 64 safer no maybe not is 66 more dangerous probably not right are you g to get pulled over if you do 70 probably not right but we just got to pick a number so that's the number that we pick so I think all of our laws around marriage are designed for specific purposes but they're designed for Bad actors really they're designed for people who would not in good faith like like in theoretically we shouldn't need child support laws because people would just be like hey it's my kid I'm going to support my kid of course you know but there's tremendous variability in what someone might want for child support what someone might need for child support what someone might be willing to pay for the support of their children and it could be a tremendously fraught conflict filled thing so what do we do 177% for one child 25% for two children 29% for three children 31% for four children is that the right number I don't know you know is 65 miles an hour the right number for the highway no it's just a number it's just the number that they put together and they picked so it's designed theoretically to protect against Bad actors and to make sure that we can function as a stable Society so those numbers that you just gave that's a percentage of your income that's going to the to your ex spouse for child for child how often is it that that money actually goes to the kids there's really no way to know because you're not paying it to the kids you're paying it to your ex so I I've had a lot of clients grapple with that question I've had clients who call me up and go I am paying $55,000 a month in child support and my kids are telling me there's no food in the fridge but she's driving a Mercedes like what's going on or she's on vacation in you know the Bahamas with her boyfriend and my kids are saying there's no food in the fridge um and the truth is that yeah I mean there's nobody going to police that necessarily if it happens consistently enough you can go back to court and try to argue that it's not being used for the benefit of the kids but it's a rare thing to be able to prove and if the man of the house let's just say is making like $3 million a year then 30% of that if he has a few kids like he's goingon to give away a million dollars is there yeah so there's caps yeah there's caps there's a presumptive statutory cap but there's a certain amount of discretion judges can do the highest child support award I've ever had in a case is I had a client who I got $35,000 a month for and and that was a family though that was you know they were high-profile they had security they had a lot of things that you know when you live a a celebrity lifestyle or ultra high net worth lifestyle you know there's different considerations you have to think about security you have to think about kidnapping risk you have to think about all those kinds of things so it's very much tied to the lifestyle of the children when you get to those higher numbers but the presumptive statutory cap is in the couple of hundred, range generally what's the biggest alimony you've ever settled the highest I've ever had on a monthly basis was 75,000 on a monthly basis for a period of I think eight years I've seen some lumpsum buyouts of spousal support where a person was given like five or 10 million in L A good rule of thumb is like a third of your gross income for a third of the duration of the marriage so if you were married for yeah if you were married for nine years maybe three years of alimony roughly and if you make a hundred grand a year maybe you're going to pay like like 20 $30,000 and what's the biggest difference in wealth between the partners that you saw like the most maybe maybe unfair you were telling us unconscionable but not that but just un there tons of unfair I mean but look at what ATT tracks I mean you know it's it's rare that like a hedge fund manager marries another hedge fund manager you know usually a hedge fund manager marries a yoga teacher or a model you know so what does she make you know she makes nothing you know she makes you know 20 grand a year and he makes you know 10 million so it's common for there to be tremendous disparities in wealth in in a couple and the question really is you know you're not going to when you divorce someone you're not going to have all the benefits of the marriage anymore like I've had clients who say to me you know like well I'm not gonna be able to fly private anymore and you're like right and he's not going to get to sleep with you anymore like there's some perks to being married to each other that go away but the the job of the court system in theory is to make sure you know there's there's what you need there's what you want and there's what you're entitled to what you need you're going to get you need food you need shelter you need to be able to like live your life what you want there could be no limit to what you might want so what you want is informed by what you're entitled to so the law is supposed to create something that is approximately fair for the for the all the totality of the circumstances now you were mentioning earlier that people with prenups tend not to get divorced at the same rate as people without prenups experence what's the reason for that you know again that's there's no statistics on this because there is no where you have to register a prenup so like prenups just get put in a safe somewhere like they're not filed with the county clerk they're just put aside like couple the bride keeps one the groom keeps one and then their lawyers keep one and that's it so it's not fil anywhere so I can tell you like having done I probably do a dozen prenups a month and a lot of those people like some of them celebrities in they will talk about oh we got married we don't have a prenup they do I know I wrote it it's in my safe I can't show it to anybody but I know I know they have a prenup because I wrote their prenup and I watched them both sign it so when they go out and say oh no we would never we have faith in our love we didn't do a prenup you're lying it's fine you have a right to lie you have confidentiality you're allowed to lie but you're sending the wrong message you're sending the wrong message to the world because it would be better I would be more impressed if you said like yeah we have a prup like we're pragmatic about it we have every confidence we're never going to need it but you know we did it of course like I don't want to die tomorrow but I have life insurance you know like I don't I don't I I drive my car safely but I have airbags you know it's good you know so I think people who have a prenup it's proof no matter what it's proof that you you have the ability to have a difficult conversation you have the ability to talk pragmatically and realistically about the fact that this love is on loan it's not owned it's not permanently deeded to either of you it's on loan and all marriages end all all of them they end in death or they end in divorce it's one of those weird things that you go I really hope this ends in death you know like it's very few other things in life you say that about I have found and I've now done hundreds if not thousands of prenups over my career that I've only had a small number of people that then move forward with a divorce action because I I think the kind of people that can have honest pragmatic conversations about but what if like I hope it doesn't happen but what if and those are the kind of people that can have hard conversations what is a prenup but being proactive what is a prenup but having you know trading what you want now for what you want most and and and and by the way I think a prenup is an act of love I don't want my partner to be with me because they're afraid to get divorced like getting divorc sucks sucks it's unpleasant even the friendliest divorce it's unpleasant you know but you don't want someone to stay with you because they're afraid of getting divorced from you you want someone to stay with you because they love like being with you they're happy being with you that you bring value to their life and they bring it to yours so a prenup is a way to say like hey if we split up you're okay you'll be okay I've always felt exactly that but other people without prup say it's it's a barrier to getting divorced if we have to sell the house if we have to go through with the expense of finding and splitting everything down the middle it's one more step that we have to work through that's almost a bit of a barrier to getting to divorce is a barri not having a prenup so we've talked to people who sayc yeah yeah exactly that they say Hey by not having a prup it forces us it puts a bit of a stopper on this a bit of a gap in between us not wanting to that's the assumption that most people can make it work yeah that's the craziest thing I I just that makes no sense I understand it from a logic selling a stock from your phone by clicking sell or calling up someone on the phone I want to buy a stock it's a bit of a okay so you know what I let's let's take that logic a little further yeah so why don't we have p Clauses where we're getting married but if you cheat on me I get half of what's in your bank account even if we stay married like why don't are we what are we doing we're betting now like we're creating barriers like oh I want because I have to tell you man I I the idea of someone staying with you because it's going to be more unpleasant to get divorced like that does not seem appealing to me like you didn't marry each other because it was easy like you didn't go like oh this is e like it's you know like make barriers to entry then like what I mean it just seems so bizarre to me like to why not have like a you know why not do like that Fear Factor show you want to divorce me I have to eat these bull testicles you know let's see how much you really want to divorce me that seems silly to me like look if you're with me you want to be with me I want to be with you like this is about if this marriage ends do either of us feel terribly taken advantage of will either of us crawl out of this marriage rather than walk out of it like I don't want some I don't want to woman to be with me because she's like where am I going to live if we break up don't what am I I'm an apartment like you chose me for that that's insane you know that's like me saying to to a woman like well you break a nail I'm out of here you know like I'm here because you're hot you know like if you leave forget it you get less hot I'm out like that's that's insane I would be horrified if if if if if I said that to a woman so I really don't I think that there is a wonderful denial that people in love want to do I get it like I get it I understand people don't want to go like I have lots of friends who don't want to get a physical why don't you want to get a physical I don't want to hear the doctor's going to say I got to do this okay so you'd rather wait until you're super sick at some point because there was something preventable that you could have got checked out on like that makes no sense to me same thing with the prenups so why do you think pre prenups are so frowned upon it seems like it's it's almost as though you don't believe in the relationship so you got a prenup right well that's that that is the popular perception which is why is that you know it's a great question I think a piece of it is probably that people who don't have prenups want to convince themselves that it was a shrewd decision that they don't have one you know like they don't want to be like yeah it was stupid I wish I had one like most of the you only have one shot at doing a prup the day you get married it's no longer a prenup it's a postnup if anything so most people who don't have prenups they don't want to go yeah I'm an idiot you know like they want to say oh well yeah there was here's why I didn't have that prenup it's cuz I don't we have more faith in it other than that like okay there's a 56% chance you're getting divorced but cool yeah that's a great gamble like you know that's that's insane so I I don't I think we justify that lack of prenups because a lot of people don't have prenups prenups are I will tell you having done this for over 20 years the last three four years prenups are much more common it is much l again we're still not at a place where people talk openly about it and I think that's for the reason you said which is people feel it's you don't have faith in the marriage it must be that you don't have faith in each other but I I'm telling you behind closed doors particularly the generation that's in their 20s and 30s now that's getting married prenups up the Wazoo we're doing so I had I think I did seven prenup consults last week this past week how effective are prenups in court do they hold up pretty firmly yeah very very because I feel like I've heard so many stories about people who like they get the prenup signed and then for some reason it doesn't hold up in court or is that something that was done wrong with the documentation yeah NE two ansers to that one is that sometimes people are full of it right they're just lying okay um but but I think sometimes like I think some of that's like Urban mythology like well I know I got a friend everyone's got a friend who has a cousin who knows the guy who's prenup didn't stand up and you go okay who who is this because I'm a divorce lawyer for 20-some years and I I I I've seen some prenups enforced that I was like how could they enforce that it's so unfair I mean I had a prup upheld in New York state supreme court that was 24 years ago while my client was 6 months pregnant standing in the vestibule of the church with 150 people inside the church he handed it to her for the first time in the vestibule of the church while she's six months pregnant wearing her white wedding dress and he said if you don't sign this I'm not coming down that aisle with you and the court 24 years later upheld that preno now that to me seems like an extreme how did they uphold that to me that seems like she's under duress being pregnant maybe fear what's going to happen if I have a child and having 10050 duress has a very specific legal definition and it's a high burden for a good reason because contracts sometimes in retrospect you go man I shouldn't have signed that but the question is is at the time was it a fair contract and you know was it distasteful did the court probably feel good about upholding that contract no but their attitude was listen you could have said no you could have said no it's not like you wouldn't be pregnant anymore it's not like you know yeah you he maybe he would have called his Bluff he would have said all right we'll Doin It Anyway his family was in there too you know but you the they are upheld are there some that don't get upheld sure you want to go on you know a website and download a pren everybody's got Google now so everybody's like oh I'm not going to spend $2,000 on a prup I can Google it I can get a Word document oh this will this place will give you one for $50 and yeah they screw up some piece of the drafting of it or it's just a boiler plate that doesn't have some of the state specific things it should have like so those get set aside they get set aside and there's other reasons why prenups get set aside like if a lot of times people marry people who English isn't their first language so if that person doesn't understand English sufficiently to know the contract that they signed I've seen prup set aside for that reason again there's ways to control for that like when I do a prup for someone who they they're soon to be spouse was raised in a different country I have a a certified translation done of either the entire agreement or of a provision that says that even though this person does not they acknowledge English isn't their native language that they've had a translate they understand English sufficiently and I make sure that that's translated that paragraph into their native language so no one can so there's like lawyers can solve four problems but if you're just trusting Google to like give you your advice yeah you're going to get and and people talk about prenups that got set aside that's why people think divorces are all horrible and ugly because you know talks about their divorce people who were wounded by it like my divorce was the least interesting thing you know when I when I go to a I don't go to cocktail parties but when I do occasionally go to a social event people go what do you do for a living I said I'm a divorce lawyer they go oh my God you must have such stories and if I said yeah like I got this one case where these two people fell in love where they were in college because they both found each other really attractive and then they got married and then after a certain period of time they realized they had really different value systems and they realized that they weren't really a good match for each other and so they decided that you know they should probably end the marriage and try to find better Partners so they respectfully divided their assets he would be like that's the stupidest story ever like that's not what I want oh no you want to hear about yeah so then he took a chainsaw and he cut the bed in half and he said you can have the left half or the right half because that's half is yours like they want that story so people who've had horrible divorces who've been wounded by it they talk about their divorce all the time so then you start to go oh yeah divorces man they're horrible I heard the story about it right but you didn't hear about the tons of people that get divorced that they're like yeah it didn't work out but you know she's one of one of the great loves of my life great person good parent you know we still get along what percentage are like that though the majority of divorces are boring okay the majority of divorces are accounting problems like they really are about who gets what and how do we divide it and what's the right numbers it's not knock down drag out trying to kill each other but are the other ones way more interesting totally a a a boring divorce like a typical divorce you know figure out what we have cut it in half 20 grand 30 Grand in legal fees a knockdown drag out divorce I can get a month in in one of those cases I can do 2030 Grand you make millions as a lawyer on ugly horrible knockdown drag out divorces but the overwhelming majority of divorces they're not like that they're actually somewhat just civil transaction do lawyers have an incentive to sometimes make it worse than it actually is like let's say you're representing someone say you know what no you should get more you do deserve this of course yeah there's a tremendous incentive for that in a practical standpoint but very few lawyers who do that last in this business or ever develop you live and die by your reputation in this business and if you're that kind of lawyer word gets out that you're that kind of lawyer and and and and it hurts your business people won't refer people to you people hate having you as an adversary judges start to figure out that you're just that kind of person who's obstructionist and unnecessarily you know obstreperous the way that you handle cases like that's not but yes of course there's trem by the way I leverage that incentive all the time cuz I say to my clients like listen I think we're within the parameter to settle this case they go well yeah but I want this and I go you understand I get paid to fight that fight for you so if I'm trying to talk you out of that fight I must be telling you the truth because if we fight that fight I'm going to make a lot of money whether I win or lose like you know I'm not a personal injury lawyer personal injury lawyer is if I get to a recovery I get to keep a third of it divorce lawyers I win I keep the money I lose I keep the money so a divorce lawyer saying to you no no settle on that issue but no let's fight the fight on that issue we have tremendous Financial incentive to encourage people to fight but very very rarely have I seen that in I I don't see it in myself I've rarely seen it in my colleagues because you just will not make it in this business if you do that so if you're getting divorced without a prenup how does that conversation usually go in the courtroom how do the assets us usually get divided and I heard you mentioned before something of the tune of good spouse bonus and bad spouse penalties and somehow they they did away with that but to me I feel like that sounds fair to consider who was the bad actor in this situation how can we make that even yeah so so it's two different questions you asked but but the second one I'll take first and that is yeah I always tell people there is no good spouse bonus and there's no bad spouse penalty and a lot of times people are disheartened to hear that mostly the bad spouse penalty part not the good spouse bonus because you have two good spouse that's like who gets the bonus but yeah bad spouse penalty people very often are like wait what do you mean the fact that she cheated on me with four different people doesn't change what she's entitled to it should the problem is what I said the earlier which is okay but why was she cheating on you like what was going on there like if you ask her it's that you were never satisfying her needs you were really discourteous to her you made her feel unloved she went into the arms of somebody else's a function of it if you ask him it's that she's just a you know and that she ran off with somebody else like so the truth is again kind of at the bottom of a bottomless pit and think about how do you prove it like look at a relationship you've had that broke up who how do you in a court of law if you had to prove that you were the good guy in that relationship how do you do it bring Witnesses Who Your Friends guess what I'll tell you right now your friends are going to say you did it right and she did it wrong her friends they're gonna have the opposite story they're gonna say like my mom if you put her on the stand under cross-examination she'll still say I'm the handsomest boy in the whole wide world doesn't mean it's true just means my mom loves me you know so it's the same thing like it's your you really you don't want the legal system deciding who was good at being married and who was bad at being married and and and what the incentives were you know because again like he neglected my needs I'm sorry I was working three jobs I neglected your needs no I would rather have been home meeting your needs but I was working my second job you know so there's so many and again I don't know who's right and who's wrong and I don't know that a person in a black robe with law degree with better at making that decision that there would then be a financial penalty you know so I I get how in theory you know in theory communism is a great idea everybody will just according to their take according to their need and give according to their means like it's great in practice it leaves the trail of blood and it's a short line to the gulag you know whereas in in theory it makes a lot of sense like the perfect society would be an ordered Anarchy where everybody does the right thing because it's the right to do because they have a moral okay that's fairy tales gang that's not real real is look in we if if a relationship ends and that's your other question when a relationship ends if there wasn't a prenup what do we do it's easy identification valuation distribution so we identify what the assets are what do we have how big is the pi valuation what's it worth if it's a house get it appraised if it's a bank account what's the value how does it fluctuate what went in what went out what did you have before you got married what did you have during the marriage how did it appreciate and depreciate and then three distribution and what's that it's horse trading all right well I'll keep because what would you I mean if divorce was when you get divorced we just sell everything you own and split the proceeds like I guess that's one way to do it it's a stupid way to do it instead you go well look I'm I want to stay in the house okay well I'll buy you out of the house well I'm entitled a part of your 401k so why don't you keep your whole 401k and I'll keep the house right but dollars aren't the same like it's apples and oranges because deferred assets is value okay so let's do a present value analysis of that great and that's what lawyers do at our best I've had ultra high net worth clients who come in and say yeah we're splitting up we don't have a prenup figure out what I have and give her half great it takes me and six other lawyers six months to figure out what they have and how to divide it in half because there's tax impacting there's depreciation there's all kinds of things to think about so you know ultimately whether it's the simplest of divorces with a small marital estate like I'm in a sense I'm a little like a mortician you know like the body of a president and the body of a homeless person it's just a body it's just meat it's just the circulatory system respiratory system all those whether I'm dividing you know a cop and a teacher with a 401k in a house with a little bit of equity and some credit card debt or whether I'm helping someone divide you know the eight homes that they own in hundreds of millions of dollars it's all the same thing identification valuation distrib rtion child support spousal support custody and visitation or custody and access that's it it seems cruel or like jaded to say to people yeah yeah I don't look at it like I look at it just like your doctor looks at you like like meat you know what I mean like your your your fiance probably doesn't worry that her gynecologist is checking out her naked body you know like she just goes yeah like that's what they see all day like it's just meat you're just meat to them they don't really care you know and it's the same divorce lawyers it's like we don't really get down in the muck of like who's the good guy who's the bad guy like it really is okay what's there what are we doing with the kids how are we going to what are the problems what are the legal issues how do we identify them how do we solve for them how do we create leverage cultivate leverage and how do we use leverage in the negotiation or litigation how do you prevent your spouse from cheating on you just put like air tags and geotagging and everything and don't let them out of the house you know the know the old joke is you know uh um you know what you call a woman always knows where her husband is a widow um you know I don't I don't think you can answer the question how do you prevent that I think you can say how do you control for it and I think there's probably a lot of different answers I mean my answer my answer to that would be to try to maintain connection with your partner you know try to I don't believe people cheat when they're happy I've SE I'm I'm an expert in infidelity now like I've spent a lot of time with the Cheon and a lot of time with the cheaters over the course of a two decade career and I got to tell you yeah you spend enough time with either of them I wish they were good guys and bad guys there kind of aren't like it's just but you've never seen someone you're like okay this person just seemingly acted in bad like yeah with malice they wanted to hurt the other person there's got to be a personality sort of trait that might deviate more towards cheating than others yeah well you just said two different things though one of the things you just said is that they did this to hurt the other person I've rarely seen people who cheat to hurt the other person usually you're not thinking about the other person and you should have been like I don't know a lot of people that are like I'm going to go out and cheat on my partner usually what it is is they go out and they like the affection of this other person they like the attention of this other person and then they cross lines they shouldn't have crossed and they're not doing it to hurt their partner they're doing it to make themselves feel good and they're not thinking about their partner which they should be doing at that moment they should be thinking about like I don't eat chocolate cake cuz I want to screw my diet no like I want to eat chocolate cake CU chocolate cake tastes good and I don't think about my diet and I go you know what I I'll work out extra tomorrow and then tomorrow comes and you didn't work out extra and now you ate your chocolate cake like so I think it's a matter of what are the incentives and what are the motivations now again I don't know how much intention matters like what really matters is how you treat the people that you love you know it doesn't matter what your intentions were were so I'm not saying intentions are irrelevant like if I punch you in the face cuz I don't like you versus I hit you in the face because there's a mosquito on your face like those are two different intentions important in that situation but cheating is one of those things that you know did you cheat because you're lonely did you cheat because you're stupid and you just didn't think about it like I've had people come into my office and say to me like yeah I got caught cheating and you go like okay you know they go yeah I'm an idiot like I God I I love my wife so much and I I don't know I just like saw the shiny object I went after it and it was a mistake and I'm an idiot you know and that breaks your heart it breaks your heart because I understand like I'm human like I've I've seen a shiny object and chased it I've eaten things I shouldn't eat done things I shouldn't have done I feel like there's got to be more to it if you love the person think about them and you regret it afterward I I feel like there's got to be something underlying that was always there that would prompt you to go and do something like that or maybe there's a personality trait that's a little more likely to do that I mean wouldn't it be nice if that was true I'd feel a whole lot safer you know like I think we all want that to be true right like when you're little you get told like don't smoke cigarettes and you know like Drive the speed limit you know you'll be like that right then you hear about aneurysms where like one day you're just sitting there and then you're dead and there's no Rhyme or Reason to it if you ask a doctor well how do I prevent aneurysms they go you can't and you go well how do you know you're GNA have one you don't so how does it happen God just goes Eeny mey miny mo and then takes you out well what can I do as warning signs nothing nothing you'll have a headache and then 5 minutes later you'll be dead you know okay well that's pretty scary I'd like a world where there's more control than that so let's talk about those other things let's talk about what I can do to increase my CH I'll do zone two cardio that's good right yes that is good that is good that will help prevent things will it prevent aneurysms not at all so cheating yeah okay man you're engaged I get it like you want to believe like my personality traits and her personality traits are such that we will not cheat on each other God man I wish I could say that to you like I wish I could say to you that like oh no here's the four thing I wish I could give you like a buzzfeed list here's the 10 things that you should watch out for here's the five things you can do that you'll you'll adultery proof your marriage wouldn't that be like that would just be great clickbait five things to guarantee your partner won't cheat you know here's three signs your partner's definitely cheating like that's going to get a lot of views it's it's not true like the truth is is that the line of Good and Evil runs through the human heart you know like we are all just flawed people that you know again I'm not suggesting that there aren't people who are remarkably shortsighted like if you want to ask me what personality traits I think they're all kind of the same like people who are very shortsighted people who don't trade you know trading what you want now for what you want most that's the definition of discipline y so if you're not someone who can be disciplined in life you're probably more likely to cheat because what is cheating cheating in a relationship adultery in a relationship is rather than doing the hard thing thing which is sitting down with your partner and saying hey I don't know man like we're not I'm not feeling satisfied like I'm not feeling like that that hunger because what is what is sex but hunger I'm hungry right I'm hungry I can eat healthy choices that are going to be good for me and the next day I'll feel good or I can go out and eat terrible food that's going to make me feel bad an hour but man it tastes good and trust me adultery tastes good oh my God are you kidding me it's chocolate cake it's new it's novel it's something different come on gang like let's all just be honest with each other but is it what you want no it's garbage it's junk food like we all know if you can have a fulfilling loving deep satisfying connection that's exciting with someone who's always there for you and you're always there for them and you support each other emotionally too but you also really have a lot of fun in bed that's the greatest that's the lottery that's the greatest thing yeah so that's the question but that's a harder thing because the question is not well what's the personality look the question is how do I cultivate that and the answer isn't sexy it's like how do I get rich work hard you know think think through your choices be careful invest in a disciplined way don't be emotional about it like those that's not sexy advice so the advice we should really be giving to people is like just pay attention pay attention like right now you and your fiance you're at the best place you're ever going to be like you're you're you've chosen each other you know and and you have tremendous Goodwill towards each other and you love each other now is the time to figure out why do we feel so good about each other and how do we keep it going and how are we going to have a conversation when we start to feel it slip and not feel attacked and not feel judged and not make the other person feel bad for saying it like if your romantic partner says to you hey I'm I'm feeling like my eye is wandering like they're telling you that for a reason cuz they don't want it to they don't want to feel that way I don't want to cheat on you so so you should hear that as a as an expression of love and value but but you don't I understand that if your if your girlfriend came home and said to you like yeah I've been been looking at other guys lately your first reaction's G to be what what's wrong well why what do you do well you know you know many other girls talk to me and I don't run out but wait like they just shared this with you because they're trying to tell you something and maybe the answer is yes so maybe we shouldn't get marri married or maybe we shouldn't stay in this marriage but maybe the answer is okay wait what can I do to to spice things and make things good and make you feel that way about me like she was once a girl you wanted to get with you know and you were once a guy she wanted to get with like every beautiful woman you ever see right now someone somewhere is tired of that like that's the reality like no one's a hero to their Butler like no one's a hero to someone they see every single day necessarily so shiny new things are always going to be there so the question really is How brave are you how disciplined are you how willing are you to have scary conversations like that and that's why I think prenup people who have prenups are less likely to get divorced because it's proof that you can have a hard conversation but a necessary one right what keeps the mystery alive in a relationship for them to stay together for such a long time desire is such a weird thing right like no desire is a weird when my kids were little I was trying to sort of explain to them early like because it you know I have a lot of gay and lesbian friends and it was like trying to explain to a four-year-old what it means to be gay you know it was kind of like a weird you know because we'd be like does he have a wife and I was like well he doesn't have a wife he's he's gay what does that mean you're like uh well you know and I remember saying well you know like you know how I like to kiss Mommy and I like that mommy has pretty blonde hair well that's what I like you know but he likes you know guys who have nice short hair and that's what he likes but what matters in life is that you find someone you like to kiss and they like to kiss you and you love each other and that's what matters right so that's kind of how I tried to teach that to my kids I'm sure I'll get pillared for that in the tron space um but the reality is that that look I I think desire is something that's very unique to each of us what we like what we want I think knowing what you want is really important and then knowing how to express that to your partner is really important and I think it's better to express it in a positive way than in a negative way and the example I give of this is I have to shave five days a week I have to be clean cut I have to look like Perry Mason you know the courtroom lawyer especially the like you know white old judges I have to look very like what they'd imagine a lawyer to look like so I can't grow a beard so I shave five days a week so on the weekends I don't shave I really like not having to shave and I remember dating a girl who she had very sensitive skin so anytime I would kiss her if I hadn't shaved it was the weekend she would be like oh it's like you know and I remember like I would get kind of annoyed because she'd be like oh your beard it's so scratchy and I would be like all right you know what then I won't kiss you how about that like that's like come on like I work five days a week I got to shave and drag this razor across my face and get Razer burn like you can't just let me you know like let but it because it felt like a criticism it didn't work out with that girl the next person I dated she had the same thing sensitive skin I have a rough beard I didn't want to shave on the weekends but she was brilliant because it was like a Friday or a Thursday and I'd shaved and she comes up and she goes oh God like it's so sexy when you're fresh shaved like that I love like your skin like it's so like you're like Don Draper on Mad man I love it dude I would have shaved three times a day I shaved every weekend I anytime I was going to see her I shaved and I'd be like oh yeah I would kiss her and I'd be like yeah I shaved this morning she be like yeah I love it you know okay you did the same thing like you both just wanted to express the same thing except one of you did it in a way that made me instantly defensive and the other one did it in in a way that was like I love this about you and then I'm like that that's easy I can serve that up easy I do that all week I can I can shave Noe I'll shave twice a day if you want me to so it's the same thing like if you share with your partner in the positive right like I love when you do this like praising the positive you know even by the way if they don't do it like even if they don't do it like I've always told guys like the best way is a life hack if the best best way to get your partner to do new things sexually is to say I had a dream about you last night I don't even want to tell you about it she be like wait what why You' be like I don't know what it was but I got to not eat dairy before bed I I don't even want to say anything no no what what was it you know you're gonna think I'm crazy like and then you describe whatever it was you're having a fantasy about and at least it'll start a conversation and if she goes oh my God that's disgusting you could go yeah no I know it's so dis I can't like like what was that about I would never want to do that in real life it was just a dream it was a weird dream I got to stop eating Edibles before bed or she's going to go like oh did you did you like that you be like yeah I don't know like I didn't think I would but it was kind of hot really well I would I wouldn't be against really you know and that's how but again rather than going well you never do this or watching a movie and going like well we never do that like like which is nothing all you're G to want to do in response to that is go well because you didn't ever say you wanted to go to do that you know so it's the same thing like just you can you can incentivize so easily and that's not just romantic relationships you can do that in any relationship you know it really does not have to be about criticizing your partner it can be about you know expressing what your needs and desires are in ways that don't bring out the defensive side of them how can a guy be a girl's hero in a relationship I feel like every guy wants to be seen as a heroic person yeah to his girl yeah that's a great question I think first of all I think being heroic we we sometimes Define it by these giant grand gestures you know like saving the damsel from the train tracks or saving the puppies from the you know drowning in the lake but you know being heroic is really about like being someone's hero right like putting their needs maybe above your own sometimes or or like doing the I mean what is heroic but doing the hard thing you know like I I told my sons when they were growing up I was like I don't know that I have a lot of wisdom to share with you but if you were to say to me what is one sentence that you think is the most important sentence to tell a human being I would say the hard thing to do and the right thing to do are almost always the same thing in every sphere of Life the hard thing and the right thing are almost always the same thing and what is the hero but the person who does the hard thing because it's right and it's good right that's what the hero is like think about it like every every movie you've ever watched where like the hero you know says to the woman I got to go like I got to go fight that bad guy or I got to go take out the villain who's in The Saloon or I got to go on this Mission and she goes no please don't don't go stay stay with me stay here stay with us if he went yeah you're right screw that let's go back inside he's not the hero anymore the hero when she says that kisses her tells her I love you or if he's Han Solo he just does that I know which is so cool and then goes and does what he has to do because that's why he's the hero because he does the hard thing because it's the right thing you know and it's for the benefit not even just for himself it's for the benefit of of the group or of her so how do you be heroic I think the way you're heroic is you don't Sherk a task like and I think that's something that's starting to come into the popular zist is this idea that like man the world we're all we're pushing so much comfort down the throat of everybody you know like everything is about how can you be more comfortable You' be more comfortable and and I see a lot of men now choosing discomfort you know doing cold plunges you know doing sick workouts you know like intermittent fasting they're all doing hard stuff you know and they're they're doing it for the reason Joe Rogan says he does it Joe Rogan's like I do workouts in the morning that are so brutal that the rest of my day whatever happens it's not going to be as hard as that workout was and there's a lot of logic to that there's the sto ISM out there that makes sense so I think the way to be heroic is what it has always been which is to put the the the needs and values and goals of your partner in a place of high esteem I'm not saying it should always be above yours but it should be in a place of high esteem you know and I think that's that's that's how you are heroic I think heroic is not just these giant gestures it's lots of little things how do you feel like the current dating culture in society is affecting relationships today well I think people have Choice paralysis I mean in dating I think Choice paralysis is a huge thing there's just two so many options there's so many dating apps there's so many but all of them are very image-based very performative so I think that you know I think we're we're living in a time where everyone has bright teeth and rotting gums you know we're really interested in what looks good you know everybody you know my secretary for many years drove a really nice Mercedes and I drove a Jeep Wrangler you know I know I made more money than her because I pay her salary but she was very performative you know and so I think we live in a very performative Society right now and I think dating there's a lot of performative stuff going on in the world of dating and there's this is the way people are meeting is largely online now and so it's a lot of artifice and performance and you know if you look at most people's Instagram it's not who they are it's who they aspire to be or it's who they want the world to think they are you know and and I think that that is um I think it's human I understand why we do it but I think it's difficult for dating purposes I think that dating would in in its best format there would be a tremendous amount of honesty fairly early in the relationship you know like I understand you want to see her with makeup on on the first date but you want to see her shortly after that without any makeup on you know like I I get I don't think makeup is lying you know makeup is accentuating the positive and dentu the negative like your Instagram is the same thing like you're accentuating the positive dentu the negative it's not lying but eventually you want people's personality take the makeup off you know I want to see what you really look like I want to see what you really act like I want to see what you're really afraid of what you're really good at like I want to see what you need to work on so I think the barriers to to to successful relationships are now what they always were which is you don't know yourself that well and you're not good at being honest with another person about it and relationships become a form of habit like I know people that are in unhappy relationships and they're getting married and you go why are you getting married if you're unhappy with each other and they go we've been together for like seven years I'm not going to just walk away from it now like really really because I would it's not going to get better once you get married I think dating right now it's a it's a difficult time there's too many options there's a lot of options I won't even say too many there's a lot of options out there and it's a lot of performative stuff and again I I think there's a lot more intelligent people than me have talked a lot about how the dating game the online dating game is really rigged in favor of a very small percentage of men it's really bad for a large group of men and it's really bad for a large group of women for what they really want which is a long-term partner not just someone who sleep with them why does it seem so hard to appreciate the relationship you're in I feel like it's nearly impossible to not be influenced by Hollywood's portrayal of a successful relationship or like you said social media's portrayal of a successful relationship how do you know that what you're in is true like what is a guarantee and also like is it even wrong that I'm asking myself this question or asking you this question I don't think there's anything wrong about that question at all I actually think it's a great way to look at things look it's porn romcoms are porn it's porn for women that's all it is like like the truth is is that there is there is a tremendous what is that but an idealized stylized fake version of sex right like when you when you look at sex on a screen okay I always joke about shower sex like every movie has a sex scene in the shower it looks awesome sex in the shower looks so good you've had sex in the shower it's terrible it's terrible sex in the shower is the worst it looks good it's terrible in practice you're standing it's kind of weird you're there's water washing everything off it's not great okay but it looks really good so it's in Hollywood so now everybody looks at it and goes like Oh we should that's so hot but it's not in practice it's not right so at the end of the day I'm going to get pillared by the way in the comments now people being like I have wonderful SAR sex so the truth is like I genuinely believe romcoms are just a way of like it's an idealized version of things it's not necessarily honest and again what starts to happen is like the tail wags the dog because people start to compare their relationship to that idealized stylized thing and then they start to go well I don't have a good one because it's not like that or they start to try to pretend to have that you know I know plenty of men who they they think the way they should act during sex is what they've seen on the screen on their computer and that's not a great education to the reality of of men and women having sex so I don't know that like I I think the problem is that that of course the ideal the fiction it's the version of something or at least it becomes the best version because what was shoved down our throat all the time of what it should be but those are tropes like they're tropes like the idea of like the girl boss is what's hot now so everybody's being told in Hollywood you're girl boss every movie's a girl boss she's a girl boss she's a girl she's great at everything she's better than all the men at everything and the only thing holding her back is men okay that not only is that a tired tired Trope now but it doesn't reflect what every woman wants like if you don't aspire to be a girl boss like I don't know that everybody wants want that there are people that are now standing up and going you know I don't I don't know that I want to be a CEO like I kind of think that it would be nice to have a family and like tend to them you know I don't know that like the best place the most satisfying place to be is in a cubicle from 9 to5 like I actually think like you know having someone who cares about me and provides and protects me that's nice you know and so but that's a dirty thing to say anymore why because there's been this stylized version of what your life's supposed to look like why is it why is it leaning towards that though do you think that gender rules exist for a reason and why do you think I do think they exist for a reason but I think we are a culture that has always treated dandruff with decapitation like we always go the other way way too hard like and only an idiot would say that the 1950s made sense they didn't men had no choice but to just put you get to work and shut up and you're not there to take care of your kids that's what your wife is for and you're not allowed to be gay or you're not allowed to be anything you could be when I even Me growing up I'm 51 when I was growing up you could be Clint Eastwood or Richard Simmons those were your two choices guys you didn't get to be anything in between there's nothing in between if you were the slightest bit nice or you cared about art or you weren't that interested in football you were a and that's it's a horrible thing my mother is was brilliant she was an incredible mathematician she was told you get to be a nurse or a teacher and she was like wait I'm the best math student in the class maybe I'll want to go to med school and they were like you can be a nurse you can be a teacher those are your choices until you find a husband and then you can be a wife you can be a mom those are your choices so I think we needed to fix that and we did but we did what we always do we wildly overcorrected and it turned into you want to stay home and take care of kids G like what is this 1950 you could be a CEO and and and and suddenly women were like you know afraid to go like but I kind of don't want to be a CEO I kind of wanted to be a teacher you know you don't have to be a teacher I know I I want to be a teacher but you don't have to be you could be a CEO okay like I get and by the way the capitalist Machinery loves it loves it let's get everybody in the workforce let's get every let's make everybody a cog in the machine you know so yeah of course so capitalism bolsters it endlessly but at the end of the day are people happier no they're miserable people are miserable now they are less happy they're as unhappy probably as they were in 1950 we just tracked the data better so is the solution now to to go the other way again to go like all men have to this and all women have to this I don't think so I think that was ridiculous and horrible you know but you don't H it doesn't have to be so extreme everything in our culture is so extreme you can believe that gay and lesbian people have a right to love each other marry each other have rights you know be be treated with respect and not support drag queen Story Hour for children those are two total totally different things you can say a woman has the right and should be for when a little girl she should be told you can be a surgeon you could be the president or you could be a mom or you could be a teacher or you could be a person who does Pottery all day you could be all those things that's what feminism is and and feminism benefits men when it's done properly not the ridiculous version of it that's out there now but when it's done properly I was raised in a feminist household I was told that I didn't have to be strong or tough but being strong and tough are still admirable traits like so it was cultivated in me to yeah be my this is why I was so blessed to have the parents I had my father was a very traditional right-wing kind of a guy and he was like no a man's a provider he's a protector he knows how to fight he knows you know he's not afraid like he puts the people he he's fighting not because he hates the person in front of him because he loves the people behind him who he's protecting you know and that was what I was taught but my mother also taught me but but it's okay you can be sad you can be afraid like by the way if you're not scared it's not brave it's only Brave if you're scared and you do it anyway that's what being brave is so I I feel like we've now created a culture where just no at whatever you're doing you're doing it wrong if you're a man who's strong and protective you're getting pillared for all that's such a traditional gender role you're so out of day and if you're the other you're a soy boy and you're not strong and why why are we doing this to ourselves guys like we we all have in us fear and strength and women have strength and fear a woman can protect me I can protect her we can protect each other in different ways you know you can protect me emotionally I can protect you physically or maybe you can protect me physically and I'll protect you emotionally like we can do what suits our individual Constitution and so yeah I think we're all lost right now but we don't and so to then say we're lost individually so why are our marriages lost cuz the ingredient if the ingredients suck the dinner's going to suck guys like the ingredients are lost right now so the couple double lost right now yeah what do you think the solution is to that I think the solution is is the thing which is yeah it's really hard to be in a couple right now because we each don't know ourselves and we don't know what to do but when it's done right a couple can fix that like you can see each other's blind spots you can call each other out with love you can say like it's okay to be vulnerable or you can say to to someone who's having trouble being strong like you're strong I know you're strong I'm cheering for you you know like this is beautiful like we we we break in relationship and we can heal in relationship like you can't you can't fix alone what was broken in relationship like if you if someone betrayed your trust in a relationship they cheated on you you're not going to fix that by sitting in a room by yourself ruminating over it you're going to fix it by going out there again and trying again and learning that you can trust someone then not everyone's going to betray you you know like that's how you learn so I think the solution is relationships but but Fearless relationships honest relationships relationships where we pay attention where we value it and where we're we're again brutally honest with each other listen I'm a romantic at heart but I don't believe in fairy tales so so I don't believe in a culture that shoves fairy tales down people's throats I think we should be that real flawed Human Relationships is really beautiful to me and it's really romantic to me so you talk about being brutally honest in relationships we had a clip that went viral of me asking our guest Tom Bilu actually what do you tell your wife if you think she doesn't look great in the dress and we've asked this question a few times in the podcast but I want to know what your answer is to this question what if she does not look good in that dress what do you say how can you approach it in a more like delicate way like you also said on on Lex Freedman I think um when she asks like oh how was that after you guys were in together or whatever and and maybe it wasn't the best you've ever had but she's asking you was it the best you've ever had like how do you approach that conversation yeah so I think those are two different examples but the the the the outfit one I think is a lot easier and and that is I remember my ex-wife I don't think she'd be mad at me for sharing this with the world but she was always very concerned about like does my butt look big in this this is when Big Butts were not a good thing that changed generation okay but a 9s this is the '90s yeah this is the '90s and she was very upset about the fact that like you know and by the way lovely beautiful woman beautiful woman was then still is um but she was always the women are so much more critical of themselves than we are of them you know like I wish they could see us they could see themselves through our eyes you know but she was very like do I this my and I would never you know like I knew what she was saying she was insecure like she wanted there to be some Praise of her but there were some things she'd wear that were not as flattering So my answer to that was always I would point out something she looked even better in so she'd say how do I look in this dress and I go I like it you know and and why are you asking and she'd say well because I feel like maybe it's in and I go oh okay yeah I mean you know that black dress that you wore to that other thing you look in that you looked great that really just and then she'd put that on and I go oh yeah that's the one like that's the that just does I don't know it's just something about your coloring or your figure that just does it you know and okay you know and that what is that it's the same Jedi mind trick that with my shaving it's positive reinforcement it's positive reinforcement but it's honest but it's just not making a person self-conscious about something they're already self-conscious about like so the same thing with sex like you know I like to again focus on how when someone says how was that I mean first of all I don't know how often people say like how was that I if you have to ask it probably wasn't that good but I I think that sharing with your partner what they did well like to me I mean look we all do this in in romantic relationships you first start dating someone you just throw everything at it you're like let me try every trick I've ever tried in bed with anyone but what you start to figure out is oh this one doesn't like the same things as the other one did or this one you know like and and she's maybe doing the same thing with you like the higher the body count maybe the like more complicated the equation but you try stuff until you figure out what each of you likes and you usually figure it out by what you get positive feedback on like what makes this person moan or what makes this person like when they say oh my God that was so when you did this you go okay great noted you know so I get it like I think that's the way to do it is to share with each other what the other one's doing right because if you don't me if I do the same three things and you only praise two of them I'm going to know eventually okay you didn't praise that third one and then if somebody says to you like you know hey you never mentioned that you like that third one you don't have to say I don't like the third one you can say like yeah I mean those other two are so good that like I don't know you can put that one by the side it doesn't matter I don't need it you know and so there's ways to to again to be a cheerleader for your partner and I in my book I call this um uh that like you know psych psychological manipulation but in a positive way yeah like it's a positive mind control you know it's it's you're trying to really drive home what they're doing right which will then sort of show the corollary of what what is not right what do you think is something important that everyone should be asking their partner that they don't I think there's a lot of good answers to that question I mean one of them would be what am I doing right like what do you like best about me you I know that's going to sound like a selfish question but it actually is that sometimes I don't think we know what people like about us like I we're not always a good gauge of what our partner finds most attractive about us um I I think that there's more important things to do like I think sharing with your partner what you like about them and what you find challenging in the relationship is more important than asking that question of your partner but I I think asking your partner like what are their you know what are their what are they afraid of right now what are they grateful for right now you know there's a lot of really easy but deep conversations to be had with a partner you know and and you can understand a lot about some like what are you excited for in the next year you know what are you afraid of right now like these are deep questions you know and and and I don't know how much incentive there is in our culture to ask those questions of your partner again it might be in the context of like let's just go for a walk or let's just devote an hour a week to like you don't even need a coup coup's counselor to do this with like let's just you know ask each other those questions like what are you grateful for this week like what did I do right this week as your partner and I'll I'll tell you what you did right you know in in this like we're human beings like you and I right now can have this conversation like I could say to you you know hey what have I done right as a guest for the last couple of hours and and and I could tell you what I think think you've done really well in this conversation and then we're both going to get better not only at this conversation but at the next conversation that you have or the next time I'm a guest but but we don't do that because we're just supposed to naturally be excellent at everything and then after we'll find out if we got it right or we got it wrong and I don't why why like why are we you know we're building a bridge while we drive over it like why don't we have some conversations about how am I doing how are you doing here's what you did so great last week or here's what last week we kind of missed the plot on you know like that's important it seems like the solution to a lot of these issues because there's so many different Bridges to cross in relationships the main thing to consider would be just having those deeper conversations whatever they are because I feel like a lot of people in relationships and I've experienced this in my relationships as well you kind of just go through the motions and time passes and you know you're enjoying your time but there could be some dissonance slowly increasing between you two yeah and I think maybe just continuing to have these deeper conversations and being maybe intentional and aware about that would probably be a generally good rule of thumb that can fix up a lot of the wounds that people have in their relationship I think it's not only a good idea it's the good idea like that I think I think people their relationships fall apart the way that people go bankrupt very slowly and then all at once I think you have to do routine maintenance all the time in a relationship and it's a whole lot easier it's a whole lot easier to keep your weight where you want it to be than it is to get really over weight and then try to lose the weight it's so much easier to stay connected to someone who loves you and you love them and you're happy with each other then it is to find distance disconnect and then try to find your way back it's so much harder so just staying connected and all that is is just a matter of disciplined routine habits that honor what's best in this person and what's Best in you and I don't think it's I don't think it's that hard it just requires discipline do you think if you are Once In Love with somebody like true love with somebody that that relationship can stay true all the way until the end as long as you are intentional about it or do you think that there are some random extraneous things that can happen I well I think you're one person in the relationship so the other person also has an equal share of having to M if the true love let's say was reflected yeah so I think if you're two people that have a true depth of connection and love for each other and you both approach this relationship with the same seriousness are there still do bombs still fall out of the sky like is there still aneurysms yeah there are like i' I've represented the the most heartbreaking cases I have are when someone's lost a child the divorce rate for people who have a child who dies is through the roof and and it's heartbreaking it's hard I've done about five divorces where people lost a child like one of them the kid fell in the pool and they they found this three-year-old they found you know and this other one parent was like why weren't you watching watching them but they they know that it was like they turned their head for a second and the kids snuck out like it was nobody's fault but they forever then were reminding each other of of this thing that was taken from them and they break up the problem with that is that's like someone saying to you um if I said I want to quit smoking and someone says well I know someone who lived to a 100 and Still Smoked Cigarettes like right but they're in the minority like that's not usually what it is like most marriages don't end because they lost a child like so are there still things yep there's still things like you can take the best care of yourself and you can walk out and get hit by a bus so does that mean that you should just not invest in your 401k and and smoke cigarettes like smoke I don't think so like life is short and and and horrible things happen all the time and you know you could love someone so well and so deeply and they could still break your heart you know so does that mean don't do it like I don't think so I think be Brave like be brave like get out there and try you know and so but but is there a guarantee no there's no guarantee but do I think if someone has that strong starting point of a deep connection and real affection and an honest love for each other that's deep and visceral and is that a great place to start from and is it easier to just try to keep that from day one than to like I kind of like this person and maybe they're a fixer uper and I could turn that's not a great place to start from so I think good Beginnings can lead to you know good endings if you're Vigilant um but yeah there's still always bombs could full out of the sky have you ever been settling a divorce and you thought that they were actually still really good for each other yeah yeah several times and what happens in situations like have you ever brought it up or is it just not your place whatsoever I bring it up yeah I bring it up I I I don't I mean I work from the assumption that people have autonomy and agency so I don't like to be paternal and say to people like why are you guys splitting up but if in a consultation can I get any sense that there's hope for a marriage to to to remain I encourage people I have a whole network of marriage therapists individual therapists who I'll refer people to if I think that they could divorce amicably I'll send them to a mediator instead of me I'll tell them listen I'm a chainsaw you want to scalpel it's fine just go mediate you're better off like I'm a very specific set of tools you know like I'm a weapon you know you don't want to point me at somebody unless you want to do them harm so I would say that that more than once I have said to someone hey look it sounds like you guys are kind of in a good place and it sounds like maybe you're not sure you want to do this and don't just because you hired lawyers see this thing through especially if you got kids like if there's a way to make a marriage work that you'll both be happy like do that do that without question you know I'd love to be out of business have you ever felt morally conflicted when you're representing a case like you said you're Ed as a weapon against somebody else but maybe in this case you feel like you're asking for a lot something that you maybe morally have deemed not fair but you're just doing your job assigned by a Marketplace to basically represent your client yeah yeah that happens all the time if any lawyer who says to you that they don't represent positions or people that that make them morally uncomfortable is either lying or has a very inert practice like yeah I represent horrible people sometimes so how do you toy with that in your I believe in our system I believe in democracy I believe in I believe in the way our justice system works that people are entitled to vigorous advocacy under the bounds of advocacy like I don't I don't listen I I there's a chapter in my book about a case I should not have won I represented a horrible person who beat a woman unmercifully and we won because I knew the Rules of Evidence better than the other lawyer and he had more money so he could afford me and she got a court assigned lawyer had hardly any idea what they were doing and I ate their lunch for them and as we walked out he patted me on the shoulder and he said one good lawyer is better than 20 stickup men and I remember I felt dirty I felt dirty like when I recorded my audio book and I read that chapter into the microphone in the sound booth I had to stop because I got choked up because I felt really weird about it but the thing is I believe in our system I believe in democracy I believe in the rule of law I believe in advocacy and I didn't cheat in that case I won Under the rule set that everyone agreed on and it's not my fault that that lawyer doesn't know how to try a case and it's not my fault that so I I believe in our system I don't think I should be the one our system doesn't think the lawyer should be the one who makes a moral decision as to who like people have a right to representation and I do the best I can for them are there times where I feel icky about that absolutely but more often than not I don't more often than not I'm I'm advocating for someone I believe in but now you could say that she did not get the same level of service that you were able to deliver because she didn't have the resources capitalism baby you get as much justice as you can afford like there's a reason why OJ walked it ain't because he wasn't guilty like there's it the reality is that you get you know our system listen I'm not saying it's always that if you have more money you win but you have a significant tactical Advantage if you have good lawyers like if you afford a good lawyer like we're better we're better at this job so we'll do a better job you know it's not it's not quite so simple like a a really good Chef you know can take good ingredients and make an amazing meal they can take junky ingredients and still make a really good meal they can't take junk ingredients and make it into something fantastic no no Chef in the world can but a bad Chef you can take bad ingredients make bad choice you can take good ingredients you'll make bad meal like that like a good lawyer is worth a lot so your faith in the system is not Bulletproof right because you gave the example of like when you represented this person you didn't think that you should have won the case well no I should have won the case I just felt badly about right right okay do you think that there's ever a point in the future where you can forsake your faith in the system to adjudicate on your own behalf and think like okay this is what should happen let's just say you had a billion dollars it's your last case ever now obviously this is a very tricky no no it's not you know got to ask the question I've never been asked it and I love it and what I'll say to you is I'll tell you how the sausage is made I'll tell you a secret this is what lawyers fantasize about when we fantasize that's what we fantasize about we fantasize about I fantasize about two things more often than I'd care to admit one is telling a judge what I actually think like I have fantasies about Jud in the middle of Court being like you know what you're an idiot you're an idiot I'm a better lawyer than you you don't know the law you're lazy you know you call a lawyer with a 70 IQ you're honor okay like I want to say someday in court I plan to get dragged off in handcuffs because I said that to guaranteed it's going to happen stay tuned so that's one thing I fantasize about the other thing I I really F and by the way there are some phenomenal judges who know the law and are way better lawyers than me and they do it for the right reasons but there's also some terrible ones and unlike bad lawyers bad judges can hurt a lot of people really badly so that's why we have to have good judges the other thing we fantasize about is betraying attorney client privilege like calling the other side anonymously and saying look in the bank accounts at blah blah blah blah blah he's hiding money and then just hanging up the phone like I have fantasies about like taking a cell phone or a burner phone and like just narking on something that I know that is like you know or here's where those photographs are or send a subpoena for the audio recordings on his thing because you're GNA find X Y and Z that's what we fantasize about I'd never do it but that's what we fantasize about but if your your client is asked about potentially missing funds or something like that wouldn't it be perfect perjury if they if I know yes we can't suborn perjury it's why criminal defense lawyers will tell you the question they never asked their clients is did you do it because once the client tells you that if the client says yes I did it you can't suborn perjury so clients don't come in and say to you I'm hiding money or I'm hacking her email and I'm reading her emails with her lawyer they just like know stuff and and you are afraid to say how do you know this because they'll go I have her email hacked like every once in a while an idiot who says like yeah I hacked her email and her cell phone and I go great I'm off your case now because you're asking me to suborn per you're committing a crime that's wir tapping it's a felony you're intercepting electronic communications to which you're not an intended recipient that's a crime and you're now telling me that you're giving me information that you only know because you're cpit usly intercepting Communications between her and her lawyer so I can't be your lawyer anymore those are the rules so that's great when that happens because I'd like to know like I liked when the KKK War white robes instead of three-piece suits because I like to know what someone's doing I like to know if you're a racist I like to know who you are I like to know if you're a criminal but the reality is is that most of the time that's not how it works most of the time people won't say yeah I beat her I beat her she's totally tell them the truth they go that never happen she was attacking me and then I pushed her and she hit herself and fell and you go I don't believe that but I don't know that it's false and the system I'm supposed to credit what my client says until there is an admission to the contrary you know there was a great uh YouTube video that I got recommended last night on the way here and it was a two-minute video from a lawyer posted 10 years ago said how do you represent clients that you know are guilty and he gave a great example he said when I first started my career I represented a client he was guilty he came up with this elaborate story involving all these other people but I knew he was so guilty the proof was there this guy was guilty and I tried my best to represent him but he was guilty and he went to he was found guilty yeah went to jail he said years later another case came up with an identical story and as it turned out that guy was innocent yeah and he went to jail and he said after that I learned that I can't let my own judgments get in the way 100% And even if something sounds so ridiculous and I believe in my heart 100% he's guilty there's a chance he's not you got to give him the same representation here's the thing about system the truth fears no trial the truth has a way of coming out sometimes despite my best efforts like I represent some awful people sometimes and I do my absolute best and I am great at my job and we lose because there's only so much like the truth has a way of coming out like if you're a liar you got to have a great memory you got to remember what you told everybody you got to remember what records are out there you know like we come after you if I come after you it's coming out so there's times where like listen people want to roll the dice they want to lie they want to pretend it's okay cool truth has a way of coming out and I'll do my best I'll do my best to put lipstick on a pig but it's still a pig like I'm gonna do my best but that's the way our system works it's designed to do that the system works it's not perfect but it works a lot of the time the truth has a way of coming out I've represented a lot of people who've been accused of sexual abuse of children because those cases come out in family courts sometimes they're done as neglect cases so they fall more into the realm of family law than criminal law and so I've represented a lot of people who are facing allegations of child sexual abuse and there are some that I go I think this person did it and then as the evidence comes out I realize no they didn't and then there are people that I genuinely go there's no way there's no way this guy did this and then as the evidence comes out I go oh my God he did it you know same thing with domestic violence I've met perpetrators of domestic violence who I would have let them date my sister like they're they're Lov they're Charming narcissists you know and and and I've met perpetrators of domestic violence that you know I never would have known that they were abusive but they were you know I've I I have a case right now where I'm representing a woman who's you know accused her husband of very serious domestic violence and he came into court and I was like she is lying this guy is so Charming so nice he's so even keeled everybody who ever met them was like he's the nicest guy you ever met and thank God they have a ring doorbell because the ring doorbell caught him on camera beating the out of their six-month-old Labrador puppy no yep and kicking this dog and throw grabbing the leash and yank and smacking it against the wall and I had to listen to this I had to watch this but I have tell you something and I hated it it was like one of those moments where I go why am I doing this for a living but I brought that into court and I showed that to the judge how that feel it felt good CU I brought it in and I showed it to the judge and the judge went okay she's telling the truth like she's telling the truth because this guy came into court all buttoned up and so lovely and then you have a video and audio of him beating the snot out of a six-month-old puppy and you go okay that's what this guy's really like so that's a beautiful thing like when you get to feel that happen when you get to go I was part of making Justice move forward no one believed this woman I didn't believe this woman because he seemed real nice you know Jeffrey dmer seemed nice too to a lot of people until he ate them you know so like the private lives of people people and the public face of people is very very different which is why I like the rule of law and due process because the truth has a way of coming out how often does someone's image affect the outcome if they're buttoned up clean cut versus someone with like face tattoos and yeah pretty often pretty often but but again that's what trials are for tri trials are full contact storytelling like in a good Storyteller you're gonna if I know a client has face tattoos I got to work harder I got to work harder like I had a client who we were fighting over custody of his 5-year-old son and he had a baby with a woman who he had very they had only been dating for like three months and then she got pregnant and she had a whole series of text messages from him where he was trying to get her to have an abortion and he was saying to her like I'm not going to be involved in this kid's life and you're gonna be a single mom and I think this is foolish you're ruining your life having this kid and this guy loved his son like you wouldn't believe he loved his son so much and I said to him I was like we got to get out in front of this we get out in front of this in this trial because you're going to look like a terrible person like I read those texts and I don't like that guy so I put him on the stand in his trial and before the other side got a chance to eat him I put him on and I put those text messages into evidence and I had him read them into the record and I said how do you feel when you read those text messages and he cried legitimately cried and said I feel horrified I'm ashamed he's like I I'm so glad she didn't listen to me he was like I I feel disgusted I'll never forgive myself for that but but I was scared at the time and I didn't know and I hadn't met my son yet and thank God she didn't listen to me and I got because I love my kid the minute he was born I knew like oh my God I'm so glad so to me like you know again that's what's so beautiful about this job is you get to like let the truth come out you know and and that's that's an amazing thing to be part of a little bit of a change of pace but you've spoken before about some really unique alimony payments some really unique uh prenups you said that there was one that you signed where every 10 pounds the woman in the relationship gains yes she's going to receive $10,000 less per month on her alimony payment yes and that stood up in court I you know I had that's hilarious I'm sorry that's funny sorry it's funny yeah it's very funny of course it's fun it's incredibly funny and what are some of the other really creative prup agreements you've seen can can you write in literally anything you want to yeah as long as it's not um as long as it doesn't require someone to break the law so you can't put in like if you kill my brother in-law I get I'll give you X Y and Z like it has to be something that's legal for a person to do but yeah you can write in all kinds of crazy creative things like you can write Fidelity Clauses like if you cheat you have liquidated damages of this much but what's interesting what's actually even more interesting about that that no one's ever asked me about but but a lot of people found that prenup thing with the 10 pounds you lose 10,000 um what's funny about that is that here's what what law school does to your brain I heard that story and my first thought was not who's going to marry this guy like are you kidding me like that what kind of person are you nor did I go like yeah that's a good point man you don't want her to you know it's the most fattening food in the world is wedding cake like you don't you know control that I didn't look at either of it those way I looked at it and I went all right well wait a minute how do we establish the Baseline so when they sign it will there be a weighin because you'd have to establish Baseline and if you is a baseline if I'm representing her I'm going to want to be like wrestling like you don't cut weight like you're going to want to bloat up as much as you can and put as much in your pockets as you can so your Baseline weights as high as possible so that the the gauge the Delta but how do you certify that weight and then by the way when she well and how do you certify that written into the doc this is what so now you're thinking like a lawyer so I heard that like we cure that provision and I go okay how are we going to and then when when we have the we in at the time of divorce you have to calibrate can she cut weight like is she in a sauna with the suit on like a boxer or a wrestler like what are we doing here you know like to me it became a legal issue like okay so how would I prove it and what is the Baseline and how to so I had to start thinking like in that provision about okay so we have to put in this contract the way in the way out who will will it be neutral like what time of the month would it be there's women who say like hey right before my period I I get blowed up and there's women who say oh my God like two days after my period I'm like super lean how do we do it so I was thinking about it from so a lot of what lawyers get caught up in is like the details of what do we prove and when you say oh cheating Clause like everybody like a lay person goes like yeah you should have to pay a penalty when you cheat okay what how do we Define cheating how do we Define proving cheating you know like if you saw me going into a restaurant with a woman is it proof I'm cheating or you see me going into a hotel but if they have a restaurant in the hotel maybe I'm just going to eat at the restaurant you know so like what is cheating for the purposes of fidelity clause for the purposes of a penalty and again you know you may say that it has a plain meaning but does it like if I say to you a reasonable amount of time what does that mean we might have three totally different definitions of a reasonable amount of time so lawyers are very caught up in how do we Define things in specific enough ways that they're enforceable so what are some of the other really creative Arrangements you've seen UPS in that case about the the pounds did she have an objection to that or was she totally on board she was bored with it when they signed it and she resented it when they she tried to use it as a basis to set aside the prenup what if she had lost 10 pounds would it have in it did not I asked that question before they signed it and it it it was not she didn't get like a bonus she was a model she had been a model like it was it was fairly clear that what she brought to the relationship was that she was very attractive and what he brought to the relationship is that he was very rich did she end up gaining weight um no she she gained a bit she lost I think she lost 20 grand a month but she was getting like yeah she gained like 20 pounds over the course of the marriage how much was her final alimon amount uh 30 or 40 Grand and how long was the marriage seven years it was short and there was no kids okay cuz we had actually put in a clause that said if there were children that that changed oh interesting okay because we realized that there was a function of you know so what are the other creative Arrangements you've seen I mean I've had a lot of them what's actually interesting to me is is the um and it maybe not be as interesting to others but uh the like instead of alimony like I had a you know like a a hedge fund guy marry like a yoga teacher and she made like nothing and he made you know he's in his 30s and made like three four million a year so he's doing really well and we were talking about alimony we're going back and forth about how much would the alimony be it should be this percentage of amount versus how long they're married if they're married five years or more it'll be this percentage and if it's this it it'll be this percentage and but then there was a question of because a lot of guys in finance like they get paid their bonuses are often much bigger than their salary so it was like well do we do it on last year's salary because last year might have been a great year it might have been a bad year so it might not be indicative so we do like a three-year average and my client who's a very pragmatic guy in finance just went yeah just give her a million bucks and I was like wait what do you mean and he was like yeah just if we split up she gets a million bucks and I was like wait but like what if you're married like three months yeah I give her a million bucks what if you're married 10 years million bucks you know I was like what are you sure like you're married three months you give her a million bucks he's like yeah you know I'll I'll make more money it's fine so those are the things that I'm sort of shocked by whereas I have some people in finance who make you know hundreds of millions of dollars and they're very like down to the penny they want to argue over so what's more fascinating to me is like how different people's approach to marriages to finances it's just such a diversity of people but prenups I mean I've seen a lot of stuff in prenups About Pets that's a big thing lately people put a lot of stuff in About Pets because people love their pets often as much as they would their kids and a lot of times when people are cohabitating before they get married um I've had people put in Clauses about family members that like we won't if we won't allow this family member in our home you know or we won't communicate with this person or that person so it doesn't even have anything to do with money no but it has Financial repercussions oh got it okay so if you were to talk to this person or have this person in our household then you don't get well see lawyers we're very caught up in or what like everything's or what yeah you know like lawyers are the worst at that like when you say like you're not allowed to sit there or what or what like you know it's very I used to always get criticized for this because I I park illegally all the time in New York City because I'm always like you know you can't park there or what you get a $50 ticket no problem that's cool because this garage over here is $75 for the amount of time on a park this is a ticket for 50 bucks no problem I'll give you 50 bucks to park here and there's a chance I might not even get a ticket so even better you know so or what it's always or what you know well you better do this or what you know I'll give you 20 years in prison okay good disincentive I will not do that thing you know but so that's how prenups are like it's always well I I want to put in the prup this okay or what and how do you enforce it and is it enforcable you know so like all that's a lot of our legal system a lot of our world is based on people's misunderstanding of their rights so like you know when you pull your car into a garage in the city and there's that sign that says we are not responsible for damage to your car are you are they are they are but a lot of people will go look at the thing oh darn it I didn't the sign they're not responsible oh well and they'll drive off like they believe it so it becomes true but it's not true like it's not true like they're not allowed to damage your car it doesn't matter if they have a sign like if I have a sign that says if you come in my house I get to rape you like that does it's not true it's not true it's not how it works so it's really really important that people understand their rights and their obligations life I'm curious what type of relationships you find to be the most successful we had Alex rosi on the podcast and he said that there are different dynamics of relationships one is a footballer and a cheerleader where you have someone going out and you have the cheerleader just behind you have another where both people are in the trenches and you have another where one is very masculine one is very feminine yeah do you find a commonality between who's the most successful the best relationships are the ones that have some polarity you know I think when when when like marries like too much that lack of polarity becomes challenging it becomes almost a competitive relationship there are exceptions to this but what I have seen as a divorce lawyer polarity usually feeds a relationship but too much polarity is a problem like if you're a neat freak and this person is you know an absolute mess that's not going to work out well but if I'm like a super overscheduled tightly wound person and you're a little more freewheeling and like see it is then I organize you up a bit and you might get me to get out of my comfort zone a little and that really works so I really think that that finding the right amount of polarity is really really important so you know hyper masculine hyper feminine or both very masculine both very feminine I don't know that either of those are the best permutation like sometimes in my experience hyper masculine hyper feminine like hyper polarity is better than hyp similarity but that's just from where I'm sitting as a divorce lawyer and from my experience in in life and relationships yeah got one last question before we wrap up yeah you said on Lex fredman I don't know that I'll ever love anyone or anything more than I love the work uh and that was after nearly an hour of talking about how a person spouses the most important thing uh and the most coveted thing in their life you said I think there is something like the womb like cocoon likee Joy of love when you're just tucked in and pressed against each other it's just the two of you that's lovely we're just dying for connection that connection is so big it's everything so how can you have these two things like you have your spouse and then you have work you said you don't think that you can ever love a spouse as much as you love work and I'm questioning just as a yeah is you in particular you're not married yeah right or you were divorced um you you currently have a girlfriend I don't know how long you've been with this with this girlfriend how do you juggle this extreme love of work because I think this is a lot of people's problem yeah at the same point of like having like relationship arguably everything in life yeah so I had a benefit that some people don't have and that is that when I started my relationship I was established in my career so I was very as advertised like I was very open about the fact that the law is a Harsh Mistress and that the law is really kind of my first love and that that it will always be a distraction that when I'm with you I will a lot of the time be thinking about clients and cases and every once in a while we'll be just sitting there having a conversation and all of a sudden my brain will go oh my God that's a perfect question for cross-examination I got to go write it down and I was very as advertised about it and um I have found in my relationship having polarity is really important having someone who is not who understands the dedication and passion I have for my work but who is the one who says okay like that's great but now it's time to come on like let's rest now like let's it's okay we're gonna you're gonna go back to it tomorrow morning I know that but like you did a really good job to let's take can you give me a few hours and if I go I can't I have a and they go okay I get it but but who reminds me to go like yeah okay it's okay to rest your head you you know so I think that that it's as advertised and I listen I don't I think connection the reason why I was very cautious about when I said that to Lex I was making a comment about the nature of connection I don't know that it has to be a romantic partner like I have friends that have you know pets friends a community a team a Jiu-Jitsu Group whatever like that from which they find deep love and connection think there is something hardwired in us and very special about romantic love and I don't even want to say the love between a man and a woman because I I have lots of gay and lesbian friends who have deep deep satisfaction in their samesex relationship so I think there is something very magical about love and romance and sex I mean it's the it's why we're here it's what keeps us going as a species and it's you know most of us will say like when you think back on your life like some of the greatest moments of your life were moments of ROM IC connection sexual connection any of those things so but I don't think that that means like I have a mission you know and it's just like that story I said earlier about like when the guy goes like she goes please don't go and he goes yeah but I gotta go like I do I love my job I love my job I love the woman in my life too would you get married again she knows I marriage doesn't mean anything to me like marriage to me doesn't mean anything it's a legal status you know it's like would you go to the DMV only if I had to you know like I don't see what that adds to things like I don't when people say would you get married again what they're asking is would you have a monogamous long-term relationship where you're committed to this person deeply and where you're the only and to me yeah that's great I can't imagine life without that I mean I guess I can't imagine life without that but I'd work more but it it it just you know it wouldn't be as fulfilling of a life I think love is really really an amazing thing but I know how I'm wired and I'm weird I'm the first to admit it like I'm not anybody's like I'm a strange guy like I love my job in the most amazing way and I don't think most people love their work that way I got one I got one last one really quick yeah why do you think Joe Rogan has such a successful relationship you know Joe is very private about his marriage and every single person who I know who knows him personally through the Jiu-Jitsu Community or through media things all say that this is like a guy who loves his wife and his wife really loves him and that they also really like each other but he's not super public about the details of that marriage and and so I think that's a really you know I I've been wanting to app I've been a fan of Joe's for years we've met before um in the Jiu-Jitsu world I I've wanted to to be a guest on his show because you know talking with Lex was great and and and sort of you know the natural Coral areas you'd have a very different conversation with Joe but the truth is like I I would be very interested in hearing Joe's answer to that question question I just don't know if Joe wants to share that with the world and if he did I would love to hear it and I'd love to be part of that conversation and if he didn't I would really respect and understand that too that's a very personal choice but what I what I can say is it looks like whatever they're doing they're doing it right and that that's what we should be looking at is we should be looking at that iy I I hope at some point he shares that either with me or with the world even if it's not with me like if he just shares it with a different guest like I hope he shares that with the world cuz anytime somebody's doing it right and both people in it are like man we're doing it right I want to know I want to know what they're doing like because I'm on the other end I watch what everybody does wrong and I'm reverse engineering something from it but I would love to hear what what Joe's doing right and I'd love to hear I'd actually love to hear what his what to me like when I fantasize about that I'd love to sit down with Joe Rogan and his wife and hear from from their point of view what it is that they're doing right I'd love to hear what she says he's doing right I'd love to hear what he says she's doing right and I'd love you know I'd love to know the truth of that but look at the end of the day like there's so many I'm whether you're a celebrity like Joe is or whether you're just somebody I pass on the street or a guy who's my Uber driver I find people who are happily married it's really cool to be around them you know the next time you're at a group you know dinner and you ask people like so tell me how you guys met like watch how they light up when they tell that story like that's it man it's the greatest thing in the world like that that warmth that comes off of a couple when they're talking about like yeah and she was there and then she walked by and I thought she was and you kind of look at and you go like man it was 40 years ago or it was four months ago it's just it's something great to behold so I I anybody's story of how they fell in love or how they stay in love I'm in I want to hear it thank you so much absolutely thank you WTF media Down Below in the description for letting us use their Studio I absolutely love it you guys like the way the shots look the way the audio sounds they basically did it all what's your name Remy shout out Remy he was cutting this entire thing that's awesome really appreciate you for com hopefully we do it again I would I wish we do another hours got to come back we anytime you want questions anytime you're in the Big Apple you guys have a divorce lawyer on on on hold awesome thanks so much thanks so much thank you guys for watching till next time