Divorce Lawyer Jim Sexton: Why Marriages Fail, Prenups, Sex, Monogamy & Divorce | E192

22:51He's also just, he's effective, but he's not a jerk. He's not going to unnecessarily, like you live and die by your reputation among your real peers and among like judges. Like not what court staff and judges and your adversaries, your skilled adversaries, think of you as what matters. Like I will tell you as a longtime divorce lawyer now for almost three decades, and also as someone who's represented a lot of celebrities and has a small measure of celebrity myself now as a function of my media work and my profession. I will tell you that, you know, one of the things about being a celebrity or quasi-celebrity, and what I'll tell you from representing celebrities and spending a lot of time with celebrities, is a lot of celebrities are really, really interested in the praise of strangers.

23:40The praise of strangers never meant that much to me. It's one of the reasons why celebrity, or the modicum of celebrity that I enjoy, and certainly representing celebrities, it's never really been that important to me. Like, because praise of strangers is lovely. Don't get me wrong. Like any person who comes up to me on the street, like when I walk to my office, the three blocks I walk from my apartment to my office, I get stopped four or five times. Usually by people saying, you're the divorce lawyer. I know you're from TikTok. I've seen your videos or I read your book. I really liked it. Thankfully, very few people ever say mean things to me.

24:12They usually say nice things to me. It's actually why I understand how some of my celebrity clients can be assholes because you're just getting constant affirmation. thrown at you all day long. Like imagine you walk down the street and people are like, I love you, man. You're awesome. Like what a weird thing, you know? But they're strangers. They don't know you. And it's not a drug you should get like a need, develop a need for. Like, cause it's a, it's a, it's, you know, fame is the mask that eats into the wearer. So for me, being respected by the people I respect is important. You know, people that I hold in high regard, holding me in high regard is important.

24:46People who I hold in high regard, thinking poorly of me, that's something I'll feel. But what strangers think of me, what people in the comments section think of me, it's lovely. But if I believe the good reviews, I have to believe the bad ones too. So I really don't, I just keep moving and try to do the job as best I can. What I will say is bumping out lawyers on the other side of your case who are ineffective and known to churn cases might be a fine idea. You do not want your spouse to hire Bob, the real estate lawyer who has no idea how to do divorces because that's the only lawyer you haven't conflicted out.

25:22You want your spouse to hire an experienced, thoughtful, well-respected matrimonial attorney who knows what they're doing because we're going to save everybody a lot of time by not arguing over dumb things. And we're going to understand what's worth fighting about, what's not worth fighting about. I just literally, right before we started this conversation, and just finished a court appearance. And it's with an adversary who I've had many cases with, Larry Greenberg, very talented lawyer in New York City, high net worth divorce lawyer. We had a brutal case against each other with 13 days of trial, you know,$800 million marital estate.

25:58It concluded about a year ago. And now we have another case with each other. It was a court appearance, but it was a very friendly court appearance because we both understand the assignment, which is to get these people through this thing and to accomplish our clients' goals, our respective clients' goals, identify what are the issues that aren't in dispute, identify what are the issues that are in dispute, and then figure out a way to efficiently resolve those disputes, whether that's by negotiation or litigation. And if we're going to litigate it, litigate it efficiently. And that's what the assignment is.

26:27And that's exactly what we just showed up in court to do. It's not time to start fighting yet. Like when it starts to, it's time to start throwing hands, we will throw hands, but it's not time to start throwing hands yet. So there's no reason to be discourteous. There's no reason to protract things. Like there's no reason. People, part of this job, a big part of this job is getting your client to start to view their divorce as a business transaction, not as a breakup and an emotional situation. I'm not suggesting it's not okay to be emotionally going through divorce. Everyone is emotional when you're going through a divorce.

26:59But the sooner that you realize that the outlet for your anger, your hurt, your frustration, the courtroom and the litigation process is not the best place to do that. In fact, it's one of the worst places you could try to do that. I want to back up for a second and talk about relationships in general. We'll go back to the beginning. And you mentioned business transactions. Sarah Blakely, the founder of Spanx, one of the greatest entrepreneurs of our day. I'm married to Jesse Isler, great entrepreneur as well, was on my show. If you haven't listened to that, I hope you guys do listen to it. He's a stud as well.

27:34You've described relationships and you talk about first dates and first dates are everything. I've ever done their best behavior and you're polite. And you've described them as Spanx for your personality. Talk about what you mean by that and then also go through the first date progression that you've talked about. I'm so great. I'm on my best behavior. and then what happens after that? Well, I think on the first day, you're interested and you're trying to be interesting. And you're super mindful of the assignment, which is, you know, I want this person to like me and I want to be someone this person likes and I want to like them.

28:12I wouldn't be on a date with them if I didn't want to like them. So we're both here with a genuinely shared purpose. Now, again, we might have a different end game in mind. I might be looking to get laid. She might be looking to get married or vice versa. but we're both trying to, you know, connect to the other person in some fashion and for some end.

28:30Jim Sexton:When I say Spanx on your personality, what I mean is that Spanx isn't lying. Makeup isn't lying. It's accentuating the positive and dissentuating the negative, you know? And really that's what sales is, right? I mean, sales is not, the worst salespeople lie. You know, the worst salespeople go in and represent that this product doesn't do something that it does or does something that it doesn't do. Like that's ineffective sales. Or you go in and pretend in a very, you know, passive or real way that you're not looking to sell this person something. Of course you are. Let's be honest with each other.

29:04Again, it's the difference between going in and saying, hey, I would like to have sex with you. So I want to take you out to dinner. That's a little too honest to some degree, right? So you wouldn't go in and say, listen, I want to separate you from your money in this sales call. That's not what you do. You're here to say, look, I want to understand what you need from me. I want to meet your needs. And you know what? I'd like you to meet my needs as well. I'd like to see if there's some accommodation that we can do something for each other that's mutually beneficial. And that is what a date is.

29:30It's a sales call to some degree. And I think, you know, when I say you have spanks on your personality on a first date, what you're trying to do is you're trying to present the best version of yourself possible. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think it's part of the dance of dating and romantic love. And it's one of the most enjoyable parts. But of course, the goal is not to go on an endless succession of first dates. The goal is to find depth with another person. And depth and novelty are kind of at odds with each other. And I think that you have to, early on in a process, I think start giving this person a sense of where you are wearing Spanx, where you have on makeup.

30:13Like I would like to see a woman who I might be serious with. I'd like to see her without makeup or with less makeup fairly early in the relationship. Do I want her to show up on the first date without makeup on? Probably not. I think it's lovely that a person would try to present the best version of themselves. I know if I'm going on a date, I'm going to wear something nice. I'm going to wear a little cologne. I'm going to shave, you know, unless I want to do the oops, I didn't know I was sexy stubble thing. Like I'm going to give some thought to it. You know, ideally, by the way, even at our 50th date, I'm going to give some thought to it.

30:46But I'm not going to be afraid at that point to let this person see me in a very natural state or vulnerable state because there's a lot of good reasons to do that, too. You mentioned questions to ask someone to go on a first date. And I just have to comment as a newly single guy going up to a woman and say, hey, nice to meet you. Do you want to go have sex? It's not an effective strategy. Probably not effective. Yeah, it's probably not effective. Yeah, it's not. It's probably not the kind of person that you want to be with on a long-term basis and establish long-term intimacy with. I mean, obviously, hookups, having sex on first dates do happen.

31:23But I just don't think that's a good opening line. I don't think you're going to win a lot of sales calls on that one. And I don't think it's one that's going to accomplish the goal. But I do think, by the way, there is value in having a conversation about the conversation. Like, I think there is something charming on a date about acknowledging that you're on a date and you're on a first date. And, you know, like, hey, how do you think it's going? You know, like, like, I'm a little nervous. Are you nervous? Like, it's kind of fun. Like, so far, this is going well, don't you think? Like, or if you flubbed something saying, like, I feel like I flubbed that.

31:58I just want to say, like, I feel like if you're going to grade me later on this, I really hope that is not going to make it to the phone call that you make to your best friend later. You know, like, there's something charming about acknowledging that this is a little weird like this is a little surreal like we're but it's also so beautiful to say like you know oh aren't we both aren't we both a mystery a little bit right now like isn't this an interesting moment in the connection of the two of us like i wonder if we'll look back on this someday and be like remember that first date or if it won't be anything that needs to be remembered like if it will just have been a moment that we shared Like, I think there's something really cool about acknowledging when you're in a story that you're in a story.

32:39Some people say dating is like a job interview. There's a sign on. There's a clock on my desk. It has four words on it. Now, now, now, now. And do it now is part of how I do things. Mel Robbins talks about it all the time. It's been a hallmark of my success in my career. and I always coach people in my coaching business to shorten the time between ask and resolve to maximize your probability of success. And that's true in relationships as well. I know you've talked about that as well. So what are you talking about that T minus one to zero should be as short as possible to maximize the probability of going out on a date?

33:23And then And the corollary is how has Do It Now been part of your success as a great attorney? Yeah, I mean, I think fear holds us back a lot. I mean, that's no great wisdom to share. I mean, that's something everybody, I think, understands. And I think we lack sometimes as a species the self-confidence and also the humor. I mean, I think I try to find humor in a lot of things. Like, I think we're quite funny, all of us. I mean, I think our insecurities are funny. Our fears are funny. Like in a long enough timeline. And one of the things I'm very much enjoying about late middle age, you know, being in my 50s, is just how much of a timeline I've now seen, experienced.

34:06You know, I saw one therapist for about 20 years and then he retired and I had to get a new therapist. And I remember when I got my new therapist, you know, it felt very frightening because it felt a little like a date, like a first date. Like it felt like, where do I start? Like there's a whole, I'm not 19 anymore. There's like a whole life of stuff. Like that this other person, by the way, knew. I see me every week for 20 years. Like they know I got divorced because I was sobbing on their couch going through it. They know my mom died from cancer because I was sobbing on their couch going through it.

34:41Like they know all of this little nuanced stuff. How would I ever start over with someone? Okay, well, I'm either not gonna be in therapy or I have to try again. I have to go in and start this new relationship.

34:54Jim Sexton:And one of the things that was so fascinating to me about starting with a new therapist about two, three years ago was how in the Wikipedia page of my life that I was describing to this therapist, there were things that were four sentences that felt like they were the entire world when they were happening. Like, I remember saying to her, I was married to my college sweetheart And, you know, we kind of grew apart. And, you know, we divorced when the kids were five and seven. And we've stayed very friendly since. Are you serious? Like, that was like six sentences. But it was when I was going through it, it was five or six years of like, oh, my God, are they going to be okay?

35:37Is she going to be okay? I don't hate her. I love her. I don't want her to not be okay. And will I be okay without her? I think I will. I think I need to be. And I think she needs to be too. but my God, like, I don't know. And just sort of realizing that, gosh, you know, like it's not even this giant thing. Like, I'm sure there's chapters of your life that you look at now and you're like, it's literally this, I mean, I literally have a Wikipedia page now. And when I read it, I laugh because it's like, there's three sentences. And then I go, yeah, that was the whole thing. Like, and it's very fascinating that it was whole chapters of my life that are now condensed to this thing.

36:16And I think when I now as an adult man, when I enter into an interaction with someone, whether it was in the dating context or it's a relationship business context or anything, you can't take from me that knowledge that like, hey, this is a thing and it could be a really big thing that changes the trajectory of my Wikipedia page or it might not be, it might be nothing. But whatever it is, I feel like I've been through so many things. Because I tell people all the time, friends, that once you've been divorced with children, you feel kind of bulletproof in some ways because you realize it's just like when you've had a business and you've seen it fail and you've survived that.

36:55You sort of go, oh, okay. So I can try really hard and still fail and I'll still survive. Like, okay. I feel a lot more open and brave and a lot more willing to just, you know, like, yeah, let's just see what happens here. Let's try. Let's try some things and see what happens. And so I think that's, you know, a lot of what I try to say to people is in that interaction of like going from the starting place to the place that's closer to where it is you ultimately want to be. Like just get there more open, more be bold, you know, just be very open about where is this? What's going on? How is this?

37:33Is it working? Is it not working? What are we doing? So you date. Date leads to progression. progression leads to supposedly love, and then you get married. And we'll talk about supposedly a little later in the show, but what are the three main reasons why people get married? I think the main reasons people get married are, one would be societal pressure, that there's a external pressure exerted by society that you're supposed to get married. The simplest expression of that is to say, if I said to you, you know, Randall, I'm in a really great relationship for the last few years and we've decided we're going to get married.

38:12Your response is, oh, congratulations. That's wonderful. Not really, why? Like, why? Like, you're talking about a technology that fails more than 50 % of the time. Why in God's name? But you said you're happy. Why, it's not broke. Why do you need to fix it? Whereas if I said to you, maybe not to you, but to most people, yeah, I've been in a relationship for a number of years and we were talking last weekend and we've decided we're not going to get married. You would go, I'm okay. Like, there's some intimacy issues there. He got an avoidant detachment style. What's happening? You know, you wouldn't look at it and go, yeah, that makes sense.

38:41Why would you get married? It's a terrible preposition. I mean, statistically, it's a bad idea, you know? So there's an assumption you should get married and that if you choose not to marry, that you must not have sufficient faith in the relationship, which again, runs contrary completely to statistics. So that's the societal pressure piece. Two, I think there's still a tremendous religious and familial, I'll lump those into the same category, a familial pressure or a religious pressure to marry, to legitimize a relationship. The old saying of, oh, you're going to make an honest woman of her. Again, I'm not sure where that comes from.

39:22I think tradition is in some ways the wisdom of the people who came before us and what we can learn from them. And tradition is also peer pressure exerted by dead people. So it's really a question of are you going to make your life and the trajectory of it impacted by peer pressure exerted by dead people? I personally don't think that's a very good motivation. But do we have things to learn from the people who came before us? I do. I think that, you know, there's grandmas have a bunch of remedies for different ailments, not just because their grandma's like, they do something, you know? So I think, but you have to separate the wheat from the, from the chef, you know?

40:02So that's number two. And number three, getting married is fun. Like it's fun. Like getting married is the most, one of the most enjoyable experiences a person can have. Being married is one of the most challenging experiences a person can have. But getting married is a blast. It's a party. It's food. It's the booze is flowing. It's, I mean, my son, my oldest son got married a few months ago. It was amazing. It was the most enjoyable experiences of my life being at that wedding and watching it and being around him and all of his friends and this lovely young woman who's so enamored with this lovely young man who I helped teach that the cow says moo.

40:43you know and she's sitting there saying you know you're the best man i know you make me feel so safe like i don't think i've ever felt such pride as i did in that moment you know every every every home run he ever hit every a he brought home from school was nothing compared to this young beautiful lovely self-assured accomplished woman looking at my little boy and saying you're the best man I know. You make me feel safe. Like it was the finish line of sorts. It was the most beautiful thing. And yet it was the starting line of sorts and such a beautiful thing to be part of and to bear witness to and to feel like I got to see the beginning of a chapter that would be so lovely.

41:25So again, you know, I think there's lots of emotional reasons that we want this thing. It's the triumph of faith over reason to some degree. Let's talk about the statistics. I mean, we have a lot more stats to talk about, but you mentioned 50 % and in divorce, that's not a very good number. Um, I do like playing the lottery when it's$300 million or more, although my odds, I think of one or 200 million, this is kind of like one or two. And there's a, there's a 1989 movie called drugster cowboy director. Love it. Great movie. Uh, Matt Damon has a famous line. Tell us about that line. And then tell us about your great, famous toast that you make at weddings when you're asked to give a toast.

42:12There's a line in Drugstore and Cowboy Great Film where Matt Dillon's character says, we played a game you couldn't win to the utmost. And I find that line just gives me chills. It's so beautiful. I think the idea that you would play a game you can't win to the utmost. Because I think that's what we're doing in life. I mean, you're going to die. I'm going to die. And everything we own, everything we accomplished will add up to a great big pile of nothing to some degree. You know, I look at people that were, you know, I look at Madonna as a great example. You know, Madonna, when I was growing up, was possibly the most famous person in the world.

42:50And now if I say to my 26-year-old son, Madonna, he's like, oh, that kind of weird looking lady who had all that cosmetic surgery. Like he doesn't even know really who she is. I understand that that's the nature of fame and celebrity. It's the nature of the passage of time. You know, a hundred years from now, no one you love will be alive. And a hundred years from now, no one who loves you will be alive. And so when you think about that, and you think about the fact you've already lived half of that time period or more, you realize that, you know, all of this stuff is not, you're playing a game you can't win to the utmost.

43:24Ideally, you play it and you play it hard because it's the experience of playing it. Like the purpose of dancing is not to move from one side of the dance floor to the other. The purpose of dancing is to dance. You know, the purpose of dancing is to experience the sensation of that movement and that moment and to feel it. This is what this is about. Like marriage, you're going to die. Like your marriage will end. Every marriage ends. It ends in death or divorce. You're playing a game you can't win. But the point is to play the game to the utmost. The way to win is by playing and by playing with everything you have.

44:03It's why I refuse to say that my first marriage failed. I don't feel that it failed. I think that it accomplished what it was supposed to accomplish. It produced two amazing children. It made me a better man. I hope she would say it made her life better too, that the connection we had together was a productive one. And then it ended. You know, the marriage ended. She went on to marry another man who's a great guy. And she's been married to him almost double the amount of times she was married to me. So obviously it was a good choice. She chose well. So I think that it is a game you can't win. But it's a game that in some ways you can't lose either if you approach it the right way.

44:40You see so many people fighting and you see different personalities and you get reasons for conflict and a divorce. We're going to talk about all of them cheating, which everyone wants to talk about. It's a huge topic based on the hundreds of people you represent over the years. Are there groups of people or personalities who should not get married? Yeah. I don't think marriage is for everyone. I think we've created a one-size-fits-all approach to it and told everybody that it's something they should all do. And I just don't think that's true. You know, I hate to use the same metaphor, you know, because it feels a little profane for something as important as marriage as such a lifetime loving commitment.

45:23But like not everyone should own their own business. They just don't have the constitution for it. Like some people should work for people. You can be perfectly happy working for someone. If you find the right boss or the right company, you can have a very satisfying... My partner, Colin, my law partner, Colin's been with me 15 years. He's very happy not running a law firm. He's very happy working for me. and I'm very happy with him working for me because I'm very much control oriented and I like to make all the decisions and I like to do things by committee. And he trusts me and I've earned that trust.

45:52And, you know, we work wonderfully together. I think he's smart. He knows that I said to him many years ago, like, hey, do you want to be like an equity partner and we'll do it again? He said, no, this is great, man. I'm having a great time. I make a lot of money. I enjoy my work. I have time with my family. Why would I ever want to do that? You know, and so I think knowing there are some people that I think are not wired for marriage, but I think the metric is very, I mean, obviously I could explain, I think it's very easy to say that there are certain types of habits and personality traits that are antagonistic to marriage.

46:24People with serious substance use issues, you know, getting married is a bad idea. People who are incredibly uncomfortable being alone to the point where being alone causes them to sort of spiral into a sense of not having any identity, I actually think you shouldn't get married if you're that way. Even though marriage will probably be one of the most appealing things to you because it's, oh my God, I'm going to have a person and I won't ever be alone. I think that's actually a terrible reason to marry because I actually think that to have really effective romantic relationships, you almost have to resent this person for taking you away from your solitude.

47:05You know, I've always said in my post divorce dating life to any woman who would date me, like, if you're going to rob me of my solitude, you owe me companionship. Like, you owe me quality companionship because I love being alone. Like, I have a very social job. I have a wonderful media presence where I get to have lovely conversations like this one. I am never lonely, you know, and if I'm sleeping alone, it's because I'd like to be, you know, so I like to starfish out in the bed. I enjoy sleeping alone. So, but do I enjoy companionship, quality companionship? Of course, who wouldn't, who doesn't?

47:43So I think it's okay in the economy of a relationship, you know, and I'm sure we'll get into that. I get criticized sometimes for referring to relationships as an economy, but I think every relationship is an economy. You know, an economy is an exchange of value between two people. And it's an ecosystem of sorts. So I think a romantic relationship, including a marriage, is an economy. It's an exchange of value. And an exchange of value is not how many pineapples is worth how many pineapples. One, that's really easy. It's how many apples is worth how many pineapples. Now we're having a conversation because apples and pineapples are different things.

48:20And so how much is an apple worth to you? How much is a pineapple worth to me? that's a conversation worth having but in marriage we've created this approach again culturally where it's just supposed to be do you love the person well then you should marry them okay that's insane that's that's you're not giving any honest thought to the economy that is this relationship i think at my age i'm 57 you're 52 we've both been on the single scene for a little while i've been single now for eight months ish right now we're gonna talk about what the dating world is like in a little bit. But as I've been older, I have a lot of female friends.

49:01Obviously, there's a certain age at which a woman should have a baby from a health perspective and how every year thereafter, especially in your mid to late 30s, the chance of going something wrong with your baby increases by a material percentage. I know a lot of women, I'm not talking about men right now because there's a lot of reasons why men get married and we'll talk about that in the show also. but I have so many women friends throughout the years who are telling themselves, I'm going to settle. I'm not going to love this person. I'm not in love with this person because I want to have a baby.

49:32Jim Sexton:What are the top three reasons why people should get married? I mean, my answers are going to be wildly unromantic. I think the three best reasons to get married with a prenup, I don't think anyone should get married without a prenup. We can talk about that later. But by the way, I think everyone has a prenup. It's either one written by the government. It's one written by the two people that like each other more than the 8 billion other options. So every relationship has a prenup. It's just, do you trust the government to write it for you? I generally don't. Because it's not even the present government.

50:02It's the government of a future that you're imagining and hasn't happened yet. So that's crazy. If you're saying, do you trust the government? I don't even trust the current government, much less the imagined future government. That's a lot to ride on. So what are the reasons to get married? I think the best reasons to get married are, A, it's super fun to have a wedding, and it can be a way to solidify your intention together and to express it publicly in a way that's meaningful for both of you. And also, I'm a fan of ceremony, and I think it captures some ceremony. I think that the older I get, the more I've come to value symbolism.

50:42I think we live in a world of symbols, and I think that there's something beautiful about the symbolism of marriage if you both share that symbol. So, you know, the idea of wearing a ring because you want to be reminded physically of each other at all times and you want other people to see a symbol of your commitment to each other. I think that's very beautiful. And I think there's something beautiful about a wedding itself. I think if the first time everyone you love is in the same room celebrating you as your funeral, you're an idiot. I think you really should have, moments where you celebrate, whether it's birthday parties or whether it's whatever.

51:17You should have moments, celebrations. Some of my greatest memories of life are from symbolic moments like that. Weddings, funerals, birthday parties, things like that. I think there's certainly still tax benefit to getting married and financial benefit in terms of being able to be on each other's health insurance, things like that. I know that's unromantic to say, but there is a certain pragmatism to it. I also think many hands like work. I think that life is challenging. But that's not marriage necessarily. That's pair bonds. Like I'm a big fan of pair bonds. Marriage is just something we put on that to say, okay, this will shore it up, you know, but as I putting a fence around your house and saying, okay, now I'm totally safe.

51:53And no one could ever rob me. Like, no, people can scale fences. People can cut through fences. People can open the gate to fences. Like don't kid yourself by thinking that because you put up a fence, now you're safe. That's just dumb. You know, just like saying, oh, I love this person and they love me and it's really, really good. So now we'll get married and it'll stay that way. That's insane to think that. But I do think there is some value in the symbolism of it. And I do think that there's some enjoyment in celebrating the symbolism of it. And I do think it does create opportunities to shore up certain things.

52:24Proximity to another person and having someone, like if I could see my own blind spots, it wouldn't be blind spots. Like they're blind spots because I can't see them. And I can't learn everything I need to know about myself from myself. I need people to help me see those things. And people who are coming at it with a real commitment to my best interests. People who are coming at it and saying, no, no, I love you. And I'm going to tell you things you might not want to hear because I love you. And I'm going to tell you things you need to hear because I love you. And I'm also going to cheer for you because the world is awful sometimes and hard.

52:57And to have someone who at the end of the day gives you that little bit of sweetness, that's one of the best things in my experience, It's one of the best things about having a relationship with a woman, you know, for me, is that little bit of sweetness at the end of the day. That's worth all the money in the world. Like that's worth whatever the price tag looks like. To have someone who at the end of the day, when the world has weighed me down and I've been out trying to slay dragons all day and I'm exhausted, to have someone say to me, like, come sit, come rest, come be with me, just sit with me, you know, just spend time together who smells nice and who, you know, has a soft touch.

53:32Like, oh, that's one of the greatest things in the world. I mean, I'll slay dragons all day long if I can have that at the end of the day. And we're even. I don't count the cost. I don't look at it and go, you know, my parents, they didn't do everything perfectly. But one of the things they did really well is my mom was a stay-at-home mom. My dad went out and worked really hard. But my dad never, ever talked about my mom like she didn't work. He made a point of like, hey, did you thank your mom for making this lovely dinner for us tonight? Like he acknowledged that, no, she works in this home.

54:02and I worked out of this home, but we're both really important to this family. We both have a job, and that job's really important. And he was constantly thanking her for it, and she was constantly thanking him for what he did. And I think there's something really beautiful about that. We're just talking about factors that lead to positive relationships and negative relationships in terms of marriage. And we'll talk about stats throughout the show as well. One of the factors is length of relationship. There was a university study a few years back, 3 ,000 individuals, about couples who dated for three years or more before marriage were about 50 % less likely to divorce compared to those who dated for less than a year.

54:44And that dating for one to two years lowered the divorce risk by about 20%. In your own practice, have you seen a material difference between those who got married within a year as I did in my second marriage? We got engaged after three months as opposed to those who've been married 10 years. You know, some people said I've got the 10 year itch right now. What do you see in your own marriage? What do you see in your own practice? Yeah, what I will tell you, I'm constantly. I'm trying in my own practice to see if I see any correlations so that I can determine if there is any aspect of causation from my own sort of, you know, just where I'm sitting.

55:24Again, it's not the same as double blind research. You know, there is a good amount of research out there about marriage, about marriage satisfaction rates, which I think is actually more interesting than divorce rates. Like divorce rates is how many of this catastrophically failed. I don't know that that's all that people are interested in. And I think people are actually interested in how many people would do this again and say, oh yeah, this was a good decision I made, not a bad one. You know, how many people 10 years in, 20 years in still really like their spouse? And by the way, how many of those people, if they hadn't married, would still have liked each other just as much 10 years later, 20 years later?

55:59Like how much did marriage contribute to that? Or was it just that this person met the right person and then knew the habits of how to stay connected to that person. I don't know that marriage was the thing. You know, it's kind of like we're mixing up the causality aspect of it. You know, that are they happily married because they were right for each other

56:20Jim Sexton:or are they right for each other because they got married? Like, you know, I think it's much more that marriage is like the frosting on the thing as opposed to being the thing itself. So I genuinely believe that I don't see those statistical correlations. I've seen people that got married very quickly and hardly knew each other. And I've seen people that waited a really long time. In my observation, I think a sweet spot is like a couple of years because I think a couple of years into a relationship, I think it's more about experience. Let me put it that way. Because the reason I think a couple of years before you marry is a good metric, much to the chagrin of people who, again, are concerned about a biological clock or about, you know, all legitimate things to be concerned about, is that I just think you should experience some things.

57:08You should see the organism under stress. You know, I think Schopenhauer said, like, to know a thing, know its limits. When it's pushed past its tolerances, its nature emerges. I always watch these shows like The Bachelor and stuff like that. And they're like, oh, he was so romantic. And I'm like, yeah, you're on an island. Like, it's not hard to be romantic on vacation. Like, everyone's having fun on vacation. It's like saying, oh, this is so good. It's ice cream. Ice cream's good. what are you talking about? Of course it's good. Like, I want to see, you know, everyone at the job interview is somewhat impressive.

57:38Everyone drives slow when the cops are behind. Like, I want to see what you're like when you're under stress. I want to see what you're like when you're sick. I want to see what you're like when you are upset at me. I want to see what it's like when I disappoint you or when you disappoint me, how do you handle it? Or when I give you feedback on something, how do you handle that? How do you handle criticism? How do you criticize? And I'd like to understand that. And I think you could condense that if you were thoughtful about it. That leads to this question, which is, in a lot of cultures, don't live together before you get married.

58:10Should couples do a mini test and live together before they get married? See, I don't know that the living together is the thing. I had a buddy who I've talked about before that moved in with a girl he'd been dating for a while. And I got together with him for coffee. And I said, oh, how's it going? And he said, well, you know, it's hard when you first move in together. And I thought, no, it's not. Like, I remember it mostly being having sex a lot and putting together IKEA furniture. Like, it was great. Like, what are you talking about? Like, you first lived together? It's like, oh my God, this is so fun.

58:41And oh, look at your little toothbrush you put there. And like, oh, like, and having sex in different rooms of the house. Like, what are you talking about? That's crazy. Like, it's early days. It's fun, you know? So I don't know that there's so much to learn from that. I think that it's worthwhile to see this other person's environment in its raw state. I think that's really important. Like I think when you're having company over, you clean the house up and you take out the nice tea set maybe. So that's not a reliable indicator. But I think if you're dating someone and you spend time with them in their space, not when it's curated for your visit, but what's it really like?

59:17Are they neat? Are they messy? Are they someone who needs space of their own when they're working? Or are they someone who can work while engaging with you? These are all useful things to know if you're considering a long-term relationship with somebody. But again, I don't think the only way to learn that is by being in that person's actual proximity and living with them. I think you can figure out what it might be like to live with a person by observing them. I think most of the things people need to see are there to be seen. But when you go through a relationship with rose-colored glasses, all the red flags look like flags.

59:54like and that's the problem i think that we love is a reflex in some ways like it's really easy to feel love and love is a verb like love is a way of relating to another person i'm going to treat you with love i'm going to love you you know i'm going to accept you i'm going to be kind to you i'm gonna it's a verb so the emotion of love is really easy to feel but the analytical aspect of bit of saying, okay, yeah, of course, I feel deep connection to you. I feel passion for you. I feel affection for you. I feel that about a lot of people that I wouldn't marry. Like marriage is about a very specific kind of connection with another person.

1:00:38And what are the characteristics? If you can take off the rose-colored glasses, because again, I love love. I'm a big believer in love, but I don't believe in fairy tales. Like, I think fairy tales are really useful. Like, I grew up very Catholic. I don't believe that a person actually lived in the belly of a whale. You're crazy if you think that's a real thing. It's not. You know, like, I've watched the Star Wars movies, and I think they can be a beautiful metaphor. Obi-Wan Kenobi saying to Darth Vader, if you strike me down, you'll make me even more powerful, is the same story as Jesus. The idea that you can kill me, but you'll never kill the idea that I've released into the world.

1:01:22You'll make me eternal by killing me. Like, it's a beautiful story. But if you tell me Wookiees are real, you're crazy. There's something wrong with you. That's not a true thing. Wookiees aren't real. There's no such thing as Chewbacca. So it's the same thing. If you tell me, I want to feel with someone the feeling of like, you're the most beautiful woman in the world to me. And I want to love you forever. And I want this feeling between us to last forever. What a beautiful statement of intention. If you think 10 years into a relationship, you are still going to feel that insane rush that you felt the first time you kissed someone, you're delusional, but you're going to trade it for something that's equally, if not more valuable than that thing.

1:02:08And I don't think that's unromantic. I don't think, you know, there's a quote from a Joseph Brodsky poem that I frequently say, I open my book with it, which is, I wish I knew no astronomy when stars appear. Because there's something really romantic about not knowing what stars are, just seeing them as beautiful little lights in the sky. But I actually think that you can know what they are and they can still be really beautiful and romantic. I don't think that the conscious knowledge of a thing and the beauty of it are antagonistic to each other. We're going to get into cheating in a minute, but I want to follow up on something you said about being Catholic.

1:02:45The Catholic religion, you're not supposed to have sex until you get married. And everyone today will look at, oh, I married my high school sweetheart. I haven't had sex with anybody else. Have you seen couples who have been through only one sexual partner in their whole life, do they have a greater propensity to cheat? And is it your advice that people should have multiple sexual partners before they get married? Wow, those are some really big questions. So I've certainly seen people in fewer numbers, but I've seen people who were virgins when they married and they were each other's first sexual experience.

1:03:22Usually they come from a religious community, whether it's the Hasidic Jewish community or extremely Christian community. I've had a few Muslim clients that it's usually from a religious narrative. It's very rarely just because somebody just didn't get around to having sex. Like it's a primary biological drive. It's not the sort of thing people don't notice. It's usually a conscious decision to not marry. If you tell people you're not allowed to have sex until you get married, people are going to get married very young, period. I don't believe it's a coincidence that the average age of marriage and the acceptability of sex outside of the bond of matrimony, I don't think it's a coincidence that those two things have moved in the same trajectory.

1:04:06Like I think that once we said, you're not going to be shunned if you have sex before you're married, then I think people said, okay, well then I'll wait to get married

1:04:15Jim Sexton:because it's not such an urgency. I mean, the desire to have sex is a gigantic drive. It's a huge motivator for almost everyone. So I think that has tremendous value. If you want to encourage people to marry, you would encourage them to not have sex until they're married. Now, is that a good idea? I don't know that it's a good idea. I think that we as a species, men particularly as a subsect of that species, crave novelty. I think that sexual novelty is more important, and this is not my studies. This is the massive data that's out there. It all overwhelmingly says that men enjoy hookup culture more than women do.

1:05:01And that's one of the reasons why the sort of sex in the city vacation of Western culture has been so abysmally bad for women. Because it essentially said to women, like, just have sex like a man. Like, go out and have fun. Like, have novelty. And most women, when they are interviewed in a real clinical setting, and there's real long-term studies of this, A, they enjoy sex less and have fewer orgasms when they are having sex with someone with whom they do not have an emotional connection. And they don't enjoy hookup culture the way that men do. And if you want to see further proof of that, look at gay male culture versus lesbian female culture.

1:05:41Gay men culture is a culture of hookup. Female lesbian culture is a culture of relationships. Hookups are not as important, whereas gay men, they're having a great time out there, having lots of sex with lots of partners and enjoying them. So Grindr does not exist really in the lesbian community hookup app. I mean, there's approximations of it, but they're nowhere near as popular as Grindr. Why? Because it's two men. They crave novelty. They don't really necessarily see sex as something that's tied to emotion or relationship. It can just be something that's fun. And they find that as satisfying without the emotional connection.

1:06:12So I think if you look at like Sigmund Freud's civilization and its discontents, the idea that like marriage is like a price you have to pay in order to have sex with someone, I think that's going to be an effective way of getting people to marry. Because you could say, you got to finish an obstacle course and develop an eight pack to get married and guys would be much more prone to doing those things. Like if you said, you're not allowed to marry until you have X number of dollars, you would see a lot of very hardworking men all of a sudden. They'd be out there going, you got it, whatever I got to do to break through the barrier to have sex.

1:06:42I'm going to do it. So I think that it's a tremendous motivator for people. Do I think that the second question you asked, which is, do I think people should go out and have a number of sexual partners before they marry? Statistically, the science on that is that it's generally not a good idea for women, meaning that women who have a high number of sexual partners often find they have a higher correlation to divorce. Men, it's not as high. Men seem to have the ability to have a lot of premarital sexual partners and not have it affect the likelihood of divorce. I'm not sure why there are a lot of people, Mike Sartain, a number of evolutionary biologists who've talked and written about this.

1:07:24I wouldn't claim that that's my area of expertise. What I would say is I have definitely seen a lot of men who had a high number of sexual partners and then successfully marry and stay married. I have not seen as many women who had a very high, what they now call body count, and then had a successful monogamous marriage later. Although the idea that a woman has to have limited or no sexual partners before marriage in order to have a successful marriage, I think is a fallacy. I have not found that to be true, that women who've had a lower number of sexual partners don't end up in my office. I've seen a lot of women who had a variety of sexual partners before their marriage, and their marriage ends.

1:08:09I've seen a lot of women who had limited sexual partners. That's a very human thing that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. If you find your sexual relationship unsatisfying, whether you've had a lot of sex prior to it or whether it was your first sexual relationship, I think people generally like having a satisfying sexual relationship. That shouldn't be breaking news. That's from the center for pointing out obvious shit. So I think people like having a satisfying sexual relationship. So if you consciously focus on keeping that metric of your relationship in a healthy place, whether you've had lots of partners or limited number of partners, the worst pain you've ever felt is the worst pain you've ever felt.

1:08:54If the worst pain I've ever felt is a bee sting and the worst pain you've ever felt is having your leg lobbed off, the worst pain you've felt is the worst pain you've ever felt. The best sex you've ever had is the best sex you've ever had. So if you had a bunch of sexual partners that now you're comparing your current sexual partner to in a negative way, that's bad. Theoretically, you should marry someone who you have a satisfying sexual relationship with. Listen, I've had the best meal of my whole life at a little cafe in Paris many years ago. I can tell you, it's not like when I eat a lovely meal in the United States, I go, well, this is good, but it's not as good as that meal in Paris.

1:09:31Like, I don't think about that meal. once in a while I go oh that was really good it's a good enough reason to go back to Paris but do I now find every other meal unsatisfying no I think that I have lots of I love Chipotle I could eat there three days a week I really enjoy it and I do I enjoy it as much as that meal no but is it very satisfying to me it's lovely so I think you want to find someone who have a satisfying sexual relationship with that's that's what's important I'm just going to make a statement about my own view and then we can just move on which is my own view on this is sex is very important to every relationship.

1:10:04And my rabbi said to me, Steve Leder, who is a genius, he said, if you're not having sex with your wife, you're having sex with somebody else. And we're going to get into cheating in a minute from now. For me and a lot of my guy friends, and I'm not generalizing, I'm just speaking from my own view, you want someone who is sexually experienced because sex will not be as enjoyable if you're with someone who doesn't know how to please you and hasn't had the experience of knowing how to please somebody. On the flip side, you don't want to be with somebody who's been with a lot of men. There's just something about it mentally that turns a lot of men off.

1:10:38And I'm speaking for me, and I may get hate mail out of this. I'm speaking through my friends as well, because we all talk about this. So I think there is a middle ground somewhere. And I think it's the same for women too. I'll just say I have a lot of women friends who feel the same way. Although a lot of my women friends, and again, this is a small sample size for the nerdy people out there. This is not a P-value statistic. It's just, you know, the women friends that I have are less concerned about that. They're more interested in different things. So that's just my statement. I'm a single guy.

1:11:11Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think what I would say in response to that is I think on the topic of monogamy, my feeling is that I believe in the form of monogamy that is I'm going to have sex with as many people as I want to. And ideally that number is one. that's it ideally that number is one i because when i'm satisfied i don't eat anymore like when i'm not hungry anymore i don't eat anymore like if i was in a relationship with a woman and she came home and she said i met a guy today i really want to have sex with but you know we made this rule and i honor the rule so we're good i would feel terrible that is not good like i don't want you to not have sex with other men because we agreed that that's the rule i want you to not have sex with other men because I satisfy you sexually and you're happy with me and you're full.

1:11:57You don't need any more. You don't need to eat anymore. You're full. You're happy. If I came home and said, oh yeah, you know, there's lots of women I'd rather, I'd really like to have sex with, but I made a promise. I'm going to honor my promise, babe. Like that's a terrible, terrible thing. I think it should be. Yeah, of course, there's all kinds of shiny new things out there, but I love you. You make me happy. You satisfy me. Like we know how to get, and by the way, I'm going to push back just a little bit on, I think you're right. If someone's a virgin and they've had no sexual experience, they may have a lot to learn.

1:12:27The truth is, I think in every relationship, we're kind of born anew. You know, we throw things from past relationships at a person in bed. But what one person liked, another person might not like. And what another person didn't like, this person might like a whole bunch. So you learn each other. And I think that it's more important, the desire to please your partner, than having experience at pleasing lots of partners. Yes, sure. If you've been driving for 20 years, you're probably better at driving than someone who just off the road. But people have been driving for 20 years and they still suck at it.

1:12:58And I know people that learned how to drive really quick and they're just good at it. They have a natural proclivity. Sleeping with me is not a metric that sleeping with you, you'll be good at or sleeping with five other men successfully. Like we're all different. We all like different things. In fact, a level of sexual experience, you might think you know something you don't know. Because my experience of women as lovers has been that they all like lots of different things. And the thing that one person likes, another person might not. And if I went into that interaction with a lot of confidence based purely on experience, I'm not doing a very good job.

1:13:33If I go in with a lot of confidence that I want to be good at this and I'm going to take the time to pay attention to your body, your reaction, what gets a response from you, I'm going to learn you and I'm going to learn your pleasure because I want to, because I know it's important. That to me, any man or any woman would love to know that their partner feels that way. So one of the things that people discuss and ask, which is so common, I have 24 year old twin girls. They both have serious boyfriends. I love them both. They're both coming. We have a vacation house in Coeur d 'Alene. They're flying very long distances on nonstop flights.

1:14:11to be with me. I'm so grateful for them. But you think about they're age 24. How long is it going to be before they get engaged and they get married? There are statistics that show the longer that you date, the less lucky you are to get divorced. But, and here's a big but, and here's a big caveat, in that same study, they had 32 as kind of a cutoff. Up to 32 years old, every year you wait actually helps you stay married. The older you are, when you get married, the less likely you are to get divorced. In fact, every year you wait, knocks your divorce odds down 11 % up to age 32. After 32, it flips.

1:14:54Now, every year you wait starts working against you, and your divorce odds start slowly stacking back up by about 5 % a year. Is there an ideal age that people should get married? Are these stats just bullshit? Well, those stats aren't bullshit, but the problem with all of them, I'm familiar with the studies that you're talking about. A lot of the Wake Forest studies and there's a number of other studies that have been done that show this same thing. The problem is, again, they all gauge as the success that you didn't divorce. And I don't think anybody gets married saying, this sucked, but we managed to stay together.

1:15:33That's a ridiculous thing. I hate it. I kept my job for 50 years. Did you enjoy it? I hated every day of it. Okay, then you didn't win. You lost. You gave up 50 years of your life for something that you hated? This is crazy. So all of those statistics, it's how likely are you to divorce? It could just be that people at or about the age of 32 learn to resign themselves to their fate and sort of acknowledge that, you know, like, yeah, I'm my own worst enemy. And, you know, happiness is sort of a temporary fleeting state. So yeah, I'm not happy being married, but I wasn't happy being not married.

1:16:08So whatever. It could just be that people learn to lower their expectations by that age. I really don't know how to interpret that data because unless you could then take that same sample and have some real insight as to marriage satisfaction, then I think you'd have something of value. But they don't do that. That's not because the long-term follow-up of that would be very complicated as a study. So do I think there's a lot of statistics about the likelihood of, like the most interesting statistics to me personally about marriage are a lot of the Wake Forest studies that were out there because they have a long-term institute that studies marriage satisfaction and divorce rate.

1:16:45It's like the center for the marriage and the family or something along those lines. And they're not like religious based or anything like that. They're very sort of analytical about the process.

1:16:53Jim Sexton:And what I think is interesting is that they've come out with a lot of studies about economics and educational factors. So people who have a college education are less likely to divorce. People who are over a certain income level are less likely to divorce, but below another income level. So that's the stuff that it's kind of an inconvenient truth that people don't like to talk about because a lot of my same conservative friends who are very quick to talk about a terrible divorce is when you talk to them about, okay, so then we need to make college education more accessible to people and we need to get rid of income inequality.

1:17:29They're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, Kami, what are you talking about? And when I say to my friends who are progressive liberals, oh, well, actually the marriage statistics for people who have children are better than people who don't have children. They're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, trad wife guy. What are you trying to get women barefoot and pregnant? So like, I can't help but piss both sides off constantly when I point out to them that if you really cared about marriage from a statistical standpoint, that you were like, oh, we need to stave off divorce, irrespective of marriage satisfaction. Like the goal should be that people should marry and have children, whether they like it or not to some degree.

1:18:11Like whether it's gonna make them happy or not, then we know what to do. Get married younger and have kids. Like that's statistically the better way to go. But is that gonna lead to satisfying outcomes? the research suggests it might not so and it also by the way is the moment we're in these are questions about value like what is valuable to you you know you just described that you have these two 24 year old daughters who you feel a deep connection and bond with and who you love and feel pride for you know you have nachos for them right okay if that's something that you have well then the marriage that you had that produced those children was incredibly successful like i'm so glad you did it because if at that exact moment you hadn't been with that exact woman you know i was talking to my friend andrew huberman and he was explaining to me like how you know the the complicated world of sort of genetic and he said like you realize if you had sex an hour later you'd have different children like you'd have different children like like it's really a function of like which sperm and which moment and which egg and like it's a really amazing thing when you look at the miracle that is the existence of a human being.

1:19:21If you love those girls, which of course I know you do, and you see them and you're an accomplished man, you see them as one of your greatest accomplishments, more accomplished than billions of dollars of income produced for people and hundreds of thousands of jobs you've created. You created these two lovely young women. Then you're -

1:19:44Jim Sexton:Five kids total. Five, oh, I'm just using the girls as an example. I'm using the girls as an example. And also they're on the older end of the spectrum. So we've already seen a positive result. And a seven-year-old, we're not sure. No, I'm just kidding. But the truth is we're really seeing that you produced two amazing adults, and young adults on their way. And your marriage was a success. It was an absolute, I don't care that it ended in divorce. I don't care how you feel about each other in the present day, whether you still care about each other or whether you couldn't stand each other and we couldn't put you in the same room or that you could be in the same room and enjoy each other's company.

1:20:18It's irrelevant. You produce these two amazing human beings. So I think we have to get our shit together, for lack of a better term, as a society about what's the point of all of this? Like, what's the point of the whole experiment? Because if the point of the whole thing is just maximize your pleasure, if hedonism is the goal of life, then maybe you don't have kids because you can have lots of sex and lots of food and lots of travel and lots of other stuff. or maybe a deep joy and fulfillment can be found in watching your children grow and have success. But there's a tremendous amount of work that you have to invest to accomplish that.

1:21:00That's not a like set it and forget it passive investing style, having children. Like having children is more like day trading. Like it's a lot of fly by the seat of your pants terror. It's like starting your own business. It's like you got to trade what you want now for what you want most. And there's periods of time where you're like, this may not work out. And then suddenly somehow it does. And then there's moments where you go, it's definitely gonna work out. And then somehow it all goes horribly wrong at that moment. It's a real long journey. It's a hero's journey. And so I think that we have to first define what is a successful marriage before I can tell people at what age they should get married.

1:21:37Because if children is the goal of marriage, if children is the goal of life, if producing offspring is the most satisfying way to create your life, then we should be getting married much sooner. And we should be creating conditions in a society where people can do that. Because it's our fault. It's us. It's us guys with gray hair. It's our fault that this is no longer the case. You can't get out of college anymore and go buy a house. You can't work for an entry-level job anymore and be able to buy. I got out of college with nothing. And through sheer hard work, I was able to buy a small condominium, having saved a little bit every day.

1:22:19And I think I bought it for$140 ,000, something like that, and lived there with my then wife who worked as an assistant manager at Blockbuster Video. And between the two of us, we could afford this place and put a little money away. And we invested it wisely because I called a buddy of mine and I said to him, hey, there's this bookstore or on the internet. It's so cool. You can get any book. It's called Amazon. Do they have a stock yet? Because I got a$3 ,000 tax return and I want to buy some stock with it so I can invest. And he said, they just posted their first earnings. They haven't really shown anything.

1:22:54Like I don't, that would be risky. Here's what you should do. If you want to take$3 ,000 and invest, it takes$1 ,500 and put it in that against my advice. The other$1 ,500, put it in a reliable known company, MCI WorldCom. And that's what I did. And that's been an Amazon a bunch of years later, it bought me my next house. The MCI WorldCom stock went down to zero, even though it was a company been around for a really, really long time. Because why? The internet happened and it got rid of all of that. So I think fundamentally, what age you get married has a lot to do with what is it you're trying to accomplish in life?

1:23:28And what have we created as a society in terms of conditions for young people to get married? I have a 26-year-old who is working very hard right now. Now, he is not in the same position I was when I was 26, and it's not his fault. We've created structural inequalities here. First wife, I have an amazing first wife. I'm so happy that we had three amazing kids, like you said. You know, my first ex-wife and soon-to-be second ex-wife, very, very different. I said to my second ex-wife, you should actually sit down with my first ex-wife, and she could teach you a lot about what it means to be respectful as a parent, to do the best interest of what's in the best interest of our kids.

1:24:05and we'll talk about this a little bit later in the show. I want to talk about more statistics as people want to know what they actually are. And here's what they actually are. Between 46 and 53 % of first marriages fail. Around 60 % of second marriages fail. I'm not proud of it. And then if you get married a third time, which I do and which I will. I'm a romantic. I love being in love. 73 to 76 % of third marriages fail. Those are crazy numbers. In a lot of ways, that leads us to prenup conversation, which you have mentioned already. I'm a romantic at heart. And I'm wondering, Jim, so the way that a lot of prenups work, just to tell people there's there are clauses in there.

1:24:51You get married a certain amount of time. You get a certain amount of money. I know a lot of women who tell me and I only know women who have to sign the prenups. I don't know a woman who had the money that makes the men sign the prenup. But I do know the reverse. And the way they work, at least my friends, is for every year you get married, you get a certain amount of money. Isn't signing a prenup with somebody unromantic? And if the man has money, isn't it treating like your future wife like a prostitute? So those are two separate questions. So I'll take them separately. So the first one, I'll start with the second one, which is, is it treating your wife like a prostitute?

1:25:27I don't think so. Any more so than for a woman to marry a man and expect him to be a breadwinner is treating him like a mule or a donkey that's there to pull your cart.

1:25:38Jim Sexton:I think marriage is an economy. And I think economies are about people bringing value to the table. If I bring to the table that I'm a provider and a protector and I love work and I'm passionate about it and I enjoy investing and I enjoy finance, and you don't and you enjoy beauty and creativity and having a home or raising children or you enjoy just being a supportive other to another person and you enjoy creative pursuits like doing yoga or making art or writing and you enjoy being there for me and you provide me tremendous value and some of that value is that we have sex and I really enjoy having sex with you because sex is really fun.

1:26:19These are, is that prostitution? I don't think so. No, prostitution is I don't want to know you. I'm paying you to leave if you're a prostitute. I'm not paying you to have sex with me. I can't plan people to have sex with me. I want to have no emotional tie to you whatsoever and you'll have a particularly unselfconscious kind of sex with me in exchange for me giving you money and then you'll leave and I don't even have to talk to you if I don't want to. Or I can talk to you for as long as I want and then I can pay you out to leave now. It's the same. And again, is that undignified? I don't know.

1:26:46Is it undignified for a person to do a job that they hate all day long for many, many hours just in exchange for a certain amount of money because they needed to feed their family. I don't know that that's undignified. I think we all make compromises and do things for the purposes of having resource scarcity and dealing with resource scarcity. So I think all of that is an economy. Is a prenup unromantic? I don't think it's unromantic at all.

1:27:09Jim Sexton:I think there's something extremely romantic about a prenup because I think a prenup is about saying to someone that you can't feel loved if you don't feel safe. And I can say that unequivocally because I represent victims of domestic violence and intimate partner abuse, and I have for many years. And I represent people who don't feel safe in their relationship, emotionally safe, financially safe, whatever it might be. You know, love is about intimacy, and intimacy is defined as the ability to be completely yourself with another person and to be vulnerable with another person and to show them your soft, weak spots, the things you're afraid of, the things you need to work on so they can truly love you and you can truly feel their love.

1:27:50So to me, you're giving someone a gun

1:27:53Jim Sexton:to shoot you with, essentially. You're saying, I'm going to show you all the things I'm afraid of. I'm going to show you all the things that matter to me, all the ways that people have hurt me. I'm going to share them with you in an unfrightened and unreserved way. But you could use that to hurt me terribly. So how can we feel safe with each other? And I think there's something very romantic to me about truth. Truth is beautiful. Truth sounds different. You know, when someone speaks to me with honesty and vulnerability, it's the most beautiful thing. When someone says, you know, hey, I'm really sorry I did that thing.

1:28:26I'm like, okay, I can accept an apology. But somebody says to me, you know, I'm really sorry I did that. You know why I did it? I was really scared and I really was being a little nervous. Now I get it, man, because I felt all those emotions too. I'm human just like you. That's beautiful that you could say to me why you did this thing that hurt me. It helps me understand that you didn't do it because you don't like me or you're angry. It shows me like, oh, you're human and I'm human too. And that's beautiful. So I think there's something really beautiful about the conversation about a prenup. How can you feel safe?

1:28:56You're safe. A woman married me and she has limited resources. And she says to me, listen, I don't have as much money as you. You have lots of money. And I find that very appealing, not only because money provides security and experiences for us, but also because the money says something about you. It says that you're someone who knows how to be focused and disciplined and trade what you want now for what you want most. It shows me that you have tenacity and you'll bring that same tenacity to this relationship. And I'm really excited about that. That sounds fun to me to be with someone who's so passionate and so dedicated.

1:29:25Like that sounds like a great thing. And I say to her, yeah, and you know, I love that you're beautiful. I love that you have like beauty. By the way, that beauty says something. It says something about how you want to present yourself to me like an offering and how I'm important to you and I have value. And it also tells me something about a level of to be beautiful and to be in good shape. I think you have to have discipline. You have to trade what you want now for what you want most of the same traits that we just talked about. You know, entrepreneurism and financial success is not the only marker of passion and discipline.

1:29:53You know, there's lots of markers of those things. That's why I always say like I like people that are in shape, not because like muscles are particularly good or a woman being particularly thin is important to me. That's not. I don't actually particularly find very thin women attractive personally. But I do think there is something about the habits and the discipline that it takes to go to the gym and to have an exercise regimen and to eat in a healthy manner. I think there's really value in showing me that you'll trade what you want now for what you want most. So I think prenups can be a conversation about what are you scared of and how can I help you feel less scared?

1:30:30Can we share with each other what we're afraid of? Because here's the thing. That's a really useful conversation. If you just show up in your next marriage and you say, listen, I had a lot of resources when we met, so I want you to sign this prenup. It says that you get nothing. Don't marry that guy because he doesn't really care about your needs. He doesn't really care about your fears. If a future wife says to you, listen, I really want to marry you and I want to make you a huge priority in my life. I've done the work thing and I'm not as into it as you are. Or I've never really been great at the work thing.

1:31:04I'm not interested in that. That doesn't turn me on and excite me the way that being a supportive other makes me excited. Okay, cool. You like that. You're in. Okay. Again, if that's your flavor, it's my flavor. It's your flavor. Great. But here's my fear. I'm afraid that in the future, I will have invested a tremendous amount in this relationship. Time, my beautiful years, these years where I'm young and vibrant. And I'm afraid that after a period of time, you'll just walk away and I won't have enough to take care of myself. I would not hear that and go, of course, that's a reasonable thing to be afraid of.

1:31:38It's certainly more reasonable than you being afraid of sharks. You know, like the chances of you getting bit by a shark versus the chances of a successful man who's been married twice getting divorced a third time. You said it's in the 70%, like totally much higher. I haven't checked the shark attack statistics. But I don't think there's anything wrong. I think there's something beautiful about saying, hey, I'm scared. I've tried this twice and it didn't work out. But man, I want it to. Like I want it to so bad. And you know what? I've learned each step of the way. I think I'm getting better at this.

1:32:15Man, I want to get better at this. If we can figure out together how to get better at this and stay better at this, I'm in. I'll do the work. Like you've proven you're a man who'll do the work. In the boardroom, in the gym, you do the work.

1:32:29Jim Sexton:So I'll do the work on this thing. Yeah, I didn't get it right the first two times. Okay, I know a lot of people that tried to start a business and failed the first two times and then created Fortune 500 companies. So bullshit that you didn't do it before means you won't do it the next time. I don't think that's true at all. But I don't think ignoring your failures, not learning anything from them is useful. And I don't think pretending like, well, let's just on a wing and a prayer, like this time it'll work. Like let's, what did I get wrong last time? What could I have done better? By the way, you were a different person.

1:33:0525 years ago, you were a different person for God's sakes. You know, you're not, the technology that worked or didn't work 25 years ago in your marriage, you don't have to worry about that. We live in a different world right now and you're a different person than you were. But do you want to be good at this? A prenup is about, I'm going to bravely tell you what I'm afraid of and I want you to bravely tell me what you're afraid of and I want us to find a way for each other to feel safe in this relationship. And then I want us to both remember what is this thing the other person's afraid of? So when we start bumping into it in the relationship, we'll know, oh, I'm bumping into that thing he was afraid of and I love him enough that I'm gonna realize when I'm doing that and I'm gonna figure out a way to reassure this person.

1:33:51That's beautiful, man. I'm a romantic at heart too. There's nothing more romantic to me than that. than two people bravely telling each other what they're afraid of and saying, okay, I want you to feel safe, even if the thing you're afraid of is me. I want you to run to me if somebody hurts you, even if that somebody's me. I think there's a little bit of a misconception out there about how a prenup actually happens. Someone asks the other for a prenup. You have to be independently represented by counsel. You can't jam it down someone's throat right before a marriage. A judge will say, no, go. It's not valid.

1:34:26I think a lot of people think, okay, you know what? Prenup, no problem. We're getting divorced. Here's what the paper says. No problem. We don't have to fight about anything. But every single person, Jim, I know is a prenup. It's still a war. Is a prenup really that helpful at the end of the day? Yeah. Prenups are very helpful for the things they're helpful for. But the problem is, is just because like, that's kind of like saying, you know, I know people who've been sick and antibiotics didn't help them. So do antibiotics even work? It's like, yeah, if you have an infection. Like if you have a virus, antibiotics aren't gonna do shit.

1:35:02You can eat as many of them as you want to. It's not gonna accomplish anything. So like I get this a lot from people because they'll say, oh, well, you know, prenups, like I have a buddy in the prenup. He still was in court for 10 years. He was arguing about custody, child support, visitation. You can't bind those things with a prenup. Those things aren't covered in a prenup. But here's what will make a divorce worse. Don't address the things you could address in a prenup. Spousal support, alimony, division of assets, separate property versus marital property, estate and inheritance rights. If you just did a prenup that said, all my business interests I owned at the time we got married remained my sole and separate property and it bound nothing else, you just saved a couple of hundred thousand dollars if you get divorced.

1:35:47Done, done. Short little prenup, not complex, going to stand up in all 50 states piece of cake. But to say, but I still might fight about custody, so why even get a prenup? That's crazy. That's like saying, you know, people still get in car accidents, so why should I even have an airbag?

1:36:02Jim Sexton:Well, because it's going to minimize how bad the impact is. And by the way, it might keep in your line of sight that, hey, this is a dangerous activity I'm engaged in. I should actually be conscious and not texting while I'm driving. Like there is value in having a prenup. Yes, is a prenup a panacea, a cure for every ailment that could possibly be? No, no. You could still end up having an ugly divorce with a prenup. But it's not going to be over the things that are covered by the prenup. Prenups stand up. Prenups are well-tested, well-settled law. If they are drafted correctly, if you spit it into an AI large language model and think that you're going to save yourself$500, yeah, you're right.

1:36:42It probably won't stand up in a court of law. If you present it to your partner as they're walking into the wedding venue, yeah, it's probably not going to stand up. But the people that come in and they go, you know, exercise doesn't work because the guy who wrote the complete book of running, Jim Fix, he died while jogging. So that's just proof that jogging is not good for you. Okay, that guy outlived every one of his other male relatives because he had congenital heart disease of a very high level. And by the way, that's a singular person you're going to base all of that on. Look at the statistics.

1:37:14Exercise is good for you. It decreases your risk of heart disease, period. End of story. That science is settled. So to say, well, I know a guy who exercised. I know someone who smoked and they were 100 years old. So therefore, smoking can't be bad for you. That's preposterous. There are all these outlier people that say, oh yes, my prenup did. I have been in the trenches defending prenups and challenging prenups. And I am a very good lawyer. There aren't a lot of things I have the right to say I'm good at. I don't know if I'm a good lover. I don't know if I'm a good father. I don't know if I'm a good employer.

1:37:45I'm a good lawyer. I've proven that time and time again. I have a number of times tried to set aside prenups unsuccessfully. Believe me, it is a hard, hard thing to do. My stats on defending prenups are through the roof. My stats on getting them set aside are like every other lawyer's, abysmally bad, low, because they're contracts and contracts are binding.

1:38:14Thank you.