Is Who You Marry the Most Important Financial Decision? with Divorce Attorney Jim Sexton

24:10And the other person who is now saying, I don't know what to trust you about. Yeah, I can't trust you. But also isn't conceding the reality that, yeah, when you tell me the truth, I lose my shit. Yes. And therefore, it's understandable that you'd be afraid of me. This comes up in the context of infidelity all the time. Because I'll have, particularly women, will say to me, you know, like if he had told me he was dissatisfied in our sex life, you know, and I'm like, you would have what? Finish that sentence. You would have explained to him why he's wrong for feeling that way. Or you would have gotten mad at him.

24:45You're telling me if he said, listen, I don't know why, but I'm starting to have kind of a wandering eye. Suddenly, I'm finding myself being more flirtatious and I don't want to be because we made an agreement that we were going to be just that for each other. But there's something in me, this restlessness, I don't completely understand. That you would go, well, that must have been really hard to share with me and like thank you for that and look i i want to be your only partner so i want to try to meet your needs to the extent that i can't like no fucking way you would have lost your mind i would sound like but in retrospect when you rewrite the history of your relationship you're like well he could have just told me and it's like no he couldn't that's the the secrets the secrets and there's a lot of that with money okay so here's the third scene it's from sex in the city oh it's our penultimate scene i watched a lot of sex in the city okay so you I know this scene.

25:30Oh, I know all the characters. Miranda, pre-being a lesbian. Yeah. This is the good sex in the city, not the bad sex in the city. I refuse that the timeline ended when the show ended. I don't even acknowledge the films. I don't even acknowledge the films. You haven't been to Abu Dhabi? I don't acknowledge the films. I watched the first two of them. I don't acknowledge them. Miranda and Steve are out suit shopping for an event. You know the scene? I think I remember it. Jesus. 1 ,800 bucks. I guess I better not spill anything. Don't worry. It's my treat. What? I invited you to this thing. I want to pay for the suit.

26:10No way. You're not buying me a suit.

26:18But I wanted to do this for you. Then I start to think of you like my mother, and that can get a little weird for me. Sorry, sir. It was declined. Would you like to try another one? Why don't you try one of mine? No, no, no. How about this? Let's try 800 on the card. I'll write you a check for a thousand, and I'll give you the rest in cash. Steve, forget it. It's too expensive. Would you just let me buy the fucking soap? I knew that relationship would not work out. I would say that for sure. But I think that scene is a very relatable scene in the gender dynamic of men and women. And I think in the modern age, I think it's an increasingly more common one.

26:56I've seen a tremendous number of divorces when a man loses his job, not because he lost his job and now she just bails on him, but because of the second order effects that happen when a man loses his job and feels emasculated and feels like his destiny is out of his control and he's not a good provider anymore, particularly if he's married to someone who she's doing well financially. I've represented celebrities who are married to other celebrities and they're when they started the relationship they were either in roughly equal position or the man was more successful and then the woman her star goes on the rise and his starts to wane a bit and so the person goes from being like the the the star to being the plus one the and more yeah and that puts a lot of strain on a relationship and I think that you know it's there's gender stuff in there about the man wanting to be a provider.

27:45I think a helplessness that someone feels when they're in a different economic cast as someone else. And there's this feeling that I can't run with you, and so you're going to think less of me. Miranda's a partner in a successful law firm, so she's surrounded by men who have an abundance of very nice, expensive suits. And he feels like, I can't compete with that. I was surprised how she pushes beyond his saying, because then it'd be like my mother. And then the fact that she's still like trying to. Yeah, but I think one of the things that made her character compelling throughout the show is that she was, you know, like I don't think she had ill intention ever.

28:25I think she like was successful and constantly felt like she had to apologize for being successful. Although she was not my favorite character by far. She was like my least favorite character. I find Miranda, I didn't, I love the character except for the time when she ate the cake out of the trash. Do you remember this? Like she had like cake. That was real. That seems so real. It was very real. it hit all of us it made me like her so much but this scene this is a tough scene for me though i think that to give her some grace i think she was just excited to do something for him one of the things i liked about miranda as a character was that she was constantly like on this gender line that was tricky because she was hard charging and like she wasn't the most feminine so of the four she was the least like traditionally feminine and yet she had a lot of very feminine traits like she really wanted to be one of the girls and was one of the girls like but she was constantly banging into things this is an example of that like she wanted to do something nice for him and like she's very successful and she she had the attitude about money that i have which is like hey what am i gonna buy with my money that would be better than making someone i love happy yeah but i think for him as a man the thought of like a i want to be the provider and he was a very old school traditional character, right?

29:42And then also, there had to be some piece of, you know, like, you're with all of these men that wear nice suits, and they can buy them for themselves. And I can't. And by the way, like, do you want me in a suit because that's what you want? Or do you want me? And because Steve is not a guy you'd ever see in a suit. And by the way, looks great in the suit. Last one we're going to see. I never cheated on you. That was cheating on me. But there's so much I could have done. I was a director in my 20s who came from nothing and was suddenly on the cover of fucking time out new york i was hot shit and i wanted to fuck everybody and i didn't and i loved you and i didn't want to lose you but i'm in my 20s and i didn't want to lose that too and i kind of did and you wanted so much so fast i didn't even want to get married fuck it there's so much i didn't do by the way the fact that that's called a marriage story is insane.

30:39It should be called a divorce story. I watched it and I remember I had COVID and watched it. I was just stuck at home. And I was like, oh, yeah, people are talking about this. And I like looking at Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver. They're both really good looking people. So I'm like, let me watch this. And halfway through it, I was like, oh my God, I feel like I'm at work. This is terrible. This is awful. It's thoroughly depressing. They definitely needed to get divorced. Okay, so we know where they're headed. We know where they're headed or else there was no movie. But yeah, I mean, look, I think in that, what is that scene?

31:10That scene is an eruption of things left unsaid and resentments that have built up over an extended period of time and now just blow up. I actually think it's a beautiful scene because it turns into such an eruption that it actually brings out in her something very sympathetic to him. And she ultimately kind of embraces him because he says the most horrible things. But it's what happens when two people who have a long emotional history with each other and a long personal history with each other don't share openly throughout the process and tell each other what they want to hear. That scene and that clip is more about what you withhold than what you've shared.

31:56And the effect that that can have. it becomes a cancer that grows and grows and grows. And it's like pushing a balloon underwater. Eventually, it's got to pop back up. How does money show up in terms of the success rates in marriage? They always say people with college degrees or people with higher income. Yeah. People with college degrees have a much lower divorce rate than people without college degrees, which is unfortunate because the majority of Americans don't have college degrees. So it bodes poorly for the success of marriage. It's why I also challenge a lot of my right-wing friends who get very caught up in the idea of no-fault divorce and things like that.

32:28And I I always say to them, you know, if you really cared that much about marriage, you would do something about economic inequality, like wealth insecurity. Because, right, I hate to sound like there is no war but the class war, but I keep sort of coming back to that. Because I think fundamentally, if you really care about marriage, you're going to create economic conditions where people are going to do better with their marriages. And that is, people who are economically stable do better in marriage. Once you get past a certain level of wealth, it actually starts to spike the divorce rate. because, again, though, the question that interests me is when people are middle class or slightly upper class, but not wealthy.

33:08Yeah, most people or many people. They can afford their lifestyle. They can't afford to cut their life in half and then still afford the lifestyle. So that creates a tremendous, like nothing unites like a common enemy. And so if two people are like, okay, I'm unhappy, but am I so unhappy that I want to give up having a house, you know, and have to stay together and just go, well, look, we don't. Whereas if you have so much money, like divorce gets a lot easier. Liberation. Because people just go like, all right, I'll buy another house in the Hamptons or I'll keep this one and buy her one. Like whatever.

33:42I'm just going to get myself an apartment in the same building on a different floor. What is something that we should do with our own finances before we enter into a partnership with someone else? Because we'll get into later like couples and you what you said to me last time that you me and we i would say something you should do individually is have what i would call a naked lunch like where you really look at what's at the end of your fork like like the most dangerous lies in relationship are the image in my head is so fucked up right now i'm just imagining a naked person looking at a four looking at the end of their four okay i mean listen whatever the metaphor does for you it's fun.

34:15It tells more about you than me. It's a Rorschach test of sorts. I think what happens economically is the most dangerous lives are the lies we tell ourselves. And so I think looking at your finances, honestly, most people don't want to make a budget for the same reason they don't want to have an annual physical. They're like, I don't want to know. I know they're going to tell me a bunch of stuff I really don't want to hear. I get it. But I think one of the best things you can do when it comes to money, when you're not in relationship, is have an honest conversation with yourself about, okay, what are my economic realities?

34:56What are my economic prospects in a real way? We're not all going to get to do the thing we love and make a lot of money at it. The world could not have that many baseball players and ballerinas. So we're all going to have to either lean to our competencies and hope that they're profitable, or we're going to chase money and maybe we might not enjoy what we do as much. Not everybody gets the benefit of being able to do something I love and I make a lot of money at it. And then you have to prioritize, what does that create for me in terms of partners? Should I be careful about having a partner who, because again, if I meet someone and I go, oh, well, I'm very into chasing money, They're very into chasing money.

35:40Right. But they want to have a family. Yeah. So then that's going to change the dynamic. And by the way, even if it doesn't, if you both stay fully focused on your careers, okay, so then now your children are going to be raised by a third party. So I just think the more you're honest with yourself about what do you need, what do you want, that's going to be really important. I've said the same thing about sex a million times, which is just, I think most problems in marriage stem from, we don't know what we want. And to the extent we know, we don't know how to express it to the other person. Yes.

36:11For sex too, you can have a naked lunch and look at the end of a long four. You can in fact have naked lunch and that might be a good way to keep the marriage together. Kind of non sequitur, but kind of sequitur. It's like, should we all have wills before we partner up? I always tell people that whenever some, because people ask me quite often like, oh, when should I get a will? And I just tell them early and often. Okay. Early and often. Like early and often. Like for early on in your life, get a will or have a will done. It's very easy to do. There's actually a lot of great online services now.

36:36If you're worth less than $10 million, you don't have to really worry about a lot of the tax stuff and you can just use any of the resources online. Or, again, remember that you can do this as often as you want. You can redo your estate planning every couple of years. And that's a smart thing to do. I even said the same thing about prenups. When people do prenups, I haven't said to them, listen, this is legally binding and 20 years from now, it'll still be legally binding, but there's no reason why the two of you can't redo this in a couple of years and change the entitlements. Or if kids show up, okay, now we're going to change some things.

37:06I'm totally going to do that because I think it's a good forcing mechanism for the naked lunch. Now I'm seeing the Rorschach test was like, I don't want to have the naked lunch on the finances. It's like doing the will. Yeah, it's uncomfortable. And so I think whenever you want to know what's the best thing to do, I'm like, well, what would make you uncomfortable? I kind of know, but it's like actually organizing everything. It's like all the things, I started putting them and just, it's like, it's just annoying. Yeah. You can put this whole podcast together. You can put that together. Yeah, it's true.

37:32But you're looking forward to this. You're not looking forward to that. I don't blame you. It's not fun. It's not as fun. But the hard thing to do and the right thing to do are almost always the same thing. Yeah, always fun. And it's true about this as well. Like the hard thing to do is to like, look honestly at your finances and your reality and what it is you want or need. And I think that if you have that honest conversation, it's hard, but man, I think it's the best thing to do. Okay. we're going to take a quick break, but don't go away because this is also about money.

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39:36Okay, so couples and cash, first date or third date, how soon is too soon to talk about money? I don't think it's ever too soon if it happens organically. But I think if you're trying to steer into it, first date, it's probably not a great idea. Yeah, weird. I think that would be weird. I think that first date is really more general get-to-know-you stuff, I think. But again, money can be an invitation to talk about a lot of other things, about what's important to someone, where they've been. I also think that you can glean from context clues a lot about people's attitudes towards money. Like if someone starts talking about when they summered in Switzerland, you sort of go, oh, okay, I kind of know where we're.

40:12Or if someone says, oh, have you stayed at this place? That's really how people flex when it comes to wealth is by talking about places they've been. If someone says to me, like, oh, I was just in Chamonix, and I'm like, okay, well, if you're helicopter skiing, you're at a certain level of wealth. Whereas if somebody says, oh, I just spent time in the Hamptons, like, well, you could have got an Airbnb. That's the weird thing about money, because so many of our conversations about money are around it in a way, and I understand that makes it more comfortable and palatable. But also, all the small talk in New York City of, oh, what part of town do you live in?

40:45Oh, did you buy there recently you know it's like people are always trying to understand yeah it doesn't really tell you anything it doesn't tell you anything because that's the part i'm always astounded by is that even the person who talks about oh this is what i do or this is what i wear this is the watch i have or whatever you don't know if they're just leveraged to the hilt and really foolish with money you know because you see the i have times where when i look at someone's financials and i think they have a lot this happens a lot with actors and musicians rappers in particular i've represented a few rappers in connection with child support cases and uh the flex that they have of their money and then the reality is that they are just their cars are rented their jewelry's you know either rented or fake but i do think this conversation about money is like people are always trying to telegraph how much money they have which may be completely a lie and people are always trying to intuit or like extrapolate how much money you have and i think i really like these like direct conversations by the way speaking of having direct conversations i'm directly asking you guys to hit subscribe, follow on the show and to share it with five people that you love that you think need to hear this conversation about money and relationships and all those kinds of things.

41:50Back to the show. In my personal life, I have almost no idea how to talk about money because I grew up without it. And then once I got it, I was very like, I didn't really understand that, you know, you couldn't speak transparently about money. And so I just talked very openly about it. And I had to sort of realize like, oh, that's not like a, that's not really like a thing you do. That's not done. Yeah, it's not done. My mother was very emphatic that money was only something you needed in case you didn't die tomorrow. And that it was really something that, you know, dying wealthy would be a terrible idea.

42:23Yeah, I actually think that's true. Yeah, I just didn't, I personally don't, I don't really put that, like I don't do what I do for the money. I do what I do for the love of the game. Like I remember saying many, many years ago to my then wife, you know, if I could do this job and make$100 ,000 a year, I'll be the happiest person in the world. And I was absolutely right about being the happiest person in the world doing the job, but I grossly underestimated what you could make doing the job. But I remember thinking it really wasn't about the money. It was just the love of the game. Of course. You're good at the game.

42:54Three months into a relationship, is there a certain amount that you should know about somebody, especially in your 30s or something? About their finances. About their finances, about how they are with money, about whether they want a prenup. I remember someone bringing that up to me early on in a relationship. Talking about prenups. Yeah. Third date. I think that there's a lot of opportunities to talk about prenups in a context that's safe. There's always some celebrity getting married that you can go, I wonder if they're going to have a prenup. How do you feel about prenups? What do you think about prenups?

43:18It's a great way to have that discussion early and introduce it to the ecosystem. I think talking about money, some of it will come out organically. I think that in conversation naturally and even just looking at someone, you're going to know, okay, does he seem like someone who likes nice things? Where are we having dates? I don't think you should judge people based solely on that because I know a lot of very wealthy guys who on the first couple of dates, they take a woman to very unimpressive places because they don't want to weed out that. Well, they want to weed it out and they also don't want to come off like they're leading with their money.

43:53Like if you invite a woman to LaBernadine for your first date, it's a little much. And I think it's nicer to, you know, we've had, we've gone for some walks, we've had some drinks. We've had these nice... Now, would you like to do something kind of more fancy than that? Would you like to go someplace? And I'm a big fan of you only get to do something the first time, one time. So I think that we're poorer for the fact that we eliminated bases in our intimate connections because you only get to kiss someone the first time. You only get to see them naked for the first time, one time. So if you kind of do all of that in one night, and that also is the night you met them, that's crazy.

44:28You've given up so many really fun, beautiful moments you could have accumulated over a period of time. So, I think it's the same thing. I think that organically, we can start to glean something about each other's financial habits from the way we treat. I tend to judge people a lot by how they tip because I was a server. And I remember as a server, when someone would leave me a nice tip, it meant a whole lot. But when they'd leave me a nice tip and they would write great service on the check or something, it just made my day. You can extrapolate from that a lot about who this person is at their core and what their values are.

45:03Again, it's not the money. It's what does the money symbolize? Is there a good, like, you know, there's that how you treat the waiter test. Is there a good gold digger test? I feel like if there were one, you would know. Yeah. I mean, I represent a lot of people that are concerned about the gold digger issue. I'm being vague in gender because there's a lot of very successful women that I represent who find themselves dating like the aspiring musician with the oops, I didn't know I was sexy stubble and like no employment prospects whatsoever. It's sort of the male equivalent of a gold digger. It's like, oh, you're a tech executive and I can write my poetry.

45:41Meanwhile, he's just like high on the couch playing Call of Duty all day. So what's the gold digger test? How do you spot one? Gender neutral gold digger test. I think you're going to spot that pretty early on. I think that fairly early on, this person is going to show a tremendous amount of interest in your finances. It's like very often at the core of the gold digger concept is something, by the way, something very normal, natural, and okay, as far as I'm concerned, about the nature of the economy of a relationship. Yeah, you want to feel financially secure. One of my tattoos is the seven deadly sins all done as skulls.

46:18That's what this whole sleeve is. And I'm always fascinated with the seven deadly sins because all they are is very natural human tendencies taken too far. Like gluttony, we have the desire and necessity of eating, but we take it too far. Lust, the natural biological drive to have an intimate connection with another person, taken too far. They're all normal things taken too far. So, the gold digger concept to me, there's nothing wrong, I'm going to use, I'm going to gender it, with a woman wanting a man who is a good provider. One, on a very practical level, if you're potentially going to have a family together.

46:54You don't want to have economic instability with the person. But two, there is something about the habits of thought that are often necessary to be successful financially, to be a hard charging person in an economic world. Like it'd tell you something about someone. I remember talking to a woman once who said she liked to date men who had beards. And I thought, oh, because it's like cool. And she was like, no, you actually have to be patient to grow a beard. Like you have to make it through the like frustrating, itchy part where it's patchy. She's like, and I want a man who has patience. I want a man who can be a little uncomfortable because there's something he wants more that is on the other side of that discomfort.

47:31So I understood quote unquote gold diggers differently, which is it's a normal selection criteria, but pathologized and perhaps taken too far. Behind every gold digger, for lack of a better term, is a person who has now irrationally put value on consumer products or experiences or being able to flex on social media, which is often a function of something that's in them. They need to feed. Consumption will fill the void in me. Yeah. And I understand that. We all have something that we think is going to fill the void, whether you want to call it a God-sized hole or whatever hole it is in us, like whatever trauma, whatever stuff we're carrying around that we think, oh, if I can throw enough chocolate cake or pour some whiskey on this, it'll go away.

48:21And that's not how it works. But for some people, that's money. Interesting. Last time you told me separate bank accounts are a green flag. I think so. And I was a little torn on that because it feels like if we're in it together, you're in it together. I love that you identify that as a feeling. Yeah, it feels like this to me. It doesn't feel like that to me, but it feels like that to you. That's totally valid. But your work has like changed my mind about prenup and like head of scene. I understand it. But you, me, and we, what is the right split in a relationship to like how much of your money?

48:52And I almost thought about bringing like a jug and marble. So you play a game here too, but I was like too heavy. I don't even think we need the prop, but it's good. I mean, I think that's going to depend on the user, right? On each person. What's important to them? What percentage of their income goes to trivialities or what they would both regard as like, like fun spending or non-essentials. There's lots of ways to do things. It's just like saying, how much sex is enough sex in a relationship? I don't know. Use the baseline of when you got together and if you were both satisfied with it, that's a good baseline.

49:23But will you sustain that throughout a relationship? Maybe not. So just, again, when something changes, have a conversation about it. I think we all know we have certain essential expenses when it comes to money. We have certain things that we have to pay or there are consequences. We have to pay our credit card bill. We have to pay our auto. We have to pay our rent. We have to pay, or there are consequences, foreclosure, eviction, whatever it might be. So those are essentials. I think you have to have a conversation about what are your essentials financially. And then what are the predictable things that we need, but they're not essentials?

49:54Like my gym membership, it's really important. I need one. It doesn't maybe have to be the high-end one, but it could be one that's important. And by the way, maybe that's a category where to me, spending is very important. That's, I want a nice gym or I like to fly first class. Okay, I know it's not an essential, but for me, it's a high-ranking item. It would definitely go above watches or clothing. Having conversations about what does that look like for us, that's a great place to start. And then you can identify what is the we. How should we divide that? Because maybe if I'm very emphatic about I want my gym is very important to me and for you, shoes is very important to you.

50:28So if that's important to you, okay, then that's important to you. If I love you, I should honor the fact that this is something that you understand is not an essential, but it makes you feel a certain way. And that's lovely. Like, I think if I love you and I support our relationship, I want you to feel like the best version of yourself. You know, look, I may not want a woman who spends a lot of money on clothing, but if I want a woman who looks beautiful and feels confident and carries herself with the confidence that a woman who loves the clothing that she's in carries herself with, well, okay, man, buy the ticket if you want the ride.

51:01Like, you don't want the carrying charge of it, but you want the thing that comes. it doesn't work that way. Like if you want to date a man who's successful, you're going to date a man who's busy probably. So you got to live with that. So it's okay to say like, oh my God, it'd be so great if like a guy had a ton of money, but also was just around all the time and very emotional. Okay, great. And he'd be a fucking unicorn. Like that doesn't make his great grandfather died one day. That would be the only, you got to find a trust fund guy who's also not a psycho. So good luck with that. So I think that's an important piece is you got to realize this is, there's going to be trade-offs here.

51:38I agree with that. I remember I once was briefly dating a Scandinavian person and he, and I asked, because I was so curious, like how do people do, because they're so specific. Like the welfare state works because like if their uncle is drinking, they have a conversation with him because you're stealing from the whole society. So he said like, you know, basically couples come in and they put a percentage, even from the very beginning into the bank accounts. And as you like have more things together, you have a baby together, you have a house together, just that percentage increases over time and it's just proportionate to your earned income.

52:05And there's like a formula by which they do all this shit, which is so interesting. We think in generalities and then we live in details, right? So like, what should the speed limit sign say on the side of the road? If it's being honest, it should say drive at a rate of speed commensurate with the weather conditions and traffic pattern in accordance with your abilities as a driver. I can tell you're a lawyer. That's a long scene. So instead, what you would write is 55 miles an hour. Is that the right speed? I don't know, maybe. Like, is 54 less dangerous? Is 56 more dangerous? Probably not that much.

52:41So what you have to do is you got to pick a number. So like when you pick percentages like that, like child support in New York State, if you have one kid, 17 % of your gross income, less FICA, two kids is 25%, three kids is 29%, four kids is 31%. Those are arbitrary numbers. Yeah. But we got to pick a number, right? So if you want to do that as a couple and say, okay, this is the percentage and this is it, this many years will do that. I do prenups all the time where people are like, well, I want to do this much per year of marriage I'm guaranteed to have. And I'm like, cool. And they're like, what's the right number?

53:13I'm like, oh, you're asking me? Yeah. Like, I have no idea. Like, that's a very individual question. We can make legally binding anything you want, but I can't tell you how much money is enough for you. Is it fair? Like it came down to what you said before, which is like what you need, what you want, what you're entitled to. So is it fair that people in relationships should co-own what their partner makes, creates, builds in the time that they are together? Like, is that inherently right that our system does that? And should it be protected even outside of marriage? I guess those are two questions I have.

53:47Yeah, so it's a great question. I've never been asked. But what I would say is I don't think it's one size fits all, but the law has to be one size fits all. Because one size fits all is rarely a good thing. but equal protection under law is a really important thing. So, you know, again, our legal system is not perfect. And like our democracy, it's the worst one out there except for all the other ones. In our legal system, we make a lot of error on the side of. So we would rather set 10 guilty people free than have one innocent person go to jail. That's how our criminal justice system works. Our civil system says we would rather that children and people who are economically disadvantaged be taken care of after a divorce.

54:32And the risk to that is someone might have a burden that they have to carry support-wise that's too heavy for them. But we'd rather err on the side of making sure kids have the things they need. I think that's an okay presumption. The danger, I would say, of having a system where what you just identified is what's called the marital presumption, which is from the date of marriage on, if you don't have a prenuptial agreement, everything you acquire during the marriage is presumed to be marital property unless it fits into very small, narrow categories of separate property. And that's different in different states, right?

55:00Like California is very different. Generally, but not really. Not really, okay. Every state has some rule that says in the absence of a prenup, when you get married, you're one person in the eyes of the law. So if you buy your spouse a Rolex watch, you bought yourself one half of a Rolex watch. If your spouse wins the lottery, you got one half of the lottery winnings. Okay. Oh yeah, if I buy my spouse a Birkin bag, I bought myself one half of a Birkin bag for their birthday. They should buy two then. I'm just kidding. That's right. That would be silly. Listen, I've got a lot of clients who, his gambling debt and her Birkins are very similar.

55:30So how do you look at the conversation around like Mackenzie Bezos and Jeff Bezos? And like, Mackenzie Bezos deserves 50 % of Amazon. I mean, one might argue that neither Jeff Bezos nor Mackenzie Bezos deserves the amount of money that they have. Yes. But if you accept the premise that while a couple of thousand children die from starvation in an hour, we have billionaires and trillionaires walking around. Under the rules, as they're applied, she is entitled to what she's entitled to. And Lauren Sanchez, I think there's a lot of woman-on-woman crime against Lauren Sanchez, and the actual principal is Jeff.

56:08Yeah. I mean, I think what people spend their money on is entirely up to them. Are you saying that Jeff Bezos spends his money on Lauren Sanchez? I think that's pretty obvious. I mean, I think that's... She doesn't look low-maintenance, and their wedding. Look, I think fundamentally what people do with their money is up to them. I think how people earn their money, there are rules to the game and people play the game the way they play it. And I don't criticize people who play the game by the rules because they're not the ones who made the rules. Do I think that in a divorce that the rule should be that anything you acquire during the marriage, like if a spouse was sitting by the pool eating bonbons and yelling at you about why aren't you coming home sooner.

56:57So your success was kind of like in spite of them. It shouldn't be the same as the she was licking envelopes in the office and helping you and not getting paid for it. I feel like a system that treats those two things exactly the same. Part of the reason why I never felt any resentment towards my ex-wife for what she was entitled to is that we had two very young children while I was in law school and she did like all of the heavy lifting and so to me like we were both working our asses off at our respective roles and I could not have done my job if it wasn't for her and she could not have done her job as a parent without me at that moment yeah the kids and so it was this feeling but even if we had kids in the equation like the supporting you're in law school like you can't do your own laundry you can't do like and having someone that supports you in that is so useful and just even having someone to spend time with but that's why i actually kind of think like i i get your i get your point on like paying for but i actually have a different take on lauren and and jeff i don't know these i don't know these people either lauren sanchez and jeff bezos which is that like that's exactly it he wants to spend his time with her she is fun and i'm not judging her and i'm not rising to your defense or anything, but I just, I think that there is, yeah, that's how they want to spend their time.

58:22And do you think they're going to make it? Are Lauren Sanchez and Jeff Bezos going to get a divorce or stay together? I mean, I'm sure there's a prenup that's got to be incredible. Are you so sad that you didn't make that prenup? No, I'm just California. I'm not, you know, I don't, I don't worry about it. There's more than enough prenups here. If I had some of the prenups I have in my safe, I swear to God, if TMZ could get in my safe. What I would say is they seem to be very, I like relationships where it seems like everybody's as advertised. Yes, I agree. Like, and I think he's as advertised, she's as advertised.

58:56The wedding reflected their as advertised dynamic. And I kind of love that. What I find more pretentious is when people try to be like all humble on their private jet. Yes. Like I find people flying to, you know, on their private jet to talk about like poverty is like, all right, guys. My dad used to call that nouveau pour. It's like when you take a first class flight to hitchhike somewhere. Yeah, we used to call it being a limousine liberal. Exactly. Okay, you were the prenup guy. Yeah. So all of this, so prenup versus postnup, better to have a prenup. Prenup's much better than a postnup. Postnups in some jurisdictions aren't even enforceable.

59:31Prenups are well tested. Postnups also too, the negotiation of a postnup, you've essentially removed any kind of, I don't want to say leverage, consideration. Yeah, it's an obsolescent bargain. Yeah, because you're agreeing like these are going to be the rules for a thing we've already done. You have two companies now in the prenup space or one? Just one. I have two companies in the legal AI intersection. One is a discovery related product called Bates Flow and the other is Trusted Prenup. Yeah, Trusted Prenup. Are you putting yourself out of business by doing that? No, because prenups are one of the lowest profit items that lawyers do.

1:00:08It really like a very complex prenup. you're talking five ten thousand dollars whereas my retainer on a case is 50 grand 100 grand oh wow so on a prenup like you may not make any money on a prenup what is the weirdest cause that you have seen in a prenup oh god well i mean the one that's the matter of record that i get asked about all the time was the the weight clause where for every 10 pounds she gained she would lose ten thousand dollars is that legally binding it was it was upheld by an tell the story in case people haven't heard it very wealthy guy very beautiful woman that's what they each brought to the table I couldn't tell if there was really anything else discernible about them of value.

1:00:44And because he was ogre-ish in the rest of his demeanor, and she was vapid. But, you know, like they had in common that she loved his money, and he loved his money. And she loved how she looked, and he loved how she looked. So, I mean, there's couples that probably have less in common than that. And yeah, the clause in the prenup was that she got, I think it was$150 ,000 a month in alimony divided by a certain percentage of the duration of the marriage. So it was a colossal amount of money, but the duration was short, depending on how long the marriage was. But she lost$10 ,000 a month in alimony for every 10 pounds that she gained.

1:01:29Insane. And I remember I didn't write the prenup. I wasn't there for the negotiation, the prenup. I was there when they were getting divorced and I was representing him in defending the prenup. So I had to argue to the judge that you can think he's boorish and awful, but this is a contract and they both were represented by lawyers and they're both adults and they both understood the clear and unequivocal terms of this contract and they both agreed to it. And ultimately the judge in her decision, as a female judge, said, this is a disgusting clause by any objective standard. I cannot fathom why you would marry a man who would put this in there, but it is legally binding.

1:02:11And if it's legally binding, I'm not going to set it aside. You had the right to not marry this person. You had the right to not sign this agreement and you signed it. What about minimum sex requirements? Is there, is that a thing? People have put that in. I've had a lot of people want to put, The stuff people want to put in versus what they put in is different. People come to you all the time and say, this is what I want to put in. And a lot of the prenup process for me is explaining to them why it's a terrible idea. What is the thing people most want to put in that you tell them to put out? Fidelity clauses.

1:02:38Fidelity clauses. People fucking love fidelity clauses and they're ridiculous. Because? They're ridiculous on every level. One, it's very, very hard to prove cheating. Two, you have to define what cheating means, which is that genital to genital contact, oral to genital contact, digital to genital contact. if someone is having a one-time dalliance with someone they don't even know versus an emotional texting affair where they're sending the person nudes, is that infidelity for the purposes of this? And then if you make infidelity so broad, like any, I had someone who just wanted to put in the prenup, any inappropriate contact with a member of the opposite sex.

1:03:17I was like, and there's going to be a$100 ,000 penalty for that. Like, okay, if you're going to make the penalty big enough to have some incentive, then the category has to be small enough that you can't weaponize it inappropriately. But then the other thing is fundamentally underneath all of this is the incredibly flawed premise that someone is going to be thinking about cheating to the point where they're actually going to do it. And then they would go - Calculation. But which, by the way, let's say it's a hundred grand. I don't know about you. I've had some sex probably worth a hundred grand.

1:03:49Not a lot, but I've had some hundred grand sex where I'd be like, you know what? How much? That's probably worth it. I feel like you got to get it into seven figures. So that's another piece. And then the next piece of it is, has anyone in the history of infidelity, which has been around since five minutes after the concept of monogamy was created, has anyone ever gone, man, I want to have, oh no, but there's a penalty financially to that. Like, has any junkie ever been like, I need a fix. Oh, wait, heroin's illegal. I really shouldn't do that then. Like, this is not. And by the way, if that was true, like, assume for the purposes of this thought experiment that your partner would be disabused of their desire to have sex with other people based on a financial penalty.

1:04:36Is that why you want that? Like my belief in monogamy personally is in a relationship, I'm going to have sex with as many people as I want to. Yes. And I only want to have. I just want it to be one. That's right. I just want it to be one. Because when I'm full, I don't eat anymore. Yeah. Like when I'm satisfied, I'm satisfied. Is the reason you're not murdering people because it's illegal? No. Is the reason you're not murdering people because you're afraid there's a watchman in the sky who's going to get mad at you? because brother, if that's the case, you're a piece of shit. Like it should be, oh no, I respect the autonomy of other sentient beings and that they have a right to live free from being murdered by someone.

1:05:18Not it's illegal and I'll get in trouble. Or what are we, kindergartners? Like I'm gonna get in trouble and that's why I don't do this. So if the fidelity code, if the only thing preventing you from cheating on your spouse is a financial penalty, don't get married. Okay, here's one. Last time we talked about, we talked about marriage being a threesome with a state. That was my analogy. Very unsexy threesome. It's the least sexy threesome. That's a terrible threesome. What is the default prenup of the state that you most want to override when you're writing a prenup? Like if people could just do one thing, the one-line prenup, what would it be?

1:05:53The marital presumption. The presumption that all property acquired during the marriage is marital property subject to equitable distribution and that marital property will be broadly construed and separate property narrowly construed. Got it. If you just had a prenup that flipped the preposition and said all property will be presumed to be separate property unless it fits into these narrow categories of marital property, nine times out of 10, you'd be good to go. Oh, interesting. Okay, that's a solve. And also, I think spousal support or what is called alimony in some jurisdictions is arbitrary and problematic on a lot of levels because people have multiple streams of income or they have some control over their business or they have a structure where they get overtime or bonuses and it can create this conundrum where judges have to come up with an earning capacity for the purposes of support yes and it's it's just you might as well throw darts in the dark and you probably hit a better target okay we're almost at the end of our time are you almost full i'm almost i'm hard to satisfy i'm hard to satisfy but it's a second date a second date uh so we're gonna do the paddles again oh my god i can't wait i love it all right okay we'll take this to you we got we got a little uh we were a little viral with the paddle the one of our clips of the paddles did well so people haven't heard it go back and listen okay so we're gonna do a green flag red flag money edition okay so if you're you're dating someone and this comes up let's see splits the check on the first date red flag yeah the person who invited should pay i don't think it should go on gender lines.

1:07:24Unless there's strong feelings, I think the person who extended the invitation should pay. Okay. That's a good one. All right. How about wants to buy property together before getting married? Okay with that. I don't think it's a great idea legally, but just a person wanting to invest in the relationship prior to the legal symbolic act. I'm okay with that. Wanting to get... Okay. I'm a little red flag on that because I'm like, I would need more context to answer with great confidence, but the scenarios that are popping into my mind are fairly benign. Okay. What about wants to bring a living being into the relationship?

1:08:01Let's start with pet before you're married. I like that. I don't like it. I like that. I think with a contract in place, trustedpetnup.com, by the way, trustedpetnup is the free wing of trusted prenups. So we created, yeah, we created trusted pet nup so that anyone who adopts a animal from any animal shelter can have a pet agreement if they're cohabitating or in a relationship or married that essentially is a prenup for the pets because they didn't ask to be caught in the middle of this. And it's free, a hundred percent free if you adopted your pet. If you bought your pet at a pet store or a breeder, it's pay what you wish.

1:08:40And 100 % of the money that comes from it goes to local animal shelters. Okay. What about having a kid together before you get married? I'm okay with that. The law in every state does not tie rights of parenting access, custody, which is decision making, or economic support related to children to marriage because there are more and more couples over the years that don't choose to marry. Yeah. I think I personally would not want to do it. Sure. Like that's a situation in which I would want to be married and have like all the paperwork, which I hate paperwork, but I feel like that's a good situation.

1:09:19Well, it could also be the symbolic nature of like marriage as a very serious commitment and saying, I want us to be deeply committed to each other before, which by the way, suggests like if people purchase property before they get married together and they have a pet together, you're starting to have some experiences of roots and connections that aren't easy to untie. Like residing, cohabitating together is a tremendous commitment and unraveling that is hard. So I think sometimes those mini commitments before you make this theoretically giant commitment, it's probably good. How does this person do with the stress testing of commitments when they have a quarrel in the relationship?

1:09:59Do they go, well, I guess we're going to move out then and we have to sell the cat, you know, and you kind of go, wow, like, is this what it would be like if we got divorced. Whereas, you know, maybe if this person goes like, look, we got to figure this out, but I'm going to step outside now. So you have a little space or I have a little space and I can clear my head. And now you see, this is a person who can self-regulate. What about someone who like Venmos you for everything, accounts for everything, kind of gets to a splitting thing. Personally, or sort of as a vibe? I personally, I think that's ick all day.

1:10:28Red flag or green flag? It's such a red flag. Yeah, I think red flag, ick, ick, ick. But I don't believe in equality. I believe in equity. I just don't think everybody has to do exactly. But when I see whoever, like the Venmo history, like people that don't have that. Turned off. What the hell's wrong with you? It's like the red receipt. When I see someone Venmoing their spouse and the reason was pizza, I'm like, did you reimburse your spouse for one half of the pizza? If Venmo is content now, I have a friend who has a great Venmo account where she actually has it purposely turned on and then she just writes the most ridiculous stuff.

1:11:02She'll be like, bitches. Anytime I send somebody something, I'll write like hookers and booze or whatever. You always have to do it. Whenever I send my son things, I'll always like, because I send my son's Venmos, you know? And whenever I send them money or my niece's when it's their birthday, I'll send them Venmo. And I'll always write some ridiculous, awful thing. You need to be suspicious of the person who, you know, oh, Venmoing you for charity. Venmoing you for like the nice, the bagels today. Yeah, yeah. That you should watch out. Yeah, watch out. Penultimate question. A credit score under which you would not date or a credit score disparity across what you should not date?

1:11:39Oof. I mean, me, I worked very hard to have a good credit score and I think your credit score says a lot, but I do also understand having represented a lot of people. Those are all private agencies. Oh, yeah, then they have the company. So, yeah. So, there's a real, they can drop your credit score for things beyond your control. You don't want to give me a number? by divorce fico like a under 600 i think you should start kind of going what went on there because there's a story there and the story might be yeah i was young and stupid i mean i think i hate to say it but it's a little like body count like if you go like oh like i had a i've had this many lovers it's like well wait did you have like a short ho phase like in college where you kind of slept with a bunch of women or you slept with a bunch of men or whatever like or is this that you've over a long period of time or did you go on like a bender you know and you were like so it's the same kind of thing.

1:12:29If you look at it in the broader timeline, I think it makes more sense. If somebody says, hey, I made some irresponsible decisions early in college when I had no money, or I helped my family member with this, or I got scammed out of something, then it might impact their credit score. But I think that's a conversation people should be having because those are formative events in a person's life. So last question I ask every guest on Smart Girl Gym Questions is, what is something that you were dumb about? You asked a question last time. You asked about graph paper. Yeah, what do you do with graph paper?

1:12:56I still don't know the answer to that. A listener answered that question, so I'm going to bring you an answer to it. Oh my God, that makes me so happy. While we're doing this, you're going to also think about what else you might not know. Adam James on Spotify. Graph paper isn't analog drafting like blueprints for engineering and design concepts or drawing something to a different scale. It's for scale purposes. It's for scale purposes. That makes a lot of sense. I replied, no longer need to call Neil deGrasse Tyson, who I'm seeing on Monday at the Comedy Cellar. Thank you. Thank you, Adam James.

1:13:22Adam James, you cleared that up for me in my 50 through year. You got that from me. I respect that. It was invented by Dr. John Buxton of England in 1794. It was English. Invented for engineers, but made popular, popularized by teachers who wanted to show math. Isn't that great? Now I feel like I learned something today. It's lovely. I feel like the more you know. Anything else that you don't know? There's a lot of stuff I don't know. It's a long, long list. I was laying in bed, and I was thinking, I don't know why I was thinking about Adam and Eve. I was thinking about the Bible stories, and I thought, why in all of the depictions of Adam and Eve did they have belly buttons?

1:14:02That's a good question. That doesn't make any sense. Oh, because they would have no umbilical cord. Like Adam was formed from dust and Eve was formed from his rib. I just realized that neither of them would have an umbilical cord, so why would they have the belly button? I forgot where an umbilical cord came from. So that felt to me, has there ever been an artist who figured out that like, oh, when we make them, we shouldn't have... Maybe artists are not generally religious. So maybe it's a subtype of God. Artists are very, though, they take, like Jesus has great abs and obliques in particular.

1:14:35I think there should be abs of the savior. You know what I mean? It would be a video worth watching because he's got the usher, you know, like the... I can imagine like Jonathan Van Ness teaching like a Jesus Christ workout class. His abs are great. His abs are great. Jonathan Van Ness is crushing it with the abs these days. He's kind of Jesus-like. JVN, we need that content. JVN, we love JVN. I'm so excited for your next book. What's it called? This is a coming out of this. You're the first. You got a scoop on this one. I love a scoop. It was a real debate. And I only got to title it this because I won an argument with my people.

1:15:07But the book is called You Suck at Love. And there was some argument about that. But the thing that I wanted to say with it and what the book is about is that the you is all of us. The you is we. It would be we suck at love. It really is about this is something we all want so bad. And you suck at it. Like we all suck at it. And by the way, like I represent the highest achieving people in the world now. Yeah. And I used to represent everyday sort of, you know, cops and teachers and things like that. And you suck at love. Like these people are great at the most difficult things, world-class surgeons, unbelievable.

1:15:48And they suck at love. and so it's such a great unifier that I said I want that to be the title I want the title to be You Suck at Love yeah I suck at love

1:15:59I'm great at it at moments but if you judge me by where I get it wrong I get it wrong a bunch of places we're dumb in more areas than we're smart that's the whole premise that's the whole book you suck at love you're great at it too you have an infinite capacity for it but you suck at it embrace the suck Be like, yeah, we suck at this thing. And the only way we're going to get better at it, like the only way you get smarter is by admitting where you're dumb. Exactly. The only way you get better is by saying, I suck at this. Help me get better at it. Because I think it is something we get. People spend a lot of time trying to teach me long division of fractions.

1:16:33And I can tell you right now, I've never once used it my whole life. Graph paper, never once used it my whole life. But like, how do you, you know, how do you trust someone? How do you share with someone? No one taught me the effect that a woman's hormones during ovulation might have on their sex drive. Your mom didn't teach you what she was telling you about fluopiasis? I know. I guess she didn't want me to get laid. I don't know. But she did not, which I understand. But the fact that I was 50 by the time someone explained to me that, oh yeah, a woman's desire is heightened when she's ovulating.

1:17:05And I was like, why don't every guy go out and get that tracking app that's out there that tells you when a woman's cycle is so you know when to have salty and sweet snacks? and avoid conversations and when you could be like, hey, why don't we have wild, crazy sex? James, you suck at love. That's a bad idea. That is a bad fucking idea. Thank you so much for coming here. I hope you have a third date. I hope so. This was really fun. And I like that it's like a conversation that you don't generally, it's like a little orthogonal to what you do. Which is why I was very excited. I've taken a break for several months now from doing any kind of podcast, but I knew we had committed to doing another one.

1:17:42And I was really, when my staff saw it, They're like, I thought you were on your break. And I was like, it's, it's, it's, it's, I said that we would do it. And they were all like, oh, that was really good one. We're glad you're going back. So they're big fans. Oh, thank you. Well, you can't deny chemistry. Thank you, Jim. You're a great guest. Nice to see you. It was a blast.

1:17:59I need an excuse for a third date with Jim Sexton because every time I learn so much from him, I just appreciate how direct he is, how he did those like movie distillations. I'm going to only be sending all my movie clips and maybe all my text messages to Jim Sexton, a divorce attorney to decode them for me because that was quite a talent. I learned a lot about my own financial health and things I need to do, including maybe getting a will done. But what did you learn? You can drop us a comment, leave it here. If it seems too private, like your FICO rating, please don't send us your FICO rating.

1:18:28You can just slide into our DMs at smartgirldone questions or drop me an email, naimorazo101 at gmail.com. And as always, please share this episode with people in your life that you think want to learn about money, want to learn about all the things. By the way, you can watch the full episode on Spotify, especially if you want to see the paddles or the tattoos or any of the other PG-13 stuff that happened on this episode. Spotify have been amazing partners to me and so has Chime, which is the sponsor of the Smart Girl Dumb Questions Smart Money series. We're going to be doing four of these conversations and I want to use this to like figure out all the dumb questions I have that I think a lot of us have when it comes to money and relationships, money and possibility, like money and how we manage our careers, money, and whether we buy homes or not.

1:19:08So we're going to be talking about all of those questions. We're going to talk about the American dream and how we can reach for it. We're going to talk about whether you should rent or buy or own or co-op. I don't even know. And we're going to talk about how you make it, how you progress in this world. So stay tuned for more Smart Girl, Dumb Questions, Smart Money series. This episode was produced with Desta Wunderad, Melissa Lee Gibson, Sanjana Nigam, and Aisha Jordan. It was mixed by Johnny Simon, engineered by Colin Lee, edited by Darlena Chiem and David Chin. Our theme music is by David Kahn.

1:19:39I'm your host, Neymar Raza, and I'll see you next week on Smart Girl Dumb Questions. I need to go. Do a will, because I might die soon.

1:20:00Thank you.