Every single marriage ends in death or divorce, but it ends.But the majority of them end because of slippage.And what does slippage mean?
Slippage is... James Sexton is back.
The world's leading divorce lawyer.
With over two decades of experience, he offers practical, no-nonsense advice for maintaining healthy relationships.
We live in a society that presumes marriage is a good idea.You're about to do something incredibly dangerous that fails so much of the time. And I think it has almost nothing to do with love.But if you get married, here's what I will tell you.
Have you talked about a prenup?Getting married without one is a fairly risky activity.But the truth is, is having a child with someone is the most risky activity in relationships.
There's so much stuff a person can do to torture you if they have a kid with you. And what I'll tell you is the people who are obsessed with their children stop paying attention to their partner, which leads you right to my office.
OK, so if you were to give me one piece of advice to prevent me and my partner ever ending up in your consultation room.
If there's a core message to my approach to relationships, it is that'd be the only advice I'd ever give to anybody.
James, if you think about the divorces you've seen in court, was there ever a case that broke your heart?
Yeah.It was a case that I won that I should have lost.I remember looking at the judge and thinking, like, you're letting this happen.
She's going to lose because she's poor, and she can't afford a lawyer, and he's going to win because he can't afford a lawyer that knows how to put a document to evidence.And there's something really wrong about that.
James, our last conversation, I think, did almost 10 million downloads and views across platforms.
And I can't imagine the amount of messages you get on a daily, weekly, monthly basis from people that are interested in the subject of divorce, but also the sort of interconnected subjects of love and marriage and all of these things.
When people contact you, what do they typically say?
You're absolutely right.I mean, the number of people that contacted me after our conversation exponentially increased.It also very much broadened the palette of things people contacted me about.
So a lot of my prior work, a lot of my writing prior to our first conversation was very much tied to just relationship issues, divorce-related issues.So I would get a lot of messages from people saying, I'm going through a terrible divorce.
I'm dealing with this situation.Even though you can't represent me because I'm in a different state or a different country, could you give me some general advice? So people would reach out with very specific to my career topics.
I got a lot of people talking to me about
the conversation we had about our dogs and about loss and about the nature of aging and endings and whether it's the ending of a marriage or the ending of a dog's life or our own lives and how the loss of our pets brings us more sharply into focus about the mortality of everything around us.
Yeah, I mostly get people saying, oh, you gave voice to something that I'd felt, and it was meaningful to me to do that.
And I try to write people back and just say, you know, very briefly, like, I'm so glad that something in my perspective resonated with you.
If there was one message that you could give to everyone that messages you, so one singular message, it was a broadcast message and you had to send it to everybody that's messaged you about all of these interconnected subjects, but you could only say a couple of sentences and you think it's the couple of sentences that would most serve all of them in one go, regardless of what their issues are, because it's a fundamental message about love and marriage and divorce and all these things, what would that message be?
I mean, I've always said that I think the core truth I've learned in my life is that the hard thing to do and the right thing to do are usually the same thing.
So I would often challenge anybody who reaches out to me about anything that they're struggling with.I would say to them that, what is the hard thing to do in this situation?Because that's probably the right thing to do.
The other thing I would say is that although I really appreciate that someone would reach out to me in the hopes that I could give them some answer, I pretty strongly believe that the only zen you find on mountaintops is the zen you brought up there.
And so I think a lot of the truth we know, when we hear someone say it out loud, it resonates in a way, but it's because we knew it was true.We already knew it was true.Maybe that person gave voice to it.
When you said the thing about zen and mountaintops, can you say that again and what did you mean?
Yeah, I mean, you can also parse it as the only wisdom we find on mountaintops is the wisdom that we brought up there.
There's all of these sort of Zen parables of the monk who, like in Batman Begins, sort of in his flip-flops and robes, sort of wanders up the mountain through the cold trying to find the Zen master at the top of the mountain who has the wisdom that he can then share with him.
And very often, that wisdom's inside of all of us.That wisdom is something that, whether we want to call it our gut,
whether you want to call it your soul, whatever you want to call it, that the wisdom is inside of you and that we want, I think, sometimes to have other people validate it for us or say it out loud because perhaps we're not as articulate about it, but to have someone give voice to it.
It gives us the ability to go, okay, okay, so it's not just me.And I think that's what I mean when I say the wisdom we find on mountaintops.I think we travel very, very far to find a joy and a wisdom that's inside all of us.
On that point, as you were talking about it, and the reason I was so piqued by it is I've got so many friends over the years who have been struggling in relationships and in their life and in their marriages, who have thought that the answer to all of those problems was to basically get on a plane and move country or city to go somewhere else.
And so when you were saying that, I was thinking back to a conversation I had with my friend many years ago where he said, you know, I'm going to move to Spain.And you know, his life was in ruins really at the time.
His partner had just cheated on him and was pregnant.And he thought moving to Spain would solve the problem.
So I remember the conversation with him where I said like, by the way, all the problems of buying a plane ticket with you, like they're going to Spain with you.
Wherever you go, you know, there you are.And so I had a friend who was a hairdresser. And I remember once talking to him while he was cutting my hair.And we got on the topic of, because both of us are someone that people talk to.
People talk to me about their problems and their relationship as a function of my work as a divorce lawyer.
And people sit with their hairstylist and they'll talk, particularly women, will talk for a long period of time about the things that are stressing them out and upsetting them.
And what he said to me is, you know, a lot of women in particular come in and they say, I want to cut it all off.I want to cut it all off.I want to cut it very short.I want to cut it very different.Like, I want it just to hold it.
And he said, you know, there was a time early in his career where he would give them what they were asking for.So if they came in with super long hair and they said, I want a little short, very bob cut, you know, he would do it.
And then he would get a call from them a few days or weeks later going, oh my God, when can you fix it?Like, what do we do?
And he said, what he started to figure out is what they're really saying is a very human thing, which is, I don't want to be me anymore.Like, I don't want to be me anymore.Like, I can't do it.Like, it's all too heavy right now.
Like, can I stop being me?Can I look different than me?Can I—because maybe if I look different than me, I'll feel different than me, and maybe I'll do things differently than the way I've been doing them.
And I think that's so human, you know, to say.And that's the same thing about, OK, I'm just going to move.I'm going to move.I'm just as guilty of this as anyone.
When I've had a really stressful, difficult week carrying all of my clients' chaos and stress, and there's just bombs falling from the sky constantly in my line of work, I go, that's it.I quit.I'm done.I'm done.I'm just going to do media stuff.
I'm just going to write books.I'm not practicing law anymore.I'm never setting foot in a courtroom again.Mic drop.I'm out.And the reality is, I'm tired. I'm just tired."
Or, okay, if it's true that I'm at a place where I'm transitioning, then just cut back.You don't have to cut all your hair off.And I said to my friend who's the hairdresser, so now what do you do?Do you try to talk them out of it?And he said, no.
He said, I kind of play a trick.He's like, I do something a little different, but not so different. And then I play up in my reaction to it, like, oh, I love it like this.Look at how it's so nice.
I didn't take as much as you said, but I think this is really.And he said, and very often, they're thrilled.Like, they just go, oh, yeah, this is great.Because it was symbolic.
Like, it was a symbolic thing for them that, no, I'm going to do something different, and I'm going to look a little different when I look in the mirror.And when I look in the mirror, it's going to remind me to be different.But that's inside of you.
Like, I mean, for me, We wake up every single day and decide to be who we are or to continue being who we are.
And one of the reasons why this is always so present in my mind is because as a divorce lawyer, people have this very clear image of who they are and what their life's going to be.
And very intentionally, they went and put on the white dress and the tuxedo and they took the vows and they were like, this is the path. This is the path.I'm taking this path, and this is who I am.
I'm Bob's wife, or I'm Jen's husband, and I'm going to be a mom, or I'm going to be a dad, and this is what I'm going to do.
And then it blows up, whether it's five years later, ten years later, twenty years later, when the kids go off to college, whatever it might be.And then what they're really struggling with is, wait, who am I? Who am I now?The barn's burned down.
What do I do?I'm not Bob's wife?Then what am I?I'm Bob's ex-wife?That's a terrible thing to be.I don't want to be defined by what I'm not anymore and used to be.So who am I now?And watching people over the course of their divorce navigate that,
is one of the most inspirational things in the world because people are so much stronger and more resilient than they give themselves credit for when they're in the crisis of it.
Was there ever a particular case that you think about that broke your heart?
You're going to try to make me cry again, Stephen.This feels unfair.
No, it's interesting because I didn't, our conversation last time was so interesting because we spoke so matter of fact about the subject of love and marriage.And then for me to also learn at the same time that you are a deeply emotional person.
I've had a few.I mean, one of them I wrote about in my book, which was, I represented, it was a case that I won that I should have lost. I represented a pimp.That's what he did for a living.And he owned a variety of of illegal businesses.
He's in prison for a long, long time now.But at the time, he had very brutally abused a woman who he had children with.And there was a family court proceeding.
And the lawyer on the other side of the case, the lawyer who represented his co-parent, his victim, if you will, was very inexperienced.She was an assigned lawyer.So I was privately paid, as I am. And she was assigned by the state.
So she was getting, I think at the time, $25 an hour, something like that, versus my $750 an hour.And she was quite new as a lawyer.She was right out of school.She wasn't quite sure, you know, of what to do and how to do it.
And I was fairly experienced. It was a perfect storm of like the worst factors of the system.
It was someone who could afford a very good lawyer against someone who couldn't afford a good lawyer and therefore got an inexperienced lawyer that wasn't terribly sure of themselves in a courtroom.
And a judge who was very impatient, who just was in a bad mood that day.I don't know what he had for breakfast or what it was, but he was an older judge.He'd been on the bench for probably too long.He retired a few years later.
The key piece of evidence they had was a photograph of this woman's face after my client had allegedly beat her up quite badly.And getting a photograph into evidence is very easy. but it requires a very specific phrasing.
So what you say is, I'd like this to be marked for identification.
You mark the photo, and then you hand it to the witness, or you hand it to the court officer who hands it to the witness, and you say, I'm showing you what's been marked as Petitioner's 1 for identification.Do you recognize that?Yes.
What do you recognize it to be?It's a photograph. Does that photograph fairly and accurately depict your face after he beat you up?Or does it accurately reflect your face on the date you've been discussing?Yes.
Your Honor, I'd like it put into evidence.That's it.It's easy.Does it fairly and accurately depict?For whatever reason, most likely lack of experience, opposing counsel I guess, didn't know how to get a photograph into evidence.
Now, normally in that situation, a judge will be helpful.Like, they will just jump in and say, ma'am, does this fairly, but this judge was just not in the mood.And opposing counsel said, I'd like this to be marked.
And then she said, could you hand it to the witness?And she said, what is that a photo of?So I did my job.I said, objection.She's asking about the contents of a document, not an evidence. which is my job."Judge said, sustained.Which means?
Which means my objection is correct.So she said, uh, okay, uh, I'm sorry, uh, who took this photo?And she said, I, I, I don't, I don't know who took it.She says, okay, well, what, what is it a photo of?Stood up again, objection.
Asking about the contents of a document not in evidence. And I could see opposing counsel getting flustered because she didn't know the words.And my internal dialogue at that moment was, just say it.Like, just get it right.Like, just say fair.
Does it fairly and accurately depict?Does it?Just say it.Like, and I remember looking at the judge and thinking, like, you're letting this happen.You're letting this happen.Don't let this happen.Like, she's poor. She's poor.
That's why she's going to lose.She's going to lose because she's poor.And she can't afford a lawyer.And he's going to win because he can't afford a lawyer that knows how to put a document into evidence.And there's something really wrong about that.
And the judge didn't.The judge just let her drown.And she asked three or four more questions that were the wrong questions.And then she just said, I don't know.I don't know what to say.I'm sorry.And then she just sat down. And the case got dismissed.
And we walked out.And as we walked out, my client patted me on the back, and he said, you know, a good lawyer is better than 20 stick-up men.And I remember thinking, this is not a good day.It's not a good day.
That case, that was a long time ago, and it still stayed with me, because it was, I did my job, and I, you know, I represent my client, but I also represent the system, and I don't always believe in my client, but I have to believe in the system, and I have to believe that I am not, it's not my right to judge people's case, it's the judge's right.
Like, I believe in this system, I believe in the adversarial system, but watching someone lose who shouldn't lose.And winning when you know you shouldn't win does not feel good in this line of work.
Would you take that case again?Exact same case, exact same person, exact same scenario.You're asked to go and do it again tomorrow.Same opposition lawyer.
I would, yeah.Well, first of all, it's many years later and I still know that lawyer and she's actually become a really good one and I'm really proud of that.
if she was equally inexperienced, the same woman, the same circumstances, the same victim?
You know, if I knew it was gonna go that way, I probably, I would turn it down.I mean, I turned down a lot of cases.I don't actually know if today I would represent him anymore.It's a hard question for me to answer.
See, I think you don't always, you don't know in the consultation And it's not like this guy came into my office and said, yeah, I beat this woman terribly.Will you represent me?That's very different.No one's ever done that in my office.
He came in and he said, yeah, she's accusing me of all these horrible things.I didn't do any of it.
In my gut, I think I knew he did, yeah.The more I got to know him.I mean, in a consultation, you don't know.In a job interview, you don't know what kind of employee somebody is going to be.
You know, sitting across from someone in a one-hour consultation, most of the time I'm talking, telling them about their rights and obligations and how the legal process works.Like, I don't really get to know them.
But throughout the process, I started to figure out, like, yeah, there's, this guy did this.
You said you turn down a lot of cases, you know, these days.Yeah.What are the kind of cases that you would absolutely turn down irrespective of remuneration?
I turn down cases where I feel like the person, I mean, a lot of times I turn down cases that I don't think they need me. Like, I don't think you need to bring a gun to a knife fight.
Like, I think if you can do it with a scalpel, don't use a chainsaw, and I'm a chainsaw.So, like, you don't need me.And so I'm very honest with people about you don't need me.I'm not the right tool for the task.
But there are a lot of cases I turn down that I think people are using, they want to weaponize the legal system to punish their ex for their transgressions, real and perceived.
Like they want to, their spouse was cheating on them and they want to just litigate them into submission.
They want to force them to spend a million dollars in counsel fees by making ridiculous motions and by minimizing, you know, their access to the kids and making them fight for every single hour of visitation they get with the kids.
I'm not interested in being a weapon that's used for that purpose.
Presumably sometimes your job is to get custody of kids.All the time.Which means that you're basically taking children away from a parent.
You can look at it that way.
It's a harsh way to say it.
I've jokingly said that before because when my kids were little and they would have those like, you know, bring your dad to school day, And it was like, oh, this is my dad.He's a firefighter.And this is my dad.He's a doctor.
And I always felt like my sons were like, this is my dad.He's the reason why your firefighter dad only sees you on alternate weekends.And that felt a little strange.
And there were times where actually my kids were in school with people whose divorces I had handled, their parents. But yeah, I think I do have a tremendous impact on people's access to their children, both positive and negative.
Like, I help people get access to children that's being withheld from them.I help people address parental alienation and negative gatekeeping, the kinds of things that
are really becoming much more insidious and prevalent in our culture, where people are using children essentially as weapons against their ex who they're mad at.
I mean, look, breakups on any level are difficult, you know, and there's usually hurt feelings and anger in a breakup, and I don't think that's abnormal.
You lose someone, whether it's to death or whether it's to divorce or just to split up, there's some anger, you know?There's resentment.Why don't you love me?Why don't you love me the way I love you?Why don't you want to be with me anymore?
What does this say about me?Does this mean I'm a bad person because you don't want to be with me anymore?Like, these are really universal themes.
Like, there's almost no one in the world, in any culture, that if you go to them, breakups, that they don't go, You know, they get it.
Like, they get it.My friend's going through a breakup at the moment.He's been with his partner for many, many years.And when he sent me the voice note explaining, like, we've been together eight years, we've kind of broken up four times.
But he's being broken up with.So he's the sort of victim, per se.
Which is the better one to be.
Really?Oh, yeah.You want someone to break up with you?
Oh, I mean, well, here's what I'll say.Because I have something of a PhD in this one.
I have to tell you, when someone has been broken up with, there's a tremendous amount—unless it was by some patently awful behavior, you know, like they got caught with the girlfriend or the boyfriend, red-handed, like then no one's going to give you much sympathy.
But if someone dumps you, like it's not me, it's you, like they just dump you, There's a tremendous amount of sympathy.If I called you and I said, dude, I just got broken up with, you'd be like, oh, mate, come on, man.Let's go out.That's tough, man.
We've all been there.What happened?But when you break up with someone, there's only so much sympathy people will give you because, you know, well, we broke up.If you're so upset about it, get back, what did you do it for then?
Whereas sometimes, you know, you're just the one who called it.Like it's not, it wasn't a happy relationship.It wasn't like, you're sad that it had to end, you know?Like I didn't want to break up.I wanted the relationship to stay good and it didn't.
So one of us has to be the grownup and say, okay, this thing's over now. But I think that person actually sometimes deserves, you know, just as much sympathy as someone who got dumped because they're both someone who's experiencing a loss of sorts.
Even if it's a loss that, it's, you know, I mean, it's a terrible metaphor.But if someone said to you, I have lung cancer, you would go, oh my God, that's horrible.Like, are you okay?
If someone said, well, I was a smoker for 50 years and I got lung cancer, it's not like you go, well, what did you think?I mean, of course you're still gonna go, oh my God, that's terrible.It's not like you deserve it. I mean, yes, is it shocking?
No, it's not as shocking if you've been smoking for 50 years, but it's still quite sad, and it's still a journey this person's gonna have to go through.So it's the same thing.It's like, I just went through a breakup.
Well, who picked, who decided to break up with who before I tell you if I feel bad for you or not?Like, I don't think that's a fair way to approach a breakup.
A lot of people want to own it.They want to say that they broke up with them, right, as well, because that... It's very popular.Well, there's something empowering about it.Yeah, it was my decision.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.Or the, like, well, I'm glad they did, because I'll tell you the truth, I was about to.I was about to break up with that person.Yeah, that's very common.I think that's a pride thing, though, because, you know, there's something about
the rejection of its own.You know, a great example of this for me, which is very, it's always vexed me professionally.So a lot of people, I've handled a lot of divorces where someone
breaks up within a heterosexual marriage because they are coming out as gay or lesbian, okay?So they end the relationship.
So in the heterosexual example, man and a woman are married to each other for a period of time and the man says, I'm ending things with you because I'm gay.I've realized that I'm gay and I'd like to live my life as a gay man.
My thinking, as someone who's never had that happen to me, my thinking And perhaps it's naive.Like, my experience has taught me that maybe I'm just strange, which I kind of knew.But this is another example of it.
If a woman broke up with me and said, I'm breaking up with you because I'd like another man better than you, that's very hard to swallow.It's like, I want one like you, but better than you.
Whereas if she said, I'm leaving you because I'd like to go be with a woman now, it's like, well, I mean, I don't, I don't have that.Like, I can't give you that.It's not like I want someone who's a better dancer, I want someone who's funnier.
I want someone who has different parts than you.And okay, I mean, that feels a little less like, you're not rejecting me necessarily, you're rejecting my entire sort of gender.You're basically saying this isn't who I want.
The opposite actually happens.Those are some of the most brutal and vitriolic, awful divorces you could possibly imagine.And they've actually gotten worse over the span of my career.Because over the 25-year span of my career, when I started,
When someone said, okay, my husband is leaving because he's gay and now he's going to live as a gay man, it was actually okay to then say, yeah, and he's a pervert and a horrible human being, because there was just such a widespread homophobia at the time.
I mean, you know, Will and Grace, like, Will couldn't even kiss his boyfriend on TV.He wouldn't really even have a boyfriend.It was like so You know, young people today have no idea how in my lifetime that has changed so much.
Not to say there isn't still homophobia, not that there's still not heteronormativity, but the reality has changed tremendously, the boots-on-the-ground reality.
Now, if your spouse leaves you for, if I was married and my spouse left me for a woman, and I'm upset about it, I'm opening myself to an accusation of being homophobic. And the truth is, no, whoever she's leaving me for, it's really upsetting.
Or whoever she's been sleeping with, male, female, anything, it's upsetting because they're with another person.
So I think there is, in that phenomenon of people's breakups, the sense of like, well, I was gonna break up with them anyway, is like a pride thing.I think there is a tremendous amount of stuff that we carry around when it comes to those breakups.
I've always wondered what heartbreak actually is.Because I flip between thinking, okay, it's like you mentioned the word rejection.Is it a blow to our self-esteem?Is it the loss of a future that we had built in our head?
Because if you can understand what it is, I was thinking, how do I give my friend advice on it? then I know what the advice should be or the support should be.Because if it's a loss of this future, then, OK, I'll say this.
If it's his self-esteem, OK, I'll boost his self-esteem.
So I think it's all of those things.But I think it's an ending.And I think that endings are hard.
I think that saying to... What I always try to do when I have friends going through a breakup, and even with clients, is that every beginning is born of some other beginning's end.
So we talked about this the last time we sat down together, where I said that, you know, I only got Cabba because Buster died.
Yeah.My dog that passed away 13, 14 years ago, and my dog that's now 13 years old. And one, I only got one because the other died.And I love both of those dogs so much.
But if I'm being honest, I guess I have to say I'm glad that I lost Buster so that I could have Cabba.That sounds terrible, because I don't mean it like, oh, I'm glad that he died.
But that ending was part of life, and it made room for the beginning of the next thing.And what I always try to focus my clients on is that, this relationship is ending.
And there has to be honoring that, mourning that, feeling that, seeing it as the transition that it is, grieving the loss of it, but also realizing that every ending is the beginning of the next thing.
And there has to be an ending for the next thing to come and for the next beginning to happen.And I have now watched that cycle for thousands of clients over a span of 25 years, where their life is ending.I was this person's husband.
I was this person's wife.I was a dad who lived with his kids full time, that had them every Thanksgiving, not every other Thanksgiving, that I had them every Christmas Eve, not alternate years.In even years, they're with me.
In odd years, they're with her.Like, what are you talking about?Like, this was who I am, who I'm dying. Like, who I am is dying, and I don't know who I'll be next.
When you're in that, right, and when it's your first divorce, it's not mine, but it's yours, you know, it's very hard to see.Like, just like when someone dies.You know, when Buster died, I said it last time, I said, I will never do this again.
I will never love anything like this ever again.I'll never let my heart be broken like this again. I'll never open myself up like this again, ever, never.This is the worst pain.Why would I ever do this?Loving anything is stupid.It's insane.
You're opening yourself up to the inevitability of loss.And yet, Kabba was such a joy.And now, I'm near the end of that.And what do you do?
Well, I like to believe that now, I'm not saying that's not gonna be as painful when it happens, it will be, but I no longer believe the world is ending.
I understand that the beauty of who he is was born of the emptiness that had to be created by the loss of Buster.I understand that now.And so, like I said, Will I do it again?There's going to be a period of time where I'll say, no way.
And same thing with love.Like, people get divorced.I had a client last week say to me, they're right kind of in the middle of their divorce.And I said, you know, 86% of people are remarried within five years of their divorce.
And they said, oh, I am never doing that.Are you kidding?I am never doing this again. Every time they say that, I laugh, because I think to myself, I'm like, you're so wrong.And I get it.Like, you don't see it right now.
Like, right now, I know you think that's true.Like, but you will love again.And you will, when you love again, like, you will feel it, and you will be in it, and you will go, oh. And this one's perfect, and this is great.
Like, I've done divorces for people that spent a million dollars in counsel fees and went through absolute hell.And when they're about to get remarried, I go, you know, we should do your prenup so that you don't ever have to do that again.
Like, I'll do it for free if you want.Like, let's just do it.And they go, no, no, no.This is real.This is real. And I sit there and I think, like, oh, my God, you've learned nothing at all.That was real, too, until it wasn't.
But this is, you know, perhaps love is a delusion brought on by inadequate lighting.I don't know.But there's something in us that feels that pain, and then there's something in us that forgets that pain.And I think that that's a good thing.
I think life is a game you can't win, and so you play it to the utmost.To love anything is insane because you are accepting that you're going to lose it.It's a quote you said.You think life is a game you can't win?
Yeah, I don't think there's any winning.You die.
Like, that's the only truth.The only... You know what?Every story, you know, starts the same.You were born.Like, every Wikipedia page, starts the same.They were born.And every Wikipedia page will end exactly the same.They died.That's it.
Everything that happens in between is your life.But those are the only two inevitabilities.Those are the only two real things for certain.So I look at it as it's a game you can't win, meaning
If you pursue money, your money will eventually be useless.The things you accumulate with it will be useless.Every car you own, someone else will either own it someday, or it'll get to the scrap junkyard someday, or you'll give it to somebody.
All your material possessions will be utterly meaningless.We all went through this when the COVID lockdowns first started.Everybody was like, I've got all this money, and I've got all these travel vouchers.
And they're like, yeah, you can't go anywhere now.And it's like, oh, OK.Well, what do I?You started to see the limitations of things.Have the power go out in your house sometime.
And it'll remind you that, like, oh, wait, yeah, like, everything I have, I just have, like, this much of a grip on it.All you got to do is just take that away, and it's gone, and that's it, you know?And it's the same thing with our health.
It's the same thing with, you know, everything, like, everything is totally fine and wonderful, and then you have a terrible splitting headache.And then the only thing that matters is that headache, you know?And then that headache goes away.
And for like a day, you go, I don't have that headache anymore.But did you wake up today and go, I don't have a headache?Oh, and the power's on.Isn't that great?You know, and I don't have cancer.Isn't that good?You know, no, you don't.
You walk around going like, oh, you know, I Really, why aren't my page views where they're at?Or what happened with this?And why did that person be so nasty to me?
Like we get caught up in all this stuff when in fact, the only thing that, you know, again, if you keep, you know, Epictetus, the Stoic philosopher said, like keep death
and everything horrible in your line of sight, sort of memento mori, because nothing will bother you that much if you have that there.
So I think life is a game that, look, we're playing it, we're doing our thing, love is, but all love, all relationships end.Every single marriage ends in death or divorce, but it ends.Every relationship ends.
Your child, you will hopefully pre-decease your child, but your child will die someday.That's the nature of it. So we have created a culture where we really try not to talk about that.We really try to just keep that out of our gaze.
Let's not talk about it.Our only depictions of death are preposterous.They're like the person in the deathbed being like, I loved you all.And then just beautiful, beautifully done. Death doesn't look like that.
If you ever spend time with people on their deathbed, I was a hospice volunteer for many, many years, and I spent a lot of time with people who were dying, actively dying.
And I have to tell you, like, you hang out with somebody who's dying, it's not pretty.It doesn't smell good.It doesn't sound good.But it's real.It's natural.It's OK. It's where it's all going.And the reason why I say this is not to be morbid.
It's that we're doing ourselves a tremendous disservice by not acknowledging this.
Because I can tell you how many families, when I was a hospice volunteer, when their family member, their loved one, would die, would say to me, it's not that they died, it's that they died terribly.They died without dignity.
And I would say to them, no, they died like everyone dies.Like, it's OK.Like, just because it wasn't like on TV where you, you know, like sort of fade out and say a few final words and then fade out.
Like, no one, very few, if anyone dies that way, it's not how it works.So we're not doing anyone.Like, this is the part. I don't understand is that we don't want to talk about divorce.You know, we don't want to talk about death.
We don't want to talk about endings because I think there's something in our brain that says if we talk about it, we're going to make it happen.And if we don't talk about it, we'll prevent it from happening.And that seems to me
insane, because these are things that are absolutely inevitable when it comes to death and highly likely when it comes to divorce.So why not bring them back into the discourse?And I'll tell you the truth.
I think one of the reasons why my conversations have become something people are interested in is because I think we're all fascinated by this, but we don't want to talk about it over dinner conversation.
And we don't want to, you know, but we know it's important.Something in us knows, knows it's important.Like, this is something that needs to be talked about and thought about.
You did your thesis, your master's thesis on the subject of death, titled?Well, you do your research.On metaphor and mortality, the semantics of death and dying.Yeah.Why would you write your thesis on the subject of death?
Well, it was a different life.So I, this is before I went to law school.I had gotten out, I got out of college with a degree in psychology. And I decided I wanted to, I was a hospice volunteer.Why?I have to ask my therapist that question.
I can give you the answer.So when I was quite young, I think I was about six or seven years old, my mother was diagnosed with a very rare form of cancer called leomyosarcoma.It's a soft tissue sarcoma. And it's very rare.
I was way too young to understand what was going on.I just remember my mother crying, the sound of my mother crying in the bathroom and running the sink so I wouldn't hear her crying.But I knew she was crying.
I didn't really understand what death was.Like, I understood that my gerbil had died.But I grew up Catholic, so I remember, like, you got to go to heaven, and that sounded pretty good, because it was like a really nice place, apparently.
And I remember hearing my mother talking on the phone to her sister and talking about the fact that she had six months.And I remember my sister, who's six years older than me, explaining to me that mom was sick and she wasn't going to get better.
And I remember being so young that I didn't really understand what that meant, but it was scary.And everyone was very upset.And then my mom didn't die.What had happened is, depending on how you looked at it, Either it was a miracle or it was science.
And that is that the tumors had encapsulated itself, meaning that the immune system had essentially closed up around it so it didn't metastasize or spread in any way.They went in.They did surgery, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
And she was fine.She was well.And then five or six years later, it came back.And again, I got told, your mom has six months to live.At that point, I was old enough to understand what that meant. And I was terrified by it.I was saddened by it.
And once again, she had surgery.She had all kinds of procedures and things that had to happen to deal with it.But once again, she just miraculously sort of ducked a bullet, and she made it.And three years later, it came back again.
And then they said, your mom has six months to live.And I remember by that point thinking, Yeah, you don't know how many times we've had this conversation.Like, I don't believe you anymore.Like, and it's OK.
Like, I'm not afraid, because I'm not, like, it's not going to happen.I know that something's going to happen, and it'll work out.And it did. Once again, she had surgery again.She had seven surgeries over the course of my, into my 20s.
And every single time, the prognosis was bad.And every single time, they kind of took more pieces of her, unfortunately, because the type of cancer this is sometimes gets into other organs.
And so they had to take, you know, they had to take her ovaries, forced her into menopause in her 30s.Then they had to take, they had to change the way her, they had to do a bowel resection.They had to do all kinds of awful things.
And it changed her.It was a painful life for my mom.It was very hard.
And I remember, though from a very young age, being forced to think about death, being forced to sort of see death as something that was just there and that it was part of things and that there was no way around it.And it just became familiar.
It became sort of this person in our home, you know, this possibility that was always there. And I remember every time I would get the call that my mom's cancer had come back, there would be some part of me that thought, oh, is this the phone call?
Like, is this the one where this time she's going to die?Like, is this the one?And most of the time, it wasn't.And 10 years ago, once again, she had a recurrence. She was supposed to have a very complex surgery.My dad and I sat in the waiting room.
My parents were married for 50 years.And we sat in the waiting room.It was supposed to be an eight-hour surgery because it was very complicated.
And the doctor came into the waiting room a half an hour into the surgery and said, you know, we opened her up.It's like a bomb went off.There's nothing we can do.We're going to close her up and put her on hospice.And she passed away.
eight years ago after, you know, she was on hospice for over a year.And she died with us all around her.And there was something about the reality that we had been able to talk about death for so long, that there was a tremendous peace there.
Like there was a tremendous sense of, well, this was gonna happen, you know, this was part of our life, you know, that this was what was going to happen.And she had a tremendous peace about her because it had been part of her life for so long.
So when I was in my late teens, I think my mom had had three or four rounds of this cancer thing, I just remember thinking, I have to confront this.I have to spend time around death.Again, I'm strange.I was always afraid of spiders.
I didn't like spiders when I was a kid.
So when I went off to college, I bought a tarantula and I put it in a glass terrarium next to my bed so that every morning I would wake up and there was just this giant spider sitting there next to me and I'm not afraid of spiders anymore.
And it got rid of that very quickly.And so I thought, you know, this is something that's been around me all the time, and it's something I'm not quite at peace with, so I'm going to confront it.And I went and did a hospice volunteer training.
And I remember, you know, it was a weird thing for like a 20-year-old to do.I had just gotten out of college.I was 21.And I think I was the only person under 60 who was in this volunteer training.
And hospice training, hospice volunteer training, I would recommend to anyone. Because they do things like they make you write your eulogy.
Your own eulogy, yeah.Yeah, they make you write your own eulogy.And it can either be if you died right now, what would the eulogy be?Or if you died in your idealized future, what would it be?They make you write your own obituary.
They make you confront the reality of thinking about death and thinking about your own death and the death of the people around you. Then, after you've been through the training, they assign you families.
And I intended initially just to do it as sort of a part-time thing in the summer after I'd graduated college.I was working as a waiter, and I had a lot of time during the day, because at night I was waiting tables.
And I got assigned to a bunch of families, one at a time, and I loved it.It was the most It was the most life-changing thing I've ever done.
There is something about when you're a hospice volunteer and you're just brought into a home, and you're just there to be of service.If they want to talk, we'll talk.
If you want me to help do the dishes so that you can hang out with your loved one, that's great.I'll do that.I did yard work.And a lot of times, people, because caring for someone who's terminally ill in your home is hard.
And things like I want to run out to the store and get a few things myself, that's hard because you don't want to leave this person alone.So a lot of times I was just there to sort of be relief, just to sit with someone.
And every time I would walk out of a hospice home, I felt like, I don't know, I felt like a Zen monk.I felt like I could hear the rain.I just felt like, I'm alive.That's not happening to me yet.I'm not there yet.That's not someone I love in that bed.
I have love for this person.I want to be there for them.I'm here of service, but that's not my father.That's not my brother.That's not me.It will be someday, and one day it was.One day it was my mother, but it wasn't me.
And I have to tell you, there's something about going through that experience when you're in your 20s, when you're so self-centered and you're supposed to be.
You're kind of supposed to be self-centered and you're supposed to say, like, all right, what am I going to do with this life?What am I going to do with these hands?
But there is something about it, that stage in life, to be told, whatever you do with these hands, whatever you do with all this, that's where it's going to end.That's where it's going to end, best case scenario.
Best case scenario, it's going to be in your own home with your family around you. Worst case scenario, it's going to be on the street somewhere prematurely, you know?
So I was fascinated with death and I decided I was going to go to graduate school and I was going to study thanatology.I was going to study death and dying, but there really aren't any programs in that.
So I went to New York University's Department of Culture and Communication and I found Neil Postman, Dr. Neil Postman, who was going to be my Because NYU, back then and still, gives you a lot of opportunities to kind of create your own curriculum.
As long as it's something serious, you know, academically serious, and as long as you can put together like an amalgam of classes from different disciplines, they'll let you put together something very individualized.
And so I put together a study about the cultural approaches we have to death and dying. And my master's degree thesis was called The Semantics of Mortality, or I'm sorry, Metaphor and Mortality, The Semantics of Death and Dying.
And it was published in a journal called Et Cetera, which is the Journal of General Semantics.And what I did is I studied the words we use to talk about death and what they reflect on how we think about death.
So like, you know, I remember when I was a kid and our dog, when I was a child, had to be had to be euthanized.I remember the doctor saying, we're going to put him to sleep.And I remember thinking, no, you're not.He's going to die.
He's not going to sleep.Like, I'm going to go to sleep later.Like, he's not going to go to sleep.He's going to go to death. Like, why are you calling it that?And I understood why, obviously, as an adult.
Like, it's, A, in a primitive culture, someone, it's an eternal sleep.It looks like, I mean, you're asleep.You look like you're dead, you know?I've held a mirror under something.You're like, all right.
And I will, I understand where these, like doctors, I explored doctors talking about, we lost the patient. Like, what?You don't know where he is?Like, no, you know what room he's in.No, we lost the battle.The battle against death?
You're definitely going to lose that battle.Like, death's record is amazing.Death always wins. Like, so if you're setting it up for that battle, like, that's a bad battle.
We just don't want to confront it, though, do we?That's the essence of why we use the words, like, pass on, pass away.
Which is fascinating to me, because it is the only certainty we have. And we act as if we are certain it's something bad, when in fact, absolutely no one can say with certainty what it is and what happens, except that it's inevitable.
Having spoke to so many people in their final days, weeks, and months, and final minutes, I'm really compelled to understand what I can learn from them.
about how I should be living my life based on the types of things they then say to you, focus on, prioritize.
Yeah, that is true.Like, you can learn a tremendous amount from that.And here's what I will tell you I learned.They don't talk about death.
Like, you go through this hospice training where they're very much preparing you to talk with people about their fear about their death or their imminence of their death.
All people really want to talk about is their grandkids, their kids, their wife, their husband, what they did for a living and what they liked about it.Most of the time, people talk about the things that made them happy.
Like, I spent a lot of time just listening to people tell me about, tell me happy stories about their life.Tell me moments that, and it made a lot of sense to me.Like, it made a lot of sense to me.
Like, if I said to you right now, like, what are five moments in your life where you just felt loved and happy?Like, you could stop and close your eyes and there'd be, Like, and what a comfort it would be, like, to have those.
And every once in a while, like when you're in that moment. You go, I'm in one of those right now.I'm going to remember this moment.But most of the time, you don't.Most of the time, it just happens.
And then you look back, and you go, God, I remember that kiss.I remember that meal.I remember that.And you don't see it when it's happening.And that, for me, is what I really learned from doing hospice work, was that,
all these people wanted to tell me about was, you know, when they were alive, like really alive, not laying in a bed dying.Like, they want to talk about, like, yeah, I did this or I saw that.And, you know, I learned it in my mom's passing.
I remember my last day with my mom before she became so ill that she was not mobile and not really functional to have a discussion with.
I just remember we just sat there and I told her about how great my sons were doing, her grandchildren, how great they were doing.And I talked about how happy I was and just how great life is and how great I feel.
And I just remember she just was—I remember thinking, like, oh, that's what I would want.Like, I would want to know that, like, Yeah, you did it.You did great.Look at all this stuff that's here because of you.
And to me, that's what hospice work very much taught me.It taught me that no one's really gonna care that much about some of this stuff that seems so fucking important.It's just not that important.People talked about,
their kids, they talked about their grandkids, they talked about the love of their life.Or if they had survived that love and they talked about how like, oh, maybe I'm going to get to see them again.
And it's very funny because I remember talking to someone a few years ago and saying something about, oh, I wish my mom had been alive to see me do this thing. And they said, oh, I bet she's seeing it.
Like, I bet she's seeing it from, you know, because this person was religious.And I remember thinking, you know. I don't believe that, but I really hope I'm wrong.Like, I really hope I'm wrong.That would be amazing.Like, that'd be wonderful.
It'd be beautiful, you know?
So I think hospice, for me, the reason why I got into the hospice work, the reason why my research interests became death-related was that I just think life is better when you have those things in front of you, when you remind yourself of the inevitability of endings.
We're just the imagination of ourselves.Those are words that you said.You said we're just the imagination of ourselves.There's nothing to be afraid of.Everything's connected.
We're just in one state of being now, and then we'll be in a different state of being.There's probably a benevolent force out there.
That was something that came to me as a function of my experiences with psychedelics very early in my life, was that realization, was the realization that everything is connected and that
there is some benevolent something underneath all of it, and that there's nothing to be afraid of.
And I think some of that was a function, of course, of growing up in an environment where you couldn't deny death, where it was sort of always present, and perhaps that was on my mind at that stage in my life when I had those
profound experiences, but that stayed with me.That's never gone away.That's been very much a part of my view of things, that perhaps we are just one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, and that we
We are just, you know, I heard, what was it, Pete Holmes, the comedian recently, talking about how, you know, people say that, like, oh, we came from nothing.I don't believe in God.I believe in nothing.And, you know, he has this whole bit about him.
So, like, instead of believing in God, which is something that you can't touch, can't prove, can't photograph, and science can't prove or disprove, you believe in nothing, which is something you can't see, touch, feel, science can't prove or disprove.
Like, so if you're Nothing just spontaneously, you know, creates everything.That's pretty impressive.Nothing in the scheme of things.
So I think that I am very much a believer in the fact, I like to believe whatever the name of it is, whatever we want to call it, having spent a lot of time with hospice patients and having thought a lot about death, I'd like to think that we, you know, we are drops of water and that when we die, we return to the sea, that we just merge with our creator again.
And I'm not really worried that Jim stops existing.Because I don't remember what I was before Jim, so I have no reason to think it was something terrible.
And I don't know what I'll be after I'm Jim, but I have no reason to think it's going to be something terrible. it could just as easily be it's gonna be something fantastic.And that I'm gonna get there and go, why didn't I get here sooner?
And if there's a God that he might greet me and be like, yeah, why are you guys so fixated on not getting here?It's awesome.
Like that temporary thing, like there's a reason why as an organism, you're supposed to just, there's all these things that'll kill you.Like it's supposed to be that that happens sooner rather than later.But like that's, it's a,
very uncomfortable thought.Like, it's an uncomfortable thought that, like, this might be hell, or this might be the part that we should be afraid of.Like, this might be the part that's really hard.
Like, maybe what's before it and what's after it's really the easy part, and what's happening here is what's challenging.Like, when someone dies, I've always thought to myself, like, when someone dies, like, the people who suffer are the living.
Like, the person who's passed, they're gone now.That's why I never believed in the death penalty. Because they were like, we're going to punish this person by, they're going to die.I'm like, well, my grandmother died.
I didn't like to think that it was a punishment.Like, put them in a box.Feed them terrible food.That sounds like a punishment.You know, like, you know, make them watch bad TV.I don't know, something.But death?
Like, death to me doesn't, I don't like to think of death as a punishment.I'm enjoying this ride. and I'm enjoying this body, and I'm enjoying all of this, but I'm not terrified of that.I'm genuinely curious.
I'm genuinely curious, and when the time comes, I want to face it with open, with, you know, clean hands and an open heart.
Where does acceptance play in dealing with an ending?Like, how important is it to accept?And when you meet your clients as a divorce lawyer now, Is part of the suffering the resistance to accept the situation?Yes.Even if it wasn't your fault?
Because, you know, sometimes people conflate this idea of acceptance with, like, you know, justification.I'm not saying justification.I'm saying accept this is the situation you find yourself in.
Yeah.I think that's very, very astute and very real.I think there's a step before acceptance.There's a number of steps before acceptance, but the first one is acknowledgement.
Like, I think you have to acknowledge that something is happening before you can start, because acceptance has to do with adjusting your emotional state and reaction to it, changing the level of tension in your body about it.
You know, like, every time I've ever gone to the dentist, you know, there's this part of me, it's like, oh, here it comes, oh, God, here it comes, this is gonna hurt, here it comes, you know, and it's like, I'm ready, I'm bracing, I'm bracing, and I have to remind myself, like, wait, stop, don't do that.
Stop.Soften.Soften.Soften.Over and over.Soften.It's one of the reasons I love Brazilian jiu-jitsu.Because when you're a white belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, everything is like resisting everything, you know, trying to stop everything.
And then you start to learn, like, oh, no, no, no.Like, soften.Like, yield.Like, just, you know, protect the neck.Move the hand.OK, go ahead.Try and choke me.Like, you're not going to do it.Like, and there's something about,
that like not trying to resist the thing.Trust.What you were saying there about trust in how natural something is, but it's acknowledging first, okay, here is the reality of my situation.This marriage is ending.
Like there's a Zen parable or saying I heard many years ago, which is, if you don't learn to find joy in the snow, you will have less joy in your life and precisely the same amount of snow.Reality is reality.Like, I broke my favorite teacup.
I can be happy about that.I can be angry about that.I can be sad about that.Either way, my teacup is gone.It's gone.That's it.And so I think that the acceptance piece first requires, okay, my life is finite.My life is finite.
My marriage is not permanently gifted to me.Love is not permanently gifted, it is loaned.
Whether it's the life of my, my life, the love of my dog, the love of my romantic partner, the love of my children, it is on loan to me, it is not permanently gifted.So that's just acknowledgement first.Then, it's not,
pulling from that, yielding from, like, it's about softening, softening, and realizing that, okay, so now what do I do with this?Like, what do I do?
You know, there's something about, my therapist once said to me, we were talking about, we were talking about, like, resisting change in life.I was going through a transition in life, and I was having a hard time with it.
And he said, you know, he said, you're very curious, he said, You try to like swim against the current and it's not gonna work.Or you just let go and let yourself go with the current and that's not gonna work.
So you try to like, I'm gonna be the ocean and that doesn't work.He's like, surf. He's like, surf.He's like, surfing is kind of the perfect balance.Like, you're not trying to fight the wave.You're trying to take it where it's going to take you.
But you're going to impose yourself on the process a little.You're going to use technique, patience.You're going to use your body.
And you're going to try to just see, because there's an element in surfing, just like in jujitsu, just like in so many things in life, of like yielding, but also maintaining an active role, right?And I think that
is in the demise of a relationship, or the loss of someone because of death, or, again, any transition, any ending.
First, it's about acknowledging the reality of what we had, what we were, you know, what our health was, whatever it might be, and then saying, okay, and now this has changed, and I can resist it, or I can yield to it.
except that this is what's happened.It is snowing.My teacup is broken, whatever it is.And then you can see what's next, because again, we don't know what's next.We don't know what that will lead to.
Like some of the worst things, some of the moments in my life where I went, oh my God, I'm never getting through this, gave way to some of the greatest moments in my life.
Like just when the, just when the caterpillar thought its life was ending, it became a butterfly. You know, but the world had to end.Like, imagine being the bird in the egg.You know, you've been warm and happy.Imagine being in the womb.
Like, you're warm, you're happy, everything's being fed to you.It's, like, lovely.You're just buoyant and floating around.
And now, if you're the bird, you've got to break through a shell and get into this cold, weird world, and you don't know how your wings work yet.Or if you're a baby, it's, like, all blood and screaming.
But you gotta do that to get to the next thing, and the next thing is beautiful.
Like, the bird only gets to fly because it broke through the egg, and it only broke through the egg because it was brave enough to destroy the only world it's ever known.And that's how I look at divorce in some ways, is that divorce is like
This whole, whether I'm the one ending it, or my partner is the one ending it, like something is ending that I never thought was going to end.And it's done.And now what?I don't know.I don't know what.
But I have no reason to think it's going to be horrifying.It might be incredibly beautiful, but it's the road ahead of me now. And that, to me, there's something very beautiful about that level of acceptance.
But the lights are off.The lights are off on that road.It's a road with no street lamps.And that's what the uncertainty of... Yeah, it's scary.It's scary, right?Humans are particularly bad with dealing with uncertainty.
I learned this when I studied Uber Labs, which is this laboratory they had at Uber to figure out how to build the perfect taxi app, and they discovered that.
Much of the reason why we love uber is it because it kills the uncertainty That we used to have when we called the taxi on the phone and then we had to stand there for seven or maybe 17 minutes Hoping that it was coming and it's the same Analogy you might find if you know You go to an airport and it says flight is delayed now flight delayed is much worse than flight delayed two hours Yeah, because I can work with that.
Yeah, but flight delayed is with no certainty around how long I'm going to be stood in this airport for is like mental torture.
And the truth is there is something, I'm not, look, I'm not Pollyanna about it.Like there is something terribly frustrating, upsetting, difficult about your flight being delayed or your flight being canceled, for example.
But I, in Frankfurt, Germany, I had the, I think it's the best meal of my entire life. at a little tiny restaurant.I only had that meal because I was flying back from Poland and had a stop in Frankfurt that was supposed to be for one hour.
And because of snow, they canceled all the flights essentially to the United States.And I was stuck in Frankfurt for the night.Now, I certainly had a few moments of like, are you kidding me?Like I have work, I have this, I have that.
But then something in me went, Okay, like you can be upset about this all you want, man, but it ain't gonna make the flights happen.And you can't walk home from Frankfurt.So what are you gonna do?You've not been in Frankfurt before.See what happens.
And I walked around Frankfurt and I found this amazing little restaurant.And it was, I think still to this day, the best meal I've ever had in my life.And I've gone back to Frankfurt three times just to eat at that restaurant.
And the hotel that I found, because I was like, all right, I need a room.I need to get a room somewhere.Turned out it became one of my favorite hotels, and I stayed there several times.So, you know, again, if you'd said to me in advance,
Jim, would it be awful if you got stuck in Frankfurt?I would be like, oh my God, that'd be so bad.I have a quarter period tomorrow, and I have this to do, and I have that to do.
My life would have been so much poorer if I hadn't gotten stuck in Frankfurt.I had like four amazing trips, and a bunch of amazing meals, and all these incredible experiences.Because one time, my flight got canceled because of snow.
And I tell you something. I'm really, really glad that flight got canceled.I wasn't at the time.At the time, it was very frustrating.I had to call my assistant in the middle of the night and be like, all right, you got to cancel all my stuff.
You got to reschedule.But the truth is, like, you just don't know.You just don't know.You won't know.
You won't know until you're sitting, ideally, in a bed, and there's a hospice volunteer sitting next to you, and you're telling them all about the amazing meal that you had in Frankfurt that one time.Not, you know, my flight got delayed once.
You said earlier at the start of this conversation, no one intends to end up in the consultation room with a divorce lawyer.
But I wondered when you said that, I thought, you know what, I bet you've met someone in your life that did intend to end up there, i.e.someone that got married because they wanted the divorce.
Yeah, yeah, I'm sure I have met.So I've met people because I'm in the high net worth and ultra high net worth space.High net worth we define as like, 10 to a few hundred million, and ultra high net worth is like 500 million and up.
In those spaces, yeah, there certainly are people that get married to a wealthy person for what will be great financial benefit.But a lot of them are not planning on cashing the chips out necessarily.They see it as a possibility.
but they more often are like, oh no, I'd like to ride this ride as long as possible because the amount of money I'm going to have access to with this person is much greater than even if I divorce and take some of their things.
So that is certainly, the overwhelming majority of people, like 99.999% of clients I have met in a 25 year career did not mean to get divorced. They move towards divorce, and many of them go, oh yeah, I saw early on we were doomed.
But love is so intoxicating.We fall in love so fast.And we really do have a tendency to. In the early days, like, we tend to just be so forgiving of a person.I mean, thank God that passes to some degree.
Could you imagine, like, that, you know, when you first are with your romantic partner, like, they brush up against you and it's, like, electric, that feeling, you know?
Could you—we couldn't—what would we as a world get stuff done if we felt like that forever? about our romantic partner.
If 10 years into the relationship, when your partner brushed up next to you at the sink, you went like, oh God, you wouldn't get anything done.Like you wouldn't get anything done.We would be a very unproductive world.
So thankfully that fades and changes.I hope it never goes completely away for any couple, but it becomes manageable.You start to see this person a little more clearly, hopefully still with tremendous optimism.
What's the quickest marriage you've ever represented?
Quickest marriage and divorce?Yeah.Marriage is 72 hours.
From marriage to divorce.
From marriage to divorce.Yes.Marriage to annulment in that situation.But I've seen divorces that were 72 hours.Were they drunk?What was the... Yeah, in one it was that they were drunk, in one it was...
It was almost like a game of chicken that went too far.Like, they had just sort of started dating, and one of them was like, I bet you wouldn't get my name tattooed on you.And they're like, oh, yeah.
And then they went and got their name tattooed on each other.And then they were like, well, I like you, so I'd get an engagement ring.And then they went and got an engagement ring.And they were like, oh, yeah, well, would you marry me?
And then they got married.And then I think, like, I don't know. they probably had a great night.Like that night was probably, that might've been some mind-bending sex.
But then two days later, they were like, wait, you know, do you, you don't actually want to have kids?Oh, cause I do.And like, oh, you're, you know, like, and they realized they were just fundamentally incompatible people.
Have you seen any patterns there with compatibility then?So if, if a couple walks in and they've been together for, I guess when you look back at the types of people you've represented, is there a certain length of,
engagement and boyfriend girlfriend phase that is typically conducive with it working or not working?
No, I don't see that pattern.I'm constantly, I'm very fixated on pattern recognition.
So I'm constantly thinking, I'm always looking at same religion, different religions, or religious versus non religious, or older and younger, older man, younger woman, younger man, older woman, like what, what permutation, same culture, different cultures, same races, different races, like,
first generation to the US or both first generation or neither.I don't see those patterns.If I did, I'd be the first to say it.You know I don't hesitate to say stuff.But I've not seen those patterns.
I have found if I was to say there was any pattern, it really is I think substance use is probably the main thing, like that if one or both people are big drinkers or drug users,
that's usually a good indication that the marriage is going to lead to divorce.
Because substance use issues tend to get worse in either both people, which causes all kinds of second order effects, or more commonly, one person when they have kids or when they reach a slightly different stage in life,
scales back on alcohol or drug use, and the other person has an unhealthy relationship with the substances, and it gets further down, and that's the direction that it goes in.
You said something earlier which really piqued my interest as well, which kind of relates to this, is you said, love is loaned.
And I immediately thought of a friend who brought me to a restaurant one day to basically tell me that him and his wife were being divorced.And the way they described it was quite heartbreaking because it seemed like they had a good relationship.
It's kind of like they got busy with their jobs and the kid and they forgot to water the plant.It's like the only way I can describe it, because they're like good people.They didn't really appear to argue at all.They had this kid, they're both CEOs.
She's a CEO, he's a CEO.And it's like they raised the kid and forgot to water the relationship.
I've always phrased that as they lost the plot.Because when you get married, you're trying to write a story together. And sometimes I think you lose the plot.
You know when you're reading and all of a sudden you stop and you go, I don't really remember where I am in this.And you've got to go back a few pages to like, oh, OK, I remember this part.Let me start there.I think sometimes we lose the plot.
I think that happens in every relationship, every long-term relationship.I think sometimes you lose the plot.Like, other things are going on at work, or you have kids, and kids require a tremendous amount of your bandwidth.So I get it.
But I think if you lose the plot, that's where it's, like, hard to... It's, A, it's, again, acknowledgement of it, like, awareness, truth, being honest and saying, hey, I feel like we lost the plot.
Like, I feel like there's, you know, we lost the plot.How do we get it back?But the problem is, When you say to your partner, hey, I feel like we kind of lost the plot, rather than hearing that as, hey, this is really important to me.
You're really important to me.Yeah, work's important, kid's important, but you and me, you and me, that's really important.Like, it's equally, if not more important.So I feel a certain way.I feel like we've lost the plot.
And I'm not saying that's your fault.I'm not saying it's my fault.I'm saying it's the kid's fault.I don't know whose fault it is.I don't really care.But I don't want to lose the plot because I care about you.
And this plot, this story is important to me.People don't hear it that way.People hear it as we lost the plot.Well, what do you want me to do about it?Like, you know, OK, so I'll just ignore the kid?What do you want?What?What?What?What?
What do you want?I'm sorry.I'm doing the best I can.And that's not the way to hear that.I understand.I think it's very human to hear it that way. I genuinely believe that, you know, yeah, it's like you forgot to water the plant.
Like, and nobody meant to kill the plant, but you killed the plant because you weren't thinking about the plant.And by the way, plant's right there.You'll walk past it every single day.
You just not once thought, oh yeah, I gotta remember to water the plant.And so I think it's very easy in marriage, in long-term relationships, it's very easy to just forget that this is, you're borrowing this. You know, this is not yours.
Like, this person's not yours.This person is loaned to you.And it's, by the way, it's the same with death.Like, this person's loaned to you.They could be taken away.By divorce or by death, they could be taken away.
Every marriage will end in one of those two things, death or divorce, for sure.
You've used this word slippage before.Yeah.
And what does slippage mean?
I mean, slippage is, everyone understands slippage, I think.Like, it's not like you eat cake and then the next day your suit doesn't fit.
Like, you just make lots of little choices and those little choices add up and all of a sudden your suit doesn't fit and you go, wait, when did that happen?You know, and I think it's the same thing in relationships.
Like we, you know, Ernest Hemingway said in The Sun Also Rises, I went bankrupt the same way anybody does, very slowly and then all at once. And I think that's slippage.It's just little raindrops that eventually become the flood.
And I think that's what happens in relationships, is you start to, with good intentions, you're focused on other things.Maybe you start to go, hey, I got this.Because when you were single, finding the one was big.That was big.
That was a big priority in your life. And then you found them.And then there's like a whole bunch of just high-fiving and celebration.And it's like, oh, this is so great.I found the one.You wanted the one, too, and you found it.It's me.
Isn't this great? And then you go, all right, we got that.Now what other stuff?You know, what other stuff can we do?Because now, like, I'm super charged.I got you, you got me, we're going to do this thing.And you go, and what do you do?
You make new life or you make careers or you go amazing places.Like, it's not enough.It's not enough to just go, we got each other and it's so fun and let's just tuck in here and just stay together, you know?
And I always laugh with friends, by the way, because I can always tell when someone's in love because they put on a couple of pounds.You know?Because they really do.Because they just go like, do I want to get up and go to the gym?
Or do you guys want to sit on the couch and eat popcorn and watch something?Yeah, let's do that.You know?And it's just sort of like, it's love weight.It's like happy love weight.And I love when I see it on somebody.It looks good on everybody.
You know?Much better than, like, believe me, like, if you look at photos of me from when I had an eight-pack, it was the most miserable time in my life, because I'm at the gym just trying to beat the pain out of me, you know?
So I think it's very, very normal that people, in that heaviness of that, okay, so when that fades, and now we're, like, in a sustainable pattern of a relationship, and you're focusing on other things,
little tiny things start to, you know, and you don't want to make a thing of it.You don't want to say, like, oh, by the way, calling a foul here, throwing a flag on that play.No, you just sort of go like, oh, no, it's just a little thing.
It's not a big thing.Don't worry about it.And I think that is how the process begins, and it leads right to my office someday.
Jordan Peterson said something to me.Jack, have you got my phone?Yeah.I just wanted to play you this 30 seconds of something he said.
Everybody keeps telling me I have to have a conversation with Jordan Peterson.It would be fascinating.I imagine two people are telling him the same thing.
My friend is going through some difficulties in his relationship and I sent him this little clip, which I honestly, I keep this clip saved in my phone because I have to send it to so many of my male friends.That's a compliment.
But this is what Jordan says and it relates to slippage.
Here's something to understand about your marriage, okay?You are going to have to listen to your wife 90 minutes a week, okay?And you might as well just get that through your thick skull.Now, why?
If you listen to her enough, you can make peace and you can play. So there's a huge benefit.If you don't listen to her, that will accumulate and you'll listen to her in divorce court. Someone sent me that.
I don't think it was you.Someone sent me that.So yeah, I mean, I think that's a piece of what I'm talking about for sure.It feels a little like the advice last time I was on, I was saying I found offensive, which is happy wife, happy life.
Like, I think there's this sense of like, well, what a man has to do is just sort of tolerate the, like, Listen, I don't think most men don't want to listen to their wife for 90 minutes.
Because that seems to me, and I know he's being hyperbolic, and I love Jordan's work, and I find him fascinating, and I really enjoy him.
But when someone says to me, well, you have to listen to your wife for 90 minutes a week, that feels like you're going to sit there and be like. I still have to do this for, you know.There was a time where you couldn't wait to hear her.
Like, she was interesting, and she was interested.
But do you think the women that are listening to this right now that have husbands and boyfriends think their husband and boyfriend likes it when they said, hey, we need to talk about something?
But see, who... When in your life has someone saying that to you been a precursor to something good?Hey, we need to talk about something.Never.Never!That's like, you know, is a siren a good siren?When is a siren ever good?
Like, there's certain phrases, we really need to have a conversation.That is not a good entry point.And that's not because it means there's something wrong.But before you get to that, like, how many women
you know, would say that, you know, in the interaction with their spouse, like, they don't want like a let's have a 90 minutes in the penalty box where you have to listen to me talk to you.Like, that seems terrible.
You know, the thought of having to do that as like a practice Sounds sort of like, all right, well, if I endure that for 90 minutes, the bonus is I get sex or something.And that seems crazy to me.
As a divorce lawyer, if you think about the divorces you've seen in court and you've sort of consulted on, et cetera, do you believe that if that couple had spent 90 minutes a week sat down, openly being honest with each other, they would have ended up in your consultation room?
I think if they'd made a practice like that as something deliberate, I mean, maybe it would make a difference.I think what's more important than the structure of a ritual and the time, I have a better practice than that.
So I have a chapter in the book called Hit Send Now, where I talk about sharing with your partner kind of promptly when something has rattled you the wrong way, without saying we need to talk.
Just giving, like, and I suggest people do it via email so that it's like, you can say to your partner, like, hey, listen, like, I want you to reflect on this.Like, you don't have to answer right away.You don't have to be defensive.
And also, you can be careful about how you parse it, because not everybody is very sure-footed in their speech, right?So sometimes people, if you just try to do it face-to-face, sometimes it's not going to come out clearly.
So if you're writing, you can edit it and be careful with it.But I genuinely think sometimes people just need to check in in a relationship.
And by the way, you have to, if you want that, you also have to be willing to accept that in your direction, right?So I have a friend, I have a friend who read my book, and he's a friend who actually then read my book.
And he said that he and his wife go for a walk once a week. and they make a deliberate practice during that walk of sharing with each other one or two or three things that the person didn't do perfectly in their relationship that week.
And they hear it with love.Like they deliberately from the beginning going, we're hearing this with love.We're hearing this as a practice.It's a deliberate practice because our goal is to have a great relationship and keep it great.
So we're going to hear it that way.We're not going to hear it as a criticism.We're going to hear it as, I love this relationship enough to be honest with you.
I want you to have, you know, I'd rather you have an uncomfortable truth than a comfortable lie.I'd rather not have resentment build up.
And then they always finish that walk with three things that the person did that made them feel loved or feel good or whatever.And that's so you're ending on that positive note.
And they said they've never had a week where they didn't come up with something.
That happy wife, happy life phrase, there must be a reason why it became cliche, why it became popular.
Well, it became popular because I think so many people were willing to accept the unbelievably ridiculous model of relationships that's led us to a 56% divorce rate and probably another 20 or 30% staying together, unbelievably miserable, but not wanting to give up half their stuff.
So yeah, misery loves company.Everybody is sitting around going like, well, listen, women are like that.You gotta spend 90 minutes with them.Happy wife, happy life.I just don't accept that.I don't accept that it has to be awful.
Why is it not happy husband, happy wife, though?
Well, in reality it is.I think in reality it's happy husband and happy wife equals happy marriage.But why did it come into culture that way around?
Because I think there's a, well, I mean, my personal opinion on this is I think men are probably easier to please in some ways.Like, you know, I think men are either hungry or horny.So like either feed us or have sex with us.
And that's kind of, we're most of the time pretty happy.Like I don't, we're not, you know, like, which curtains should we pick out for the house?Like, we're not that caught up in that.I don't know a lot of guys caught up in that.
Like, when it came to weddings, like, most of the guys I know weren't when they were young men going, like, what is my wedding going to be like?I can't, here's what I'm going to do.
Like, it was very like, is there a DJ or a band, and what will the bar have?And that's kind of what they were into.And everything else was like, cool, babe, whatever you like.Like, I'm excited to see you excited.That's what matters to me.
It's a menacing pope. I think men are quite simple, yeah.And I think women—and by the way, this is not a criticism of men.It's not a criticism of women.And again, it's a generalization.I understand that.
But, like, women, I think—thank God—women are much more nuanced in my experience.Like, they notice more sometimes or different things.Like, they're—like, I think men and women bring different things to—and again, not every man, not every woman.
Like, I genuinely believe that we bring different gifts to relationships.And when we embrace that, and by the way, that polarity when we're dating. is the greatest thing in the world.
But of course, it gets challenging, because this person's not just your sexual partner or romantic partner.They're your roommate.They're your co-parent.They're your travel partner.Share a bathroom with them.
Like, you got, like, this is a whole nother thing when you get married.The French have a saying that, you know, marriage turns a lover into a relative. And the truth is, like, not any of, like, you know, you're a lover.
You have this sort of, you know, it's why affairs are so intoxicating and wonderful, because you just get the best parts.You don't have to, you know, pick up this person's socks. You don't have to listen to the fight they got in with their cousin.
You know, you don't have to be like, I got to spend 90 minutes with them.
You know, you can actually, you're just getting the good stuff, the passion, the sex, the, you know, which again, you can have, we can do relationships however we decide we want to do them.
That's what's cool about it is the two people in it is what matters.And I think even before social media, we were very much about, well, how is everybody else doing it?Because I guess that's the right way to do it.
And so, yeah, happy wife, happy life.It was like, listen, just here, you know, like, just make her happy because then she'll shut up and you can just watch football.Like, and it – I mean, look, that never appealed to me.
That was never interesting to me.I think a lot of people absolutely buy into that model of relationships.What's more interesting to me than people who've just given up, right?
People who've just said, like, yeah, I know the hard thing to do and the right thing to do are the same thing, but I'm just gonna do the easy thing, because it's like, eh.
What's more interesting to me is that I think sometimes people screw up their relationships with completely good intentions.And the example I give in my book about this is sex.I think most people who've been in a long-term relationship will say,
Yeah, you know, the sex has become kind of predictable.Like, it's become kind of predictable.It's not as novel, you know?And I think that happens for the absolute best of intentions.And it would be really lovely if we just acknowledged that.
Because here's why it happens, right?You get with a person, you're first dating, first time you, you know, you get sexual with the person. You throw every trick you've got at that person, right?
You do all the things that you think they're gonna like to see what are they gonna like, right?
Do they like the same stuff that other people liked or do they like something different or they, you know, what do they, do they like the same things you like?And you throw everything at it.
And you start, okay, they don't like that, okay, this they really like, oh, they make really nice noises when I do that, okay.And you start to, and then what do you do? you start to get more efficient.Like, Oh, I know she doesn't like that.
So I'm not going to do that, but I know she likes this.I'm going to do that a whole lot.Right.And she does, I hope the same thing she does that.He loves it.When I do this and the sound that comes out of him, when I do that, I said, what do you do?
You play the greatest hits.You play the greatest hits.Cause why not?And by the way, there's only so many hours in the day and we got some stuff we got to get to.So let's really throw the greatest hits at each other.
And we're going to have a great time.Well, what did you just do? You were trying to make each other really happy and be a really good lover to each other, but what did you just do?You just created a routine.You just created a routine.
And here's the other thing about humans, which we all know.If you've ever had a sexual partner for more than six months, then you've noticed the patterns.And by the way, you're thrilled with them because you're doing the greatest hits.
Like, I went to see Springsteen to hear Born to Run.That's what I'm there to see.Like, I love it.Do the greatest hits. But then if they do something different, there is some part of you that goes, what was that?Where did that come from?
That was, we don't usually do that, or we don't do it in that order.And by the way, sometimes that's exciting, right?Sometimes it's like, yeah, let's have sex in the laundry room.What?We got a bed right over there?
Yeah, we always do it over there, do it in the laundry room.Like, I don't know, that's fun, right?It's fun to do something different.
Well, we get to a place where now when we do something different, we start to feel like we're gonna have to have a conversation about it.Because it's like, well, why did you do that?That's a strange or that, or it's sometimes people go,
Why do they do that different thing?Are they like, is it they're watching porn?Are they cheating on me?Where did they get that idea from?Is that something that they want?Do they want to start doing that?
Is that part of the greatest hits and I didn't realize it?Do they not like what I've been doing?And we start to sabotage again with good intentions from day one.
All you wanted was to make your partner happy and they wanted to make you happy and look what you did.You made a routine.So the only way out of that spiral
is to call it, to talk about it, call it out, to say, hey, you know, it feels like things are kind of in, like we're in a, you know, is there anything I could do different or you might want different?
And I think there's lots of ways to have that conversation.
How do we not have that conversation?Like what's the worst way to have that conversation?
The worst way to have that conversation is to say, how come you don't do this anymore?You used to do it all the time.Or, you know, I've never, why won't you ever let me this?Or why don't you ever try that?That's the worst way to do it.Blame.
Blame and also it's on you.Yeah, why did you do it?Or also that it's like, because immediately the person's reaction to that is going to be, well, here's why.You know, because of this.Well, because you this.
You know, well, how come you never do this?Like, and it turns into that.And I think there's a million other ways to do it, all of which are better.
The best one, in my opinion—but I'm a lawyer and I'm dishonest a lot of the time—is, you know, manipulation.I think that there's very positive—I manipulate people's emotional state for a living, right?
Like, that's my job, is to make the other side scared, my client feel safe, the judge feel good about my client, bad about the other side.So, like, I try to use my powers for good. And I think here's a great way to use that power for good.
I think if there's something going on in bed that you want to try or do and you don't want to have the clinical converse, you don't want to call an audible in the middle of sex and just start doing something different and have your partner go, what the heck was that?
I think a great one is, Oh my God, the dream I had about you last night.Oof, you just, you don't even want to know.Wait, what?What was the dream?What was the dream that you had?No, no, I don't even, I don't know.
It was because I had dairy before bed or something.I don't know.I had the dirtiest dream about you.You tell me what human being, male, female, gay, straight, anybody, isn't going to go, no, for real, what?What was I doing?What were you doing?
What was it?Then you tell them.You tell them the thing that you'd be interested in doing.And they go, it was you and your brother. If that's something you're looking for, I don't know how to get it.I'm very persuasive.
I couldn't give you an entry point for that one.But if it's something that you wanted to do, you say, yeah, I had this dream and this is what happened.And your partner may react as, oh, really?Like, you would like that?
And then you can go, yeah, no, I mean, I don't know.I just, it was in my brain, so I don't know.Like, it seemed weird to me, too.And then you can back out of it without it being a thing. Or you can go, I don't know, maybe.
Because if their reaction is, oh yeah, is that something you'd want to do?I'd be like, I don't know, maybe it is subconsciously.We've tried some times.
How many times do people end up in divorce court because the lights went out in the bedroom?
I mean, how many would admit it?Or how many is it really the case?Well, because here's what I'll tell you.I would say a good at least 80% of the people that ended up in my office, infidelity was a piece of it.
But that tells me that sex is a big piece. You know, because most people who are in genuinely satisfying sexual relationships with their partner aren't looking to have other sexual relationships.
Some people are just addicted to sex though.And I say this because I've got some friends who people always think I'm like projecting and I'm like secretly talking about myself, but I'm actually not.
I've met a wide spectrum of individuals and their relationship with sex varies wildly.Some people I just think are going to cheat forever, regardless of who they're with, because they have some like trauma related to the chase and sex.
And then some people are kind of, you know, don't have sex at all.So on the end where you've got that almost sex addiction behavior, I'm just wondering if... I guess the broader question was about how much is the lights going out in the bedroom?
Does it relate to people ending up in divorce court?
Well, I remember listening to your conversation with Gad, and you asking him flat out, like, so how much of the motivation is sex?And I think his answer was like a tremendous amount of evolutionary biology is tied to sex.
Like a tremendous amount of our motivation is born of sex.It's about sex, food, and not becoming food.That's like our three primary motivators.So I think sex is incredibly important.I also think sex is constantly thrown into our line of sight.
So I think you can't discount that.I mean, I think sex is on social media, on like the amount of sex that is put in our face constantly now is shocking.It's shocking.I mean, compare it.
Do your grandfather has not seen as many breasts in one lifetime as you'd see in one visit to Instagram? Like, I mean, there is just so much cleavage going on.
You just can't even... So I think fundamentally, like, of course it's being thrown in our light.It's like advertising everywhere.It's surrounded.We live in a sex-saturated environment.
How long have you been a divorce lawyer?25 years.So since that time, things like OnlyFans have emerged and pornography has become commonplace.Yeah.
I imagine at the start of your career the term pornography probably wasn't used much in divorce proceedings.No, hardly ever.Is it used now?
It's everywhere now.It's everywhere.There's a lot of unique things that I've watched evolve in my career.The proliferation of revenge porn. the number of people that have concerns about audio, video, photographs of them.
I mean, the proliferation of it is also a function of the fact that everyone has a video camera and everyone has a camera, a sophisticated camera in their hand.
So there's a tremendous amount of concern about, you know, this person has images of me, photos of me.Tremendous amounts of, you know, cheating has gotten much, much easier. than it used to be.
I mean, the idea of, like, connecting with a potential sexual partner and also having conversations with people we have absolutely no business having conversations with and having neutral entry points to get into.
So, like, you know, it used to be, like, maybe you see the attractive soccer mom at your kid's soccer practice and she's married and you're married.But, like, if you saddled up next to her and started talking,
you're having a conversation with a group full of people.And if you called her on the phone at the house, that would be weird, right?
But if you, like, message her or you add her on Facebook, it's not weird, because our kids are on the same soccer thing, and maybe there's a Facebook group for the soccer parents.
And then she posts a picture of herself when she was on vacation, and you say, oh, where did you guys stay?We were thinking about going to Jamaica.And then she says, oh, this.And you go, oh, you know.
And suddenly, we're having a conversation, and it's private.Nobody else is there.We're alone in a room.
So, I think it's pretty, you know, it's become very conducive to cheating, and it's also become a way for there to be a tremendous amount of evidence of cheating that accidentally lands in the hands of your partner.
So, like, I can't tell you how many times, like, I know he's passed now, Steve Jobs, but, like, divorce lawyers owe him a tremendous debt of gratitude for the amount of business he sent our way.Because Apple's integration of its devices
makes it incredibly common that the text message from your lover comes up on your kid's iPad because you didn't realize you logged into the same Apple ID and it comes up on the iMessage, and now your spouse is looking at the text about how great the sex was yesterday.
I'm not being funny.That's like a once a week thing that happens in divorce lawyers' offices.And I know it wasn't intentional.I know he wasn't like, I'm going to mess up some marriages.
But the truth is, it creates an easier opportunity for people to cheat because people can clandestinely communicate in ways that they used to not.And they have these neutral entry points that lead to something negative.
And it's become something where you get caught because there's a tremendous evidentiary trail now. So I think these are all, you know, these are all factors that have made it harder.
But again, porn, OnlyFans, like all those kinds of things, these are just more sort of outlets for the same, you know, it's like, you know, there's a thousand restaurants and there's only one menu. You know, and that's all this is.
It's all the same stuff, just in different permutations.Like, a divorce lawyer 50 years ago was dealing with some of the exact same things.It's different technologies.It's different, you know, manifestations of the issue.But it's all just heartbreak.
It's all just males and females that tried to make it work, and somehow it came apart.
Do you think marriages are good for love?And what's your view on marriages?
I've been thinking... I think marriage and love have very little to do with each other.
I'm fine with getting married.My issue is the wedding.I'm not a big fan of weddings.
I think, I don't know where this tradition of weddings came from, but getting like hundreds of people in a room and doing this whole, the big gaps, the amount of time you have to wait, the waiting three hours to be fed, the length of it, the fact that it's so stressful and it causes, some of my friends I've watched like 12 to 24 months of stress and agony and arguments, but it's like one day.
And I just go, I don't know.
But have you ever been to a wedding that was non-traditional?Yeah, like... And that you go, oh, that's cool.
It was like a party.Yeah, and it's like them.And they took all the bullshit out.
Because I have to say something.See, I'm the opposite, which is I don't really believe in the legal institution of marriage.I think it has almost nothing to do with love.I think it's largely performative.
I think if people were madly in love, they're madly in love, and they could either marry or not get married, and it's not going to change anything. except the legal status of things.But I love weddings.Oh, I love weddings.I love them.
I get misty-eyed at every wedding.My son just got engaged.I can't wait.
Because I think there's something so fun about a big group of people all getting together and having a party over something as noble as two people finding each other in a world of eight billion people.
And I think there's something about a group of people all getting up and going, we're going to be cheering for you, and we're going to be here for you.And I love good food, and I love being with people.
I think if the first time everybody you love is in one room as your funeral, you're an idiot.I think there's something really beautiful.I have to tell you, I got divorced many years ago. But I have amazing photos of my mom from my wedding.
Because it's like, how many times in your life do you put on a fancy dress and have your hair done and all that stuff?And my mom lost her hair so many times because of chemo and all those other things.
And when she passed, she was so sick for so many years.And I was so afraid when she died that that's how I would remember her. is in that bed sick.And I have to tell you, I look at those pictures of my mom from that wedding, smiling so big.
And I'm so glad I have those photos.I'm so glad.And I wouldn't have had them if we hadn't had this stupid party.And I remember deliberately saying to the DJ, because I was, what, 22?Yeah, I was 22.
I remember saying to the DJ, do not play that stupid chicken dance thing.Do not play that.We're not doing that stupid thing.We're not happening.
And I don't know when it happened, but my mom must have gone to him and been like, play the chicken dance.And he was like, I'm not supposed to play the chicken dance.And she was like, yeah, but you're playing the chicken dance.
They played the chicken dance.And I'll tell you something.I will have that memory of my mother doing that stupid chicken dance in my head until I die.And I'm really glad I have it.I'm really glad it's there.So I tell you.
I think weddings are a blast.And I think if you're in love with somebody and you love them so much that you're like, all right, we're going to do our thing, go have a wedding.Don't get married.Don't get married.Have a wedding.
Because getting married and having a wedding, the two don't have anything to do with each other.When have you ever gone to a wedding and at the end of the wedding said, I just need to see the paperwork?
Could you just show me the marriage license now?I just need to make sure before I give you the gift and before I leave, I just want to make sure everything was notarized properly.No, no one.You didn't see wedding.
I've never saw my parents' marriage license.They could have made the whole thing up.I don't know.But have the party.Have the party.Why not have the party?And don't have somebody else's party.
You just described somebody else's party where you wait for three hours.Screw that. Why would you even have the sit-down dinner portion?The pasta hors d'oeuvres is the best part.So just do that.You can do it however you want.
Like, if there's a core message to my book and to my approach to relationships is, you get to do it however you want.You know what almost all the people in my office have in common?
They all tried to do it a particular way that somebody told them that's how they're supposed to do it. and it didn't work, and it's got a terrible track record.Like the way that most people do it fails 56% of the time.So do it different.
You got plenty of room to do it different.And the only two people that are qualified to decide how to do it, really, are the two of you.Out of eight billion choices, you picked each other, throw whatever party you want to.
If your friends love you, they're gonna love that party. And even if they don't love it, they're going to go like, you know what?That was them.That was very them, you know?
And this is really what me and my partner kind of decided on.We talked about having like a wedding or whatever.And I was like, do you know what I'd love to do?
And this is really inspired by seeing so many of my friends planning their weddings and looking very miserable in the process and having to basically cut back on things they loved in their life because they're saving.
They're saving for the wedding in two years time.So they can't go out on Friday evening.They're going to have to cut back date night because they've got this wedding in two years time.Great start to a marriage.
And I just always think to myself, why don't you take, say, if it's 100k, let's say, that you're spending on the wedding, or if it's 10k, why don't you just divide it in 10 and have 10 mini parties?
And invite lots of, you know, and then you get all these memories.
But you know the answer to that question, because who's that wedding for?It's not for them. It's not for them, it's for the audience.
And this is why we're driving 100 miles an hour towards a brick wall in our culture, because we are now doing it for the audience.We're not doing it for us anymore.And we have to live in our skin.We have to live in our own lives.
We have to live in our own relationships.So what we're doing for the audience, because it looks good for the audience, this is why we've become a culture with white teeth and rotting gums. because we don't actually care what it is.
We care what it looks like.That's why so many people that three weeks ago were hashtag blessed, hashtag best wife ever are in my office having a consultation and are having an affair and are having because underneath that
that air of, and by the way, how many celebrities, how many celebrities are denying, I have celebrity clients who their press releases, their interviews, they're talking about how happy they are, they're in my office, we're actively negotiating the dissolution of their relationship, they haven't lived together, because they've lived in their separate homes on separate coasts for the last year and a half, but they show up for each other at the red carpet and they do their thing, and then they part ways and don't talk to each other.
But why?Why are we selling?Because we're selling a dream to people.We're selling a dream.And see, what's interesting to me is I actually think reality is prettier than the dream.And so if—why would you start your relationship?
with an homage to fakeness or to someone else's vision of things.Why not start it with an authentic expression of who you are to each other and how much you mean to each other?And like then, the paperwork, whatever, the paperwork's the paperwork.
Do you have celebrity clients who are literally in fake relationships?
Yeah, 100%, 100%.I have celebrity clients that are in fake relationships. I have celebrity clients that are in financial arrangement fake relationships.
I had this big conversation with my friends the other day because, you know, there's a couple of like big celebrity names who've broken up that we're aware of.And I went back through their Instagram.Oh, yeah.
Just to see the way that they portrayed their relationship.Because whenever you see a celebrity relationship, it's like perfect, perfect, perfect, over.Yeah.
Well, they do what I call the Rosie O'Donnell, right?Because Rosie O'Donnell, for years there were rumors that she was a lesbian.
And she did this whole thing about how she had a crush on Tom Cruise and she's not a lesbian, and she has a crush on Tom Cruise and she's not a lesbian, and da-da.
And then finally one day she was like, of course I'm a lesbian, everyone knows I'm a lesbian, everyone's known that for years.And I felt like it's like, you just gaslit the whole culture.
Like, and that's all celebrities do, is they just gaslight us about their relationships.Like, they just do the like, oh, we're so in love, we're so, all these vicious rumors started by people that hate us, da-da-da.
And meanwhile, yeah, the whole thing's eroded.But see, That's not a celebrity alone phenomenon.What's great about celebrities is they have enough distance between them that they can hide that.
Because most of them own a home in Miami, own a home in L.A., own a home in New York, and then they have someplace in Europe, usually, or Italy.
They have enough room to lose each other and to be okay with it and just be like, yeah, we're living our lives.They just have to be careful about not being seen out with other people.
I always wonder if the public portrayal of a perfect relationship correlates to a bad one, if you know what I mean.
Like, I think the people that would sit on Valentine's Day, sprinkle the rose petals, then they'd get their puppy and their husband, and then they'd say, right, can you take that photo?They're probably taking 20 or 30 photos.
For me, in my head, I go, people that like publicly portray a perfect relationship.Is that like a cloak of the insecurity, or is it?
I think so.I mean, I think that, and again, this is a function largely of social media, but I think there is... But we all sort of, it works, and that's why I think people keep doing it, right?There's a bad reward system at play here.
So I live in Manhattan, and I live right near, and my office is right near the Vessel.And the Vessel is this amazing, beautiful sculpture in Manhattan, in the West Chelsea.
And my office actually overlooks the Vessel, it's beautiful, in the Hudson Yards area. And so people, tourists from all over, come to take a picture by the vessel.And so every time I'm walking to and from the office, I pass the vessel.
And there are always at least 100 people taking pictures by the vessel.
And I find it absolutely hilarious, because one of the things you see all the time, and it's usually women, but men sometimes are guilty of it, is the photo of the person pretending that they're not having their photo taken.
So it's like they're just sort of standing there like this, or like they look over this way, and their friend is taking the picture from over here.And I think to myself, when you post that, What are, who took that picture?
Or is it, are we to believe that the paparazzi were following you?Like, you're just a regular person.Like, there's, like, so clearly you set this up.
But here's the thing, like, the thing about us as humans is I don't know that we look at that photo and go, what is, what is that?
Like, I mean, look at like high, we just, like, look at high fashion photos in like any magazine, Vogue, Elle, things like that.Look at the position of people's bodies. Like, seriously, pause this, whatever you're doing, and do that.Don't pause it.
Bizarre.No one sits.Again, visually, looks good.I get it.Maybe it makes the clothes look a certain way.No one sits like that.So the thing of like the rose petals and the... Like, who does that, really?
And if they're doing it, are they doing it because they think that's what you're supposed to do?Why?Because they saw it, right?All those rose petals, all those performative, we're madly in love, look at how in love we are.
Look, guys, quick, look at how in love we are.It's shower sex.It looks good, but all you're really doing is just putting on a show. And that show leads you right to my office.
And the reason we like the show is because we want to believe in the fairy tale.Because if we see it in my favorite celebrity couple, then it almost keeps the hope alive for me.It's the antidote for the statistics around divorce.
It's the antidote for the heartbreak I saw in my home.It's the antidote for the misery I see around me.Look, fairy tales exist just like Disney.And that's why we want it. I get that, and I think I understand why we do that.
But I think it's also like pornography.It's a, I don't want to say an idealized version, it's a stylized version of something people actually are doing.But if you start to think your sex life is inferior because it doesn't look like pornography,
You're modeling it against something that's very unnatural and not real and that is not indicative of what actual sex looks like or feels like or how it works logistically or how bodies work logistically.So we're getting educated the wrong ways.
And it's, again, not to tie – go from like marriage to sex to death. But it's the same problem I had in my master's thesis.It really was.Like, we convince what we always—we shield people from death.We hide it from people.
Like, if someone—if I said, my grandmother's dying, I want to take my kids to see, you'd be like, what kind of sick bastard are you?Like, if you said, oh, I'm going to walk around the graveyard, or I'm going to—you don't talk about death.
You don't talk about these things.Why?Why?If these are things that are important, if these are milestone things in our lives, not talking about it is not going to prevent it from happening.
So why not talk about, honestly, like, what's really going on?Like, I have to tell you, you ever, you know, again, the antidote to some of this stuff is to say, like, who took that picture?That's weird.Like, you didn't know they were taking it?
Oh, because you were looking in the other direction.Like, why not just start saying, like, yeah, I'm not going to be full of shit.
like waking up in New York City, and my ex-girlfriend from many years ago was like pissed off at me because it was Valentine's Day, and I hadn't texted her and like, um, told, said happy birthday to her.
But I was in New York, so I was on a different time zone, so it was 6 a.m.where I was.I hadn't even woken up yet.And she'd sent me a screenshot of another couple who were like with the, you know, the rose petals and the roses and stuff.
And she was infuriating herself based on an Instagram post you'd seen of another couple.And I was being attacked because I wasn't meeting that standard.
Yeah, and this is why I think we are living in a moment where there is more comparison than ever.
You must see that in your office, right?
I see it in my office constantly.I see it in life constantly.But it's not just, by the way, it's not just in the relationship thing, though. Because, of course, people post their greatest hits.
People are constantly flaunting their relationship and showing everyone their relationship.But it's not even just your relationship with your significant other.It's your relationship with yourself.
If I see one more person posting their workout routine, their sauna and cold plunge, the diet routine of the, you know, their hashtag beast mode.If I see one more person posting how their parenting routine and the
wonderful, intricate snacks that they make for their children.Like, all day long, there is an idealized, stylized version of every single aspect of our life that is so much better than the gag reel that we're living.
And we're watching it and we're comparing ourselves to it and our partner to it.And we're going, how come my partner doesn't look like that?They don't look like that.
Like all these videos of the person like getting up in the morning, who set up the camera?Did someone set up a camera?Like, and I really feel sometimes like I'm the crazy person. going, guys, do you not see this?Like, do you not see this?
Do you not see that this is what's making you unhappy?You're unhappy with yourself.You're unhappy with your partner.You're unhappy with your relationship with your partner because you're comparing it to fiction.
And because it's on your phone instead of on the movie screen, you think it's real.
Sometimes comparison can wake us up to things that we needed to know, though.And I think you'll, the story of you going to the theme park that day, which I was reading about,
and seeing that couple who were pretty idyllic highlighted to you that maybe this wasn't the right marriage.
They just had their 20th wedding anniversary last week.
Oh really?Yeah, yeah.What happened?So you were at a theme park with them.
So I was with my ex-wife and our young kids. And these were college friends of ours, because we were college sweethearts, my ex-wife and I. And we were at a theme park with them, with all young kids.And, you know, my ex-wife's a lovely person.
I think she'd say nice things about me, too.I'm a nice place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there. I think she'd tell you I'm a spectacular ex-husband and leave a lot to be desired as a husband.Probably a fair comment.
And I would say that there's a lot of people I love that I wouldn't want to be married to and she's one of them.She's very happily remarried for a long time to a great guy.
And we were at this theme park with them and they'd been married for roughly the same number of years that we were at the time.
And I remember the kids wanted to go on some ride, and it was like the permutations of seating, it was like three and three, and they had two kids.So we were like, okay, I'll sit with these two kids, you sit with these two kids.
And they said, great, we're gonna just hold hands and go for a walk.And they like held hands and they started walking away.And I remember looking at them and thinking, why, they really like each other.Like, they really like each other.
And I remember thinking like, I don't, feel that way about her.Like, I love her, but I don't feel that way about her.And it just, it wasn't like, and then I went home and we got divorced.We were together some more time.
But I remember when we decided to divorce, we had some very honest conversations with each other about the marriage and about when we'd felt, you know, we were very good at post-gaming it because we stayed friends.
And I said to her, you know, I remember this moment when we were at the theme park.And she goes, oh my god, I remember that exact same moment.And I said, yeah, and I thought, like, they went off and were holding hands.
And I remember thinking, like, I don't love her like that.And she was like, Jim, I'm not making this up.I thought the exact same thing.She's like, I remember seeing it and thinking, like, yeah, like, I don't.
Like, if they took our kids on this ride, we wouldn't be holding hands walking through the park.And why? We just didn't have that between us.What is that?I don't know.That's magic.I don't know.That thing.That thing.
That magic part that nobody can really explain.I don't know.It's the thing.It's the reason why I've never been homophobic, because I happen to be heterosexual, but I couldn't explain why.
Like, I don't know if it's a combination of biology, cultural pressure, I have no idea.I just know what sparks something in me is what sparks something in me.
And I don't think I have a right to say to another adult who has those feelings about another adult that they have, that they're wrong and I'm right or something.I genuinely just feel like, I don't know, there's something magical about love.
I mean, there's something magical about romantic attraction and the feeling of like deep connection to each other.I mean, I've known that couple now for the entire, 28 years that they've been married, and they are legit super into each other.
But they are the least performative people you'd ever meet.They're very focused on each other, like they really like each other.She refers to him as her boyfriend.They've been married for 28 years.They have two kids that are like adults now.
And they should be like, oh, well, my boyfriend's coming home next week from a work trip.And she means her husband. But she refers to him as that.And he refers to her as my girl.He's like, yeah, well, my girl and I, we're going to go do this.
And I'm always like, dude, 28 years of marriage, and that's how you guys feel about each other.And it's legit.It's not like a thing.It's legit.What is that?I don't know.If I knew that, man, I'd find a way to tell people to do it and bottle it.
I don't know.I'll tell you what it is.It's beautiful.It's beautiful.It's fun to even be around. Like, it's fun to be.When you're not in a challenging marriage, being around that is, like, the warmest, most wonderful place.
It's not surprising to me that their two sons are, like, two of the most amazing young men I've ever met.How do they argue?I think they—I've never watched them argue, I imagine, so I imagine one answer would be privately.
from what I understand, because I have tried to reverse engineer a little bit with them, like, what is it?Because I've talked about them enough in media now that they know.I'm like, I always text them, like, hey, I talked about you.
And when the book, they were like, oh, yeah, I was like, hey, page whatever, you know, and they thought it was quite funny.I think they play fair.Like, they, I don't know, they never lost the plot.They seem to really
They, I hope this comes out the right way.They love their sons.They really love their sons.They're two amazing parents.But it seems to me like they both, they view each other as the most important thing.
And she's always looking out for his happiness, and he's always looking out for hers, and it's an equal measure. Like, I think she is very focused on him and what will make him happy, and he's very focused on her and what will make her happy.
And they both take tremendous joy in each other's joy.And I think they both feel—and they have, I will say, they have been through some things, like she had metastatic breast cancer at one point, she had all kinds of, and they weathered that storm.
They weathered that storm with grace, humor, and even deeper connection.And again, I don't know if it's partly luck that they just hit the lottery with each other, but I think some of it is just that they pay attention.
It's important to them. You're in a relationship, but you're not married anymore.You were married previously.Will you ever get married again?
I've said before that I don't think marriage is important to me.I don't... Marriage from where I'm sitting is a contract that was written by the state that is supposed to define
in some general way what this relationship is and create a set of rules that govern it.And if you do a prenup, you can change that set of rules, but you're still saying, you know, I really want to get the government involved in this situation.
I have no part of me that in my relationship goes, We really need to get the government involved in this.I just don't, that's just not in me.And it's not only not in me, it just seems absurd to me.Marriage seems absurd.To me.
I understand why people get married.I think I understand it better than most people.But it just, to me, doesn't make any sense.
I think we need a lot more time. I think it's cultural pressure.I think it's performative.I think it's because we live in a society, if not a world, that presumes marriage is a good idea.I think that that is tied to medieval institutions.
It's tied to things that are way before us.And it's tied to partly land ownership, it's partly tied to religious concepts, it's partly
You know, what Freud talks about in Civilization, it's discontents, it's so we're not all killing each other over mates.
It's, you know, we've structured society around this idea of turning pair bonds, which by the way is a very healthy permutation with which to raise children and it's very, it fits our biology quite nicely.
you know, in terms of the amount of time that a child's in gestation versus, you know.But I think we've just, we're just like running a program that it was here before us and that we've been taught is how it's supposed to be.This is what you do.
Like, again, ask the question.You think it's a bad idea, don't you?Getting married?
I think it's an incredibly bad idea.I think it's an incredibly dangerous idea. I don't think it's a bad idea.I think it's a dangerous idea.There's a difference between those two things.Like, skydiving is a dangerous idea.
I'm not saying it's a bad idea, but it's a dangerous idea.It depends on how much joy you place on that thing, right?
Like, for me, the joy of jumping out of a plane as compared to the danger of jumping out of a plane precludes me from jumping out of planes.Maybe I'm missing out on something.That's okay.I'll live with it.There's lots of cool stuff to do.
I haven't gotten bored yet. Marriage is kind of the same thing.Like, I think marriage is, again, like, because again, turn around the question. Which is, we know, facts, facts, marriage is overwhelmingly unsuccessful.
It is way more dangerous than skydiving.Yes, you die from the skydiving, but the chances of a catastrophic skydiving incident is like .0003, and one where you die is .00001.It's like very limited, the chances of dying from skydiving.
Whereas the chances of divorce, again, 56% divorce rate, how many stay together who are unhappy and they just stay together because they don't give up half their stuff or for religious reasons or whatever.
This is a technology with an unbelievably bad failure rate.
Do more people die from marriage or skydiving?
Well, I think more people wish they were dead from marriage than skydiving.I think most people's sense of self, many people's sense of self dies as part of an unhappy marriage.Like, it's not a question of will you die.
It's that you're alive and not living your life in a way that's enjoyable or in a way that's authentic to who you are.And I think a lot of people are doing that as a function of the choice that they made of marriage.
And again, I'm not saying don't get married.But what I'm saying is, when someone says, I'm getting married, why is it impolite to say why? Why?You're about to do something incredibly dangerous that fails so much of the time.Why not just say, why?
I'm not saying, why would you do that?It's stupid.I'm saying, why?Because most people's answer doesn't make any sense. Well, because, you know, I don't wanna be alone.Wait, you have to get married to not be alone?
Join a church group, I don't know, join a baking squad, join a softball team, you won't be alone.What does that mean?Well, I wanna have, you know, regular sex.Okay, I don't know that getting married is the solution to that.
Like, it's not a guarantee of regular sex.Like, that's not, you know, so if the question, first of all, you're not even allowed to ask the question why.If anything, If you don't say, oh my God, that's so great, you have intimacy issues.
People say for the kids, you know, it's good for the kids.
Which kids?The kids you've already had or the kids you're gonna have?You're saying we're getting married so that we can have kids?
And by the way, again, okay, you're saying societally it's good for, I mean, I think what you're saying is it's good for a mother and a father in a household with children together, right?So the polarity of male and female.
Again, I know a lot of same-sex couples that have raised very successful, happy children, so maybe you're saying a two-parent family is a good thing, that it doesn't have to be male and female.Whatever, okay, that's all true.
What does a marriage license have to do with that?What does the government getting involved have to do with that?
What security?You're saying something that fails 56% of the time makes you feel like you get security?That's a really weird sense of security.
If I said to you, I've got an airbag in my car that doesn't deploy 70% of the time, would you drive around feeling safe?Or would you go, like, this is a lottery I don't want to participate in.
I'm just going to strap myself in and do something else because I'm not going to rely on this 30% airbag. you wouldn't have a job?Well, that's the main reason.
I mean, listen, I've been saying for years that I think I have tremendous job security.And it makes me very happy on one level, and it makes me very sad at another level that I have such job security.I don't think we're getting better at this.
I think we're getting worse at it.And I don't think by the time I retire, which isn't that far away, I don't think we're going to get so good at it that I'm going to be out of a job.
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You said to me that a lot of people contact you these days asking for you to help with prenups.
One of the interesting things we were talking about before we started filming was it's really uncomfortable to turn to your partner and ask them for a prenup.
I know a lot of people say that, and I think it's a question of how you enter the conversation.
Again, like, you know, I guess because I get paid to talk, and I'm used to talking sometimes about difficult things with a judge or revealing, you know, things that are hard to reveal about someone and trying to make sure that they're not viewed negatively, even though they might have behaved negatively.
So I think prenup, it's all about how you bring up the conversation.And my preferred entry point for a prenup when I talk to someone is every single person who gets married has a prenup.
It's either written by the government or it's written by the two people who love each other more than the other 8 billion people in the world.I personally think
that the two people in a marriage are better qualified to create the rule set of their marriage than politicians they don't know, especially when you consider the nature of politicians.They won a popularity contest.
They managed to offend as few people as possible, and they change constantly.So you're signing up for the most legally significant thing you're ever going to do other than die.
with a rule set that no one ever explains to you in advance and that can be changed by people who don't know you based on who won a popularity contest, okay?That seem smart to you?Or did the two of you decide what the rules are going to be?
And then, starting from the beginning, which is where you are if you're doing a prenup, because you're about to get married, okay? then you live your life in accordance with that rule set together.
And when one of you is deviating from it, or when a red flag goes up, you go, hey, how come you're doing it that way?Remember we have that rule set.So I like that.I think prenups, even having a conversation about a prenup,
I think is a very healthy exercise for a couple.
I cannot tell you how many people since our first conversation have stopped me on the streets of New York City and said, I got into the coolest conversation with my girlfriend about prenups and marriage after I saw you and Steven talking.
I've had probably like two people a week say that to me.It's a very, I always say to these people, I'm like, you do weird stuff in bed.Like you're watching Diary of a CEO in bed. It's because you know there's other stuff.
Like, I'm not great on the shower thing, but in bed, you know, I like Steven too, but that's not the time, maybe.It is.But I guess it is.Anytime's a good time.
But no, I'm not trying to hurt you.I know you broke $7 million.I don't want to screw it up.But I do think that there is something to this conversation.And I do think sometimes, like, you know, look, you're in a relationship.
You've had a hard conversation with your partner.Yeah.And when you're in it, It's not fun.And you kind of go, like, how are we ever going to get out of this?Is this how it's going to be now?
We have this feeling, and it's, like, awkward, and it's weird.And then you make it through it.And then the next morning, you wake up, and maybe things are still a little weird or something.But like, oh, yeah.
I like to believe that then there's this feeling of like, hey, we did that thing.That thing was a little weird.It was a little hard.We lost the plot, but then we got it back, and we're still here.Look at us.Yeah, look at us.Like, yay, go us.
I think there's real value in that.I think that, again, the hard thing to do and the right thing to do are usually the same thing.It's hard to talk about when this ends.
It's actually the thing I'm proud of most in my relationship is exactly what you just described there.I'm not proud of our relationship being perfect, because it's not.
I'm proud of how imperfect it is and how we continually resolve the conflict without coming out the other side resenting each other.We come out the other side proud of each other.
You know that meme where, I think it was the Hot Ones meme, where they're like, look at us, who would have thought?And that's like, the thing that my girlfriend turns to me and says continually is, I'm so proud of... how much shit we've got through.
Because she refers to it like the roots have got even longer.And going back to your conversation about prenups, it reminds me of what we were talking about before we started recording.
This idea that people don't want to confront it because you tried to get a stand at a wedding convention as a divorce lawyer.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.So I want to say one thing about what you said before that, because your verbiage is very interesting to me.
Because you said, in my relationship, it's not perfect, but I'm proud of X, Y, and Z. And I have to tell you, I don't know, that sounds pretty perfect.I think that things are imperfect, and that's perfect.
There's no such thing as a perfect relationship, ever. And that's perfect.Like, it's perfect.Like, I genuinely believe we're perfect.Like, I think we're all flawed, and we're perfect.Like, because we're authentic.We're real.
So I think that's a really important—if perfection is the standard, we will all fall short.I think the reality is that we are all perfectly imperfect, and that's really beautiful.
But yes, the wedding, so in the United States, I don't know in the UK, but in the United States we have these things, they're called wedding bazaars, or wedding expos, or wedding fairs.
And somebody came up with this, and it's a brilliant business move, which is you rent a gigantic hall, or a small hall depending on where, some of them are done at like giant convention centers, and you know,
People who are associated with the wedding industrial complex, you know, they pay to have a booth.So there's photographers, there's bakers, there's—and, you know, every table has, like, something.The photographers have different pictures.
The cake people might have, like, little samples of cake. You know, there's all the little grab bags and things that people give out as wedding gifts.There's, you know, different travel things related to your honeymoon and where you might go.
There's different websites for, you know, your registry.Like, there's so many wedding-related, wedding-adjacent businesses.This is a multibillion-dollar industry.So I reached out to, like, four or five different smaller and bigger wedding expos.
And I said, in sum and substance, I'd like to get a table.And they said, great.Photographer, baker, what do you do?And I said, oh, I'm a lawyer, and I do divorce and family law, but it's just going to be themed around prenups.
It's not going to be in any way negative about marriage.It's going to be, you know, just a congratulations on your engagement.Have you talked about a prenup?
And then I'll have brochures and things, and you can, you know, make sure that they pass muster, that I don't say anything that would be offensive to anyone.I don't want anyone to be uncomfortable, any other vendors to be uncomfortable.
But there's literally hundreds of vendors at this thing.So there's no reason— Not one wedding expo would rent a table to me.They refused my money.They would not take it.They would not take it.
No matter how flowery I said I'd make the language, no matter how respectful to the institution of marriage I said I would be, they would not let me buy a table.They wouldn't take my money.And those tables are not cheap.
It's thousands of dollars to get a table at a wedding expo.
They would not take my money. even though almost 60% of people end in divorce.And it's like almost an inevitability.The probability is there's going to be a conversation about how we separate.
As I've said before, every single marriage ends.It ends in death or divorce.The majority of them end in divorce.The majority of them end in divorce.Why wouldn't you allow me to have a table that just says, If you'd like to have a pre-nup, here.
I'm not even trying to sell a pre-nup on you, like, you're getting engaged, you need a pre-nup.It's just, have you talked about a pre-nup?And information about that pre-, they would not even let me in the room.
And I, because, because it shatters the illusion.It's reality.They don't like reality.They don't see reality. as what it is, which I think, by the way, is quite romantic.
I think there's something very nice about talking to your partner about, you know what I'm afraid of?Losing you.I don't want to lose you to death, even though I know someday I have to.But I don't want to lose you to divorce either.But man,
Almost 60% of marriages end in divorce.And if we got divorced, like, what would we be?Like, I hope we wouldn't hate each other.Like, I hope I'd still love you and care about you, or I'd still want you to be well.
Even if you left me, I wouldn't hate you.Like, I don't have one ex-girlfriend that I go, man, I hate that person.Like, I wish all of them joy.I hope they're all happy.Like, our chapter together ended, but I wish all of them joy.
People don't like to go into things without optimism, though.And the conversation around, should we get a prenup, almost sounds like, I think we're going to break up someday.I think you can hear it that way.
But I don't think it has to be that.I agree with you about the optimism.I think people would prefer to look at the bright side of things and to be optimistic.And I am not suggesting, like, I don't believe in fairy tales.I'm a realist.
That doesn't mean I get up every day just thinking about nothing but death and divorce and how miserable.Life is beautiful and life's meant to be lived.
I'm not going to sit at a wedding and be like, do you know how many percentage of people are going to get divorced?I don't view it that way.I think it's wonderful.But be realistic about things.
I don't want to get ill, but I have a physical every year.I go to the doctor every year.Like, I like to know what's going on.I like to be a realist.I don't plan on crashing my car, but I like knowing that I have a seatbelt and an airbag.
And by the way, If my seatbelt and airbag aren't working, I would like to know in advance because I'm driving as if they're going to work.
If you told me, by the way, Jim, your seatbelt and your airbag aren't working, I would drive very, very, very carefully, right?So I think it's the same thing, like just we can't have an honest conversation and be optimistic.
Divorce in the US is very different from divorce in the UK and I actually learned, well I think it is, I learned this from watching several things but one video comes to mind from a couple of weeks ago.
You'll know the case, there's a black actor who is currently posting a lot on his social media about how his wife is like chasing him down for child support.Oh yes.
Yes, I don't remember his name.I'm bad at celebrity names.
I'm bad at celebrity names.
But yes, I know who he is.
And he said on a couple of shows, but he went on his Instagram and said, like, my wife, who I've broken up with, who, like, basically doesn't really have a job at the moment or is making some money from some Instagram work, is she's got this, like, pack of lawyers who email me and demand to see my bank statements because
I've been doing well lately.I've got a couple of new movies and stuff.And she wants to make sure she gets more money for me and the kids based on his success.And I never realized it was like that.I never realized that.
Oh, yeah.Oh, yeah.It's modifiable.It's modifiable.Child support, for example, is modifiable every three years when there's a 30% change in income up or down.
So if I have a wife, and then we have four kids, and then I break up with her.And when I break up with her, I'm making a million dollars a year.And then I'm making $100 million a year. Child support goes up.To like what?What are the numbers?
Depends on the percentages.In New York, one child is 17%, two is 25, three is 29, and four is 31% of your gross income.Of my gross income?Your gross income.Less FICA, 0.0765.Social Security, Medicare.
If my gross income is $100 million... So, theoretically, there are caps on the combined parental income.Everywhere?Yes, pretty much.But...
Judges have a tremendous amount of discretion based on a variety of factors, including things like what was the lifestyle of the children during the marriage?What are the reasonable needs of the children?
Like celebrity divorces, I will tell you, there are some legitimate separate needs that celebrities, the children of celebrities need.Like they, you know, security, for example.What's the biggest child support payments you've ever heard of?
Well, I mean, Diddy had, I think it was $20,000 a month for a period of time.He's kind of a well-known one, and it was very well-publicized.The most I've ever had in a case is I had a client who got $65,000 a month in child support.
But it covered a lot of things.It covered a portion of private school tuition.It covered a security detail.It covered, you know, these were very, very high net worth, you know, public figures.
What kid needs $65,000 a month?Well, the kid doesn't get the money.The parent who has primary physical custody gets the money.And they can do with it whatever they want.Correct.So they could go spend it in Vegas.Correct.That's not fair.
You should have to provide receipts.
Well, what I've always said is, I mean, first of all, the system's complicated enough without people having to provide receipts to check the math of a person and what they're spending the child support on.
Like, it's already overwhelmed enough, and it's already difficult enough.Like, listen, what you're proposing would create a lot of additional work for me, so I appreciate it.But it is, from my perspective, it is a potentially very dangerous thing.
What I always tell people is getting married without a prenup is a fairly risky activity.Having a child with someone is the most risky activity in relationships in terms of the amount of emotional and financial damage a person can do to you.
Have a kid with them. having a kid with somebody.They can weaponize that child.They can alienate that child.They can use that child's needs to piggyback onto financial needs.
There's so much stuff a person can do to torture you if they have a kid with you.And there's so much legal wrangling and rambling to do.And what I'll tell you is it
You know, I have a client who spent somewhere in the realm of $100,000 in legal fees arguing over whether Thanksgiving should begin on Wednesday and end on Sunday, or whether it would begin on Thursday morning and end on Thursday evening.
Now, that person's worth, you know, $700 or $800 million.So $100,000 to them is not a lot of money. most people, myself included, I'd just eat turkey another day.Like it's not worth that amount of money, right, to have that argument.
That's why having a kid with someone, you're opening up the door to potentially tremendous amount of battles.Whereas If you're arguing over a $50,000 bank account and you spend $30,000 in legal fees, even if you won, you only won $20,000.
If you lost, you lost significant.So it forces a certain rationality into the transaction.Whereas your time with your kids, people could attribute whatever value they want to that.
I've had clients who fought over miniscule things about children that to me would be miniscule.To them were incredibly important.
You said that the two big reasons why people divorce are infidelity and money.Yeah. Is it a loss of money, a lack of money, the person goes poor?
That's a big piece of it.Losing money, gambling money or losing money unexpectedly, bad business and investment decisions.
There was a period of time where I did a lot of divorces because people decided they were going to try to be day traders and all of a sudden people's, you know, they were like barring against retirement accounts.
Yeah, they were learning the hard way that if you short stocks, there's almost no limit to how much money you can lose.Crypto divorces?Crypto's big.I did a couple of crypto
where crypto became very important and whether it was on a hard wallet or whether it was, I mean, hiding money with crypto very, some years ago when crypto was first sort of on the scene, when I really should have been buying Bitcoin because it was like, you know, $3 or $5.
There was a period of time where most divorce lawyers and most judges didn't understand what crypto even was.
I mean, try to explain to a 75-year-old judge who has an AOL email address what cryptocurrency was and the difference between Ethereum and Bitcoin, like, and why you're concerned that they might have these funds on a hard wallet.
And they're looking at you going like, well, I have no idea what this is.So it's tricky.I mean, these are the things we, as a divorce lawyer, one of the things that makes it a very exciting job is that we're constantly
we're getting an education in all of these things.Like I represent, I remember I represented a surgeon and I learned everything about how surgeons get paid, how they make money, how they hide money, what their expenses might be.
And so then the next time I did a surgeon, I'm like, oh, I know this.You know, first time I represented someone who owned a hedge fund or was a partner in a hedge fund.
I had to learn about how capital accounts work and how people are paid and where you might be able to hide money.
Have you ever seen that where someone is like publicly thought to be a billionaire, and then you look at their bank statements during a divorce and you realise that they've basically managed to hide everything, so they're basically broke, it's all in someone else's name?
Well, yeah, there's two permutations of that.One is people who are publicly incredibly wealthy, and then in reality, they're leveraged to the hilt and broke, like way broke. That happens a lot.And that happens a lot with celebrities.
Celebrities are very often leveraged to the hilt because they had a hit record or they had a hit movie or two and then they think, oh, everything I do is going to be like this.And so they just go out and buy tons of stuff.
And there's always people who will loan you money, you know, especially if you're a public figure and you have some money, right, a couple of million bucks, you can get a couple million more real easy.
So, and then it just very rapidly, and they buy everybody else.They have, you know, there's always clingers around the person, you know, the whole entourage that a lot of whom are siphoning money off of people.
So there's a lot of people that look very wealthy and are dead broke.
And I have a lot of those.How does that play out in court when the wife finds out that their partner or the husband finds out that their wife was completely broke?
They're not happy.They're not happy. And it's hard because they think they have proof of something.Like they, they're like, but look, here's a picture of him with a Ferrari.
And it's like, right, I can show you the papers that he doesn't, he leases that Ferrari.Like it's this much of a car payment.Like I had a guy who had like three Bentleys and a couple of, you know, like McLaren, he had crazy cars.
And yeah, it was all leveraged to the hilt.It was not, he didn't own them, you know.
What's the second permutation of that?
The second permutation is when someone When they've hidden the money?Yeah.
I'm trying to find the right adjective, that they're enough of a sociopath, that they're enough of a malignant narcissist, or they're enough of a careful planner, that they have created structures that make it almost impossible for their spouse to get anything in the divorce.
So some of the things that people do in the ultra high net worth space for generational wealth preservation and tax avoidance. have second-order effects when they get divorced, right?So a lot of wealthy people don't own very much of anything.
They own companies that own properties, and they have an interest in a trust for the benefit of their great-grandchildren that owns companies that own properties that they then borrow against.Like, there's their whole structure
is a very complex, and they pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to trust and estates attorneys and accountants, so they pay almost nothing in taxes.And so that they will have no estate issues, they will have intergenerational wealth.
Well, those things make a lot of sense from a wealth preservation and estate planning perspective. but they make a divorce really complicated because it's no longer marital money.It's owned by this trust.It's owned by this corporation.
It's owned by, I only have this percent interest in this thing, which is why we both benefited from the taxation of it.
So that's where it gets like a little, what I do is a fascinating job because we work with very, very brilliant forensic accountants who kind of go in and try to recreate whether something was done
as a fraudulent transfer in contemplation of divorce, or whether something was done for good faith reasons and was done in a way that was designed to benefit the marriage as opposed to as divorce planning.
There must be scenarios where someone goes into a divorce.
I think I'm divorcing you, let's say, and I think in divorcing you I'm going to get a big payout, but it turns out in divorcing you that you get a big payout because I've got more money than you.Yeah, it happens a lot. That happens a lot.
I wrote an article for one of the women's magazines called The Last Remaining Feminist Taboo, and it talks about a lot of female clients who are paying alimony to their husbands. and it stings, you know?
You can have a woman who is like a Bella Abzug, like Gloria Steinem-level feminist, and when she gets told, you know, that like, yeah, you gotta pay him alimony, they're like, I'm sorry, what?Like, no, he's a man, he can work.
Like, he can work, men don't get alimony.And you're like, no, gender is a construct and sex is actually, you know, a construct socially.
you're a CFO of a company and he's a really cute, long-haired musician who you married because he's like fun, you know?Like, and you earn 4,000 times what he earns annually and so you have to pay him alimony because it's just math.
It's God's gender blind.It's just math.And they're like, yeah, no, I am not paying alimony.He's a man.He's got a strong back.Tell him to get a job.By the way, I've had men in that situation go, yeah, I'm not taking alimony. Really?They won't take it?
They won't take it.Alimony is like the... For the spousal support.
No, it's to maintain the marital lifestyle.It's in order to rehabilitate your earnings so that you can be... So, for example, I marry a woman from the UK who's a physician.
and now she's coming to the United States because we're in love and she's marrying me.And she is going to lose her license to practice medicine because she's coming to the United States and it's a different licensure.
Okay, so now she moves here in reliance on us being married and we're married for a couple of years and then we divorce.
She's going to need, because I now make a lot more money than her, she's gonna need some money to get her back to a place where she's back to her earning capacity.
So if I married Taylor Swift and we're together for 20 years, do I get half?
You do not get half, usually, no, no.I mean, first of all, she has too many good lawyers, I'd imagine, for you to get half.But you would certainly, I mean, there was a- How much could you get me?How much could I get you from Taylor Swift?
I'd have to know how much Taylor Swift has.I also don't think she's, she's never made it down the aisle yet, has she?
But if I take her down the aisle, and then we stay together 20 years, and I come back and just say, James, it's time. Here's what I'm going to tell you.I'm going to get you as much as possible.
I can't promise you anything, but I am promising you I'm going to get you as much as I can.I mean, you know, I'd have to know.I'd have to know what the finances are.She has a billion dollars?In cash.
A billion dollars in cash acquired during the marriage or prior to the marriage?During the marriage.All acquired during the marriage, you get in half. You get in half, you get in half.Listen, Adele's ex-husband did very well.
Kelly Clarkson's ex-husband did very well.It depends on how, quite well.Look it up, look it up, it's out there.I don't remember the exact numbers, but it's out there.
The reality is, is those were people, she had her most successful tour at the time during the marriage.She had her most successful album at the time during the marriage.It's all a question of where things land in the trajectory of someone's life.
If you marry someone when they're on the come up, like Jeff Bezos, great example, like largest divorce settlement probably paid in history was to his ex-wife.Why?Because Amazon wasn't a thing when they got together, right?
So that was, she was there for the whole trajectory.If he got remarried now, She's not gonna get half because she wasn't there.There's a premarital component to that that is significant.
If you got me 500 million from Taylor Swift then, would you take like a commission?No, it doesn't work that way.We're prohibited from doing that.
We get paid by the hour.I am an hourly wage earner, like if I worked at McDonald's.Who prohibits you? The rules, the rules that govern.And by the way, rightfully so.
Because you otherwise would create an incentive for the lawyer to maximize recovery for their client rather than the recovery that makes sense for their client.So like I've had cases where the cash payout I get for my client
is lower because I want to get them more support, like child support or spousal support, or I want to get them more of the real estate rather than the payout.
So really what we're supposed to do as lawyers is not be invested in the percentage of the result.Personal injury lawyers, like if you slip and fall, that's different.
The last question for me is regarding me and my partner.I never want to end up in your consultation room. We never want to go there.
If you were to give me one piece of advice to prevent, and it can't be don't get married, to prevent me and my partner ever ending up in your consultation room.It wouldn't be don't get married.Oh, okay.
What would it be?Pay attention.Just pay attention.Right now you're paying attention.Like you're paying attention.She's important to you.You're important to her.You're interested and you're interesting.
You know, I would say pay attention and pay attention to three things. The you, the me, and the we, because those are three different things.Like, you be you, because you're who she fell in love with, and don't let you go too far from shore.
Like, you be you.Don't let anything in the world, don't let her, don't let the we, don't let any of it stop you from being you, because you're who she fell in love with. And the she, right?Who she is.So there's you, there's me, there's we.
So her, remember who she is.Let her be her.Like, make sure that she takes time to be her.Make sure you give space for her to be her, because that's who you fell in love with.
And let that person change, just like you might change sometimes from time to time.And if things change too much, I'm not saying resist it. But note it.Pay attention.Say, hey, this is going on.Is that a good thing?Is it a bad thing?
Let's just notice it.Let's just pay attention.And then the we.The you, the me, and the we.Pay attention to the we.Make sure we're watering the plant.That would be the only advice I'd ever give to anybody.It has nothing to do with marriage.
It has to do with connection.It has to do with love.There's a reason why. You found the we, right?Like you can be you all by yourself and she can be her all by herself.But there's value in being we and seeing each other's blind spots.
And if there's value in that, treat it like something valuable.Don't let the world, don't let your own strengths and weaknesses, don't let anything pull you off of that.Pay attention. to you, the me, and the we, and don't be afraid.
The hard thing to do and the right thing to do are usually the same thing.So if it's harder to talk about it, it's harder to point it out, it's harder to say, hey, are we okay?Is everything good?
Like, you know, if that's harder, do that, lean into that.
James, we have a closing tradition on the podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest not knowing who they're leaving it for.The question left for you is what is your most controversial opinion? Oh God, you're gonna be canceled.
What is my most controversial opinion?I think, I think I alluded to it in my last conversation with you.My most controversial opinion is that the most important thing in people's lives and their greatest accomplishment should not be their children.
That's a real hot, like when you say to people, like, I think it's, if you say the most important thing that ever happened, the greatest thing I ever accomplished in life was having children, I find that very, I find that logic very strange.
Because if you say the most important, greatest thing I ever did in my life was having children, Well is then the greatest and most important thing your children ever did gonna be having children?
And is the greatest thing their children ever did is having children?Because that's the ideology of a virus or a cancer cell.Like it's not, like growth for the sake of growth for the sake of growth.
Like I think there has to be a higher, nobler purpose to life than reproduction.
So I'm not an antinatalist, but I tend to when someone says to me, like my children are my greatest accomplishment, I tend to look at them and go like, made some interesting choices then I guess.
science and sort of evolution and Charles Darwin might argue that that's exactly the point of life.
Oh, no, and it is on the cellular level and for squirrels and for pigeons.And we're monkeys.Yeah, but I think we're different than monkeys.
Like if you've watched, like we're very similar in lots of ways, but I'd like to think that there's something higher that we're called to. And I don't know that reproduction should be the highest goal of a human being's life.
I'm not one of these people that thinks, like, don't have children.It's a terrible thing.I have kids.I love my kids.Was great having kids.Learned a lot about myself in having children.Learned a lot about life.I love spending time with them.
I have a great relationship with my sons.I look forward to being a grandfather.But the truth is, like, is it the greatest thing I ever accomplished in my life?Absolutely not. It's in the top of the list.
It's a wonderful experience I had, but it is not the thing.And I think that's a very, I don't know why that is such a controversial opinion.When I say that to people, they look at me like I've got lobsters coming out of my nose.
There's definitely two schools of thought there.
There's the one school of thought that you were saying something earlier and it really, at the start of the conversation about how people lose their identity when they have children and it causes all of this sort of psychological dysfunction and who am I now?
I'm attached to this thing and where did my life as an independent person go?And you know, that's kind of the one school of thought where where you're resisting becoming all about procreation.
You're resisting becoming just, I'm just here to be a mother father.And then there's another group of people that go, absolutely, this is me, this is my purpose.
Right, but see, I think like everything, like we don't have to treat dandruff with decapitation.Like, I think you can, you cannot reject the concept of having children or making them a priority.
And you can also not make your children your entire identity.I think that you can just sort of say, hey, my children are incredibly important to me.I love them.They're wonderful.
But I also have other aspects of my life and self and other relationships that have value to me, and I'm not going to let them all be sacrificed at the altar of my children.Who's more likely to end up in your office?Which school of thought?
People who are obsessed with their children. I think people who are obsessed with their children stop paying attention to themselves and to their partner.That's been my experience of people who are obsessed with their children.
I don't mean people who are focused on their children.I don't mean people who make their children a high priority in their life.I'm talking about people that are like obsessed with their children, that their children are their, this is who I am.
I am a mother.This is who I am.I am a father.Which, because by the way, childhood is a temporary state.
Like, theoretically, you're going to have a very close and intimate relationship on a day-to-day basis with your spouse a lot longer than your children.If it's done properly, your children are supposed to leave.
and go start their own families and live their own lives.Whereas your partner is not supposed to, in 19 years or 18 years, move out.They're supposed to stay there.
So it's kind of smart to also feed, not again, not only feed, also feed that relationship.There's no reason why you can't simultaneously, and by the way, sometimes being a really good supportive
person to your co-parent and loving your wife and loving your husband is a wonderful gift to give to your children.It models great relationship behavior to them.
It's showing that you love and respect the other person who loves them as much as you do.Like, there's so much good in being a good parent that is made up of being a good co-parent, a good spouse, a good partner.
So you think you're more likely to end up in your divorce office if you're obsessed with your children?
If you make your children your absolute number one priority and your spouse falls very far down that list, yes, for sure.
James, thank you.Always great to see you.
I love our conversations because you're a divorce lawyer and your practice, I guess, is dealing with divorces, but your width of wisdom and knowledge and how it all intertwines in the most beautiful, wise, enlightening way, and just the overarching filter of you not being afraid to say things that most people wouldn't say.
You're not being afraid to be politically correct. provides a message which is so important and quite, unfortunately, rare.
But it's so, everything you say is so obvious in the sense that it's common sense, but it's common sense that's completely uncommon.That means a lot to me.And that's what I found in your book as well.
I found the same level of brevity and wisdom and experience and diversity of experience which ties into these central ideas.Everyone, if you didn't go by the book last time, you have to go by the book.It's called, How to Stay in Love.
And it's my favorite book ever written on the subject of love and relationships and life, quite frankly.So I think everyone needs to go and get the book.I'll link it below.James, thank you so much.It's great to see you.I love our conversations.
Me too.I hope we have many more.Me too.I really appreciate you.Thank you for having me.It's great to see you. Isn't this cool?
Every single conversation I have here on The Diary of a CEO, at the very end of it, you'll know, I asked the guest to leave a question in The Diary of a CEO.
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