Why 73% of Divorces Are Filed by Women +: Why Social Media is Causing Divorce with James Sexton (Divorce Attorney)

24:06And they're not used to someone telling them, yeah, no, like that's ridiculous. And right now what you're being is impulsive and you're not thinking this through. And they're not used to being spoken to that way. But most of the time they appreciate it. If not in the moment, when it's done, they appreciate it because they're like, all right, you kept your eye on the ball.

24:24Danielle:I have an unsavory question. I love that. Most questions are entirely too savory. It's true, especially here. It really is, yeah. I polled a bunch of people before our interview. Some I know well, some I don't know well. Some who have been divorced, some who are married. And I said, what would you be most interested in knowing from a divorce attorney? Oh boy. And most of them had questions that I've heard you answer before. But there was one that stuck out to me. Okay. which is this person is married and is a year in, I would say, and having some issues in their marriage. And they said, should I ever want to get divorced in five years, in 10 years?

25:08Danielle:What should I be thinking about now? Is there any information I should be collecting? So, you know, I think that's a question that's probably crossed everyone's mind at some point who's married, right? Like, is there, what if things fell apart, you know? And with the divorce rate being 56 % is probably not a dumb question, right? Talk to 56. 56 is the current statistic. That's a little misleading because it includes people who've been married more than once and the statistics show that you get worse at it as you go on. Even for first marriages, it's just over 50%. So, I mean, just think about that failure rate and then add to it the fact that like, let's be like generous.

25:4110 % stay together unhappy for the kids or because they don't want to give up half their stuff. I think you can make your argument it's probably like 20, 30%. But then you basically got a technology fails like 60, 70 % of the time. It's fully crazy. Like if I said to you, there's a 50 % chance when you walk out the front door getting hit in the head with a bowling ball, you'd be like, all right, I'll stay inside or I'll wear a helmet when I go outside. Like you wouldn't just like walk outside and people yet just get married like, you know, it's nothing. So the answer I would give to that person is the following.

26:11Most people, when they get married, have absolutely no idea what they just did legally. None whatsoever. I can tell you with a high degree of certainty that most people, the first time they learn legally what happened to their rights and obligations when they got married is when they walk into a divorce lawyer's office. And that is the worst possible time to look. That's like saying, I'm going to learn how to fight the next time I'm in a fight. That's actually the worst possible time to try to learn how to fight. Even like a few minutes before would have been better.

26:47Danielle:Yeah. Right? But ideally, as far in advance as possible. Like, I genuinely believe if you wanted to damage my business model and that of my colleagues, you would create barriers to entry for marriage. Like, you would... Like what? Like a crash? To get a driver's license. Right. You have to take a written test. Then you have to pass it. Then you get a learner's permit where you're allowed to learn how to drive under very restrictive conditions. And then you take a road test and then they'll let you drive. In most states, for a couple of months, you have like a restricted radius of where you can drive and what times you can drive.

27:23Danielle:Yeah. Married, 50 bucks, you pay a guy who dresses like Elvis in Vegas and you're married. That's it. You don't get a pamphlet. It's a great point. So I think if you made people take a class, I don't know, make people sit down with a divorce lawyer for half an hour. So we can just explain to you the basic, like, give them a pamphlet. Give them a fighting chance. I'm not kidding when I say you don't get a pamphlet. I have to be honest. I've never thought about it. I'm not married. And I'm like, I've never really thought about the legal ramifications aside from prenups, which I know you discuss a lot.

27:54Most people never think about it. They're just caught up in the romance of it, the moment of it, the bond of it, the sort of the whole thing, which again, I don't blame anybody. I've been in love. I get it, man. The last thing you're thinking about is, hey, we could potentially hurt each other. And remember, love and marriage are two completely different things. You could make an argument that they don't have a strong correlation with each other. You could argue.

28:24Danielle:It's hard, though, because. It's hard to be married? Yes. It's hard to. But it's hard to be married if you don't have the love. The other one you can do. You can be in love and not be married. That's a fact. Which is a pretty good argument for not getting married, right? Because you're going to get all the benefits of love without any of the risk that comes with marriage. But 86 % of people who get divorced are remarried within five years. That's the statistic that blows my mind. Because the fail rate of marriages, I kind of go, yeah, all right, that's not surprising. You know a lot of married people, but do you really know a lot of really happily married people?

29:01that's a question worth asking like I know a lot of married people but I only know a handful of like really happily married people people that if you say to them right now like would you choose again this person like if you could hang out with anybody is this the person you'd hang out with I know a couple people that the answer is like oh yeah it's my favorite person and some have been married 20 years and they're like no it's still my favorite person you know and that to me like you won the lottery. Like that's incredible. Like, you know how much better your life is because you found that those people have a superpower because of that.

29:35So to me, I'm like, dude, shoot the shot. Like try, like give it a shot. Cause if that's the potential prize, go for it, go for it. But you know, remember this is a legal status. It's the most legally significant thing you're going to do in your life other than die. It's the most legally significant thing. And by the way, every marriage ends, it ends in death or divorce. It's like one of the only things in the world that you go, I really hope this ends in death. But what I will say is most people don't realize that you are submitting yourself to a set of rules made by the government. And that's a really weird thing.

30:11Like, I don't know who the first person was who went like, I love you. Like, I love being with you. I love how you make me feel. Let's get the government. What? Like, where the hell did that come from? Like, I understand the feeling of like, I love you. I want this to be forever. I want to feel like this when I'm with you forever. Like, I want to be here for you. I want you here for me. Like, who doesn't get that? That's amazing. Who wouldn't want that? But then to go, let's get the government involved. That's the craziest. Like, I've been to the DMV. Have you ever, like, walked into the DMV and went like, oh, yeah, these people should be in charge of everything.

30:47They've got it together here. Like, they really know how to just do things efficiently and in a way that makes sense. It leaves everybody feeling good. Like, no, you walk in there and you just go like, oh my God, this is the height of government bureaucracy. Why would you say like these people or this type of person should be in charge of the most significant decisions in my relationship? That's insane.

31:10Danielle:It's insane. And also some would say that the U.S. government incentivizes marriage and kind of punishes divorce. Do you think they punish divorce? Yeah, you can make that argument. I mean, I think they definitely incentivized marriage without question, which is why there was such a fight for marriage equality. Gay and lesbian couples for many years were like, why don't we have these estate protections? Why don't we have these tax benefits? Why don't we have this access to medical care and medical decision making for this person who I have a serious relationship with? So, you know, marriage equality was an important fight.

31:43It was always kind of funny to me because it was like, I live in a primarily gay neighborhood. You know, I live in Chelsea. And I just remember like, you know, thinking like, why would you guys want to sign on for this? Like this technology that most people hate and fail at, like, and we want it. Like if you actually disliked gay and lesbian people, you'd be like, yeah, we're going to make you get married. We're going to let you have access to this awful technology. But people fought hard to have it. And I think it's because there definitely are some incentives legally for it. What some people perceive as the punishments that come with getting divorced by the government are really well-intentioned, right?

32:22I mean, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but they're designed to protect children, some of these things. But again, they're weaponized the wrong way. But part of it is it's also a revenue raiser. Speeding tickets, like police are expected to have a certain quota and they have to get it. And it's a certain amount of revenue that's anticipated to be generated from it. So it's similar in the sense that there is a whole sort of divorce incorporated out there. There's a whole industry. And listen, my hands aren't clean. I mean, I've made a very good living facilitating the demise of unhappy marriages.

32:54And you provide a service. I don't make it rain. I sell the umbrella. But the truth is, there is an industry that's been built around the ending of marriages. And people, when they're getting married, it's the last thing they're thinking about is that industry.

33:08Danielle:You mentioned that you've seen cheating. You've seen money. Financial impropriety, sure. There's a lot of reasons and a lot of obvious reasons why people get divorced. But social media is at the center of a lot of divorces now. It's even sort of weird to say out loud because it's like a fake world, yet it's totally infiltrating people's real lives. I think it's at the center of a lot of the things that are going sideways in our world. You do? Yeah, I think it's at the center of our political discord and the division that we all feel, whatever side you're on, like the feeling of how big that chasm between the sides has become and how much lack of goodwill is now there.

33:49It used to be, you know, I don't like this person's ideas. And now it's, I don't like this person.

33:54Danielle:Yeah. Like it used to be like this person has bad ideas and I disagree with them. And now it's this person's a bad person. And it's not okay to just say, yeah, I don't agree with their ideas. I think that they love this country, but I think they have a different version of what would make this country great than I have. Like that's gone. And I think it's very much affected our view of ourself and of our partner and of the partnerships around us and of the potential other people we could have had relationships with and still potentially could have relationships with. Like it has fundamentally changed so many aspects of the way we perceive things.

34:33But starting with ourself, like how we perceive ourself and our relative worth and our relative success, that it's now become untethered from objective reality. You know, comparison was always the thief of joy. But comparing your relationship to other people's presentation of their relationship, you don't stand a chance.

34:55Danielle:Is that what you see in terms of when people are breaking up via social media? It's the comparison game? Or is it like cheating via social media? I see how dishonest people's presentation of their relationships are. Because I have clients who are in my office actively negotiating a separation agreement or in the middle of a private arbitration of a heavily contested divorce. And they're still posting on social media like, happy anniversary of the best hubs ever, hashtag blessed. And I'm like, you were in my office earlier today because you're cheating on him. And there's like, oh, all the time.

35:30I've had celebrity clients who remain nameless who I've seen interviews with them when they're getting married and they're like, oh yeah, we don't have a prenup. Like, I don't believe in that. And meanwhile, I'm like, yes, you do. It's in my safe. Like you guys signed it at my conference room table. But, you know, because it's not published anywhere, it's a confidential document, it's not filed anywhere unless there's a divorce down the road. People get away with saying these falsehoods, you know, in a very public way. And it shifts our perception of our relative relationship to other people's relationship in a really significant way.

36:02Danielle:That's really interesting. Do you think it's true that the more people post, the less happy they are? I mean, it's been my observation. Like, it really is. It's a very quick progression from endlessly posting about the relationship to all of a sudden the person is conspicuously absent and every trace of them has been eliminated. You know, and you kind of look at it and go like, oh, well, that escalated quickly. Like, they're just erased from this person's timeline. You know, I see that a lot. What I see more than anything in terms of social media is how I think it's changed people's perception of the relative success of their own relationship.

36:40Because you're looking at someone else's greatest hits while you're living your gag reel. You don't look at... We're having a really interesting conversation right now. We're engaged with each other. So neither of us is looking at our phone. So like anytime you're having like a heightened experience, you're having a wonderful meal, you're having an interesting conversation, you're having good sex, whatever it is you're doing, you're not on your phone. Like, when are you on your phone? You're on your phone when you're like sitting on the subway and you're bored, you're on the toilet. It's not your best moment.

37:08It's like a moment where you're a little vulnerable. You're not feeling great about yourself. Maybe you're in transition between activities. And what are you looking at? You're looking at the moments that someone has decided are like, look at me. Look, look at how good I look. Look at how cool what I'm doing is think about what that does to somebody that when you're at your low, you're looking at people's curated high. And by the way, it's not even a real high. It's like a curated bullshit high. Like they're not actually flying private. They just went up to that, you know, set or whatever, or they're not even in first class.

37:42They just took a picture in first class and went back to economy. It filters, you know, they make them look the way that they look. You don't see the parts of their vacation where the kid got sunburned and everyone was unhappy. You That kind of discord, that kind of unhappiness with what you have, think of how it used to be. Maybe at church you'd see what someone else was wearing, what watch they had or what car they drove. Maybe you'd see your immediate neighbors like what they had. But how much did you really have opportunity to compare yourself to people now? You have the opportunity all day to look at just incredible versions of people.

38:23Again, three quarters of which is absolute bullshit.

38:26Danielle:Does AI make it worse in your opinion? I think so. Because again, we're further untethered from objective reality. We're just becoming untethered from anything real. Do you see a shift in the way people are viewing marriage? And just for context, I live in Los Angeles, so I'm aware that coastal areas, particularly Los Angeles, I think socially things happen there first sometimes before they spread other places. It's always been a place where iconoclasts tend to gather. And I see a lot of people and hear a lot of people talking about ethical non-monogamy and people who are wanting, I think the want for a life partner is still there.

39:03Danielle:Like someone wants someone they can count on, especially if they want children, they want to raise children with somebody, maybe even live under one roof. But I don't know that they want to sleep with that person all the time. And people are starting. And only that person. Right. And they're starting to question, what are the alternatives? Do you hear that or see that? Or is that just a Los Angeles thing? I'll say a couple of things. One is I do think that some of the technological innovation that we've been talking about is a function and has also created a second order effect of people asking interesting questions.

39:38Why do we do it that way? Like Uber came about from someone being like, why are taxis the only cars allowed to drive people around? Like I have a car, I can drive people around. Why can't I just like share my car with somebody else and they pay me? And that's a really great question. Like, yo, how did you not think of that? I like that this generation seems to be asking a lot of like, yeah, why do we do it that way? You know, like, it's actually why I like having young lawyers around my office and I hire interns every summer and I hire from the intern pool when people graduate law school, because I like having young people around me because they kind of go, yeah, why do you do it that way?

40:11And if the answer is, that's how the person who taught me did it, it's like, okay, but why was that the right way to do it. You know, like tradition in some ways is, you know, the wisdom of people who were here before us. And tradition is also peer pressure exerted by dead people. You might sometimes want to say like, oh yeah, why did you do it that way? Because grandma did it that way. Well, grandma didn't have a smartphone. Like grandma didn't have every single song that's ever been written accessible in her hand at all times. So the way she listened to music may not be instructive of how we should do it.

40:44You know, so I think it's good to ask questions. What I will say is there are some things that I really wonder if there is a different way that it could be done. I'm the wrong guy to ask about ethical non-monogamy or polyamory because I'm a divorce lawyer. So all I see are where that ended in a car crash of a divorce, right? So I only get to meet people who that was the Hail Mary pass of maybe we can stay together, you know? And so I see a lot of people where they tried that and it didn't work out and it ended in divorce. But that's like, you know, talking to someone who's an oncologist and they're like, oh my God, everybody has cancer.

41:25Like everyone I met today has cancer. It's like, right, you're an oncologist. Like that's pretty normal. Like if you were a cab driver, most of the people you met wouldn't have had cancer. Like it's okay. Like it's not like everyone has it. So I am sure there are people who are, you know, exploring other permutations of relationship, including ethically non-monogamous versions of it, or even unethically non-monogamous ways of doing it. The latter being very popular for a very long time, unethical non-monogamy. And maybe they're successful at it and they're just not ending up in my office. I haven't met those people.

42:01But do I think it could potentially be possible? Yeah, Yeah, of course. I mean, I think there's lots of ways to do relationships. I think Freud and civilization and its discontents and a lot of the people that talk about like, how do you have a civilized society? A lot of it is we have to suppress our drives, like to sleep with lots of people. We'd like to kill people or beat people up who don't do what we want them to or who make us angry. And as a civilization, we have to come to some rules of, no, we're not going to do that. You know, this is how we're going to organize ourselves in a way that restores order or maintains order.

42:34I think monogamy is one of those things that we were like, no, no, one at a time, you know, but I think we can all agree, like, I'm not spoiling the plot. We're bad at it. We've been bad at it a really long time. Like, I think infidelity was probably invented like 24 hours after monogamy, you know, like monogamy was invented. And then the next day, somebody was like, Hey, wait a minute, you know, and went in the other direction with it. Because I think a lot about the history of male and female interaction and what is the purpose of it? What's the point of it? Where are we good at it? Where are we bad at it?

43:12What need in us is it? I think it's funny that it's strange to ask the question if somebody says I'm getting married, that it would be rude of me to go, oh, really? Why? Why are you getting married?

43:25Danielle:That would be rude. It would be rude. That's a great point. Why is that rude? Like if you said to me, Jim, I'm starting a podcast. And I went, really? Why? Yeah. Like, that's fair. Like, well, you know, I love talking to people and I think I have an interesting point of view. Like, and you'd have great answers. That's funny. But if someone had asked you that question, you wouldn't have been like, how dare you? Well, you know, if I said I'm quitting my job, you'd go, why? And I'm like, I don't like it anymore. I found something else I'd rather do. If someone said to you, I'm never getting married, you would say, why?

43:54I said, well, the divorce rate's above 50 % and I think it's very hazardous and, you know, I don't think I'd be good at it or whatever. But if somebody says, I'm getting married and you go, really? Why? They would look at you like you're being very rude. And I don't understand why that's a rude question. Because there are, to me, very logical answers to that question. Like, oh, it's really important to my parents. Or I'm of a religion where, you know, you can't have sex with someone unless you marry them. and so I want God's stamp of approval because I'd really like to have sex with this person.

44:26Very fair. I'd like the tax benefits that come with marriage. Very fair. That's a very reasonable answer. But if you said like, I don't want to be lonely, getting married is not necessarily going to solve that problem. Wow. Like you might in fact actually be signing up for a very uniquely awful kind of loneliness. Because if you've ever been sitting on a couch next to someone and felt really lonely, that's like a uniquely awful kind of lonely. Yeah. So I just think it's interesting we don't even get to ask the question.

44:54Danielle:Do you think that's the question people should be asking before they approach marriage? I think the question you should ask is, what is the problem to which marriage is a solution? And then maybe ask the question, do I have that problem? I don't know. That's why people get married, though. And so it's like, oh, then just no one should get married. No, I don't know. That's true. Like, what would be a problem? I'm trying to think how I would answer that. Well, I mean, sometimes it's a very practical one, which is that there's a religious undergrunt. Right. Sometimes it's a familial one. Like, oh, it's really important to my parents that I get married.

45:25And by the way, like I think sometimes that's okay. It's okay to do things to placate your family. And in a happy relationship, I don't think getting married is going to by action make it worse. Like I think a happy relationship, you get married, you're probably still happy. In an unhappy relationship, you get married, you're probably still going to be unhappy. I think there's a lot of people that think that getting married is going to add some magic or value or connection or security or closeness or guarantees. I think it's the guarantees.

45:55Danielle:I think maybe more for women, but tell me if you think it's for men too. People think if I have this piece of paper because it is so difficult to get divorced and so costly to get divorced that we will fight through whatever issue that we wouldn't fight through otherwise. I think that's a very human and understandable way to feel. And I think you're right. But I think it's part of a very core and to me beautiful, but really flawed part of being human. Yeah. Is that we want to have control over things we don't have control over. It's the same thing as when I'm on a plane and turbulence hits and I hold the seat.

46:32Like that's going to hold the plane together somehow. Or if the plane suddenly falls out of the sky, the fact that I'm holding the thing's gonna help. Like it's not. Like I have no control over what's happening in that situation. And it's very scary. It's like when someone says, oh, I have this family member and they have terminal lung cancer. And part of you wants to go, oh, were they a smoker? And it's not that you're trying to say they deserved to get cancer. But you're like, oh my God, like I hope that doesn't happen to me or to someone I love. Like, please tell me they were doing something that I'm not doing and my mom and dad aren't doing.

47:06So then they're safe. And I think that's so beautifully human, like to want to feel safe in a world that feels really unsafe and to want to feel alone in a world where we feel really alone sometimes. And I think that's what it is. I think it's like, I love you and I feel so connected to you and I want this to last forever. So like, what can I strap on to it that's going to make it feel like this forever? And I think that's like a very beautiful and human sentiment, but it's also ridiculous. Because we're not going to feel this way forever. We're not going to be this forever. We're not even going to be here forever.

47:43Like we're going to lose each other for sure. Love is not permanently gifted. It's loaned in every permutation. Like everything you love, you'll lose. That's the nature of love. And I don't say that to be a pessimist. To me, that is a wake-up call. That is a like, oh my God, like there is a finite number of sunsets I'm going to see.

48:05Danielle:Right. It's like the urgency of life. Right. Like, and the beauty of it is the impermanence of it. Like I wouldn't want to live forever. I like the fact that the clock is ticking on this and that there's only so many permutations of things I'm going to get to do. Like that's what makes it beautiful is the impermanence to some degree. So I think marriage is like a seatbelt. It makes people feel really safe. but there are a lot of accidents that are still going to happen and the seatbelt won't save you necessarily. I agree that like barriers to exit sometimes might make a person think twice. But does it really?

48:42You know I remember reading an interview with Russell Brand where he was talking about when he was a heroin addict when he was younger and he said you know he was rallying against at the time like the criminalization of addiction and he was saying you know in all the time that I was a junkie not once did I ever think like oh I really want some heroin oh wait it's illegal I shouldn't the illegality of it never crossed my mind people aren't evil they don't do evil things because they're evil they mistake it for happiness like nobody ever gets up in the morning goes today I'm gonna screw up my marriage and start an affair they just make increasingly bad small choices that lead them down a path and then they're like okay I've made this choice now and I've screwed up things and I might as well just keep going.

49:25And so I think that marriage is something that gives us a false sense of security in our relationship sometimes. And in that sense, it may actually be bad for preserving the bond of our relationship.

49:36Danielle:I read that 70 % of divorce is initiated by women. That is true. 73 % actually. I think that statistic would shock a lot of people. It would, but it's also widely misinterpreted and also very unfairly weaponized. Okay, say more. So it's weaponized by some people I really like actually. You know, I think there is a crisis in masculinity and a crisis happening for men right now, and particularly boys, certainly for men and their role in society. And because of that, there's all of these, you know, what's called red pill space. And there's, you know, like a men's movement and it can be a healthy version of it, or it can be like a somewhat toxic version of it.

50:12So I think that some men on the furthest extremes of the men's movement use that statistic unfairly to create the false impression that the majority of women who marry treat it like they went to the casino and they stocked up. And then once they were winning, they cash their chips out. So they marry a guy, they have kids with them. They create a child support obligation. They watch him rise in success. And then they cash out and they get rid of the guy, but they get like the husband a la carte because the guy still has to pay for the kids. He still has to pay alimony. He still has to pay her bills, but she no longer has to be with him anymore.

50:53And she can go off with a different guy and be happy. Right.

50:56Danielle:That is so not how I interpreted it. That's so interesting. So it's how it's been weaponized. Look, to a person with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Yeah. So to a person who's trying to be convinced that men suck, you can find evidence of men sucking. You think women suck, you can find evidence of women. So like, I see this all the time. Yeah. And I even see it when I speak, like people take one out of context thing I said about men and they use it to show how much men suck. Or they take something I said about women out of context and say, this is proof of how much women suck. And the truth is, I'm actually presenting a very balanced view where, yeah, we both suck sometimes and we're both heroic sometimes.

51:29The reality is that, of course, are there some women who weaponize the divorce system and process to maximize the return that they get financially at the end of a marriage? Of course, yeah, we've seen it. It happens all the time. There are people who openly admit like, oh yeah, I got child support from three different guys and it's a very lucrative career. I've had kids with three different people and people are very open about that. Again, I think that's the minority. Most people, you know, I think are just trying to survive. But part of the reason why women are in the position of commencing divorce actions, in my experience, I would venture to say that men ghost more than women do.

52:11Like men don't like the confrontation. Men very often are conflict adverse and just bail. Like I've seen a lot of men go out for milk and never come back. When you say bail, you mean like just leave the marriage. Like they just leave. Like they just abruptly say.

52:25Danielle:Like move to another state. No, they might just move out. They just go, yeah, like this is over. I'm out. And then the woman has to actually legally initiate the divorce. Right. Because what she'll say is she'll say to me, he left. Yeah. I want the marriage to end. He apparently does. He got an apartment, but he's not paying the mortgage and he's not paying my car loan and he's not paying, you know, the electric bill. And I don't have the funds to do that. I don't have access to these bank accounts or I don't have the earnings that he has. Or I earn one-tenth of what he does. And he always paid the mortgage.

52:58So when I say to him, like, hey, you know, you got to keep paying the mortgage. He's like, well, I don't live there anymore and I have to pay my apartment now. So I'll say, okay, well, we've got to file a divorce action. And they're like, wait, I don't want to file a divorce action. He's the one who wants the divorce. Let him file a divorce action. I'm like, right, but you want a judge to issue an order that he has to maintain the financial status quo and continue to pay the bills. Interesting. I can't get a judge to issue an order until I commence an action. I can't commence an action with him as the plaintiff.

53:23I have to commence an action on your behalf. So that's where I have found in my experience, it's much more common for women to have to take that step.

53:32Danielle:I would have never thought of that. So how did you interpret that statistic then? I interpret it, I sound silly saying this because it's definitely not from a legal standpoint, but I think a lot of times when women are in relationships that are not working, we grieve the relationship long before we actually exit it. And I've found that men have immense guilt leaving their family. And they'd rather sort of stay in something bad than do something about it. And staying in something bad means either cheating or trying to not be around or whatever that is. Yeah, I call that going without or going elsewhere.

54:10And men are more prone to that. Yeah. What I will tell you, it's insightful and it does match up with my experience. So I think you're on to something there. Again, there'd be no way to empirically prove it. But I think it makes sense to me and it matches with my experience. No, it's good.

54:23Danielle:Not as dumb as I thought. No, definitely not. Definitely not. No, I knew you'd have some interesting perspective on it. I mean, even by virtue of the fact that like we have different experiences as a function of our gender, you know, in relationship. I think that that is useful. You know, it's useful for us to have dialogues about these things. I have actually found in terms of my observation of cheating is men sometimes are actually shocked when they get caught cheating, how upset their partner is or their wife is because they're like it had nothing to do with her. I love her. Like she's still beautiful.

54:54I still love sleeping with her. I still love her. and you're like right but then why were you sleeping with the other person they're like well because they're like really attractive and they were there like it's sort of like why'd you eat the cake because the cake was there you're like right but you know you weren't supposed to eat it i know but it was there like it looks so good i just ate it you know whereas women who also cheat breaking news women very often cheat and it's like either a soft place to land it's like they're okay this is going to be where i'm going to go next or it's like a way that they show themselves oh yeah this relationship's really over.

55:26Danielle:Yes. Like I very rarely in a 25 year career, I've met so many men that leave the wife for the mistress because they're convinced that they met their soulmate. And I've had a lot of guys who cheat and are just like, oh yeah, like it didn't mean anything to me. Women, I very rarely have it. It's like, oh yeah, it didn't mean anything to me. Like it usually is like, yeah, this is what I had to do to figure out that this is over. And the experience of having this affair is what showed me that's how severed I am from this person that I was capable of cheating on them. So it reveals different things to the person.

55:59Yeah. That's why that sort of, you know, famous and I think correct platitude is that when a woman cheats and gets caught, the first question the man asks is, did you sleep with him? And when a man cheats and gets caught, the first question a woman asks is, do you love her? Because I think we know something, which is guys, sometimes it just didn't mean anything. Like, and sometimes it does. Sometimes it's like, oh, I think I met my person. With women, it's like a very like possessory thing of like, wait, no, like that you're mine. And somebody is now sullied that. And men are, in my experience, much more unforgiving of infidelity.

56:37When a wife gets caught cheating, the chances of the guy ever taking her back is very limited.

56:41Danielle:I have a friend who's a comedian who I talked about this with and he said that if the man takes the woman back after cheating he actually will never forgive her. In his experience he feels like say it happens in January. Yeah. He was like he'll be fine and then one day in November of the next year he'll cheat and totally rationalize or start to be mean or start to like take it out on her. Yeah, I've found that to be true because I do have a lot of people that I represent where there was infidelity and then the couple came back from the infidelity and then down the road, something else is the thing that ends it, whether it's more infidelity or whether it's some other issue.

57:20So you get to kind of understand the whole history of the marriage. And I see a lot of people that had, you know, like infidelity, whether it was just a dalliance or whether it was a long-term affair. And then they come back from it and they have a period, like a renaissance in their marriage. And then sometimes it still ultimately breaks up for different reasons or for the same kinds of reasons. Like the forgiving is in the forgetting to some degree. If you say you forgive someone, but you're like carrying it around, like you got that in the chamber now. And it's like, okay, that's gonna be my like, get out of hell free card.

57:48Danielle:Yeah, I think that's the better way of saying what he shared. Yeah, or even the feeling of like, I'm gonna really punish you now by just like making you wallow in your own guilt for a bunch of years. I'm gonna forgive you and that's gonna make you feel even worse. You did. And doing this 25 years, I'm still sometimes astounded by the ways people can hurt each other and punish each other and hurt themselves and punish themselves. It's really shocking to me still sometimes. So you represent the wealthy and ultra wealthy. I've heard so many sort of platitudes about love and money. One of the famous ones is if you marry for money, you pay for it the rest of your life.

58:27Danielle:In your experience, how does money change marriage? I think it works on a couple of different levels. So one, I think financial stress is very hard on a marriage. So economic instability and struggling with money is really hard on a marriage because it's hard on a person. And not to gender it too much, but it's really hard on men when a man feels like he can't provide for his family. There's a tremendous anger that comes out of that person and a tremendous resentment. And sometimes that doesn't find a target. It just sprays in every direction and it manifests in substance use issues and other kinds of things that really are toxic to a coupling and to a family.

59:05So lack of money, financial instability can have a really profoundly negative effect on people. Similarly, getting everything you want is sometimes the worst thing that can ever happen to a person. Because there's really only two amounts of money, enough and not enough, period.

59:24Danielle:That's interesting. And representing billionaires, I can tell you if$100 million isn't enough money, no amount of money is going to be enough money. You know, money offers you real solutions to imaginary problems, imaginary solutions to real problems. Like if you're lonely, money's not going to solve the problem of your loneliness. Like that's a real problem. Money will offer you an imaginary solution to that problem. You can go to the club and everybody will hang out with you for the night because you're paying for bottle service. That's not an actual solution to the problem of loneliness. Like it's an imaginary solution to the problem of loneliness.

59:58And the real problems that money solves are not real. Like I can't afford this particular brand of handbag. You'll get that handbag and it's just eventually another handbag. There's never enough handbags. Like there's never enough. I've divided a lot of Birkins. Like there's not. Have you really? I actually keep a tally of who's the most Birkins I've ever had a client. And I have a client whose wife accumulated 37 Birkins. That's the winner right now. She had them in like every color, every material. She had the alligator ones. She had the snake ones. She had color lines that they only do in certain parts of Europe.

1:00:35And they were miserable. He had a wine collection that was worth like$10 million. And these are distractions people create to sort of distract their attention from the inevitability of their own demise and unhappiness and disconnection they have. Like, you could be miserable. And I've learned very quickly doing what I do that you could be miserable in the penthouse. And you could be really happy in a crappy studio apartment. You know, it's really more about the person you're there with and how connected you are to yourself and to them.

1:01:02Danielle:What do you think you understand about marriage that most other people don't? I guess that it's fragile. I think I understand how fragile it is in a way that other people don't want to acknowledge. That it really requires that you pay attention in a way that people have a hard time doing. A, because it's uncomfortable. And B, because there's so many things to distract you from it. And I think one of the things people find false comfort in when they get married is like, okay, I'm married. That's done now. I don't have to worry about that anymore. They're doing themselves a tremendous disservice because part of what made you fall in love is that you were interested and you were interesting.

1:01:40You know, like you were interested in this person and they were interested in you.

1:01:43Danielle:It's on the back of the card game. Yeah, yeah. And you felt interesting because you don't just fall in love with the person. You fall in love with who you are when you're with them and the parts of you that they bring out and shine a light on. The parts of you that maybe you don't love that they make you see differently. I know sometimes like the most lovely thing about love is when you're so self-conscious about something about yourself and the person's like, that? Like, I love that about you. Like, and you're like, really? Like, I hate that about me. And they're like, oh my God, I love that about you.

1:02:14There's something so lovely about feeling seen and loved like that. But I think one of the things that really makes marriage so fragile is that people just stop seeing each other. That's so strange to me that you stop seeing this thing because it's right in front of you. If somebody said like, yeah, I don't see that thing anymore. Why? Because it's right there. It's there all the time. It's like, well, that's why you should see it all the time because it's right there, you know. But that's why people just stop seeing it. Like they don't see this person. And it's so sad because it's so easy to make someone feel seen.

1:02:45I often tell my male friends, because I've learned a lot about this by spending a lot of time with women and hearing about what made them feel disconnected from their marriage. And I always try to tell my like happily married male friends, just remember to make her feel seen. It takes nothing. It takes this much. Like just leave a note in the morning. I married the prettiest girl. That's a, what does that take? 10 seconds? Like 10 seconds to write that note. Would you ever not want to get that note? would that note ever not warm you? Would that note ever not make you feel loved? Like that's so lovely.

1:03:20The text message that you send that says, oh, you know, I'm in Starbucks and that song came on, made me think of you. At the risk of being prone to superlatives, like that is to a woman what nudes are to a man. Like, hey, I'm thinking of you and you're with me even when you're not with me. Like I see you even when you're not in front of me, I see you, but especially when you're in front of me, I see you. Like there's something so human and understandable about wanting to feel that. And there's also something so human and understandable about forgetting how important that is. If I'm an evangelist for anything, it's kind of to remind people that like, you know, love is not permanently gifted.

1:03:58It's loaned. I just think you have to be mindful and present. And that's really hard to remember to be. So that's the long answer to the question that I think marriage is really fragile. But I don't think it has to be so hard. Like I think that the fundamental fragile nature of it is tied to the simplicity of that connection.

1:04:17Danielle:Do you think you can have second marriage energy in your first marriage? You know, I think, yeah. Because I think second marriage energy is you know what you don't want because you've watched it go wrong. and maybe you're a little quicker to tell the person something they might not want to hear and disappoint them a little so you don't disappoint them a lot in the long term. Like I think something divorced people learn is it's better to like live an uncomfortable truth than a comfortable lie. And so they learn that like, you know, I held my tongue and it wasn't going right. I didn't say anything.

1:04:56And then we got really lost. Whereas if I had said like, hey, I think we might be a little lost. We might have stopped the car and been like, okay, where did we lose the plot? And let's go back to there and figure it out. And I think once you've learned that lesson, and again, it doesn't have to be marriage. It can be through a breakup. I'd like to think that with every relationship, I get better at relationship. I think we break in relationship and we heal in relationship and I'd like to think that each one is a lesson and a chapter in a long book until eventually you have the last one and hopefully that's the one that you were best at.

1:05:30Danielle:I have more divorce questions for you but I've watched so many of your interviews and everyone asks about divorce because it's fascinating but I don't ever really see people talk about you. You're covered in tattoos. I am really covered in tattoos. Like my whole back, my whole everything I'm tattooed my whole thing's tattooed basically really I'm like one big tattoo okay so covered in tattoos you listened to heavy metal growing up I also listened to show tunes growing up so I also know the entire of Oklahoma so I'm the only person that knows all the lyrics to the album by Slayer rain in blood and also knows all the lyrics to Surrey with their friend John Topp from Oklahoma it's unique but there's something I notice in your conversations, which is there will be a moment where your eyes well up a little bit and you hold back the tears.

1:06:18Danielle:Yeah, I do. Yeah. But it's when you talk about love or talk about being seen. What is that for you? I don't want to start to go. No, no, it's a really interesting question. It's a question about me. It happens to me a lot when I talk about love. I am much more prone to crying about something beautiful than I am about something sad. I am very capable of being deeply sad about something and not crying about it. I'm not afraid to cry. I'm very comfortable crying, but often find myself moved to tears, like frequently. I'm moved to tears when I read something that's beautiful, when I listen to some piece of music that's moving.

1:07:00My natural reaction to that, that feeling of like a heightened, overwhelmed feeling is like, yeah, my eyes well up. And I think when I talk about love and connection and being seen, yeah, it's still so moving to me just how beautiful that is. It's so funny to me because, you know, years ago when my first book came out and I was first doing press, people really expected me because I'm this like successful divorce trial lawyer who's described as like the sociopath you want on your side and is very capable of being very intense in the courtroom and being weaponized and cross-examining the hell out of people and stuff like that.

1:07:35That people really assumed that I was just not, A, not emotional and B, certainly not like moved by romance or love. A lot of times people would say like, well, do you still believe in love? And I was like, what? Like that certainly is the craziest question. That's like saying, do you still believe in gravity? Like I don't have to believe in gravity. Gravity exists. Like I can say I don't believe in gravity. I'm not going to fall up. Like, of course I believe in love. Like, I feel love. I see love everywhere around me. And I see it's the only thing that really matters. Like, it's the thing we're all looking for.

1:08:09It's because there's so much pain in the world. Like, life is incredibly short and brutish in some ways. And we're all going to die. And everyone we love is going to die. Like, I mean, there's so much about it that's like, oh, wow, we're playing a game you can't win. But the winning of it seems to me to be like to feel these beautiful feelings, you know? So when I feel those feelings, whether it's a beautiful piece of music or experiencing some connection with someone or like accessing some emotion, like, yeah, I mean, that's to me, like, that's everything. Like, that's the whole thing. And so I feel it really deeply.

1:08:45I think to do what I do for a living, the secret, this won't be a secret when I say it out loud, but the secret is like, I'm the opposite of a sociopath. Like I'm really sensitive. You know, the tattoos and the things like that. When I was a young man, I hated the part of me that was that sensitive. Like I wanted to beat it out of me. I'll hurt myself as much as I can. I'll find a way to not feel stuff so deeply. You know, I was afraid of spiders. So I got a tarantula and I put in a glass cage next to my bed. So I would have to wake up every day and look at a giant spider until I wasn't afraid of spiders anymore.

1:09:23And that worked, but I could never beat the sensitivity out of me. And I figured out like, oh, okay. Like it doesn't have to be my enemy. It can be a superpower. And it became a superpower to be that sensitive, to be able to like figure out like what's going to move the judge, what's going to make my client feel safe, what's going to make the other side feel vulnerable and scared. And, you know, it took me a long time to figure that out as a superpower, but I'm really grateful that I did. And I think once I let myself realize that it was a superpower, I let myself feel it more. And I think that's where some of that emotion comes from.

1:10:02I've also been in therapy a really long time, so that might be part of it.

1:10:05Danielle:Do either of your kids have it? Yeah, I think they both have it in different degrees. I think my older son is a lawyer, but he's very analytical and very academic. He's really smart. He got that from his mom. He can be a little cerebral and it's really easy for me to get along with him because he's really easy to navigate. My younger son is like me. He's like really sensitive. And because of it, we have a harder time getting along because we can read each other and the situation like a book and our powers neutralize each other to some degree. So we've gone round and round. Like we've had chapters where we were not close But what's really lovely is he's 25 now and in the last year or two, we've become really close.

1:10:47And that feels really lovely because I had to sort of see that the parts of him that were challenging for me were the parts of myself that are challenging.

1:10:55Danielle:Oh, it's so confronting. Oh, it's rough. It's rough. I mean, one of the unique things that divorced people with children get to experience, and it's a really great life lesson, you have to learn to navigate the personality traits of your ex-spouse that you didn't like but in your kids no one ever talks about that you love more than anything and so then you're like oh shit I can't just divorce them like I can't leave like they're my kid I'm stuck you know and I know my ex-wife there must be times where she just looks at them and goes oh my god you have so much you're your father and you and there are times where they'll react to something and i'll go like oh my god that is so your mom right now you know but it's a really great lesson you're like no i can't quit on this like i have to learn how to navigate this i think that there's something really valuable there it's helped me grow as a person i think and it even helped me have a good relationship with my ex-wife i mean we never had a terrible one but it really helped us realize that like yeah no we have to learn how to navigate each other you know like there's some parts of our relationship that are over, but there's some parts of it that continue.

1:12:03Like we're still a family. We're always going to be family. We're going to be grandparents together someday. Like we're stuck with each other.

1:12:09Danielle:What's the dumbest hill anybody's died on in a divorce proceeding, aside from the toaster? There's a chapter in my book called The Case of the Incredible Shrinking Penis. It tells the story of the dumbest hill I've ever seen somebody die on. And that is that a guy married my client on false pretenses. He wanted a green card and they got married and he literally right after the marriage ceremony left and never came back. And my client came to me very upset and said, I want this marriage annulled. And an annulment is different than a divorce. A divorce is we were married and now the marriage fell apart.

1:12:42An annulment is this was a fraudulent marriage and you can get it annulled and then you've never been married. Like it was not a legal marriage. It's a void marriage. And this was really important to my client because she was religious and because she really wanted this to be like, you know, yeah, I'm marrying this person forever and it was a fraud. This guy wanted nothing to do with her. And we had him served and we said we want an annulment and he said I won't give you an annulment, I'll give you a divorce because that way he could keep the citizenship. He said no, we want an annulment. And the reason he didn't want to give her an annulment is they could affect his citizenship status.

1:13:13So we ended up having an annulment trial and he claimed that they had consummated the marriage, meaning that they had sexual intercourse. Now my client was like a 37 year old woman. So like, how do you prove somebody didn't have sex with somebody? So I was talking to her about, look, maybe you want to just take the divorce because like, it's going to be really hard to prove you didn't have sex. It's his word against yours. And I said, you know, like, you know, she was like, well, I'm a virgin. And I was like, well, I mean, congratulations. Like that's an accomplishment at 37. But, you know, the chances of your hymen still being intact are like almost nothing.

1:13:50Like, because, you know, as time passes, it gets weaker. Any gynecologist can tell you that just because a woman's got a broken hymen doesn't mean that they're not a virgin. And I said, but look, if it was intact, that would be conclusive proof that you never had sex with this person. I said, why don't you go to your gynecologist and find out? So she went to your gynecologist. A couple of days later, I walk into the office. My secretary says, Jane Doe is in conference room B and she's very upset. So I was like, all right, I know what this is. So I go in and I say, listen, you know, it was a long shot.

1:14:22There was no way it was going to be intact and she was crying she was like no it's intact she's like i just came from the doctor my hymen is intact and i was like oh game on like it's game on now like i was like are you serious she's like yeah i'm like she would testify to that she's like yeah she even like took pictures i was like oh it's on now so we took the case to trial and we didn't let the guy know and i had him get on the witness stand and on cross-examination i said you testified earlier that you had sexual intercourse with my clients yes i did i said when you say you had sexual intercourse you mean you put your penis into her vagina.

1:14:55The judge is like, Mr. Sexton, I think we all understand that's what sexual intercourse is. I was like, your honor, if I could just have a little leeway, I'd appreciate. He says, I'll give you a little, Mr. Sexton, but this is going to stay PG. This isn't going to get x-rated. I walked through and I said, did you have any problems when you had sex? He said, no, we had no problems. I said, no, sir, I apologize for asking you this. How big is your penis? Objection. I said, your honor, I asked for a little leeway here. This will be relevant, I assure you. She said, all right. And he said, it's average size.

1:15:21I said, respectfully, there could be some debate about what it means to be average size. I said, so how many inches approximately is it? He said, well, you know, five or six inches. I said, five or six inches went erect. He said, yes, five or six inches. I said, very good. Thank you. I said, I have nothing further. Then I called her gynecologist to the stand. And I basically said, would it be physically possible for a five or six inch penis to have penetrated my client's vagina? I said, absolutely not. The only way a person could have had sexual intercourse with her is if they had a microphallus, meaning a penis less than one inch long and anything more than that.

1:15:59And they would not have been able to do it. So the guy went back on the stand and said, I exaggerated the size of my penis. It's actually much smaller than that. And I said, it isn't your testimony that your penis This is smaller than one inch when erect. And the judge said, all right, that's it. I want to see counsel in chambers and brought us both in chambers and said to opposing counsel, like, your guy's going to grant her the annulment or I'm going to hold him in contempt of court. I'm going to charge him with perjury. He's going to end up in jail. That was the worst hill to die on.

1:16:28Danielle:Ever. He just was like, but I've never seen a person put in the position. They were trying to vehemently argue that they had exaggerated the size of their penis before. It was a really unprecedented. Said no man ever. I've never had that come up again. No pun intended. So there is no segue from that story. So I'm going to go somewhere else. Yeah, it's not possible. But I'm at a women's dinner probably a year ago, women's health dinner. And it's assigned seating. I'm sitting across from Laura Wasser. Laura's great. Okay. What a great lawyer. First time I ever met her. Brilliant. And I was like, Laura, can I ask you the annoying question that everybody wants to know?

1:17:03Danielle:Like as a divorce attorney, what is your advice on marriage? Yep. And I prefaced the question by saying that I have a friend who's a divorce attorney in Chicago and she married my other friend. And as they were getting married in her vows, she said that because she's a divorce attorney, everyone asks her this question. And her advice is that marry somebody who does the right thing, not just for you, but for everybody around you. And I said, so what is your advice, Laura? And she goes, I'm dying to hear this. She took like a full 60 seconds to think. And she goes, you know, I think you want to, you have to want to stay at the same hotels.

1:17:38I mean, it's an extremely Laura answer. That's great.

1:17:42Danielle:So I tell my college friends and they're like, there's like a lot to that answer actually. Right. There's more than just the hotels. That's a really interesting layered answer because it has a lot to do with economics. It has to do with like the style and feel that a person has. What kind of experience you want to have. Like some people want to stay at a hotel that's very emblematic of the place where they're visiting. So if they're in Peru, they want to stay someplace that's got that very like inspired by the local. And some people want to just stay someplace that reminds them of exactly like it was at home, like the accidental tourist concept.

1:18:18Like I want to approximate the sensation of being at home, but be in another country. So I think it's a brilliantly layered answer. And the fact that she came up with it in 60 seconds is impressive to me.

1:18:27Danielle:I thought so too. Yeah. I think about it all the time. Yeah. Yeah, that's kind of Laura's superpower is that I think she, as a lawyer, can say a lot with less, like, and she can pack a lot into that. As somebody who has seen tons and tons of divorce, what is your best advice for entering a marriage? Entering a marriage. Okay, I wanted to be specific in the answer. I'm never going to have an answer as good as Laura's. My advice would be pay attention. That seems like a silly and simple answer. It's not as artful or layered, but I think pay attention. I think attention - it's really layered I think paying attention to yourself paying attention to the other person don't stop seeing them don't stop seeing the small things because the small things are really everything I think that no single raindrop's responsible for the flood and I think that we think a lot about the big disconnections but the small disconnections lead to the big disconnections and I think that we fall in love so fast and then we fall out of love very slowly It's like the way we go bankrupt very slowly and then all at once.

1:19:33I think if you're paying attention all the way through, the chances of that happening go way down.

1:19:40Danielle:I think it's really interesting that was your advice because when there's someone, and this is one of the shows, I do other shows, and anytime I feel comfortable asking someone offline who's been divorced, I always say, did you know when you were walking down the aisle? I've probably asked 35 people I've interviewed, all different industries. Only one said no. everybody said yes they felt something and they walked down the aisle for a number of different other reasons but I see how that happens yeah I will share that when we got divorced my now ex-wife said to me you know when I was standing in the sort of vestibule of we got married in a restaurant she was like and I was about to like walk down the aisle she's like a part of me thought like don't do this like run and I said really and she said yeah she didn't tell me in a hurtful way she was telling me it in a way like that oh maybe something in her new and I would never have guessed that I think it's hard you know it's hard to listen to yourself in an honest way I've been in therapy a long time and anytime somebody says like how much they like being in therapy I'm like well then you might need to get a different therapist therapy's supposed to uncomfortable.

1:20:50Like it's supposed to be a little uncomfortable. It's supposed to be like that which you need to see the most is in the place you least want to look. And you have to dig around, you know, and you have to be uncomfortable. And I think that, you know, that discomfort is an important part of the process. And I think that discomfort is the discomfort you feel when you're paying attention. Again, I am a fan of an uncomfortable truth versus a comfortable lie. And I think the long-term ramifications of ignoring the voices inside you, of not paying attention, that cost is much higher than the temporary discomfort.

1:21:29Danielle:True or false, don't marry anyone you wouldn't want to be divorced from. True. I think gauging how someone is with their exes is important. I think it tells you something about who they are. I remember when I first got divorced, I went on a date. It was one of the first dates I went out with after my divorce. this was a long time ago it was going really good it's going really well and i was like oh this is cool like you know like i can still feel a connection with the person we were having fun we were at dinner and i was already thinking about maybe i would see her again and we were talking about some like art gallery some exhibit or something and i said oh we should you know maybe we'll go see it together we could do it like you know sometime soon and she was like oh i'd love that you know we could do it next weekend like the asshole has the kids so i could do and i was like oh boy okay like and the fact that she was referring to her co-parent and ex-husband as the asshole I was like we are not on a good level here like this is not something and it was so different than my experience I would never refer to my ex-wife that way you divorce who you married like people don't want to believe that people are like oh when the ring comes on the mask comes off like no like if you're married to a person who's like petty and spiteful you're going to divorce someone who's petty and spiteful and they're going to be petty and spiteful in divorce like If you marry someone who's reasonable and prone to acknowledging the possibility of their own error and kind of kind-hearted and empathetic, that's who they'll be probably in the divorce.

1:22:48And so it's okay. Yeah, you should be prepared to divorce the person that you're marrying.

1:22:52Danielle:For someone who's not married yet, what's the number one red flag that should make them run away before they ever get there? I mean, I don't think you should ever marry someone you think you're going to change or in anticipation of them changing. I honestly have to say the number one red flag in my experience would be people that have substance use issues. I think a lot of marriages, particularly at this moment, I would say in the last five to ten years, substance use issues is a big thing. Whether it's alcohol abuse, cannabis abuse, opiates, you know, stimulants, Adderall. Like substance use is usually emblematic of other significant mental health issues or interpersonal issues that a person might have.

1:23:33And if a person has mild substance use issues, very often that can metastasize into something much more extreme. It's not going to get better. It'll get worse. So I would say that's a huge red flag. My other answer would be a person who is incapable of apologizing. I think you can tell a lot about a person by the way they apologize. Like, I think you should listen when someone apologizes. Because if they're prone to what I like to call a bullshit apology, which is, you know, I'm sorry you were so upset by what happened. That's a bullshit apology. I'm sorry. That's a better apology, but it's not a very good one.

1:24:11The best apology is I know what I did that upset you. And then saying what it was. Like I wasn't listening and I invalidated your perspective. I shouldn't have done that. And I'm really sorry that I did. And if I had the chance to do it again, I would do it differently. That's an A plus apology. You identified what you're apologizing for. So this person knows I'm not just offering a blanket apology and I don't understand what I actually did. I'm acknowledging what it is that I did to make sure that what I'm apologizing for is the thing that hurt you. Then I'm apologizing unequivocally for the behavior, not for how it made you feel, not for the effects of it, for the behavior itself.

1:24:51and I'm acknowledging it was wrong of me to do and that I won't repeat that behavior now that I've learned the lesson that was necessary. That's a good apology. If you are dating someone and they can't apologize and even when they apologize, it has to be, you know, I'm sorry that happened, but you know, I have to say like you were definitely pushing. Okay, like run because they're not gonna get better at that.

1:25:13Danielle:That's a really good one. Okay, my last question is what is the best gift to give somebody going through a divorce? You know, there's this new phenomenon I just heard about that I kind of love. Tell me. Divorce registries. I love this. I do too. I agree. Somebody pointed it out to me thinking I was going to piss all over it. Because I tend to like laugh at some of these conventions like that people do. Like, you know, there's all these new ones too, like a baby moon or a push present. People love to just like add holidays and add opportunities to buy gifts. so somebody brought this to my attention that a woman was getting divorced and she put up on like tiktok or whatever social media is like listen a lot of my friends are asking me like how they can be of support to me and of course like talking to me and being there for me is a really lovely thing but like if you really want to do something like i i gave up half my stuff like i let him keep all the pots and pans i gotta get pots and pans like and she made a registry she went on amazon and made a registry somebody brought it to my attention i was like that's not a thing and they were like yeah it is and i looked it up and i was like oh my god that's a thing i actually bought an item on her registry i bought her a 40 it wasn't like expensive thing but she registered for stuff that like oh yeah like it was useful yeah like she like gave them all the sheets like i got the impression she left the apartment or left the home so there was like things she needed that like Like, you know, like you don't own two pasta strainers.

1:26:42Yeah. So if you leave, you're like, all right, you keep the pasta strainers. If you'd said like, I'm keeping the pasta strain, you'd seem petty. So she was like, yeah, let him keep all that stuff. And it struck me as like, oh, that's kind of a cool way to say to friends, like, you want to help me replace all the stuff I lost in the divorce? You can. So I think that's a really cool thing that you can do. I think people, when they go through a divorce, I think they feel like who they are has foundationally been shifted. Like we live in a world where everybody acts like they meant to do everything that happens, even though half the time I think they're lying.

1:27:16You know, like even when you get fired from a job, they're like, I hated that job anyway. People like really are meant to do that, you know, and you can't do that with a divorce. Like nobody got married and was like, yeah, whatever. If it doesn't work out, we'll just get divorced. Like people mean to stay married. It's a good point. And so I think anything that can make a person not feel like a failure and sort of see it as an invitation to the next chapter of their life. And I think as a friend, the best thing you can do is just point out to the person like all the things about them that still make them incredible and special and that make them appealing, not just in the context of relationship, just in the context of life and whatever this next chapter holds for them.

1:27:51Danielle:It's cool that you said that I was going through a breakup years ago and I was so sad and I got an email from a college friend out of the blue and it was short. It was one or two paragraphs and she just said all the things that she loved about me. Isn't that great? I will never forget it. Yeah, yeah. Isn't that lovely? It's so lovely. It is such a wonderful feeling when we express to another person. I mean, you can do this in a relationship. If you ask another person, like, what is it you love about me? Like, sometimes you're really surprised by the answers. Yeah. I work at an office, you know, with a lot of women.

1:28:26I have a lot of women and paralegal and administrative staff. It fascinates me sometimes because my office is such that I can hear their conversations sometimes. And I've learned so much about how little I know about women by that experience. Because we're all running around like trying to do as many shoulder presses as possible and thinking we have to get like Chris Hemsworth's abs.

1:28:49Danielle:That is so not it. And the stuff you guys like when you're like, oh, you know, he was wearing a T-shirt and like you could just see like the bump of where the cross he wears was. oh, I think that's so sexy. I'm like, wait, what? Like, what is that? Or he did that thing like that when I got up to use the restroom, like he didn't know whether he should get up or not. And he was so cute. And I'm like, wait, what are you talking about? Like the stuff that you guys are like blown away by, even some of the stuff that you're upset by that we do. I'm like, we would never have known that. Like we really should have to like embed an anthropologist, like a Jean Goodall in each other's spaces.

1:29:27Like I think like women should like embed themselves in like some bar or some jujitsu academy and just like hide and listen to what we're saying. And then we should do the same thing with women. Like we should just like listen because we would be stunned by it. And I think if you say to your partner, like, you know, when do you feel the most loved by me? Like that's an interesting question. It's a beautiful question. Like when do you feel the most loved by me? I think you'd be shocked at the answer. It would be such small things. It would be such little tiny things that made you feel like, and you'd go that?

1:30:00It wasn't the grand gesture that I planned for your birthday. And it's like, no, it was that one time where you did this, like, or when my mom was sick and you did this. And it's like, wait, really? Like, it was that easy? Like, it was that easy? That little thing? Like, that to me is like the most beautiful thing that we just don't even know how much power we have over the emotional state of this other person and we don't even see the ways we make them feel loved. I'm always in my own relationships you know even with my sons like I've always said to them because I know how you know working as a hospice volunteer and doing what I do for a living and seeing the impermanence of things I'm always thinking about the impermanence of things and I always make a point of telling my sons like everyone in my life who I love I make a point of the last thing I say to them in every conversation is I love you because I always want to know that's the last words I said to that person because you never know when it's the last time, you know.

1:30:54But I've always said to my sons, I'm like, you know, I love you, but I want you to know I know you love me. Like, I want you to hear me say that I know you love me. So you never have to worry if something happened to me. Did my dad know I loved him? Like, yeah, I know you love me. And I think there's tremendous value in relationship, whatever the relationship, mother, father, son, sibling, whatever, in saying to the other person, like, I feel your love. And maybe even saying to them, do you know, when you did X, Y, and Z, I could feel that you love me. Like what a gift to say that to someone.

1:31:29Danielle:You know, I've probably like 8 ,000 hours of conversation professionally, and no one's ever said that. I agree with you. Isn't that interesting? Yeah. Yeah. And it's so simple. It's free. Like you don't need to buy the 37 Birkin bags. It would warm you to the core. If all of the people in your life right now could just tell you all the times they feel loved by you, I think you would be reduced to a puddle of tears by how beautiful that is. And I think that one of the great problems of our society is that like the first time most people get everyone who loves them in a room is at their funeral.

1:32:06Yes. Like that's crazy, man. We have to cultivate spaces to talk more about how much we love each other. That's your next company. Maybe. It's just what I need is another job.

1:32:18Danielle:I have some rapid fire questions for you. Alright, let's go.

1:32:23Danielle:Celebrity couple you think is the real deal? Thinks the real deal in terms of how much they love each other? Because I've got a couple that I'm like impressed by in terms of how well they divorced. Like Bruce Willis did me more like had the coolest divorce ever. Really? Oh, yeah. Like, Liev Schreiber and Naomi Watts had, like, the coolest divorce. And now they, like, just took their kid off to college. And they both posted on Instagram about it. They're at lunch together. And, like, I was like, see? You can do it. People do it all the time. People are cool with each other. So couples that I think are, like, a celebrity couple that I think is the real deal.

1:32:53Gosh. I think, actually, Barack and Michelle Obama. I remember when they did their first dance at the inauguration. I think it was to edit James at last, which I think is a very romantic song. and the way they were looking at each other, I was like, man, these two, like, they got a couple kids and, like, I get the impression they still are into each other. Like, they're still going at it. And maybe it's artifice, but I didn't get the impression it was. It seemed to me that, yeah, that's, like, real impalpable.

1:33:17Danielle:Your favorite romantic comedy? I think Love Actually. I've probably seen Love Actually, like, 15 times and I still think it's a really beautiful film because it's about a lot of different kinds of love in a lot of different circumstances and I think it's a really lovely film. I know it's come under some criticism in the past, but I think that's a really good romantic comedy. It's your favorite holiday. Thanksgiving. Because there's no gifts. You don't have to buy anybody presents and it's just food. And it's a lot of people getting together and just gathering for a meal. I really like that. I love how anti-consumerism you are.

1:33:47I think we've convinced people that consumption will fill the void and it won't. Nothing drives that point home to you more than representing ultra-wealthy people. Because they're just miserable, a lot of them.

1:33:56Danielle:What haven't you gotten in life that you've been chasing? Peace. I think peace inside myself. I think that's what I'll have always been chasing and maybe will always be chasing. I feel like I'm getting closer to it. I think I spent a lot of my life uncomfortable in my own skin. I would never go backwards. I'm 52. My sons are in their 20s. A lot of the guys who work for me are in their 30s and 40s, and I don't envy any of them. I like moving forward, and I feel like I'm getting closer and closer every year to peace. Thank you for saying that and sharing that. If you weren't an attorney, what would you be doing?

1:34:27I think I'd be a writer. I love to write. I wrote my book. I've written some fiction, none of which has been published yet, but some of which is in the works. And I like to write. It's a very solitary activity. I also think I would probably work in end-of-life medicine. I would probably be like a full-time hospice volunteer. I think that's what I'll do when I retire is I'll probably write books and be a hospice volunteer.

1:34:46Danielle:Something everyone should try once. Brazilian jiu-jitsu. I've been training Brazilian jiu-jitsu for about 15 years. I think it's one of the most rewarding and enjoyable activities. I jokingly call it struggle cuddles because it's a very physically intimate activity to do with somebody, but it requires a lot of trust. And it's also like chess with your body. And it's also really practical from a self-defense standpoint. What's a book that you've read that changed your life, something you think everybody should read? I got to go with two of them. Okay. One is All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.

1:35:16It won the Pulitzer Prize. It's an unbelievably beautiful book. It's theoretically about World War II, but it's not really. It's about being human. And so I think that is one of, if not the greatest book I've ever read. The other is a book that came out about two months ago in June. It's a book by an author named Jason Green. It's his first novel and it's called Unworld. It's a novel and it's a very readable novel. I would say that it's about artificial intelligence and the nature of consciousness, but it's really about life and grief and what does it mean to be human. and like All the Light We Cannot See, it was a book that moved me to tears like two or three times while I was reading it, but with just how beautiful the sentiment in it was.

1:36:00It's an incredible book. I mean, it's a new book, so I don't know how it will do popularity-wise. I kind of stumbled on it. It's not even out in paperback. It's still in hardcover, but I bought it when I was going away to Las Vegas for the weekend and I was like, oh, I'm going to read like some light fiction, you know? And I'm sitting like by the pool at the Palazzo, like crying. It was such a good book. And in some of the same ways that All the Light We Cannot See is. What it's about is not what it's about. Very much about being human.

1:36:27Danielle:You can grab the question everything card game and pull out whichever card calls to you. Oh, this is the worst question for me. Why? Because I'm so antisocial. The single best party you've ever been to. Set the scene. Everyone who knows me in real life knows I do not go to parties. I refuse to go to parties. I'm really good at working a room, but I find it exhausting. Will you go to a small gathering like a dinner? Yes, but I hate that too. It's not, I'm great at it. I just, I find it exhausting. And I also, I wake up at 4am every day. So I'm usually in bed by 8, 830. Yeah. So like all the interesting things happen after 8pm.

1:37:07So I'm really not that much fun.

1:37:09Danielle:Can I ask you a question taking all humility out of this for a second? Most people I know who feel that way, have a really high IQ. And so they are the most interesting person at the table. Usually. I love talking to people. I find people fascinating. I'm just way better with like one-on-one. Like if you said to me, like, Hey, let's like go have coffee and talk to somebody for a couple of hours. Yeah. If I had more free time, I would happily do like as a hospice volunteer. I don't think I've ever talked about death with anybody. Like they just want to tell you about their life and what they did for a living and their relationships.

1:37:47And like, I'm riveted. Like I'm fascinated by that. I feel compelled when I'm in a group setting to like entertain and be entertaining and bring out the entertainment in the people around me. I feel like this sense of control that I'm like, okay, I want to like make this as wonderful as possible and I'm good at it, but I just, I find it really tiring. So my answer to this would be the single best party I've ever been to set the scene, it would really be me and my dogs on the couch. And like, you know, something really interesting on Netflix and probably popcorn with like some ghee on it and some salt.

1:38:25And that's to me like the best party ever. Like I'm very much a homebody. My idea of a good party is like a very small group of people, if any, and maybe something lovely to eat and definitely dogs like anything having dogs involved like i'm the person who at the party if i had the misfortune of being invited to a party i will definitely be in the corner playing with their pets like i love animals so i'll sit there with their cat and i'm the guy too that people will go you know like oh my god that dog doesn't like anybody you know and i'm like oh yeah well you just you know he needed to meet me like and i my energy with animals works really well.

1:39:03Danielle:Well, I heard that you love dogs so much that you're launching PetNups. Yes, PetNups, trustedpetnup.com. That is our new venture. So the team at trustedprenup.com, which is a company I've been involved in for most of this year, we really only started up. I've done hundreds, if not thousands of prenups. And I was approached by a team of really innovative thinkers who came to me and said, we want to leverage AI and technology and take these prenups you've done, these hundreds, if not thousands of prenups, feed them into a large language model, come up with the best possible version of the prenup.

1:39:39And we did. And I was really the legal technical advisor who took the time to put together like the best possible version. And we've now had hundreds of people in the last five, six months who've now come onto the platform and built their own prenup. We're doing it a quarter of what the retainer would be. And this is like soup to nuts. And we We have a guarantee in terms of its enforceability. We have guarantees in terms of your satisfaction with the process. Like we're really transparent in the way we're doing it. And we're doing it in this really innovative way and I'm thrilled to see how well it's doing.

1:40:10But one of the things that I've been seeing more and more of in my practice and as an animal lover, I'm very attuned to it, is I'm seeing a ton of people who in the divorce, like what happens with companion animals is a huge piece. Like they're a member of our family. We care about them in a very similar way to the way we care about our children. Some couples are making choices of saying, we're not having children and our pets are going to be, you know, our fur babies or whatever it might be. And so, you know, the pets, just like the children, they didn't ask for there to be a division or a conflict.

1:40:39They don't really understand what's going on. And I've seen people weaponize a pet in a divorce. I've seen people, you know, really be terrified to lose a pet in a divorce. So we decided, you know what, rather than creating barriers to entry to this, like we're going to make it something that's totally democratized. There's a lot of law firms and even some online services that are charging people to do cohabitation agreements or companion animal agreements. Like if people are dating and they decide to get a dog or a cat together, even though they're not living together, like they're charging people to create that.

1:41:12And we said, yeah, let's not do that. Let's just do it for free. Let's do it as a public service. So what we're doing is trusted pet nup. If you adopt a rescue pet anywhere in the United States, you're entitled to a free trusted pet nup. You're entitled to a free companion animal agreement, whether it's a we're dating, whether it's we're cohabitating, whether it's we're married, whether it's we're marrying. This is basically a way to protect the rights and obligations related to a pet. And if you aren't adopting a dog or cat or horse or bird or whatever companion animals you're adopting, if you've already done it or you bought it from a breeder, we're still making it accessible.

1:41:50And what we're doing there is a pay as you wish kind of a thing. But what we're doing is giving 50 % of it to foster and stray rescue charities and the other 50 % we're using for the cost of the platform, maintaining the website, all of the backend stuff that's done by our technical team. So yeah, that's something we're pretty excited about and that I think is going to be a really nice public service. And I hope is going to raise some money for the charities that I already was very supportive of, really help people see the value in fostering pets and hopefully minimize conflict between people when they split up, you know, when it comes to their pets, because I've really seen that cause a lot of pain for people.

1:42:25And I think that it doesn't need to, it can be something that we can contract. You know, the law is starting to treat companion animals differently. When I first started practicing, I had a case where the people couldn't agree on what to do with the dog. And he said, all right, I'm going to order the dog be sold and the proceeds divided. They immediately went out and figured out the solution. But there was a long time where courts treated animals like property. Like if you accidentally killed someone's dog, you owed them the replacement value of purchasing a new dog. Like that's crazy. So now the law really understands that they have a special emotional place in our hearts.

1:42:57So we're just trying to help people's contractual relationships, you know, stay apace with how the law is changing.

1:43:05Danielle:You are such a dynamic person. Thanks. I mean, I think that's a compliment. I don't know. For sure. Thank you for sharing. I could be exhausting to spend that much time with, but thank you. I appreciate that. No, riveting. Thank you for sharing so much time with me. No, thank you for asking such interesting questions and getting such a nice space. I'm really appreciative of the time. That's so nice. Thank you. Yeah, it's great.

1:43:30Danielle:Okay, you know what time it is. Today's a good day to have a good day. I'll see you next week.

1:44:14We'll be right back. Your BET favorites are now on Paramount+. Subscribe now.

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1:46:17I went to visit the campus. The facilities were amazing. I knew before I left that that was the school that I was going to attend.

1:46:24Danielle:Rasmussen University. Are you ready to be your own hero online and on campus? Learn more at rasmussen.edu. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.