The Divorce Expert: 86% of People Who Divorce Remarry! Why Sex Is Causing Divorces! If They Say This, Do Not Marry Them!

25:33I can't go to bed angry. Like, I won't be able to sleep, I won't be able to function. Like, do we have to address it right then and there? Because, you know, the best time to talk about how we're going to argue when we're not arguing. You know, the worst time to learn how to fight in the middle of a fight. That's the worst time to learn how to fight. So I like to pre -knop. I think a pre -knop can be a very romantic thing. because it's basically saying, look, I love you, you love me, we want this thing to work or else we wouldn't be signing up for it. But in the event it breaks down, you have a right to know what you're entitled to.

26:08I have a right to know what I'm entitled to. We both have an interest in making sure that we both have the things we need so that neither of us feels like we're crawling out of this relationship instead of walking out of it. Like if I lose you, I'm going to have a lot more to be sad about than my stuff. But boy, let me tell you, not knowing where I'm going to live or how I'm going to pay my bills, that's going to add a layer of pain and complexity to what is undoubtedly going to be a really hard situation. So let's take that off of each other. Let's know that because I don't ever want the person who lays their head on the pillow next to me to be there because they don't want to get divorced.

26:47I would rather that it be that they like having me there next to them, that their life is better because I'm there, that they feel like I bring value to their life and they bring value to mine. Not, well, I don't want to go through all that. In that case of that person you referenced there where they came to you for a prenup, their partner gave them an ultimatum and said, listen, no, I'm not signing that. How do you kind of draw the line between being a lawyer versus like a therapist or an advisor? sort of like a relationship advisor. Yeah, I mean, I have to tell you, it's a very seamless. I don't, I don't think it's easy to distinguish between, we're attorneys and counselors at law.

27:27I have an undergraduate degree in psychology, and I think I use it as much as I use my law degree because this is so personal that it's very hard to not give human advice while I'm giving legal advice. And I'm dealing in the clay of human emotion and human connection and human frailty and human emotional complexity. I thought pre -naps were illegal. I thought they were like people when it got them, but they, when it comes to... Enforcement? Enforcement, they don't hold up. You know, it could be true in the UK, but certainly not in the USA. They are enforceable, they are binding. Sometimes they're crazy how enforceable they are.

28:06I really. Like, is because the nature of a prenup is, as long as it was not what's called unconscionable, unconscionable is a contract that is so unfair that no fair dealing person would offer it, and no sane person would accept it. So that's what unconscionability is. So you have to be, a contract has to be unconscionable for it to be set aside, okay? Now, I have seen some pre -nubs that were in their interpretation unconscionable, meaning, you know, at the time they entered into it, he had nothing and she had nothing. And now they're getting divorced. And under the terms of this, he's going to walk out with $100 million and she's going to walk out with almost nothing.

28:58But as long as it was not unconscionable at the time it was made, if it's unconscionable in its performance, it's still binding. So I have seen the outcome of pre -nubs sometimes be shockingly unfair, but you have a right to contract. As long as it wasn't fraud, as long as it wasn't the rest or undo influence, or if someone was under the influence of drugs or alcohol when they signed off on it, it's a binding in contract because we believe in human autonomy and agency and the right to make decisions about your life in your future. Is that example, Dylan? Is that the most shocking when you've seen?

29:39No, the most shocking pre -nut I've ever seen, which was enforceable, had a provision that said that for every 10 pounds the wife gained in the marriage, she would lose $10 ,000 a month in Alamoney. 10 pounds of weight? Yes, yes. So so it was a very wealthy man who was wearing marrying a very attractive woman But he was very concerned that she was going to become less attractive and he was going to become more wealthy So his solution to this was in the prenuptial agreement He wanted a clause that said she would get if they divorced she was gonna get like $70 ,000 a month for But for every ten pounds she gained from the date of marriage, she would forfeit ten thousand a month worth of Alamoni.

30:32And it was designed to sort of create an incentive that she would remain thin. And that was enforceable. Meaning they tried to challenge and set aside that provision. And the court said, this is a disgusting provision. I don't know why you married this person. but it's enforceable. It's a contract. The two of you signed it and you had a right to sign it and you agreed to these rules and they may be ridiculous rules but you agreed to them and you have a right to do that. Do you think that was love? Again, I think it's a kind of love. I think it's a form of love. Is it a form of love? I'd be interested in no.

31:09I think it's very shallow in some ways. There's something very honest about it. I mean you can't argue with the fact that there's something very upfront about it. He was making very clear and putting in writing, here's the value you bring to this relationship. I consider your physical appearance vitally important to this relationship. By the way, don't skip the other side of that equation. She was going to get $70 ,000 a month. That's very impressive number. So I think she also understood there was a value to be attached to him as well, you know? And it's so it's, is it something I would be interested in on either side of that equation?

31:55No. But do I have a right to say to someone that's not love? I don't think I have a right to say that to someone. I think that if this is an economy, the two of you have agreed on that, you know, as a lawyer, see, my job as a lawyer is not to look, like I don't look at it that way. But you look at the engineering of it. So like, if I'm representing her in that transaction, all I could think is, okay, so we're gonna want her baseline weight to be as high as possible. So I'm gonna want her to have pennies in her pockets after the day we signed the pre -knop. Cause you'd have to establish a baseline, right?

32:31Cause if you say gaining 10 pounds, you'd have to establish a baseline weight on the date of the marriage. So she was weighed on the date of the marriage? Well, in or about the date of the marriage, the party's acknowledged that on or about the date to marriage, you wait approximately, X pounds. So if I'm her, I want that to be as high as possible. So I'm gonna be putting pennies in my pockets and eating as many cheeseburgers as I can before the weigh in. Now, we're getting divorced. I'm gonna be like a wrestler. I'm gonna be in the sauna. I'm gonna be sweating as much as I can. I'm gonna take diuretics.

33:00I'm gonna eat nothing but grilled vegetables for a week or two, you know? And I'm gonna take off every ounce of clothing I can because I wanna minimize my weight. This is why lawyers don't get invited to parties because that's how he analyze problems. Like I didn't hear that and go, what is the nature of their coupling? I looked at it and I went, oh, I could play with that. I could work. I could, I could, whoever I'm representing in that transaction, I could figure out a way to, you know, kind of make that work. You become a coach. Kind of is. I mean, it, it turns into an engineering question as opposed to a human question.

33:35I heard about this thing when I was reading your book because I'm also watching some of your stuff online that I didn't know existed, which was fidelity contracts. Pedality clauses, yeah. Pedality clauses. Yeah, yeah. So it's something people include in prenuptial agreements. And also sometimes in what's called a postnuptial agreement. So a postnuptial agreement, you know, nupstual meaning marriage, pre meaning before marriage, post meaning after marriage. So if you didn't get a prenupt, but your marriage, for whatever reason, becomes fragile. Maybe someone learns of an affair or maybe you're starting to have difficulties with each other, but you don't want a divorce, but you'd like there to be some clarity as to if we divorce, what will the rules be?

34:15You can do something called a post -nuptial agreement. Okay. And that would, in the event, your divorce make the divorce a little less acrimonious because you've resolved certain issues. It's basically like the pre -nup you should have had. Okay. So I have seen people in both pre -nups and in post -nups put in what's called fidelity which essentially are a clause that say that if you cheat on your spouse, here's what the penalty will be. And it could be a financial penalty. It could have a support -related context. It could have be a percentage of certain ownership rights, things that you have.

34:50Are they a good idea from what you've seen? Are they useful in... I think they're a terrible idea. Yeah, from a legal standpoint, they're a terrible idea. Yeah, for a couple of reasons. One, defining cheating is very tricky. You know, if you're... If we're going to define cheating as a specific form of sexual contact, I guess that's a pretty clear definition. But even in fidelity, it's not all created equal. I mean, I think we could all agree that if you... partner when they were drunk on vacation or at a party, you know, had some kind of fleeting sexual contact with another person and then woke up the next day and went, oh my god, what did I do?

35:33I regret this so much. But they're never going to see this person again. It was just a stupid dalliance that happened, you know, again, not excusing that behavior. But that's different than if you were having an ongoing affair with another person. Or, I think there are probably some people if they were being honest. If they said, would you rather that your spouse on a drunken night out kissed somebody or was texting another person five times a day for six weeks and sharing the most intimate thoughts, you know, and what we call an emotional affair? Well, I mean, I think we can agree that like something about an emotional affair.

36:12Like someone becoming your confidant. I once heard someone say, and in my professional life, I found it to be true, that when men find out that a woman who they're with has had an affair, their first question is, did you sleep with them? When women find out a man had an affair, their first question is, are you in love with her? And I think that tells you a lot about men and women's relationships because there's a sense of, okay, what was this? Was this sex or was this like, I don't love you anymore, I don't want you in my life anymore because those are two really different things. And so a fidelity clause is a one size fits all concept that just says, okay, we're going to define cheating.

36:58And then there's going to be a penalty for you doing it. Now, again, in what I've observed in life, cheating is its own penalty. Cheating turns your life at best, cheating turns your life into like an unbelievably complicated, like jumping from one foot to another, lying to everyone involved. Like rarely does anybody get out of infidelity without hurting themselves and a bunch of other people, whether it's not only their partner, but even the person who they cheated with, or that person's partner. Like there's so much pain to go around when cheating happens. And so to say, and there's gonna be an economic penalty.

37:41You know, it's a bit like, you know, using drugs is illegal in a lot of places, but I can't imagine that there's a heroin addict who goes, you know, I'm gonna shoot up, oh wait, it's illegal. I don't wanna get in trouble. Yeah, I'm gonna go, like that's not how it works. Like you're adding insult to injury, you know, This person, they're already in a very difficult position. I don't think making it illegal is going to do much except create an underground economy. Same kind of thing. I think that in fidelity, there should be sufficient incentives in a relationship to not cheat. And they're already, by definition, so many consequences for cheating, that adding to that an economic penalty, I don't know that a person's going to be about to cheat and then go, this could cost me like 20 more grand.

38:30No, I'm not going to do it. Are you seeing more and more people getting those prenups? Yeah. Prinups are, I have to tell you, there's a generational shift happening. I see a lot of people in there, I've been doing this job for 25 years. And I will tell you, the people currently in their 20s and early 30s, like the prime demographic for marriage, mid 20s to mid 30s, are getting pre -NEPs at a rate that I would say is probably 5x, what it was 10 years ago, 15 years ago. Certainly 25 years ago from when I started. I think there's a more pragmatic view of relationships. I think that there's a lot more open discussion.

39:14I mean, although there is a tremendous increase in the amount of like performative, look how happy we are. You know what I mean? Well, it's like white teeth and rotting gums. You know, like we're doing the performative social media. Look at our hashtag blast in Minwell, our relationship is rotting from the inside. And we see a lot of that. Like I would say, I see people in my office who publicly are having the greatest relationships ever. Like if you believe they're social media, they are so madly in love. And it shocks me because I think about all the people that are dissatisfied in their perfectly acceptable relationship because it's not as amazing as that relationship.

39:56And meanwhile, that relationship is nowhere near that amazing as they'd have you believe it. And we've got the audacity now as a culture that people without any apology, you know, do the, we're perfectly happy. These hateful rumors that were unhappy or terrible. And then we've decided to amically be heart ways. We were asked you to respect our privacy during this difficult time. And you're like, okay, but wait a minute. Like a month ago when there was rumors that the two of you were splitting up, you yelled at all of us for saying it's so mean that we're speculating. And now you're like, yes, we've split up.

40:25So we were right. So we were making us feel awful about ourselves and how madly in love you were with each other. But now, you know, we were basing our lives. Like we're basing our level of satisfaction on watching your greatest hits while we live our gag reel. Do you think there's something in the idea that those that endeavor to convince the world that they're happy in their relationships are often not as happy. 100%. I'll actually extrapolate that further. My father's a southerner, so he has a lot of southern folksy things he says. And one of them was empty barrels make the most noise. And he used to say that to me when I was a kid all the time, whenever somebody had something fancy that they owned, because I grew up without a lot of money and they'd someone would drive a beautiful car and it's, wow, of course, so cool.

41:09He'd say, you know, empty barrels make the most noise. that the people that have true joy in their relationship really don't feel like they have to advertise it. People who have, like, I represent some of the wealthiest people in the world. Like New York is the epicenter of commerce and finance for the United States and to some degree for the world. You know, in the UAE, you're more likely to find a gold plated Ferrari, but in New York, like finance, Wall Street, like it is the home of it. So I represent, I have a client who's worth $8 billion. You would walk past him on the street, you would never know he has very much money at all.

41:47He drives a Jeep Grand Cherokee, which is like a very mid -range car. He wears like, you know, totally non -descript clothing. Like he just looks like a typical middle -aged dude, and you would not look at him and go, like he gets his haircut at like supercuts for 25 bucks. Like he's not posh in the things that he owns and does. And he could buy, you know, his income annually is like the gross domestic product of a few companies. And, you know, he's not. But in the yet, I have clients who appear to be incredibly wealthy. And as a divorce lawyer, I get to see the absolutely unfiltered version of people's finances.

42:28And I can tell you, they are deeply in debt many of them. This is particularly true of celebrities. celebrities, celebrities have to live these big, performative lives. Because if they don't drive a posh car and they don't wear the latest designer labels, there's this sense of who are they not doing well. And especially with sort of influencer culture, there's just so much like everything everyone's wearing and doing has to be the best of the best and the most expensive. I find very often these are, the more people have to They've launched their wealth, the less wealth they probably have. Like, you know, money talks, like wealth whispers, and it's very comfortable just whispering.

43:08It doesn't feel like it has to prove to the world. In fact, it would rather that everyone not know who it was. There was a time where fame was an unfortunate side -effective talent. So you were really good at something. So then everybody heard about who you were, and all of a sudden everybody knew who you were. And that was unfortunate because you couldn't go out to eat anymore. You couldn't just live your life anymore. Now of course, there were times where it probably felt really nice. You know, it feels good. Listen, I walk down the street in New York City sometimes people today, guys said to me, hey man, love your stuff.

43:41Thanks. That's great. Feels nice. Definitely nice. There's times where it doesn't. There's times where I'm on my phone. I'm in the middle of talking to a client and somebody's standing there next to me, waiting to talk to me. And I know they're waiting to say something so lovely. But there's a part of me. It's like, okay, man, I gotta like do what I'm doing right now. I'm doing the thing, you know? And now being famous is the goal for so many people. So I think there is definitely when people say, look at how happy we are, look at how happy we are, look at how happy we are. You know, it's like, please tell me how happy we are, because if you don't tell me how happy we are, I'm gonna have to look at this relationship and I'm gonna see how unhappy we are.

44:20You know, when someone wants to be famous, it's like, tell me I have value. Please tell me I have value. Oh God, please tell me I have value. Because the reason I was never really interested in being famous is that the praise of strangers never really felt that important to me. Like if the people in my life think I have something interesting to say and care about me and like me, that's really meaningful to me. And I'm touched for anyone who's ever appreciated my worker enjoyed it. But I never said like, I really want to get out there and have people know who I am and tell me I'm smart because I know I'm smart.

45:00Like it's okay. Like, you know, my beliefs don't require you to believe them. And so I think this performative culture when it comes to relationships is an unfortunate thing because again, we're comparing ourselves. We can't help as a species, but compare ourselves to the things we see around us. But you must see so much of that in your office where someone comes in and they say, my marriage isn't working and they use the these are comparative measure they say well you know Jenny and Dave like they're like this and we're not so. But how much sex are they having? How much like how much sex is enough sex?

45:37Like honestly like we don't talk about these things we don't we don't there's so much of our day -to -day life that we're constantly feeling like we're not doing well based on nothing. Like, I don't think I'm doing that well. Compared to what? I'm not good looking enough. Compared to what? A Photoshopped image of a person on steroids? Yeah, you're right. You don't look like a Photoshopped person on steroids. You're not supposed to. Like, women are going into doctor's offices saying make me look like this and showing the doctor something that's been Photoshopped. That person doesn't look like that.

46:14Like, how would you know you're not having enough sex? How much sex are people having? Is that frequent one sex? Yeah, sex is huge. Sex is huge. It's, well, I mean, first of all, it better be, because what's the difference between a spouse and a roommate otherwise? Like, it was just like, oh, we're gonna be partners in a home together. Like, you don't have to marry each other to do that. You can just live together and be, I mean, sex is the glue. Sex is the thing that brings you together. Sex is what makes a romantic relationship a romantic relationship. And again, it can be any number of varieties of sex.

46:48It can be preferences of sex. It can be anything. But we don't talk about, we talk about all kinds of things in polite society now, if you can call it that. I mean, we talk more than we ever did about, you know, transgender issues and LGBTQ plus issues. And I mean, that's progress. I think it's great that people can talk about anything. We can talk about kink. We can talk about like, I'm a big fan of people being able to speak openly about the things that make them happy and make them feel good and not having to feel ashamed about certain things. But baseline? Like, how? Well, we're not having enough sex.

47:22Okay, compared to what? The sex we used to have as a couple. That makes sense. That makes sense to me. Like if we said a baseline and say we used to have sex every day. We first started dating. We had sex four times a day. Okay. But then the, you know, Luster wears off. You know, Now we used to have sex once a day. Now, once a week, is that okay? Is that natural? Is that part of the progression of a relationship? Or is that a sign that one or both of us are feeling dissatisfied with each other? Can we talk about that and not have it be a fight? Can we talk about that and not hear it as a something that we have to react defensively too?

47:59And that's the stuff I tried to talk about in my book. Is that people come in and they go, well, you know, we're unhappy with the shot. I was cheating on her. I was cheating on her because she wasn't sleeping with me. Well, I wasn't sleeping with him because he's never nice to me. I'm not nice to her because every time I talk to her, all she does is put me down. Okay. And you sit here going, okay, so you guys have just been in this death spiral, you know, just going down and down and down. You started at I love you more than eight billion other people in the world. But somehow you just started to do this death spiral.

48:31And now you're right. You won. You guys, you won. You're both right. You don't have to sleep with him. You don't have to be nice to her. You don't have to say a kind word. You don't have to do any of that. You don't have to be married. Great news. You don't have to be married. But you decide it to be married. You signed up to be married. So at some point, this made sense to you. You liked each other that much. And you were both pointing in the same direction. And at some point, you lost the plot. So my feeling is, wouldn't it be better before you completely lose the plot to just do the preventative maintenance.

49:09Preventative maintenance. Talk about, are we still as connected as we were? Are we still as excited as we were? Are we still attracted to each other? Are we still enjoying each other physically, mentally, emotionally? We don't want to do that there because it's uncomfortable, right? Okay. Lots of things are uncomfortable that are so good for you. You know, exercise is uncomfortable until you get in a rhythm of it and that feels really good, you know? So how would you know if the first time you went to the gym and you worked out and then you went home and you were like, oh my god I'm so sore. I'm never working out again.

49:44Then you will never get into an exercise routine. You have to get through that part where everything's really sore and you're still sometimes gonna be sore. You overdid it, you know? But you start to realize yeah, but it's also bringing tremendous value to my life, you know? And so why not? Like why not trade what you want now, which is comfort in the moment? For what you want most, which is real connection, real intimacy, like real joy. And that can be, and again, we want it. 86 % of people who get divorced wouldn't get remarried within five years if we didn't want it, if we didn't believe it was possible.

50:22And if you've ever met someone who is happily married over a long period of time, you won the lottery. Like their lives are just so much better because they just go, I have this partner. Cause this is terrifying. Like life is terrifying and it's brutal. And it ends, it invariably ends, we're all gonna die. Everyone we love is gonna die. Like we're playing a game you can't win to the utmost. And to me, to have a partner in that, Someone who you can hold their hand and go, you know, when you're scared, I'll be here for you. And when I'm scared, you'll be here for me. And you'll help me see my blind spots.

51:04And I'll help you see yours. And let's just do this thing. We'll never be alone. Like, what a gorgeous thought that is. What a beautiful thought that is. What a worthy pursuit that is. But yeah, you got to be uncomfortable once in a while. You got to tell it to each other something other than what the other person wants to hear once in a while. But to me, like, if the payoff is real connection, keeping real intimacy, keeping your partner happy and satisfied with you, so that the thought of splitting up or running off with somebody else is just a fleeting thought that maybe occasionally jumps into their head.

51:41Like, that seems such a worthwhile investment to me. Preventative maintenance. I want to just drill down a little bit into what that actually looks like, because there'll be a lot of people right now, including myself who heard you use this temperamentative maintenance. Yes. And immediately I thought Jesus Christ probably should do that a little bit more. Sure. What do you mean by preventive maintenance? It can be lots of things. I think he can be... I try to give a lot of examples, but I... I think some of the simplest examples are very small gestures of courtesy. I mean, think about when you first started dating.

52:15All the little things that made the back of your neck tingle about this person. Like they would say the littlest thing about you and it made you so happy because they were noticing you, you know, and they saw beautiful things in you and that made you see and feel those things in yourself. You know, that's a beautiful, amazing thing we can do for each other, you know. And so, I mean, at its core level, like the example I've given to a lot of my back on it is leave, leave a note. Just leave a note in the morning when you leave for work or wherever it is you're going. Just leave a note. You know, it was so great hanging out with you last night.

52:57I'm with the prettiest girl in the whole world. Can't wait to see you again. That's it. What does that take? 10 seconds? 10 seconds. And every guy I meet, who I say that to, they go, yeah, the first time I did it, she was like, what is going on? Why did you leave me that note? What are you, what's going on? But then after a little while, like if this is just something you do, that you go, yeah, I just, you know, I want to make a practice of like, how I want to tell you this stuff, I forget to tell you sometimes, you know? Like, what does that take? Like, what does it take for your partner to say to you?

53:31You're so smart. Like, I just love being around you. Like, you're so handsome. I'm so lucky. Like, what does that take? That's nothing. It doesn't cost anything. It takes nothing to do that. Why don't we do it? I don't know. I don't know. I think we just, whoever discovered water, it wasn't a fish. Like I think you're just in it and you just stop seeing it and that person's just there. And again, I don't know. And I also think culture is antagonistic to it. Because the example I give to people, because people love their dogs and I love my dogs. But like dogs are a great way to look at this rationally because I've got a 13 year old dog.

54:09I got him when he was a puppy and now he's 13. And like me, he slowed down a lot. His back hurts. He's not quite the puppy he used to be. I have never once looked at that dog and gone, I gotta get a puppy. This old dog. It's so doggy. You didn't look as cute as he used to and like, oh my God, have you seen our cute puppies? I'm like, oh never! It's my dog, man. I fall more in love with that dog every single day. You know? And yeah, sure, puppies are cute and they're great. And I'll pat them, but that's my dog, man. I wouldn't trade all the puppies in the world for that dog. your partner, your romantic partner?

54:45Like, when did it become acceptable as it is in culture to just piss all over your partner? Like every guy, it's like the, I'm married to the most low, some harp, you ever to cast right a band. Like this one, the old ball and chain. And women, it's like the guy is like, oh, this idiot, like this just lovable idiot, you know, he doesn't know, he doesn't know anything. You're so stupid, men are so stupid. Like when did that, what do you think's gonna come from that? Other than this disdain that we can then have for each other and this sort of disrespect as opposed to being like so into each other, which is what you were when you were strangers.

55:28You know, when you didn't know each other, you know, all the same women sitting around in a group of women talking about how much their husband suck. When their female friend goes, oh my God, I'm seeing this guy, I just started seeing him. What did he, oh my god, he sounds so great. Oh, all this is, all this is, is your guy five years ago. But somehow now you're, you're really gonna buy the delusion that if she, it all works out with him and they get married and they do their little fairy tale thing and the cake and the dress and the whole thing that in five years she's still gonna be like, he's so great.

56:03No, it's gonna be easy. Again, just like the rest of you. So we need to start as a culture, you know, perhaps changing the way, because I think there is something about that, where we're trying to like not make people self -conscious, so we just like take the piss out of our partner all the time in front of, you know, people or around other people, and I don't find that charming. Do you think that what we get to the lovable idea, oh my God, happy wife, happy life, all that stuff, which is part of consciousness? Happy wife, whoever said that should just be beaten to death, happy wife, happy life.

56:36Like if I hear one more person give that advice to somebody, I have to tell you that is just the most ridiculous. What does that even mean? Happy wife happy life. If she's happy then I'm happy. Because is that true? I think it's used by men who believe that their wife is always unhappy. So if she's not shouting at me and I could just sit here and watch the football, then all is well. That's something to aspire to. You know, man, I can't wait. What? For some day for my kids to just sit there while the person in the other room is just mildly dissatisfied with them and they can just sit and watch, you know, the football get really.

57:21That's what we're aspiring to. That's what you hope for. Like, I've got to tell you, I just, I think our goals are really misaligned. You know, my greatest accomplishment in life is my children. Really? That's your greatest accomplishment in life is your children. What, let me ask you this, what will your children's greatest accomplishment in life be? Having children? Because guess what? This is the ideology of a cancer cell. Growth for the sake of growth for the sake of growth, reproduction for the sake of reproduction. I don't think that's the highest noblest goal. I think there should be something in there about quality of life, about making the world where the experience of others better.

58:01Like, again, it's not for me to define. But I certainly, I don't intelligence is hard to define, but I can spot stupid a mile away. And I have to tell you, a good relationship, you know, it's kind of hard to quantify. But man, I know what sucks. I know a bad relationship when I see one. And we all know them. So what's more uncomfortable? That relationship where, you know, at least she's not yelling at me and she's only mildly dissatisfied. and I can just be left alone for an hour and watch the football. Or having an uncomfortable conversation. Again, while you're still like each other, but there's a little slippage.

58:40There's a little something going in the other direction, and I don't want it to go too far. I mean, put it into the physical context. It is a whole lot easier to maintain a healthy weight than to gain 100 pounds and then try to figure out how to lose it. That's much, much harder, and it's much worse for you. and the chances of you actually accomplishing him at our way lower. Whereas maintaining a healthy weight, that's not an unrealistic thing to be able to do. He was one psychologist who I'm sure you'll know, very famous individual. Paul Jordan Peterson, and he said to me, he said, he was shouting when he said it.

59:17He said, listen, you're going to have to sit down for 90 minutes a week and you're going to have to listen to her. And she's going to tell you everything that's wrong. And he goes, if you don't listen to him for 90 minutes a week, you'll be listening to him divorce court. And he was almost shouting when he says it. The analogy he's making, what he's saying is what you're saying. Yeah. If you're going to have to... You know, I find Jordan Peterson very entertaining. I've been a fan of his work a long time. And I loved actually your conversation with him. What I will say is I think that he's sort of hyperbolic in his presentation sometimes, which I enjoy.

59:52But I think we totally agree on this. I think that what he's saying more than anything is that you can invest now in candor and in listening to this other person in a Non -defensive manner and so there's a chapter in my book called hit send now Where I talk about exactly that where I say you need to be able to have these conversations but have them in a way That you're hearing it and you're saying it you're agreeing. It's a contract And that we know we love each other. So we're gonna try to say it with love. We're gonna try to hear it with love. Because I'm only saying it, because this is important to me, this relationship.

1:00:31And I want it to be good for you and for me. So I'm gonna go out on the limb here. I'm gonna take this risk, because you're worth it. You are worth it for me to take this risk. It's scary. I'm not excited about having to say it. But you know what? Like, I care enough. And when you say things to me, I'm gonna hear it. I'm gonna hear it as you saying, I care so much about this relationship. I'm gonna say this harder thing to say. And it might be little. It might be, you know, you said the other night you were talking about my sister and you made that little joke about her and it felt like you were like kind of making fun of my sister.

1:01:01And I thought you liked my sister. And it's really important to me that you liked my sister because I really liked my sister. So maybe I misunderstood you and if I did, okay, great. Let me know that. Hit send now. Just hit send now. The reason I said hit send now is when you, you were like right in email where you said something important, and you like write it, rewrite it, and you craft it, and you're like about to hit send, and you're like, oh boy. And then you hit it, and you're like, well, it's there now. And I'm sending it now, like it's done. I hit send now. That's where I got the term hit send now.

1:01:34Because, but I said like make it a technique. Like say to your partner, I wanna do this. I want you to do it, and I wanna do it. But I wanna make it clear. Like make the subject heading of the email, hitting send now. Okay, so they know. So they know this is not an attack. This is something I want to get off my chest. You don't have to respond right away. You don't have to respond in writing if you don't want to. But I just want to put this out there because I want you to digest it. And the key to this is I read in your book is to do it quickly. Yep, and do it honestly. Yep. Yep, and again to make a point of calling this out as a technique when you're in a good place.

1:02:18So when you're already in a good place, there's an abundance of goodwill between us. We're in a good spot. That's a good time to say, hey, look, this is good, man, and this is important. So let's keep it good. And the way we're going to do that is if I say to you, you know, we used to make an example. We used to have sex five times a week. And now I feel like it's like, you know, once a week, maybe. And I think you're so attractive. I love it. Like, I don't feel any less attractive to you. And I know, you know, we've been busy and things like that. But like, I don't want to see that slip. I want you to be the person that fills all my desires and all my fantasies.

1:02:50I don't want to look at porn. I don't want to think about other things. I want to really be focused on you. Is there something I'm doing that's causing you to be less interested in me? Is there something I could do that would spark things better? Is there something going on that I need to know in terms of how you feel about me? But what if it's personal and what if it's offensive? What if it isn't better to know? If it's personal and it's offensive isn't it better to know? Like because I tell you I'll come up with a thousand different reasons It might be and only one of them might be accurate and the other 999 might be complete Garbage in my mind like I might be convinced that it's because you're cheating I might be convinced that I'm not attractive to you all of a sudden because you know my hair got gray or I got a bad haircut or something stupid What if it's that then wouldn't you rather know?

1:03:36wouldn't you rather know? And find some other, and listen, I'm not saying, by the way, everything isn't everything, right? Like there are things in relationships that you might just say, yeah, I don't know, that's changed. Like I used to be really into that, no, I'm not anymore, you know, or that used to mean a lot to me, and now it doesn't. And that gives your partner a chance to say, well, look, it's still really important to me. So can we find some common ground? How frequent is sex the issue in divorce? As in, I'm not talking about feminism saying sexlessness. Yeah, that's a great question.

1:04:11So it's increasing. Yeah, so here's what I'll say. There's reverse engineering, the demise of a marriage is a very difficult thing for anybody to do because the two people in the relationship aren't even really fully aware of what's going on in themselves, much less each other. and then an outside observer asking them. So like, you can do all the studies you want of people's self -reported satisfaction or lack of satisfaction in a relationship or what caused them to become dissatisfied. That is so loaded up with people's delusion and people's projection and all these other things that I only you quantified.

1:04:47So everything I'm saying, I'm saying as a divorce lawyer who I think is empathetic and who I think for a living puts myself in other people's mind to try to understand what they're doing and why they did what they did and come up with the best and worst possible excuses for it and then to tell that story, right? Like I'm a full contact storyteller, that's my job. So, and my job, if you're really honest, is to manipulate people's emotional state. My job is to make a judge feel good about my client, bad about the other side, make the other side feel scared and make my client feel safe. That's my job.

1:05:21To manipulate everybody's emotional state through the power of storytelling. That's what being a divorce lawyer is. It sounds sexier when I say it that way, but that is what it is. So when we look at that as the job, where does sex fall into that equation? It's everywhere in that equation. Because again, it is the thing that separates this relationship from other kinds of relationships. Sex is a thing that is definitional to a romantic relationship. Now again, will it always be the same? will it always stay at the same level of importance? No. But is it a great canary in the coal mine? That, you know, like, something's off with the sex now?

1:06:02That the tragedies not far behind? Yeah. Like, because almost every couple, when I talk to my side of the equation about, when did this thing start? When did the ship start to sink? There was certainly some change in sex. Because again, sex is definitional in terms of what distinguishes a romantic relationship from a platonic relationship. Because listen, guys, we can do this however we want as a society. We don't have to get married. We do not have to get married. We just have to reproduce. But we could just decide, hey, we're just going to reproduce. And we're going to live in like colonies of platonic, you know, relationships and we'll just have sex for the purposes of breeding at certain times.

1:06:47And then we'll figure out who gets to raise is what kids and that'll be that. We don't do that. And it's not like, well, we don't do that because we've made a set of rules. Societies don't do that. They've never really done that. Like there's somehow this permutation in the human and animal kingdom keeps coming up where we have parabonds and we reproduce with the person who's our partner and then we sort of work together and how much does the tribe, how much does the rest of the world get involved in that? How extended is the family? How extended is the tribe? That varies, right, from species to species, from culture to culture, from time to time.

1:07:22But this fundamental idea of reproduction between the male and the female of the species, and there being some then continued interaction and a sharing of responsibilities towards the rearing of the young, it's pretty common, right? So what's the thing that makes A and B, it's the sex, like there's sex, there's some romantic or sexual component to that relationship that then leads to reproduction of some kind. So I think when you take that out of the equation or when there's a change in that, there's a disruption in the force, right? There's a disruption in the system. And then you can trace it back.

1:08:02Like yeah, we, and again, sometimes it's not direct cause in effect, like oh, we started having less sex and then we stopped being nice to each other. Sometimes it stopped being nice to each other so we stopped having as much sex. But it's an element. It's always an element there, you know? And that's my key piece of advice to everyone in the book that I try to say over and over and over again if you had to like summarize it is pay attention. Just pay attention to what you're feeling, to what your partner's feeling, and then say it. You know, I say that all marital problems stem from two things.

1:08:38I don't know what I want and I don't know how to express it. And I think if you can figure that out, if you can figure out what you want and figure out how to express it, that's like 99 % of the battle. When someone gets to you, how often do they go from getting to a devoid slow or having that conversation, we want to separate to repairing and rebuilding and getting back to happiness? Yeah, it's a great question. So I, as my career has progressed, I am now a guy who you hire when you're in a really bad situation. So I'm a trial lawyer. So now, you know, you can do things with a scalpel and you can do them with a chainsaw.

1:09:22I'm a chainsaw now. Like now I'm, you hire me because your situation's bad. Because you're more expensive? Is that... No, I'm more expensive because I'm really good in high conflict situations. I'm really tactical. I'm really strategic. I think 10 moves ahead. And I outpace everyone with my work ethic. I wake up at 4 a .m. and I wake up very sharp. And I'm immediately thinking about clients and cases. And I'm dedicated to this work in an absolutely insane way, in a way that is in no way good as a human being. It's really really, I'm a great lawyer. I'm questionable as a human being. But I'm really, really good as a lawyer.

1:10:02because I'm better at this than I've ever been in anything in my life. Have you ever seen someone get to you and then go back to perfect? Yeah, for many years in my career, early in my career, the first decade or more of my career, when I handled more sort of regular people's divorces, you know? Yeah, I would frequently, I would frequently try to steer people if I thought that that was possible. I still to this day if I think it's possible for people to work something out, either an individual counseling or an individual counseling and then maybe couples counseling. I will steer them in that direction of course.

1:10:38Who cheats more men or women? I think both men and women cheat with a tremendous amount of frequency. I think that I don't think that you could really say one does it more than the other. I think that more men are accused of having ruined the relationship by cheating than women are. She's more dissatisfied with the amount of sex men or women. Men generally want more sex. Women want more quality sex. It's a matter of quantity based in my experience coming to sex. Men would rather have frequent sex that may not be the highest possible quality, but it gets the job done. The same reason my pornography is more popular with men than women.

1:11:30Men are just like, I've got to get the poison out of my system here. I've got to be get on with my day. I'm not going to be able to think straight until I just get that over with. And so I think that women, it's a different, I don't think women have, don't find sex important. I hate to make generalizations about gender. But for my seat, the number of men that come in and say to me, like, yeah, she's just not sleeping with me. Well, what did she expect? Of course, I slept with somebody else. She was like, sleep with me once a week. She was sleeping with me once a month. I've had clients who came in and were like, yeah, we had an ad sex in six years.

1:12:06Six years? Like, first of all, why would you put up with that? Second of all, if you're this person's spouse, how, what the hell did you think was going on? You thought things were okay? Like, yeah, wait a minute, sex in six years, we just forgot to do that. Like, I get it if you didn't clean your gutters in six years or, you know, maybe like I get it if you didn't change your oil in a year. Like, it's a bad idea, but like, I get it. I can slip your mind. Look, oh my God, I'm into the dentist in a year. But sex? You must have had a lot of a fast stories. Oh my God. Please, if you could have like a PhD in infidelity, I would have it.

1:12:37Yeah, I mean, it's because cheating is a huge component to divorces, so many divorces. But the question is always cause or effect. And the danger of putting so much emphasis on cheating is that it's an oversimplification. So someone comes in and goes, we're getting divorced. Why? Because he's sleeping with his secretary. I get it. Like, yes, that's true. That is one of the variables that has led to your divorce. But you you hadn't slept with him in three years. So I'm not saying that makes the cheating forgivable, but you're saying you had a really super awesome healthy marriage and then this nefarious secretary came into the picture and suddenly he was wooed away.

1:13:18No, there were conditions that made that very likely to happen, right? And so let's start going back a little further in the cause like the truth is at the bottom of a bottomless pit. So we can try try to reverse engineer this and say, well, he slept with his secretary because you weren't sleeping with him. I wasn't sleeping with him because he wasn't nice to me. Well, I wasn't nice to him because he was never paying any attention to me. Well, I wasn't paying attention to her because what did I want to pay attention to? She hasn't changed at all or she's changed so much and she's nothing like she used to be.

1:13:48And again, everyone, you'll be shocked to hear when they tell the story of their life. They're usually the hero. They rarely come into my office and go listen, I'm a piece of garbage. You know, but I will tell you when it comes to cheating. Sometimes they do. I'm gonna say, you must have had people come in and admit things to you about their current affairs that you just blow your mind. Is there a particular example we go? That was the most shocking example that I'd heard of someone deceiving the marital commitment. Yeah, I mean, I've had people come in and tell me stories that I just think to myself, like, how, how did you actually, like just the engineering of it.

1:14:32Like I've had people who came in and they had multiple, they had two families happening at once and neither of them knew about the other. Like that, that the mistress who he started a family with, like thought he was divorced, and the wife thought that he was traveling for business and like he would literally have Christmas with both. He would have Thanksgiving with both. Like he would, and he just found a way to sort of logistically do it. And I've seen things like that many times. I mean, I've seen people, it's almost become a cliche that people who sleep with their, their sister -in -law or their brother -in -law or their cousin.

1:15:09Oh, and I haven't seen mother -in -law yet. Father -in -law? I have seen father -in -law. Yeah, I have seen father -in -law. Yeah, I saw that, saw that one. There's a chapter in my book about nannies about people sleep with the nanny that's pretty common. Why do you, you're talking to book about how wealthy clients like to sleep with the nanny? Yeah, I don't know what that's about. I mean, I do, I have a theory about it. I think that what I call the nanny fascination, I think that it's not that hard to understand. Like the nanny is a lot of the characteristics of the wife, right? She's good with the kids.

1:15:43She's there to be a supportive other to the husband. She's a help mate, you know. But without any of the autonomy and agency, without any of the, like she's an employee at the end of the day. It's so much simpler of a relationship in the sense that it's like, you got to do a good job, or I'm going to fire you, you know. So not talking back. Yeah, I don't talk back because I'm an employer, you know, and you're not going to. So I think I get it, you know, I get it. I also think too that, and this is that this is dangerous ground, especially in the year of our Lord 2024. 24, but I think she's also a version of the wife.

1:16:22Like she's a version of the wife when the wife was just a woman. Like she has a life outside the home. Like she, when she's not nanny -ing, she's out doing stuff. And so she's got things to talk about. Like she's gone places. She does things. There's something mysterious about her, you know? And I think that's one of the advice I give in the book is that I think that wives can and can embrace the part of themselves that's the nanny. Like take the time to like, don't let your spouse and your children eclipse who you are. Like who you are is who your husband's feeling loved with. Like your kids exist because a man and a woman found each other attractive, you know?

1:17:04And so don't forget and your desire to be a good parent and your desire to be a good partner. Don't forget to be really good to yourself and to cultivate your interests and your passions and to try to enjoy them as best you can. Without shirking, obviously, none of us wants to shirk our responsibilities to our families and our children. But you're important. I think people who are the husband and the wife are important, or in the same sex marriage, husband, husband, wife, wife, you're important to each other. Remember who you are. Remember the value you brought to the relationship. People often go to divorce lawyers when their marriage is breakdown.

1:17:41But listen, I'm a huge fan. Maybe the biggest fan you love are me of serial killer documentaries. Sure. And just murder documentaries period. There's not one I haven't seen. I've seen them all. And in those documentaries, the first one of the first things you learn is that if the wife goes missing, like 80 % of the time it's done. It's done. And I was just thinking about how that kind of some people might see it as a choice. Go to you. Yeah. I should be laughing here, but take care of myself. Listen, there's a reason because I understand how trapped people feel. I think that you sign on for this thing that feels so good.

1:18:22Love, we fall in love so fast. Have you seen that documentary on Netflix? American Dream? Was it American? What was that documentary on Netflix where the guy has a wife and two kids and then he meets a younger woman out about her work and he, in the set of getting a divorce, he decides to murder his wife and the two baby girls, smother them both and dump them in a barrel at work. And he's seemingly, and obviously he's not, but seemingly a normal guy who, as you say, just looked like he was trapped in a situation where he met someone new, had this family didn't know how to handle it and made this horrific decision.

1:19:06Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think, I mean, that's an extreme example. But I, I actually, when you spend enough time with people who are in horrifyingly awful situations, like they're having an affair for many years, they've hidden money or they've done, you know, like they, they've engaged in transgressions that if their spouse found out about it, they would just be like, are you kidding me, you know? And I think most of the time, like it starts with just one sort of bad choice, you know? And then that bad choice leads to a series of choice. Like, you know, they always say, I mean, if you watch enough serial killer things, it's not the crime, it's the cover -up.

1:19:50You know, you don't get caught for the crime, you get caught for the cover -up. It's like the things you do to try to cover your tracks is the thing that leave the tracks. And it's the same. I think, have you seen mud in your practice. Do you deal with that? Is that part of your work? I, you know, thank God I, I've only had one client in 25 years of practice who there was an active effort made by their spouse to try to kill them. And they ran her over four times and stabbed her. Thought she was dead, left her for dead, and six months of surgeries and all kinds of things later. She survived. She's well, she has injuries for the rest of life that will plague her, but she is alive and he is imprisoned for the rest of his life.

1:20:34That's thank God, the only time I've ever seen that happen. I mean, I see a lot of domestic violence. I see a lot of intimate partner abuse. If he was your client in that case, she was my client, in that case. Yeah. She was your client before that happened to. Yeah, she was my client before that happened to her. He was a perpetrator of domestic violence for many years, but there was nothing in his history that would lead you to believe that he had that propensity towards violence. The divorce was going very badly for him. I was doing my job very well. And he, you know, he, I don't want to say snap, because it gives it too much credit.

1:21:09I think he just got it in his head that she was his enemy and the cause of everything bad that had ever happened to him and that killing her would be a better choice. And he got her to meet him in a sort of remote location, a parking lot of a hotel under a false pretense that he wanted to give or something related to the kids or something. And he stabbed her several times and ran her over several times. He did it himself. He did it himself. Yeah, he did it himself. And it was shocking. I mean, you don't want it. What's happened more commonly is I've had clients who've committed suicide in self -harm and I've had clients who their spouse committed suicide.

1:21:50That's happened many times where people I think feel they're losing every day. everything their whole life's falling apart. They can't imagine what their post -diverse life will be, or they're so horrified by the behavior they engaged in during, that they think that it's just impossible to get out of this situation. So you would be working with a client and then you get a notification, an email, a message saying that they've ended their life. Yeah. Yeah. It's more commonly happened to me. It's only happened to me where I lost a client that way once. It's happened four times on the other side where I got an email saying this person has been found and you know it ends the case obviously.

1:22:34So it's a hard thing as a professional because I know that I've done a lot to make this person's life very difficult because that's my job. But if that person had hired me, you know, a month before their spouse did, I would have been arguing for their benefit. I would have been arguing as their advocate. I would have been trying to help them as best I can. And instead, I was hired by their spouse and my job's to kind of take them apart as best I can. Like, I'm a weapon. You know, a divorce lawyer is a weapon. And a weapon in the hands of a good person is protects things and a weapon in the hands of a villain is very harmful.

1:23:17So how's your work? I've made you cry. Yeah, sure, absolutely. I think I've cried for a lot of reasons about my work. I've cried from frustration when I couldn't, when justice wasn't served and I felt that I could have done more or different out of frustration. I've cried. I've cried. I think I've I cried more often out of beauty. I'm much more welled up by what I, by things that are beautiful to me than things that are upsetting to me. Like I'm astounded by the strength of people sometimes. I'm astounded by the resilience of people. You think of an example on either end of the spectrum. Yeah, yeah.

1:24:08You know, I had a client, I got him his dog back. You know, there's something about animals that I think is just so, like it's just so pure, how much we love them. Like they don't really care what we make, they don't care if we're impressive or not, or if anybody bought our book, if anybody, how many views we have or clicks we have, like they don't, they just love us. And now, maybe it's because we feed them, maybe it's because we scratch them the right way, but I wanna believe that it's just that they're just so much heart and so much love, you know? And I had this guy who, at the beginning of the case, he just said, look man, I don't care.

1:24:42Like I don't care what I have to pay her. I don't care where they get me my dog. Like just get me my dog. She doesn't really love the dog, but she took the dog because she knows how much I love the dog. So just get me my dog back. Like I just want my dog back. And he was this older, gruff guy. This is the last guy you would think, you know, would like that the dog would be that important to him. And we fought really hard. And we got him his dog back. And I remember when I came out and I ran down the like, okay, I got you this, we got you this, we got you this, and the dog, and he started crying.

1:25:14And I started crying like a child, you know, because there was just something so beautiful about like that. Yeah, that's what mattered to him, like that he got his dog back, you know. And I could imagine in my head like the reunion between those two. And that was very moving to me. The impermanence of a relationship with a dog is something that I've had you talk about before. And how we can sort of the impermanence, the fact that we only have dogs for a short time. I've got a dog as well and I've had it since it was a puppy and it now has gray hairs and it's older and it doesn't run like it used to and little Pablo, I'm now realizing that he's in the last season of his life.

1:25:51And it just makes you want to play with them more and cherish those moments more and be kinder during give them another treat. Yeah, and if we're honest, we're always losing everyone all the time. Like, and that's why to love anything is insane, right? Because to love anything is to expose yourself to the inevitability of losing it. And I've learned that, I learned that as a hospice volunteer for many years, and I've learned that as a human being, and I've learned that as a divorce lawyer, that we're all losing everything all the time, even our child, like you have a child, that child tomorrow, the child they were the day before is dead, is gone.

1:26:39There are a new thing every day, until all of us are ghosts, until all of us are gone. And so to me, keeping that awareness in your mind is everything. Like, you honor that dog by saying, you know what? I took for granted when this was a puppy peeing on everything and running around and eating all my shoes, you know? Like, I didn't realize like there was a limited amount of time, like there is a finite number of times you will watch the sunset. You don't know that number, but it exists. You just don't know it yet. There's only so many more summers that you will be here to see. You just don't know the number.

1:27:29It could be one. It could be a hundred. It's probably not a hundred, right? So I think to me, when people say like, well, how is a divorce lawyer so like, you know, into love and such a romantic at heart? Like, how could you not be? How could you not be when you're confronted every day with how fragile love is and how transient it is and how powerful it is. It means so much to us, so much of what we do all day is to find love and to be loved and to feel worthy of love. And then we have it and we just kind of forget we have it until it's going away and then it's too late or it's gone and now it's completely too late.

1:28:14Like if you realize, was it Pablo? You're done. If you realize how amazing Pablo is when Pablo's gone, shame on you. Like you should, when you pick him up and smell him, you know, like that's the, to me, like that's everything. There's a, I don't know if you ever read Tick -Not Hans' work, the Buddhist monk. So Tick -Not Hans was a, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in like the 80s. He wrote some beautiful books. He passed away a few years ago, but he wrote several books. One of them being pieces of beautiful one. He's written a whole bunch of books, piece in every step.

1:28:50But he, as a Buddhist monk, has this mindfulness exercise. And I've said it to people. I've shared it with people a couple of times. They always look at me like I'm insane when I say it. So I'll share it with you because you brought up death. If I bring it up too much in polite conversation, people just think I'm morbid. And then they're like, all right, all this guy does talk about death and divorce. We got to hang out with like nicer, more fun people. But he has this mindfulness exercise that it's this. He says, when you hug someone, think about the fact that they're there and you're hugging them.

1:29:20Then close your eyes and they think about that they've died. And this is the last time you're hugging them before you let go of their body and it's taken away. And then remember that they're alive and you're hugging them. Like, how could that not choke you up? Like how could you not like when you hug your dog? You you will someday Most likely have to put your dog down You will have to make the very painful but very responsible and loving decision that the best of this dog's life is Over and that there's nothing but pain ahead. I've had to do it several times in my life It's heartbreaking, but it's the final act of love and service to something that you've had to menu over and taken care of and have the duty of taking care of And I know every time you, I've had to do that three times and just smelling it and going, oh, that's it.

1:30:19That's it. It's gone now.

1:30:28And the memory of that scent, it'll fade. But like right now, that dog's alive, Pablo's alive, and you can smell him. And you're not letting go of him now. He's there. He's there right now. Like so how do you not right now just breathe that in every chance you have? Because you don't know how many more times you'll have. And I don't, when people say to me like, well, how can you think so much about death or how can you think so much about pregnancy? How can you not, haven't you ever lost anything? Have you forgotten what it was like to have it? Like, did you not keep in your mind? Like how beautiful this was and how it's gone?

1:31:19Like my mother died eight years ago. And I found an old videotape. I didn't even know like existed and it was my dad had like gotten a video camera and he'd like shop You know all these video and I could hear my mother's voice And like hearing it I went like it. Oh my god like that was her voice like I've been heard it in eight years And I heard it again, and it was so familiar, you know, and I thought to myself. Oh my god like I'm so glad I got to hear that but when she was alive And I never thought like, oh my God, she's here. Like I get to hear her voice. Because someday, that'll be gone. Like it'll be gone.

1:32:01The memory of her voice will be gone. It will fade. Every tear is in rain. It will just fade. And so to me, if we could just have that presence of mind when it comes to love, love is not permanently gifted. It is loaned. and the people you love, the dog you love, the people, they're loaned to you and you're loaned to them. And if you could just remember every day, to treat it like something that's impermanent and that you're losing all the time, like, because I'll tell you something, I think it's insane to love anything because of the pain that it's going to cause. But oh my God, man, I love that pain because it means I got to feel it.

1:32:44Like I know when I got my dog, Kaba, I only got kaba because Buster died. If he hadn't died, then I never would have had room in my life to get another dog. So in some horrible way, I guess I'm glad that he died. But that's not how it works. How it works is that he died Buster and I will never love again. I will never do this to myself again. I will never feel this pain again. It's the worst thing in the world. I will never expose myself to that. And then a friend called me up and said, Hey, man, we're doing an adoption event with this dog. And I just need you to watch him for the night. He's a puppy.

1:33:26He's got mange. He's a little goofy thing. But like, I just need you to watch him for the night. And I was like, yeah, you know what? I don't have the kids this weekend. Like, I'll watch a dog for a night. And then you fell in love. Brings this stupid dog. This little stupid, main, ridden, worms. and he walks in to my apartment and he pees immediately on the floor and I thought, oh, shit, I just got a dog. I just got a dog again. I'm doing this again. And that was 13 years ago. And man, I'm so glad. Like I'm so glad. And he'll sit there with his little gray face now. And he'll sit there next to me and he'll look at me.

1:34:10He's crazy about me as I'm about him because he knows I saved him. and I know he saved me. And he looks at me and I think to myself, oh, you're gonna kill me. Like you're gonna kill me when I lose you. And it's gonna happen sooner rather than later, I'm not gonna have another 13 years. I'm lucky if I have another year. But man, like, I don't know. I'll do it. I'm so glad I did it. He saved you. Yeah, yeah, cause he, he reminded me of a thing I forget that we all forget that I have an infinite capacity for love no matter what I lose because we're just losing all of it all the time but that's not a reason not to love that's not a reason not to like it's it's so brave to love and it's only brave because it's scary like if you're not scared it's not brave it's only brave because it's terrifying, it's terrifying to know like this thing's gonna break my heart.

1:35:18Now I'm gonna let it, I'm gonna let it break my heart because the joy that it's gonna give me in the interim, like I wouldn't trade that for anything in the world. And you know right now, if you say to me when Kaba passes away, will I ever do it again? I'm like, nope, absolutely not, absolutely not. But you know what, I'm lying, I'm lying, like I'm lying, I'll love again, I know it, I know it. And I think it's the same thing with romantic love. Our hearts get broken. We, you know, we fall apart. We break in relationship and we heal in relationship. And we recover from that breaking in relationship.

1:35:56And I think there's something really, really important there.

1:36:05Do you really accomplish anything? The first person who got me to cry on a podcast is pretty. It's really something to be proud of. I cry all the time though to answer your question. Yeah, I cry constantly. For a guy who's like tattooed up and down and does Brazilian Jiu -Jitsu for fun, I cry constantly. Usually because something's beautiful, I think that that's what moves me the most is how beautiful it all is. Like I think this is all, it's a game we can't win, and we just keep playing it. And that's so lovely. Like it's so brave. It's so cool that it's all ending all the time, and we just keep doing it.

1:36:43We just keep doing it, because if there's something in our hearts that wants it, maybe that's... I don't know, I'm not a religious person, but maybe that's some insight into the nature of God that we come from something and we disconnect, and then we spend all our life trying to reconnect to something. Q1 is often when businesses start implementing new systems and processes in hopes of creating efficiencies for the year ahead. And over the course of my career, I've learnt just how crucial having the right systems in places, one which has helped me across many of my investments is NetSuite. They're also a sponsor of this podcast.

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1:37:59It's interesting because I saw in your face when we halfway through the conversation that you were talking about how beautiful love was and I could see the emotion in your face when you were talking about how beautiful love is and it's contrasting because at the start of the conversation I would have thought that you thought marriage and love was just this like terrible idea. Obviously there's an distinction between the two. It's everything. No, it's everything. I think doing what I do for a living, I see that better than most people like because we just keep putting these giant bets on the table and we wouldn't do it if we didn't I think the prize was worth it, you know?

1:38:31But see, I also believe too, that we need to start looking at romantic relationships like chapters in a long book. Like I don't... Soulmates, we... Well, see, it's soulmate. I have to say, whoever created the term soulmate, like I owe them a tremendous debt of gratitude because they really helped facilitate divorce as an industry. Because the idea that we have a soulmate And that that's the one. It always creates the possibility that, A, this person's perfect for us, for how could I be dissatisfied with them? If they're perfect for me, I must have picked the wrong one. And look, that one over there, that might be the perfect one.

1:39:14Why? Because I feel as great about them as I did about this one when I first met it, but I just don't remember that as much anymore. So the soulmate thing, oh, it's great for business for me. But I think it's terrible for human beings. I think you probably could have a whole bunch of people that you could have had a very satisfying romantic relationship with. Again, not to keep comparing things to dogs, but like, because you love the dog you have now, does it mean you didn't really love the dog you have of like that's ridiculous? It's like people have children don't go like, well, I, you know, I couldn't love anything more than this other child.

1:39:47So I'm not having any more children because you know, I couldn't possibly love it. It's like, no, you have an infinite capacity for love. So if you have two children, you have five children, like you love all the children that you have. You know, so I think you should look at relationships as chapters, just because a relationship ends in something other than death, right? It ends in divorce, it ends in a breakup, whatever it might be. It doesn't mean it wasn't successful. Did you leave it a better person than you came to it with? Did they, did you partner? Did you learn from it? Did you learn what you want or don't want?

1:40:24Did you learn how you should behave or how you shouldn't behave? Did you learn something about how you want and need to be loved? Or how you fail in your attempts to convey love to someone else? Like, why not look at it as what was good for me in this chapter? It may not be the sustaining thing. Like who you find attractive and what's compelling in your 20s and your 30s and your 40s and your 50s Can be different you talk to a lot of 20 something your olds and say what car do you want when you're in your tail? Lambo want the Lambo great. You put a car seat Lambo If you get one car and that's car you're gonna drive for the rest of your life Okay, and you've never been 50 yet.

1:41:09So you don't know what you're gonna want when you're 50 now There's this idealized thing where everybody goes like wow, but you know you'll grow together and then what you'll want, you'll grow together and you'll change to, okay, where are you basing that on? Is that, is that a thing? Is that demonstrably true? Or is that just like your hope? Like we hope we'll grow together and we'll grow in complimentary ways. Because why? Because of proximity? Because we're near each other, we're going to grow in complimentary ways. Like is that naive? I think that might be naive. Like I don't have any proof of that.

1:41:43I'd so many of the couples you see, it must be confused as to whether this relationship is actually broken or we're just like not doing the work. I think that about a lot of my friends, they'll come to me and say, my relationship is struggling. And the first thing you try and figure out is whether this is something that is fixable or it's better wrong. And what do you do in that equation? You compare, right? Yeah. You compare. And what do you compare to? something fake. Bullshit. Yeah, you compare to something fake. You compare it to the romcom. Yeah. Which is basically porn for women. Yeah. Right?

1:42:22Like it's, it's an idealized stylized version. You saw Titanic. You, you know why they had that perfect romance? Cause he died before you could screw it up. You think 10 years later, she'd have been like, keep painting your French girls. Go, no, she wouldn't have. She'd have been like, forget it. What are you doing? Get a job. You know, Now there would have been issues in that relationship. So it only was perfect because it ended. It ended before they could screw it up. You know, they end the movie. Like the old thing, I think it was Orson Wells who said, you know, whether something's a comedy or a tragedy depends on when you end the story.

1:42:54You know, so it's relationships. Like you ever want to test that theory in the reverse, go out with a couple that's unhappy with each other and then say to them, so tell me about how you met. All of a sudden they like soften tremendously And they start like talking about who they were and who their partner was back in that day when they when it was all Possibility and and they were choosing each other, you know, and so I think there's tremendous value in You know a great example. I always try to like take non -relationship examples of relationship items So one of my sons when he was a teenager was very critical of me as a father.

1:43:37He was very like sort of dismissive of me as a father. We were talking about something and he sort of said, like, well, dad, you know, you're not like the perfect father. And I said, well, first of all, I don't know what a perfect father is. I was like, but what are you comparing me to? Your idea of a perfect father, or like a father you actually know and have seen. Because here's the thing, If you compare me to your perfect father in your imagination, I'm going to compare you to my perfect son in my imagination and guess what? You suck. Because we all suck compared to the ideal of our imagination.

1:44:17And by the way, I said, don't learn this lesson now. Because if you compare a woman, you're in a relationship with. With your imagined ideal of a woman, I promise you you will be dissatisfied for the rest of your life in your relationship. And if she compares you to her idealized imagination of what the perfect man would be, she's going to be disappointed. We need to start comparing relationships to real relationships. But how are we going to do that if we're so deeply committed to lying to each other about how great our relationship is? What's the quickest someone's gone from marriage to divorce that you've seen?

1:44:57In terms of how long the relationship lasted? Yeah. 48 hours. You joking. No, 48 hours. But that's usually an enolment. That's a big Vegas baby. Yeah, that happens sometimes. That happens sometimes. Where people just have like immediate, immediate regret, you know, or they married on a whim. I mean, you can, there's no, like there's a waiting period to get a firearm, you know, there's a waiting period for almost anything. Marriage? Go right now. You married. No problem. You just go to just to the piece, pay $40 license fee and you're married. That's it. Go to Vegas. You can get a big guy named Goddress like Elvis will marry you for 50 bucks.

1:45:33You said there's two main reasons why people get divorced. Infidelity, which we talked about. The other one we haven't talked about, which is money. I found this very interesting, because I wouldn't imagine that money issues. And it's not the money issues we think about. It's not someone going broke. Yeah, it's not that. In your book, you talk about it being transparency. Yeah, so I mean money is power, right? Money has a lot to do with power and I think there's a lot you know there's a it's a misattributed docks for a while but it's not something he would have said there's the saying that everything in the world is about sex except sex which is about power and I think money is about power money is about control money is about opportunity, security, it's about a whole bunch of things, but it's not really about money.

1:46:21Like money is just a currency, right, that we trade in. So I think money has a whole bunch of complicated stuff tied up in it. It's why we can't in polite conversation, like talk about what did you pay for that? How much do you make? You know, it's considered sort of intelligent to do that. Because we've loaded it up with all kinds of emotional things about worth and relative worth. and so you know it's not uncommon that people are dishonest with themselves and with each other about money. It's also not uncommon in a relationship that one of two dynamics emerges. Either one person has a tremendous amount of economic disparity like leverage or they have economic power that they can or can't leverage because of marriage.

1:47:14Or both people have somewhat equal bargaining positions, and then something changes. So, like, I see a tremendous number of divorces when husband and wife are both working and husband loses job. Big, big precipitate for divorce because men, it sends them spiraling into a depression that they've lost this job, that much of how they define themselves in sort of the traditional masculine gender role as that of a provider and a protector. And now I've failed at that through no fault of my own. They laid off the entire Northeast region. It's not my fault, but I no longer have a job. And I have to go around and try to find one and redefine myself.

1:47:53And at the same time, my spouse has managed to keep their job. And I've seen a lot of women that when their spouse loses the job and they become the breadwinner, they find that very unappealing. that they, that a man as the bread winner was appealing, the man as economic equal is appealing, the man as I have to take care of him financially and provide for him, very uncomfortable. So I see it, when a man loses his job, I would love if they kept statistics on these kinds of things, but I can tell you in my practice, I've seen plenty of women lose their job, it has no impact on the marriage. Men lose their job in a heterosexual, male -female marriage.

1:48:35it is disastrous consequences a great deal of the time. And I think that has a lot to do again. It's not about money. It's about what the money symbolizes. It's about providing. It's about power control. Respect for the ability to go out there and forge something from the world. We sense at the start of this conversation on the subject of money. Sometimes you give legal advice and sometimes you give human advice. As it relates to money, Should I be telling my partner how much money I have? Because I imagine there's kind of two different legal answers. A legal answer and a human answer. Yeah, I mean, they're entitled to find out.

1:49:12So, like part of, yeah, part of, well, in a divorce, you have what's called mandatory discovery, which is that I have a right to review all of your financials in that process. So a tremendous amount of what I do all day and my team is they, we go through people's books, like we go through the credit card slips, we go through all the economics to find out like where the money is, where it went, you know, and that's how we find out what everybody spent on their girlfriend or boyfriend and all the credit card receipts really. When someone says, I've got the receipts, like, no, I've got the receipts, because I can subpoena them, meaning I can get them directly from the credit card company.

1:49:48I can get them directly from your employer, all your information about what you actually were given. And it's very hard to move money around without leaving a trace these days. Well, a lot of people then must be trying to hide money, because I think I've heard of cases where there was one In a particular case of a footnote, apparently, but everything in his mother's name, did you see that? Yes. And the problem with that is it's a great story, makes for a great story. But there are in most jurisdictions protections against that, because it's what's called a transfer in contemplation of divorce.

1:50:21So it's essentially a form. It's like a fraudulent conveyance. It's designed to thwart someone's otherwise appropriate legal remedy. So if I know I'm being sued and that this person has a valid claim, so I sell my Lamborghini for $5 to my brother, the court can void that transaction. But what if I, before that, before there was any suspicion of devils or any issues, I put everything in my brother's own mom's name. You can do that. You're a lot of views on him. As long as it was not to, yeah, I actually have seen that many times. I've seen, well, I represent a lot of people in finance and people in finance, and have a way of seeing money very differently.

1:51:04And I've seen people who over a 20 year period, like did things to take things out of the marital estate so that they were beyond the reach of the court. That's pretty quite surprising when you're the other partner and you assume that you're partner super rich. You go for the divorce and you find out that they have nothing. It's more common that people don't realize the debt structure that they're living under. because a lot of people live under a tremendous debt structure. This happens in celebrity divorces a lot because a lot of it is the appearance of wealth, but it's not actual wealth. And so, you know, they're highly leveraged.

1:51:39And so - What does that mean for the average person? That doesn't know what average person is. The credit card debt, primarily. Credit card debt is a big thing. Or the cars that you don't own the cars, you lease the cars. So they're actually owned by the bank. Even your home, if your home, you know, of 70, 80 % of the equity in your home is the bank's mortgage, then you don't really have much. You don't own your home, the bank owns your home. I think this is something people misunderstand is that you get 50 % of your partners' assets and you get 50 % of their debts. Of course. Well, you get the assets net of liabilities.

1:52:11Yeah. And most people, like their net worth is what do you own net of liabilities? So there are a lot of people making a very, very good living, but they don't really have a lot of assets. Because what they've done is they've leveraged in a tremendous way. They have mortgages and they have debts accumulating. They have least automobiles. They have jewelry that they took a personal loan to guarantee or that they purchase jewelry, knowing that it will immediately depreciate in value. You know, the resale on it is much, much lower than the value that they just paid for it. So it's an illusion in many ways.

1:52:48What about the opposite of that? that went, someone was in a relationship and their partner thought they were like broke or didn't have much money. And it turns out they're so unfortunate. Yeah, what's actually funnier is when someone, when someone really threw no fault of even their own comes into some massive amount of money, like I've had people, I actually had a client who won the lottery. And so he went from like nothing, like a minimum wage kind of a job and they lived a very modest life. And they were unhappily married, but they were like, well, you know, can't really afford to live as a couple, we certainly can't afford to live apart.

1:53:28Like, it's bad enough, we can't pay our electric bill. They have two electric bills, we'd have a hell of a time. And he won a lottery, he used to play the power ball, and he won like, you know, some insane amount. It was like, I don't know, $50 million. So then after taxes, it's like a 50 % tax, it was like $25 million. And he was beyond thrilled until he got told, and yes, she gets half. She gets exactly half. And he was like, wait, why? I bought the ticket. I'm like, you are one person in the eyes of the law. If she won the lottery, you'd get half of it. You won the lottery. She gets half of it.

1:53:59So it works. Did they stay together? No, of course not. She was like, they're miserable with each other. I mean, at that point, he was suddenly very motivated that maybe we should stay together. But she was like, I'd get, wait a minute. I get, I get, you know, half a 25 million and I don't have to deal with you anymore. See ya. And that was it. That was it. That's why I was in my office. She had served him with divorce papers. What about LGBT couples? Yeah. Does everything we've said apply an equal measure? Do they get divorced in the same way? Do they have the same issues we're talking about sex?

1:54:30Do they, you know? I don't think, I think a lot of the same things are true, meaning impermanence, soulmates, all of those kinds of issues. But I think because gay and lesbian couples were forced to the outskirts of the culture, they were the outsider for so long, so much of my life, even as a 51 -year -old man, so much of my life I saw my gay and lesbian friends ostracized, marginalized, and put on the periphery. But when you are put on the periphery, there is as awful as that is. It is unfair as that is and unjust as that is and how much it should rightly offend our sensibility to see people marginally and ostracized.

1:55:19It creates a certain freedom where it's like, okay, then we don't have to follow those rules. We can make our own rules. Invention. Yeah, we can just, we can do it how we want to do it. Because you know what? They think we stink. They think we're the worst. They think we're just, you know, okay, so then we can do it how we want to do it, because no matter what, they're not going to accept us. So we might as well do it the way it makes sense for us, instead of, you know, tradition is peer pressure from dead people. So if you're someone who's like, my parents have rejected me. Sorry, tradition is, is peer pressure exerted by dead people.

1:55:55I mean, it's really what it is. I'm not saying traditions aren't valuable, but at their core, tradition is peer pressure from dead people. Like your grandma did it this way, so you should do it this way. Okay, your grandma lived in a whole different time. Your grandma did not have the entire totality of human wisdom in her hand that she could press a few buttons on. So to say, oh yeah, like the same rules, the same institutions, the same ways of being, they should be exactly the same. That's insane. We didn't make rules for non -hersectual relationships. So they're getting to make their own rules and it turns out...

1:56:30And they did. And they did. Like, I have a lot of gay male friends. I live in Chelsea, which is a section of New York City that for many years was a primarily gay male section to live in. And so I happen to have a lot of gay male friends. And it's very funny to me because when I would talk to them, even before marriage equality and before the sort of widespread acceptance of gay and lesbian families and gay and lesbian lives and relationships as being valid, like it wasn't that long ago that will engrace, like Will couldn't kiss his boyfriend on TV. This was like the 90s that that was going on.

1:57:05So this isn't that long ago. I have suits older than that. Like this is the thing. So they used to, my gay male friends, used to have these very kind of non -conventional permutations of relationships. They're like, yeah, we can kiss other people, but we can't have sex with other people. Or we can do oral sex with other people we can't, but we have to let them know that we're doing. Like because they were like, hey, we're on the outskirts. We get to kind of make up our own rules. And there's something very, and what's funny to me about that is when marriage equality was coming about. And I've been a consulting attorney for something called Lambda Legal, which is gay and lesbian legal defense, which, you know, 20 years ago it meant like the right to exist, like the right to like not be fired from your job because you're gay.

1:57:57Like that seemed to me like basic human rights. You know, the idea now, like we've gone quite far in terms of now there's some controversies that I kind of go, okay, wait, I'm not quite sure even as someone who's identified as a progressive liberal for quite some of my life, I don't know that I can go this bridge too far. But the basic fundamental right, like the right to marry, I always felt, you know what, But if you want to be able to participate in this unbelievably failing technology, you have every right in the world. Like if you hate gay people, let them marry. Why should they be having all the fun?

1:58:35Like let them marry. And I remember sort of thinking that jokingly. And when marriage equality finally happened in the United States, I went to a good friend of mine who will remain nameless. And I said to him, he'd been in a long -term relationship maybe like two years. And I said, so many sites, you're like, you know, you get married. He goes, no, I'm not psyched. Why would I be excited about this? And I said, what do you mean? You get married now? He goes, yeah. Like, I never had to deal with that. I never had to have the conversation. It never had to be like, you know, where's this going? You know, are we in a, he's like, if anything, I could go like, oh, I would marry you, but oh, the government, they won't let me down.

1:59:16I wish, I wish we could, but the government, It's out of my hands. He's like, now, now I have to have this conversation. Now I have to like, well, where's this going? And are we getting married? And what do you think? And if we should we move in? Should we have, even kids should we have kids? Like, it used to be we were barred from having kids or adopting kids. Now we get adopt kids. It's no problem. It's like, great. Now I got to have that conversation. So again, I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't have marriage equality. We shouldn't have the freedom to adopt and to have children. But I think it's a Faustian bargain for everybody.

1:59:50And so my experience of gay and lesbian couples currently, because I'm currently doing a number of divorces for lesbian couples and gay couples, I think that, you know, the honeymoon period isn't quite over yet. Like marriage equality has only been the law of the land for like, you know, 10 years, something like that. So give it some time. We'll see. Maybe they're better at it. maybe they'll be worst at it, maybe they'll be just as equally awful at it as we are. What about open relationships? Do they work more? You know, I'm not qualified to answer that question for the following reason. I meet a lot of people who have tried various types of ethical non -monogamy, polyamory, but they all have in common that they're in my office.

2:00:40Yeah, of course. So I see all the ones that didn't work. Yeah. So me saying, well, I've met a lot of couples where they tried the polyamory thing or they tried ethical nonmenogamy and it didn't work and it led to divorce, is like an oncologist saying like, dude, everybody's got cancer. I met like 10 people today who have cancer. Right, you're an oncologist. Like of course you meet a lot of people that have cancer. Like a guy who's a cab driver, it isn't meet that many people who have cancer. Like you might meet one or two, but he's not gonna meet all of them, but you're working cancer. So you're gonna meet people, like I happen to meet people getting divorced.

2:01:12So all of the, I've met a lot of people that gave that a shot and it did not work. Now again, was that the liking case of emergency break glass? Like let's just try this. Have you ever seen it work? I've never in any of my friendships and any of my personal relationships. I've never seen non -monogamy successful, but I don't think we're quite at a place as a culture. where we're really being honest about monogamy. Like Esther Parell, some of her work, I think is brilliant about monogamy and fidelity, because I don't think it's quite, I think there are a lot of couples where there is non -monogamy happening, but there's sort of a don't ask, don't tell policy.

2:02:07And there's a sense of, you know, if this is what you need to do to sort of stay happily committed. Because if we're honest, a marriage is a whole bunch of different relationships in one relationship. It's your roommate, it's your co -parent, it's your travel companion, it's your family companion, meaning like they have to deal with your mother -in -law and your father -in -law too. and like it's a whole bunch of relationships. And it may be that men and women were a particular man and a particular woman in a relationship have a different sense of how important sex is. And you know, it's okay to delegate.

2:02:52It's okay to say, you know, listen, I don't really like football. So go watch football with your friends. Do you see that a lot where the partner or the other partner that you're not dealing with has accepted the other partner cheating? Well, not cheating, but they've allowed them to just quietly go in. Yes, I've had a lot of people who come in and say to me, he had a bunch of affairs over the years and I just let it go. Really? Or she had a bunch of affairs over the years and we didn't make an issue of it. Yeah, really. And see just the fact that you and it's understandable, I'm not criticizing you, but the fact that you go really is okay, why would that be that shocking?

2:03:32Like people cheat all the time, people step outside of their relationship all the time. People like diversity of sexual partners. Okay, so here's the question then. Have you ever seen an affair in the presence of someone being in love? I don't know that'd be qualified to say whether someone was in love or not. Here's what I will say, because love is an emotion and love is a verb. I've certainly seen people that were having the fairs and in every aspect of their outward life, appear to be deeply committed to their marriage. Okay. So they were an economic provider, they were a diligent parent, they were attentive to the emotional state of their partner, they still had an active sexual relationship with their partner, but it wasn't a, let's say, a terribly prolific one, perhaps.

2:04:21But you can't she and be in love. Sure, I mean, listen, just the term cheap, you know, like, okay, well, then a cheap meal. Like you can be on a healthy diet and enjoy a cheap meal, you know, and there's something great about it because it's a cheap meal. It's like a little thing you do to treat yourself and then you go back to eating healthy and regular, right? Because look, there's something about the human desire for variety. There's something about passion. I mean, you know, I always say this, I'm not a religious person, but like we're all familiar with the Ten Commandments, you know? And theoretically, if that story is true, which again, it's not provable or disprovable, but God handed down Ten Rules.

2:05:02Like that's a talk to humanity and said, Here's Ten Rules. Don't kill good one. Honor the Sabbath, good one, okay? Don't cheat on your spouse. Don't covet your neighbor's wife. It got two. It got two rules. Like he didn't say thou shalt not kill. Like seriously don't kill. That's right. No, but don't sleep with other people. Got two at a 10 rules from God theoretically. Like that's amazing. That should show you how long this has been a thing. How human of a problem or issue or compulsion. This is, it's the most human thing. This desire, like yeah. We want to, you know, Freud civilization and its discontents, you know, all of these, all of these Brilliant minds from all over the world over the whole span of time Have struggled with Monogamy have struggled with sex have struggled with the desire for sex wars are fought over sex people rise and empires rise and fall people rise and fall I used to say that like I think 90 % of what most of the men I do they do to get laid They do.

2:06:19Why work hard so I can make money? Why? So I can get a nice car. Why? So I can attract beautiful women. Like look at look at the red pill space the manosphere all this. Everything is about making yourself appealing to women or making yourself appealing to potential sexual partners. Whether it's just one or a whole diversity of them. Okay, that's a different thing, but it's about that. It's about that. So should we get married? should we get married? I mean, from a job security place, I hope people continue to get married, because if they don't, I'll be out of a job. But in seriousness, I don't think I think we will continue to get married.

2:07:01Should we? I don't think we should say all of us should. I think we should ask the question. I think we shouldn't assume we should get married. That's what I think. I think that we should ask the question, what is the problem to which marriage is a solution? And do I have that problem? And will it solve that problem? Because the fact that it's an odd question to say, when someone says, I want to get married, that it would be odd for me to go, why? Yeah. Why is that weird? Like if you said, I wanna have a podcast. Why? It's a perfectly reasonable question. I want to go to Florida. Why? Like the weather.

2:07:49I have a friend there, whatever. I want to get married. Why? What do people respond when you typically answer that question? What's the most frequent response to the reason for the invention of the technology of marriage? Because I posted many years ago that I was suspicious about marriage. And I remember all the comments that I got and different people are doing different things it holds them, it holds the controversial. It's super controversial. People get a very attached to it. One of them I remember was a case that it's the best environment to raise kids in when the parents are in that kind of bond.

2:08:20I had another one which means that you stay and you solve the problems instead of running away so marriage is really good for that regard. But you know the reasons why people say marriage makes sense. What are those key reasons? I think that there's religious reasons. That's a big one. I get all the time. In the comments, there will be like a billion people will they go, marriage is a covenant between God and as if I hadn't heard of this, you know, as if I didn't go to Catholic school my entire life. Like yes, I get it. I get it. That's a belief you have and that's okay. Like my beliefs don't require that you believe them.

2:08:54Yours may require that I believe them and that's okay. Like where you're gonna agree to disagree if your fundamental thing is that God spoke to you and told you a thing, whether it was in written form or verbally. like I can't argue with that. You sound like you're a big fan of love and not a big fan of marriage. I'm a fan of marriage to the extent that it facilitates love, but I just don't see a nexus between those two things. I don't think these two things have that much to do with each other. And I think to the extent that they have something to do with each other, they probably could have existed without the marriage.

2:09:27Like I think marriage is a symbol of something, and I don't think you need the symbol to have the something. It's confusing a finger pointing at the moon with the moon. Like, it's confusing the, the, the, the, the, the simply, marriage is supposed to be, I think, a symbol, and I love it for that. I love the idea of two people who are so excited about how they make each other feel, and how the effect they have on each other, and the effect that the other has on them, that they want to get up in front of a bunch of people. who they know and say, this is my person. I found them and I'm gonna stick with them through good and through bad and I'm gonna see their blind spots and I'm gonna not be a yes man, I'm gonna tell them when they get it wrong, but with love and I want them to do the same thing for me.

2:10:23I want them to cheer for me and I want them to be on my side and I want them to disagree with me when I need to be disagreed with. So I don't make really dumb decisions just because I got a cheerleader all the time behind me. Like, I got it cheerleader because I need one. The world sucks and everybody's always criticizing me and I criticize myself constantly. But having this person next to me who goes, man, you can do this. Come on, get up. You can do it. You know, or I fell down. It's okay, people fall down. You're great. Get up. Come on, you can do it. Or who's going to say to me, you know, that's, I know you're doing this for this reason.

2:10:52And I get it, but I don't think it's going to make you feel what you think it's going to make you feel said, maybe you don't do it. And I'm going to go, okay, they wouldn't say that if it wasn't out of love. So I'm going to hear that. And I'm not going to be afraid of it. And I want to get up and we're going to say this to a bunch of people. And then we're going to wear rings because it'll be a reminder for us and for the world that I got a person. I got a person and that's my person, you know? Dude, how do you not share for that? That's incredible. It's great. You can have that without the...

2:11:18Yeah, of course. Without the contract. You want to get the government involved? Like, well, you have to get the government involved. Really? That story I just told, that's the story. That's the feeling, that's the interpersonal, can I, when you say to most people, they say, I'm getting married, you go, why? First of all, they look at you like you have lobsters coming out of your nose. Like they've never, the question never even occurred to them. Why? Who's you get married? That's what you do. That's insane. But if you say to them, why? They'll usually say something that's a total non -answer. Well, I'm in love.

2:11:55Okay, what does that mean you have to get married? Well, because I want to maintain that connection. How specifically is marriage going to maintain that connection? And again, if it's a public declaration, I think there's value in a public declaration. If I don't smoke cigarettes, but if I want to quit smoking cigarettes, there's value in getting up and saying, hey guys, just see all know, I'm going to quit smoking. And if you love me, I want you to hold me accountable. So if you see me smoking or if I ask you for a cigarette, don't get me one because I really do want to quit smoking. You know, there's value in that.

2:12:32There's value in the tri -ball going, all right, man, you know, that's what you want. Let's do it. We're committed to it. Same thing with marriage. If the purpose of marriage is to say, hey guys, it's really hard to be monogamous. I don't know if anyone's noticed. So, and like the world is really antagonistic to marriage. But like I really want all the great things that come from having a person who sees my blind spots and who's supporting me and I'm supporting them and the symbiosis, the beauty of that relationship and the connection of those two people. So I want you to hold me accountable. I want you, my friend, that when I, you see me looking at the other girl that you go to me, hey, bro, forget about what you got at home?

2:13:09Come on, man, you got a good one. What are you doing, you know? Like I want you to hold me accountable. I want women out there to see that wedding ring and to go, yep, not him, not him. Even if he talks to me, not him, he's married. Let's leave that one. Why? Because if it was my one, I wouldn't want him talking to some other girl, so I'm not going to talk to him. You know, instead, it's not what we do. That is not what we do as a culture. You ever want to get laid, put on a wedding ring and go out. Suddenly you're safe. Suddenly you're a guy they can talk to and he's not on the make because he's married.

2:13:41He's obviously wearing an outward symbol of his relationship. Again, like, this is crazy. It's crazy. It's crazy. Because we're just not being honest about what this thing really is. Marriage is a legal status. It's a government intervention. Everything else is just stuff we're putting on top of it and calling it that thing. But you can have all that stuff without having legally the status of marriage. James, we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest, not knowing who they're going to be leaving it for, but I might have told them who they're leaving it for.

2:14:18And the question that's been left for you is a brilliant one because it's very on topic and once in a while this happens, when was the first time you experienced true love? Oh boy, you made me cry again.

2:14:39What was the first time I experienced true love? Gosh, that's a great question. And just the fact that just the experience of being asked that question is running my mind through the most lovely slide show of so many times I felt loved and felt deep love. So boy, what a lovely thing to ask every morning if I could, like that's a lovely question because just the fact that there's, just the fact that there's a competition going on in my brain right now is the greatest thing in the world because all the stuff that's running through my head and it's so diverse, there's me kissing and amazing woman for the first time and feeling that.

2:15:25There's my sons, each of my sons, kissing me or hugging me. There's Kaba and Buster, Pickles, Lady, Maggie, every dog I ever had. And there's an image I can imagine of it. There's my, the first thing that popped into my head, which is gonna sound crazy, but maybe it's the stage in life that I'm in. When I was a little boy, my father was not a particularly effusively loving guy. He was a Vietnam veteran. He was a bad alcoholic. He's been sober now for eight years. I'm very proud of him. And he's in his eighties now. But growing up, he was very unemotional to me. And I remember I had this best friend Tommy and we had pizza one night at my parents house and you know, pizza's cut into like eight slices and Tommy and I were like, you know, growing boys we wanted to eat, you know, like, cram, we ate really fast, you know, we each ate our three slices and my dad would have had two left, you know, for him.

2:16:37And we ate so fast that our six slices were gone and there was just two left. I know my dad was like super hungry, but he was like, if you guys want, you can have them. And I remember, you know, we just ate them like, you would, obliviously, like a kid. And a couple of weeks later, I was at my friend's house, same friend, and his, they ordered pizza. And there was like, you know, same thing, eight slices. And his dad ate like four slices. And I remember thinking, my dad would never do that. And I remember I felt very loved. Because I remember thinking, this is a guy who'd never said he loved me, like ever, it just wasn't his vocabulary, it wasn't who he was.

2:17:23But I just remember thinking like, oh, he loves me. Like, it satisfied him more to see me eating that extra piece of pizza than what eating that piece of pizza would have given to him. And I remember thinking like, oh, he loves me. So I would say to me, that was a very pure and true kind of love. And when I had my sons, I remember thinking, oh, I get that. Like they can have the whole pizza. So to me, that's true love is when it's not even sacrificing to give, that the joy of the other person just gives you so much joy and fills you so much that it's just the greatest thing.

2:18:20James, thank you. Thank you for all the work you do. You've given me so interesting. You know, I went into this conversation thinking I'd learn about divorce and relationships, but I leave this conversation with a profound appreciation for love. That's great. In a way that I don't think I've I've never had before. And I also, we've made that profound appreciation, I think, causes you to want to take a certain set of actions. Help, so. I think about what you said about the impermeence of love. You've made me want to cuddle public, because I know that I don't have many years left with him, but also there's many people in my life that, maybe I do have many years with.

2:18:55I don't know how many years I have with them. You don't, and I have to tell you, I think I'm really grateful to hear you say that. I hope you do that, because I really think we are the most aware of the joy of our good health when we're in the presence of illness. We are most aware of the beauty of life when we're in the presence of death and the impermanence. And we can be the most aware of the power and presence and beauty of romantic love When we remember that it is impermanent, it is not permanently gifted, it's loaned, and that we're blessed to have it for however long we have it. So if that's what anyone walks out of talking to a divorce lawyer thinking about, then mission accomplished.

2:19:53Thanks for having me, Steve.

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