all marital problems stem from two things and that’s what about sex how often is sex the issue in divorce oh my God James ston the world’s number one divorce lawyer specializing in billionaires athletes and celebrities for over two decades giving him a unique insight into how relationships fail and succeed there’s about a 56% chance that your marriage will end in divorce yet 86% of people agree Mar within 5 years but most people have no idea what they are getting themselves into and a great example of that would be prenups whogets what when they break up correct and the most shocking prenup I’ve ever seen said that for every 10bs the wife gained she would lose $10,000 a month in alimony 10 lb of weight and that was enforceable do money issues lead to divorce oh it’s controversial what’s the quick if someone’s gone from Marriage to divorce 48 Hours who cheats more men or women you’ll be shocked to hear it’s have you ever seen violence during a divorce they ran her over four times and stabbed her Jesus Christ so here’s thequestion then should we get married and then do you think love is a terrible idea I think it’s insane to love anything because someday that’ll be gone and this thing’s going to break my heart no matter what I lose but that’s not a reason not to love and I I think there’s something really important there congratulations diio gang we’ve made some progress 63% of you that listen to this podcast regularly don’t subscribe which is down from 69% our goal is 50% so if you’ve ever liked any of the videos we’ve posted ifyou like this channel can you do me a quick favor and hit the Subscribe button it helps this channel more than you know and the bigger the channel gets as you’ve seen the bigger the guests get thank you and enjoy this episode James I’ve never spoken to somebody that does what you do what do you do I’m a divorce lawyer I’m a divorce lawyer who represents people in contested divorce and custody proceedings in court so it’s the fact that you’ve never spoken to someone who does what I do is a good thing it it it means that either you’venot married or it means that you’ve successfully married to the point where you would never end up in my office by the time someone sets foot in my office something’s gone terribly wrong in their life because no one ever meant to meet me no one ever meant to be in my office ever what is the probability that someday I do meet somebody like you and not in this context well if you marry there’s about a 56% chance that your marriage will end in divorce now that doesn’t take into consideration how manypeople may consult with a divorce lawyer because they’re having difficulty in their marriage but they choose subsequent to meeting me not to divorce for some particular reason whether that’s they don’t want to part with half of their funds or they’ve just decided it’s easier to stay miserable and with a person or they’re staying together for the kids but they wanted to know what their rights were so if you marry the the chances of meeting someone like me are are more likely than not if we look at it that way because it’s more than50% so it’s a it’s a high number you know but if we Define failure as all of the other things you’ve described there we kind of stay together but we’re miserable or we stay together for some other reason how what percentage of marriages on that basis do you think actually fail I mean if we consider the if we consider failure staying together miserable for the children or staying together for financial economic reasons and then we add that to the 56% that end in divorce then I mean it would be veryhard to track that but I I think it’s generous to think it’s another 20% probably but but I mean think about what that adds up to that means that you’ve got you’ve got something that fails 70 75% of the time that’s a that’s a negligent activity that’s uh you know that’s that is more likely than not to cause significant harm in your life so I I I don’t say that to sound like the Grim Reaper when it comes to marriage I I actually really think marriage is a lovely thing and I get MTI eyed at weddings like anybody um and not justfor you know future business purposes um I I I I think I think the statistic that’s even more interesting to me than how many marriages end in divorce or how many people stay together miserable is that 86% of people who divorce remarry within five years so think about that now you’ve you’ve done this thing it’s failed you’ve gone through this difficult process of having to undo it and now within five years 86% of people remarry I mean so that that tells you how important this is to us as humans how drawn to this idea thistechnology of marriage we are and and that to me is fascinating because I I’ve often said like I’m not sure what marriage was designed what problem is marriage designed to solve see the fact that it takes this long to think if I said to you what what purpose does this technology this mug what does it serve well that’s easy right it’s hard to drink out of your hands and someone would have to keep coming up and pouring things in our hands okay well that’s pretty straightforward what what problem doesthis solve well that’s easy right we we want to get you know the ring stains around we get yelled at by our significant other for not using a coaster so these are easy things but marriage something so ubiquitous that it’s assumed it’s assumed if you’re dating someone for a few years and you say guess what we’re getting married everyone goes of course phenomenal congratulations that’s great of course you’re going to do do that you know you make an honest woman of her of course whereas if you say you know we we’vebeen together for 3 4 years we decided we’re not going to get married people go o what’s wrong with this guy he’s got intimacy issues he’s not getting Mar you know what’s the problem that you don’t want to get married whereas rationally the response should be you know oh yeah we’re getting married what are you kidding me why are you doing that it’s like someone saying I’m going to go skydiving it’s like wait are you crazy that’s a dangerous thing to do you know and it’s not I mean listen skydivingit’s not like the 75% 76% of people die who are skydiving so the truth is like it it it makes very little sense to me that marriage is assumed to be a thing you will do when in fact we as a species are so unbelievably bad at it that sort of 86% that then get remarried after divorce are they then have they learned from their mistakes are they better at this time it’s different this Time It’s Different it’s this time I’m really in love that other time when I thought I was in love that wasn’t it this timeit’s different it really it’s it’s it’s a blind spot you know and again where does it come from you’d have to ask people smarter than me you know it could be Neuroscience it could be the realm of a real deep social psychology it could just be a cognitive bias I have no idea it could be a delusion brought on by inadequate lighting you know but but the whatever it is we go oh yeah but this one’s different this one I I did a prup last week for a guy who went through the one of the ugliest divorces I’ve everseen and that’s not hyperbole like I’ve been doing this for 25 years just to say so for me to say the ugliest divorce I’ve ever seen is that’s amazing that’s like that’s a really big deal that’s like a michelene chef saying this was the best meal I’ve ever had so this guy had a horrific divorce that lasted four or five years he’s remarrying a woman 30 years younger than him who he met four months ago and when I said to him as artfully and tactfully as I could you know you you’ve only known this personfor a short time and you know have you thought about maybe just you know being a little cautious in terms of you’ve seen how difficult a divorce can be you know do you think maybe it might be he I oh no this is I’ve never felt anything like this I’ve never been this in love I’ve never been so connected with someone we just get each other and you know the it would be very indelicate and rude for me to say like snap out of it man you got to get your like really you know bring your logical brain to thisthis equation do not bring the part of you that’s just filled with romance and has Christmas in your eyes like really you got to look at this honestly do you see a lot of gold diggers do you see a lot of gold digger sort of um patterns I.E you see someone that’s incredibly wealthy you see see someone that’s I know 40 years younger than them yeah yeah I see a lot of that I mean I you know I’m hesitant to say gold diggers because I think that has a a pejorative like built into it that that that somehow I think that thatpeople bring different things to the table in relationships I I I think love is an economy and I don’t I’m not saying that in a way that that devalues love I think that love is a verb I think that love is an emotion and I think that love is an economy you know there there is a a giving and taking of value and and that can be incredibly symbiotic you know that can be incredibly healthy and wonderful that that you know I am way too serious and the person who I’m with is going to bring lightness and levityto the relationship and I’m going to help them be a little more serious and they’re going to help me lighten up you know and I’m hard charging and hardworking and everything’s like 10 moves ahead and And my partner’s going to like help me calm down and help me you know not be so hard charging and and be a little softer and be a little Kinder and rest my head and give me a sort of warm place to do that like that’s beautiful we’re each bringing something different so if I’m a powerful hardworking financially successfulfinancially secure man and I meet a young beautiful woman who has energy and excitement and who has tremendous gifts but doesn’t have the resources to be able to do much with that you know like she’s a talented artist but you know she’s busy working you know a thankless awful job you know like slinging cappuccinos you know and and she she’s not able to in this Prime of her life focus on this thing she’s so talented at and I can say to her Hey listen why don’t you focus on that and I have resources and abundance of them and I’mhappy to share them with you and and feel like I’m part of your success and you in turn are part of My Success because you give me this wonderful respit from the chaos of my work and and like I don’t think that that’s a dishonest economy I don’t think that so like to say a gold digger sort of implies like oh she’s in it for the money and it’s like okay well I’m in it for the beauty you know so does that mean I’m a horrible shallow person or is beauty beautiful is beauty something you want to be around and and if we’rehonest about the interaction how is that predatory how is that unfair to either of us you know if if we’re honest about it like what’s harder for me to deal with is when I have a client who is you know 150 pounds overweight 5 foot7 um and and there is just nothing about him that aesthetically or even personality wise a woman would go oh that’s my guy but he’s a billionaire you know and and he’s got a young gorgeous woman who’s allegedly madly in love with him and he really believes that it’s hispersonality and has nothing to do with with the fact that he’s a billionaire or that that is a very small consideration that feels to me like the worst kind of of delusion you know whereas you could very honestly say like yeah we each bring different things to the table we each bring different things to each other’s lives and then yeah so it is it is a quote unquote gold digger but you know it’s also a man who wants to to to buy the company of someone who might not otherwise be interested in him if hewasn’t successful so I think there’s a there’s a give and a take in that relationship I think that’s very fair have you have you seen examples of the the latter example where you know you describe that billionaire where there’s not many redeeming qualities where they’re heading towards marriage they don’t yet have a prenup you’re maybe advising them that they should get a prenup and they’re not interested because they’re so deluded by the belief that the person is interested in their wonderful personality or yeahso so the prenup conversation is a really interesting one because I I I do a lot of prenups let just Define what prup is sure prenuptual agreement is a contract between two people that defines the rule set essentially for their marriage so so marriage when we talk about marriage you know people tend to just sort of use the word marriage and they’re actually talking about a number of different things like in some context marriage is a spiritual commitment right it’s a religious commitment it’s tied toin Catholic ISM it’s a Sacrament in in Judaism it’s a covenant with God you know in Islam it has its own status so marriage exists as a religious concept socially we have a definition of marriage right like I am married to this person we have married our Destinies to each other we have agreed that we are each other’s person and then marriage has a specific legal definition and my job as a divorce lawyer is to take that piece apart for someone or to create protections for people who are contemplating entering into that legalstatus so like you you’ve been to weddings right I’m sure you’ve never at the end of the wedding said um great guys I had a wonderful time the cake was delicious um I need to see the paperwork can I can I see the license now I just want to make sure everything was done properly and that there were witness you’ve never said that you’ve never said to your your parents can I see your marriage license I’d like to make sure everything’s in order here that’s not how works like we don’t do that so youcould go have a wedding and tell people that you’re married and never actually legally marry you could just tell people that you’re married you don’t check people’s paperwork like you can just wear a ring if you want to and similarly if you don’t wear a ring it doesn’t mean you’re not legally married like you could be legally married and still take your ring off and you’re still legally married if it was just as easy as taking the ring off I’d be out of a job so marriage is a legal status that’s one ofthe meanings of marriage and a prenuptual agreement the way I would describe it is two people deciding that they having picked each other out of8 billion people to choose from in the world are in a better position to make the rules that will govern the economics of their relationship then the legislature would be then politicians would be and anyone who’s ever been to the Department of Motor Vehicles or who’s ever been to you know any government agency very rarely would you interact with a governmentagency and go we should definitely put these people in charge of our our family life like they’re going to do a great job they’re they’re really crushing it you know like that’s not something people yet most people who are married have almost no idea what legal rights and obligations were conferred on them by getting married they they just have no idea it’s the most legally significant thing they’re going to do in their life other than die and they have no idea what their rights and obligations are and those rights andobligations can change so like politics and the legislature and the way that rules that govern the spousal support rights child support rights the division of property those are subject to change by government change so for example in the United States um alimony spousal support maintenance whatever we want to call it which is a payment a person makes to their spouse when there’s been an economic disparity in the marriage and now they’re getting divorced fored that used to be tax deductible it used to have no formula it was at thediscretion of a judge then in 2016 Trump came into office and he said yeah I’m not letting it be tax deductible anymore so completely changed now you’re already married at this point and now the rules about what governs your marriage have changed so there aren’t a lot of contracts in the world that people could enter into that the terms could wildly change due to circumstances beyond your control and you’re still in that same contract so prenuptual Agreements are designed for two people who at thatmoment have an abundance of affection for each other if they didn’t then there’s no reason that they should be getting married that they make up a rule set that’s going to govern their relationship and that typically as we see it in movies and such and we hear about it in culture is really deciding who gets what when they break up right correct now it’s hard to say in advance who gets what when we break up sometime in the future because we don’t know what we’re going to have in 10 years in 20 years so what do you do you createstructures like you create you know I I refer to the simplest prenup as a Yours Mine and Ours which is if it’s in my name whether it’s an asset or a liability it’s mine free from any Claim by you free from any obligation to you if it’s in your name it’s yours free from any Claim by me any obligation to me ours if it’s in our joint names then we’re equally responsible for it if it’s an obligation or we equally are entitled to half the value of it if it’s an asset that to me just creating those threebuckets now here’s the problem you create those three buckets you both sign off on it and you get married you can’t just set it and forget it now you actually have to have conversations with this person that you’re married to which theoretically you should be able to do right like if you’ve decided this is going to be my primary relationship this is the person I’m going to tie my destiny to you should be able to talk about hey I just got this big bonus at work I’m going to put this much in my soul account and I’m going to put thismuch in the joint account and then you should be able to say if you’re the other person well why why are you putting so much of it in your personal account like are things weird with us or something or is there you know have some conversation again about why are we marrying it’s it’s that economy concept which is look what do I owe you if I marry you I’d like to know that in advance because people say to me all the time you know well I married this person and uh when we got married uh he had nothing he had nothing and he built hisbusiness while he was married to me and I was very you know there for him while he was building it so therefore I believe I’m entitled to half the value of that business now that’s a logical argument I don’t know that I agree with it but it’s logical but keep going with that logic right so if that was true and I built this business and my wife who was married to me while I was building that business she helped make that okay well her mother and father helped make who she is so I owe them something rightlike I because if they hadn’t done what they did I wouldn’t have her and if I didn’t have her I wouldn’t have my business so how much do I owe them and you know now that I think about it her grandmother definitely influenced who her mother was which influenced who she was which influenced what she did for me so just can you let me know in advance how far down the chain do I owe people and how much do I owe them they can’t all get half so did they get half of the half of the half or do I like and and ifthis is the logic that we’re going to follow then I would like to know in advance what that is because there are no other transactions where if you went into to purchase a car and you said how much is this car and they said money he said well how much you know it’s a good amount okay I again we just keep talking in abstractions I’d like to know what does this add up to how much is it you know and even if you can’t make it a dollar number it’s x% of last year’s earnings or like give me a formula something to tie it to and atleast have that conversation because then you can decide am I going to sign up for this thing or not you must meet a lot of people who are in a relationship where one of the people doesn’t want to have a prup yes cuz I cuz I when I think think about having a prup I’m with a a woman at the moment we’ve been together for 5 years um frankly if I said to her I want to get a prenup she would be all for it she would that’s the type of person she is she would be all for it doesn’t care she’ be all for itexcellent um you’ve done well but I can imagine in other relationships I’d be nervous to even say the words because immediately you’re thinking about how you’re getting out before you get in yeah well and you know there there’s a lot to that there’s a lot to unpack there so the first thing I would say is all marriages end they end in death or they end in divorce but they all end right and so if you said I’m going to get life insurance it would be foolish for someone who’s with you to say wait are you planning ondying soon like it no but in the event that I do I’d like to make sure that things are taken care of in a certain way and in the event that I do there’s going to be enough things to be upset and sad about for the people around me so I’d like them to have one less thing you know and I I I also know that there’s a possibility I hope I won’t but there’s a possibility that I’m going to die in an hour so i’ really hope it doesn’t happen but I can’t say it’s definitely not going to happen so divorce you know when we look atstatistics like that it’s okay to say hey look you know what I hope this never happens but if it did what do we owe each other you know what would you need like it’s not just a conversation about what do I want to keep what am I entitled to keep it’s also what would what would you need have you seen it break down a marriage because someone mentioned a prup have you seen it yeah I’ve seen marriage I’ve seen marriages that were scheduled to to happen not happen because the prenup discussion happened but more often than not I’veseen the threat of not marrying someone because they want you to sign a prenup cause a person to fold in their request for a prenup which to me is a really bad start for a marriage so I’ve had a lot of clients who come in say look I I want to have a prenup I have a lot of confidence in this marriage I really love this person but I would like to you know have a prenup in place and I draft to PR up for them and it has reasonable terms and they give it to their fiance and their fiance says yeah I’m not signing that it’s not happeningand instead of saying okay like then you’re choosing for us to not marry you know that’s okay but like I love you and I’d love to marry you but this is something that I need in order to feel comfortable with that um they they just go okay yeah never mind and they walk away from it and and um because they’re intimidated and I think that’s a that’s an awful way to start marriage like I think that’s much worse than having a discussion about difficult things like I don’t think you would think it’s irresponsible you’ve been with with awoman for five years to say to her let’s say a year ago or let’s say four years ago to say to her you know we’re going to get in a fight sometime that’s going to happen like we’re going to disagree about something it’ll probably be my fault I’ll probably say something stupid I do that sometimes so when we get in a fight someday which again I hope we don’t I’ll do everything I can and not ever get in an argument with you but at some point some’s goingon to you’re going to say something it’s going tohurt my feelings I’m going to take it the wrong way I’ll say something you’ll take it the wrong way or maybe I’m just an idiot sometimes I’ll be in a bad mood and I’ll say something or I’ll have too many drinks and I’ll say something to upset you when that happens how do you how do you like to fight like what’s best do you need a minute like do you need a minute to calm down do you need to like sleep on it or do you need to like we got to fix this right now I can’t go to bed angry like I won’t be able to sleep I won’t be ableto function like 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 a prup I think a prup 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 havea right to know what you’re entitled to I 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 well 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 goingto be a really hard situation so let’s take that off of each other let’s 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 I I 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 theycame 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 as sort of like a relationship advisor yeah I mean I have to tell you it’s a very seamless I I don’t um I don’t think it’s easy to distinguish between we’re attorneys and counselors at law my I have an undergraduate degree in psychology M and I think I use it as much as I use my law degree because thisis 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 of you know human emotion and human human connection and human Frailty and human emotional complexity I thought prenups were illegal I thought they were like people went and 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 it’s certainly not in the USA it’s they they are enforcable they are binding sometimes they’re crazy howenforcable they are really like it’s because the nature of a penup 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 is to be unconscionable for it to be set aside okay now I have seen some prenups that were in their interpretation unconscionable meaning you know at the time they entered into it he had nothing and shehad 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 but 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 prenups sometimes be shockingly unfair but you have a right to contract as long as it wasn’t fraud as long as it wasn’t duress or undo influence or if someone was under the you know uhinfluence of drugs or alcohol when they signed off on it it’s a binding contract because we believe in in in human autonomy and agency and the right to make decisions about your life and your future so is that ex example really is that the the most shocking one you’ve seen no the most shocking prenup I’ve ever seen which was enforcable um had a provision that said that for every 10 pounds the wife gained in the marriage she would lose $10,000 a month in alimony 10 pounds of weight yes yes so so it was very wealthy man whowas wear 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 prenuptual agreement he wanted a clause that said she would get if they divorced she was going to get like $70,000 a month for alimony but for every 10 pounds she gained from the date of marriage she would forfeit 10,000 a month worth of alimony and it was designed to sort of create an incentive that she wouldremain 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 I think it’s a kind of love I think it’s a form of love I is it aform of love I’d be interested in no I 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 you know I consider your physical appearance vitally important to this relationship and by the way don’t skip the other side of that equation yeah she was going to get $70,000 a month that’s very impressivenumber so you know I I think she she also understood there was a value to be attached to him as well you know and and it’s so it’s is it something I would be interested in on either side of that equation no but do I have a right to say to someone that’s not love I 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 my job as a lawyer is not to look like I don’t look at it that way I look at the engineering of it so like if I’mrepresenting her in that transaction all I could think is okay so we’re going to want her Baseline weight to be as high as possible so I’m going to want her to have pennies in her Pockets after at the day we sign the prenup because you have to establish a baseline right because 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 day of the marriage well in or about the date of the marri the parties acknowledge that on on her about thedate of marriage she weighed approximately X pounds so if I’m her I want that to be as high as possible so I’m going to be putting pennies in my pockets and eating as many cheeseburgers as I can before the weighin now we’re getting divorced I’m going to be like a wrestler I’m going to be in the sauna I’m going to be sweating as much as I can I’m going to take diuretics I’m going to eat nothing but like grilled vegetables for a week or two you know and I’m going to I’m going to take off every ounce of clothing I can because Iwant to minimize my weight this is why this is why lawyers don’t get invited to parties because that’s how we 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 look 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 I heard about this thing when Iwas reading your book of these um also watching some of your stuff online that I didn’t know existed which was Fidelity contracts Fidelity Clauses yeah Fidelity Clauses yeah yeah so it’s something people include in prenuptual agreements and also sometimes in what’s called a postnuptial agreement so a postnuptial agreement you know nupal meaning marriage pre meaning before marriage post meaning after marriage so if you didn’t get a prenup but your marriage for what whatever reason becomes fragilemaybe someone learns of an affair or maybe you’re starting to have difficulties with each other but you don’t want to divorce but you’d like there to be some clarity as to if we divorce what will the rules be you can do something called a postnuptial agreement okay and and that would in the event you divorce make the divorce a little less acrimonious because you’ve resolved certain issues it’s basically like the prenup you should have had okay so I have seen people in both prenups and in postnupsput in what’s called Fidelity Clauses 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 you know a support related context it could have be a percentage of certain ownership rights you know things that you have are 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 for for a couple of reasons one definingcheating is very tricky you know if 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 but even infidelity it’s not all created equal I mean I think we could all agree that if you if your partner when they were drunk on vacation or at a party you know had some kind of fleeting sexual ual contact with another person and then woke up the next day and went oh my God what did I do I regret this so much but they’re never going tosee this person again it was just a stupid diance it 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 I think we canagree that like something about an emotional affair like someone becoming your Confidant there there I’ve once heard someone say and I 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 him 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 what was this was this sex or was thislike I’m I don’t love you anymore I don’t want you in my life anymore because those are two really different things and and so a Fidelity Clause is a oniz fits-all concept that just says okay we’re going to Define cheating and then there’s ‘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 doesanybody 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 cheat with or or that person’s partner like there’s so there’s so much pain to go around when when cheating happens and so to say and there’s going to be an economic penalty you know it’s a bit like you know using drugs is a legal in a lot of places but I can’t imagine that there’s a heroin addict who goes you know I’m going to shoot up oh wait it’sillegal I don’t want to get in trouble yeah I’m 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 I think that infidelity there should be sufficient incentives in a relationship to not cheat and there there are already by definition so many consequences for cheating that adding to that an economic penalty I don’t know that a person’sgoing to be about to cheat and then go this could cost me like 20 more Grand no I’m not going to do it are you seeing more and more people getting those prenups yeah prenups are I have to tell you there’s a generational shift happening I I see a lot of people in their 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 mid 20s to mid-30s are getting prenups at a rate that I would say is probably 5X what itwas 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 there’s a lot more open discussion I mean although there is a tremendous increase in the amount of like performative look how happy we are you know meanwhile it’s like you know white teeth and rotting gums you know like we’re we’re we’re doing the performative social media look at how great hash blast and mean all our life is you know is our relationship is is rotting fromthe inside um and we see a lot of that like I I I have tell you something I see people in my office who publicly are having the greatest relationships ever like if you believe their 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 cuz it’s not as amazing as that relationship and meanwhile that relationship is nowhere near that amazing as they’d have you believe it and and we’ve got the audacity now as a culture that peoplewithout any apology you know do the we’re perfectly happy these hateful rumors that we’re unhappy are terrible and then we’ve decided to Amic be heart ways we 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 so we were right so we you were making us feel awful aboutour elves and how madly in love you were with each other but now you know we were basing our lives like we’re we’re basing our our 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 my father’s a southerner so he has a lot of Southern folksy things he says and one of themwas 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 someone would drive a beautiful car and say wow that car is so cool he’d say you know empty barrels make the most noise that that the people that that have true joy in their relationship really don’t feel like they have to advertise it people who have like I I represent some of the wealthiest people in the world like NewYork is the epicenter of Commerce and finance for the United States and and to some degree for the world you know in the UAE you’re more likely to find a goldplated Ferrari but in New York like Finance Wall Street like it is it is the home of it so I represent I have a client who’s worth $8 billion do you would walk past him on the street you would never know he has very much money at all he drives a Jeep Grand Cherokee which is like a very mid-range car he wears like you know totally non-descriptclothing like he just looks like a typical middle-aged dude and would not look at him and go like he gets his haircut at like Super Cuts for 25 bucks like he’s not Posh in the things that he owns and does and he’s he could buy you know he his income annually is like the gross domestic product of a few compan of a few countries and you know he’s not but then 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 and I tell you theyare deeply in debt many of them you know this is particularly true of celebrities you know celebrities have to live these big performative lives because if they they don’t you know drive a posh car and they don’t wear the the latest designer labels there’s this sense of oh are they not doing well and especially with sort of influencer culture you know there’s just so much like you know everything everyone’s wearing and doing has to be the best of the best and the most expensive I I find very often these arethe more people have to flaunt their wealth the less wealth they probably have like you know Money Talks Like wealth Whispers And it’s very comfortable just Whispering it doesn’t feel like it has to prove to the world in fact it it would rather that everyone not know who it was there was a time where Fame was an unfortunate side effect of 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 UNT it cuz you couldn’t go out to eatanymore 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 I walked down the street in New York City sometimes people today guys said to me hey man love your stuff thanks 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 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 butthere’s a part of me it’s like okay man I I got to like do what I’m doing right now I’m I’m doing the thing you know and and now being famous is the goal for so many people so I I think there is definitely when people say look at how happy we are look at how happy we are look at how happy 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 GNA have to look at this relationship and I’m going to see how unhappy we are you know when someone wants to be famous it’s like tell me Ihave value please tell me I have value oh God please tell me I have value because you know the 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 work or enjoyed it but I never said like I really want to get out there and you know have people know who I am and tellme I’m smart because because I I know I’m smart like it’s okay like you know my beliefs don’t require you to believe them and and so I 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 why did 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 they use a comparative measure they say well you know and theythey’re like this and we’re not so right but how much sex are they having how much like how much sex is enough sex like 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-look enough compared to what a photoshopped image of a person on steroids yeah you’re right you don’t look like a photoshoop person on steroids you’re notsupposed to like women are going into doctors offices saying make me look like this and showing the doctor something that’s been photoshopped that person doesn’t look like that like 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 going to be partners in a home together like youdon’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 it can be preferences of sex it can be anything but we don’t talk about we talk about all kinds of things in 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 think that’s progress Ithink 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 you know not having to feel ashamed about certain things but Baseline like how how well we’re not having enough sex okay compared to what the sex we used to have as a couple that makes sense that makes sense to me like if we said Baseline and say hey we used to have sex every day when we firststarted dating we had sex four times a day okay but then the you know luster wears off you know now we 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 as a something that we have react defensively too and that’s that’s the stuff I tried to talk aboutin my book is that people come in and they go well you know we’re unhappy with a child I was cheating on her but 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 well I’m not nice to her because every time I talk to her all she does is put me down okay and 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 8 billion other people inthe world but somehow you just started to do this death spiral and 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 decided 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 atsome 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 what’s preventative maintenance talk about are we still as connected as we were are we still as excited as we were are we still you know are we still attracted to each other are we still enjoying each other physically mentally like emotionally we don’t want to do that though because it’s uncomfortable right okay lots of things are uncomfortable that are so good foryou you know exercise is uncomfortable until you get in a rhythm of it and it feels really good you know so how 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 sorry I’m never working out again then 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 going to be sore you overdid it you know but you start to realize yeah but it’salso 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 and and that can be and again we want it 86% of people who get divorced wouldn’t get remarried within 5 years if we didn’t want it if we didn’t believe it was possible and if you’ve ever met someone who is happily married over a long period of time you won the lottery like they’re so their lives are just so much betterbecause they just go I had this partner because this is terrifying like life is terrifying and it’s brutal and it and it and it ends it invariably ends we’re all going to die everyone we love is going to 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 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 and I’ll help you see yours and let’s just do this thing and we’llnever 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 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 conect ction 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 theirhead like 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 term preventative maintenance and immediately I thought Jesus Christ CH I probably should do that a little bit more sure what do you mean by preventative maintenance it can be lots of things I think it can be I try to give a lot of examples but I I think some of the simplest examples are verysmall gestures of courtesy I mean think about when you first started dating all 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 cuz they were noticing you you know and they they they saw beautiful things in you and that made you see and feel those things in yourself you know that that’s a be amazing thing we can do for each other you know and and so I mean at its core level like the the the the example I’ve given to a lot ofmy male friends and and several of them have done it and I’ve got a lot of really good feedback 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 I’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 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 onwhy did you leave me that note what are you what what what is 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 you’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 doesn’t cost anything takes nothing todo that why don’t we do it I don’t know I don’t know I 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 cuz 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 I got him when he was a puppy now he’s 13 and like me heslowed 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 got to get a puppy this old this old dog he didn’t look as cute as he used to and like oh my God if seen how cute puppies are like I would 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 pet them but that’s my dog man I wouldn’t trade all the puppies in the world for that dog your partner your romantic partnerlike what when did it become acceptable as it as it is in in culture to just just piss all over your partner like every guy it’s like the h I’m married to the most loathsome harp you ever to castrate a man 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 he’s so stupid men are so stupid like when did that what do you think’s going to come from that other than this disdain that we canthen 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 you know when you didn’t know each other you know every all the same women sitting around in a group of women talking about how much their husbands suck when their female friend goes oh my God I’m seeing this guy I just started seeing what did he oh my God he sounds so great all all this is all this is is your guy five years ago but somehow now you’re you’rereally GNA buy the delusion that if she it all works out with him and they get married and they do their little fairy tail thing and the cake and the dress and the whole thing that in 5 years she’s still going to be like he’s so great no it’s going to be 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 you know we’re trying to like not make people self-conscious so we just like take the piss out of our partner all thetime in front of you know people or around other people and I I don’t find that Charming do you think that will we get get to The Lovable idia oh my God happy wife happy all that stuff which is part of culture what the hell happy wife whoever said that should just be beaten to death happy wife happy life like 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 thattrue I think 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 can just sit here and watch the football yeah then all all is well is that something to Aspire too you know man I can’t wait what for someday for my kids to just sit there while the up person in the other room is just mildly dissatisfied with them and they can just sit and watch you know the football game really that’s that’s what we’re aspiring to that’s what you hope for like I got to tell I just don’t Ithink our goals are really misc LED 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 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 aboutQuality of Life about making the world or the experience of others better like again it’s not for me to Define but 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 Le she’s not yelling at me and she’s only mildly dissatisfied and I canjust be left alone for an hour and watch the football or having to have an uncomfortable conversation again while you’re still like each other but there’s a little slippage there’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 a 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 actually accomplishing it are way lowerwhereas maintaining a healthy weight that’s not an unrealistic thing to be able to do is a I had sat here with a one psychologist um who I’m sure you’ll know very famous individual um called Jordan Peterson and he said to me he said he was shouting when he said it he said listen he was 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 her for 90 minutes a week you’ll be listening to her in divorcecourt and he was he was almost shouting when he says it the analogy he’s making and what he’s saying is what you’re saying yeah is you’re going to have to I you know Jord I I find Jordan Peterson very entertaining I’ve been a fan of his work a long time um and I I loved actually your conversation with him um what I will say is I think that he’s sort of hyperbolic in his presentation sometimes which I I enjoy but I think we totally agree on this I think that that what he’s saying more than anything isthat you can invest now in cander and in listening to this other person in a non-defensive manner and and so there’s a chapter in my book called hiten 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 that you’re hearing it and you’re saying it you’re agreeing it’s a contract that we know we love each other so we’re going to try to say it with love we’re going to try to hear it with love because I’m only saying it cuz thisis important to me this relationship and I want it to be good for you and for me so I’m going to 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 going to hear it I’m going to hear it as you saying I care so much about this relationship I’m going to say this harder thing to say and it might be little it might be you know yousaid the other night you were talking about my sister sister and you made that little joke about her and it felt like you were like kind of making fun of my sister and I thought you liked my sister and it’s really important to me that you like my sister cuz I really like 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 s now is when you you ever like write an email where you said something important and you like write it rewrite it and you craftit 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 can on send it now like it’s done I hit send now that’s where I got the term hit send now because but I but I said like make it a technique like say to your partner I want to do this I want you to do it and I want to do it but I want to 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 mychest 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 and and to again to make a point of calling this out as a technique when you’re in a good place so 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 isimportant 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 I’m making 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 I think you’re so attractive I love I love it like I don’t feel any less attracted 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 I don’t want to look atporn I don’t want to think about other things I want to really be focused on you is there something I’m doing that 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 yeah but what if it’s personal and what if it’s offensive what if it’s isn’t it better to know if it’s personal and it’s offensive isn’t it better to know like because I have tell you I’ll come up with a thousanddifferent reasons that 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 cuz you’re cheating I might be convinced that I’m not attractive to you all of a sudden cuz you know my hair got grayer or I got a bad haircut or something stupid what if it’s that then wouldn’t you rather know wouldn’t you rather know wouldn’t you and find some other and listen I’m not saying by the way everything isn’t everything rightlike 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 and 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 not I’m not talking about Affairs I’m saying sexlessness yeah that’s a great question so and also is it increasing yeah sohere’s what I’ll say there 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’sprojection and all these other things that I don’t think you could quantifi so 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’semotional state my job is to make a judge feel good about my client bad about the other side make the other side feel scared make my client feel safe that’s my job is to manipulate everybody’s emotional state through the power of Storytelling that’s what being a divorced 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 it’s everywhere in that equation because again it is the thing that separates this relationship fromother 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 in the coal mine that you know like something’s off with the sex now that that that that the tragedy’s 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 becauseagain 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 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 and then we’ll figure out who gets to raise what kidsand that’ll be that we don’t do that and and it’s not like well we don’t do that because we made a set of rules societies don’t do that they’ve never really done that like there there’s somehow this permutation in the human and animal kingdom keeps coming up where we have pair bonds and we reproduce with the person who’s our partner and then we sort of work together and you know how much does the tribe how much does the rest of the world get involved in that how extended is the family how extendedis the tribe that varies right from species to species from culture to culture from time to time but we this fundamental idea of like reproduction between you know 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 there’s there’s sex there’s some romantic or sexual component to that relationship that thenleads 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 like yeah we and again sometimes it’s not direct cause and effect like oh we started having less sex so then we stopped being nice to each other sometimes we 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 knowand then 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 to what you’re feeling to what your partner’s feeling and then say it you know I I I say that all marital problems stem from two things I 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 thebattle when someone gets to you how often do they go from getting to a Divo lawyer 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 I’m a chainsaw now like now I’m you hire me because your Situation’s bad because you’re moreexpensive 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 400 a. and I wake up very sharp and I wake 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 becauseI’m better at this than I’ve ever been at anything in my life have you ever seen someone get to you and then go back to perfect like 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 um 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 in individual counseling or in individual counselingand then maybe couples counseling I will steer them in that direction of course who cheats more men or women I think both men and women cheat with a tremendous amount of frequency I think that um I don’t think that you could really say one does it more than the other I think that more more men men are accused of having ruined the relationship by cheating than women are who’s more dissatisfied with this the amount of sex men or women men generally men want more sex men generally want more sex women want morequality sex men are quantity based when in my experience coming to sex and that’s like men would rather have frequent sex that may not be the highest possible quality but it like kind of gets the job done I mean it’s the same reason why pornography is more popular with men than women I think that men are just like I got to get the poison out of my system here I got to get on with my day and I’m not going to be able to think straight until I just get that over with and so I I think that that um women it’s it’s a it’s a different Idon’t think women you know have don’t find sex important I I hate to make generalizations about about gender um but I from my seat the number of men that come in and say to me like yeah like she’s just not sleeping with me well what did she expect like of course I slept with somebody else like she was like sleeping with me once a week she was sleeping with me once a month I’ve had clients who came in were like yeah we hadn’t had sex in six years six years like first of all why would you put up with that second of all if you’re thisperson’s spouse how what the hell did you think was going on you thought things were okay like yeah we haven’t had 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 could slip your mind like oh my God I been to the dentist in a year but sex you must have had a lot of affair stories oh my God please if you could have like a PhD and infidelity I would have it yeah I meanit’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 areally super awesome healthy marriage and then this nefarious secretary came into the picture and suddenly he was wooed away no 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 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 becausehe 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’s hasn’t changed at all or she’s changed so much and she’s nothing like she used to be there and and 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 was going to say you must have hadpeople come in and admit things to you about their current affairs that you just blow your mind is there a particular example where you 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 like 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 themistress 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 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 cousin oh I haven’t seen mother-in-law yet father-in-law um I have seenfather-in-law yeah I have seen father-in-law yeah I saw that saw that one I there’s a chapter in my book about nannies how people sleep with the nanny that’s pretty common why you talk in the 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 and I I 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 she’s there tobe a supportive other to the husband um she’s a helpmate you know but without any of the autonomy an agency without any of the like she’s an employee at the end of the day 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 don’t talk back because I’m your employer you know and you’re not gonna so I think I get it you know I get it I also think too that and this is this is this is Dangerous Ground especially inthe year of Our Lord 2024 but I think she’s also a version of the wife like she’s a version of the wife when the wife was just the woman like she has a life outside the home like she when she’s not nannying 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 I think that’s one of the advice I give in the book is is that I think that um wives can can embrace the part of themselves that’s the nanny liketake the time to like don’t let your spouse and your children Eclipse Who You Are like who you are is who your husband fell in love with like your your your kids exist because a man and a woman found each other attractive you know and and so don’t don’t forget in 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 to cultivate your interests and your passions and to try to enjoy them as best you can you know without shirking obviously none of us wants to Sher ourresponsibilities to our families and to our children but you’re important like I think I think people are the husband and the wife you know are important or or in a same-sex marriage husband husband wife wife it’s you’re important to each other you know remember who you are remember the value you brought to the relationship people often go to divorce lawyers when their marriages break down but listen I’m a huge fan maybe the biggest fan you’ll ever meet of serial killer documentaries sure and justmurder documentaries period there’s not one I haven’t seen I’ve seen them all and in those documentaries the f one of the first things you learn is that if the wife goes missing like of the time it’s the husband um and I was I 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 or take care of myself listen there’s a reason because I I understand how trapped people feel I think that you sign on for this thing that feels so good love wefall in love so fast have you seen that doent 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 and about at work and he instead 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 in and he’s seemingly I obviously he’s not but seemingly no he’s seemingly a normal guy yeah who as you say just looked like he was trapped in a situation where he metsomeone new had this family didn’t know how to handle it and made this horrific decision yeah yeah I mean I think um 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’ve they’re having an affair for many years they’ve hidden money or they 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 itstarts 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 if you watch enough serial killer things it’s not the crime it’s the coverup you 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 leave the tracks and it’s it’s the same I I I think have you seen murder in your practice do you deal with that is that part of your work I you know thank God II’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 they ran her over four times and stabbed her um 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 her life that will plague her but she is alive and he is in prison for the rest of his life uh that’s thank God the only time I’ve ever seen that happen I mean I see a lot ofdomestic violence I see a lot of intimate partner abuse she was your client in that case she was my client in that case yeah she was your client before that happened to her yeah she was my client before that happened to her he was a he was a 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 prop it towards violence the divorce was going very badly for him I was doing my job very well um and he you know he I don’twant to say he snapped because he gives it too much credit um I I I 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 better choice and he got her to meet him in a a a sort of remote location a parking lot of a hotel under a false pretense that he wanted to give her something related to the kids or something and uh he stabbed her several times then ran her over several times he did it himself did it himselfyeah he did it himself and it was it was shocking I mean you you don’t want it what’s happened more commonly is I’ve had clients who’ve committed suicide and self harm and I’ve had clients who their spouse um you know committed suicide that’s happened many times where people I think feel they they’re losing everything their whole life’s Fallen falling apart they can’t imagine what their post divorce life will be or they’re so horrified by the behavior they engaged in during that they they think that it’s just impossible to getout 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 a client I lost a client that way once it’s happened four times on the other side where I got an email saying this person’s been found and um you know it ends the case obviously so 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 becausethat’s my job but if that person had hired me you know a month before their house 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 is 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 so how’s your work hav made you CME yeahsure absolutely I think I’ve cried for a lot of reasons about my work I’ve cried cried from frustration when I couldn’t when Justice wasn’t served and and I felt that I could have done more or different um out of frustration I’ve cried I’ve cried I think I’ve cried more often out of beauty I I I 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 I’m astounded by the strength of people sometimes I’m astounded by the resilience of people umyou think of an example on either end of the spectrum yeah yeah um you 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 they don’t 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 you know maybe it’s cuz we feed them maybe it’s cuz we scratch them the right way but I want tobelieve 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 like I don’t care what I have to pay her I don’t care what 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 cruff guy this the last guy you would think you know would like that thedog would be that important to him and we fought really hard we and we got him his dog back and I remember when I came out and I ran down the lake okay I got you this we got you this we got you this and you and the dog and he started crying and I started crying like a child you know because I 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 and I I could imagine in my head like the the reunion between those two andthat was very moving to me the impermanence of a relationship with a dog is something that I’ve heard you talk about before yeah and how we can and 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 get I’m now realizing that he’s in the last season of his life yeah um and it just makes you want to play with them moreand cherish those moments more and be kinder and give them another treat and yeah and we’re we’re If we’re honest we’re we’re always losing everyone all the time like and 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 like we’re all losing everything all the time even ourchild like you have a child that child tomorrow the child they were the day before is dead is gone they’re a new thing every day until you know 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 like you you honor that dog by saying you know what I I took for granted when this was a puppy peeing on everything and running around and eating all my shoes you know like I I didn’t realize like there was a limited amount of time like there is athere 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 it could be one it could be a hundred I 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 withhow fragile love is and how transient it is and how powerful it is it’s 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 and 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 like 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 likethat’s the to me like that’s everything there there’s a I don’t know if you ever read tikn Han’s work the Buddhist monk so tikn Han was a um 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 um several books one of them being peace is a beautiful one he’s written a whole bunch of books peace in every step but he he as a Buddhist monk has this mindfulness exercise and I’ve said it to people I’veshared it with people a couple times they always look at me like I’m insane when I say it so I’ll share it with you because you 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 is talk about death and divorce we got to hang out with like nicer more fun people but he has this mindfulness exercise and it’s this he says when you hug someone think about the fact that they’re there and you’re hugging them then close your eyes and they thinkabout 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 right 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 hadto 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 dominion over and taken care of and have the duty of taking care of and I I know every time you I’ve had to do that three times and just smelling it and going oh that’s it like that’s it it’s gone now and 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 and and and you’re not letting go of him now he’s there he’s there right now like so how do younot right now just breathe that in every chance you have because you don’t know how many more times you’ll have and 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 break like 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 like my mother died eight years ago and I I found a old video tape that I didn’t even know like existed and itwas my dad had like gotten a video camera and he’d like shot 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 haven’t 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 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 the memory of her voice will begone it will fade every like tears and rain it will just fade and so to to me like that if we could just have that presence of mind when it comes to love like 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 Lo 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 cuz I I’ll tell you something I think it’s insane to love anything because of thepain that it’s going to cause but oh my God man I love that pain because it means I got to feel it like I I I know when I got my dog cabba I only got cabba because bustard 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 di like but that’s not how it works how it works is that he died Buster and I went 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 worldI 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 he’s got M 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 then you fell in love brings this stupid dog this little stupid mange ridden worms and he walks in to my apartment and he pees immediately on the floor andI thought oh 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 and he’ll he’ll sit there you know with his little gray face now and he’ll sit there next to me and he’ll look at me he’s just is crazy about me as I am 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 going to kill me like you’re going to kill me when I lose you and it’s going to happen sooner ratherthan then later I’m not going to have another 13 years I’m lucky if I have another year but man like I don’t know I’ll do it I I’m so glad I did it he saved you yeah yeah because he 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 cuz 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 notbrave it’s only brave because it’s terrifying it’s terrifying to know like this thing’s going to break my heart and I’m going to let it I’m going to let it break my heart because the joy that it’s going to give me in the interim like I wouldn’t trade that for for anything in the world and and you know right now if you say to me when cabba 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 I’ll love again I know it Iknow it and and I think it’s the same thing with romantic love our hearts get broken we we we you know we fall apart we break in relationship and we heal in relationship and we recover from that breaking in relationship and I I think there’s something really really important there you you’ve really accomplished me the first person who got me to cry on a podcast it’s 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 liketattooed 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 I think this is all it’s a game we can’t win you know and we just keep playing it and that’s so lovely like it’s so brave it’s so it’s so cool that like it’s all ending all the time and we just keep doing it you know we just keep doing it CU if there’s something in our hearts that wants it you know maybe that’s I don’t know like I’m not areligious person but maybe that’s some insight into the nature of God that that like we we come from something and we disconnect and then we spend all our life trying to reconnect to something want to talk to you about our sponsor LinkedIn for all the entrepreneurs and business owners that listen to this podcast you’ll 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conversation that um you were talking about how beautiful love was and I could see the emotion in your face when you talking about how beautiful love is and it’s it’s contrasting because at the start of the conversation I would have thought thatyou thought marriage and love was just this like terrible idea obviously there’s a distinction between the two it’s everything no it’s everything I I think 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 think the prize was worth it you know but 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 but butsee soul I have to tell you whoever created the term soulmate like I owe them a tremendous debt of gratitude because they they really helped facilitate divorcees in Industry because the idea that we have a soulmate and that that’s the one 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 why because I feel as great about themas 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 had like that’s ridiculous it’s like people who havechildren don’t go like well I you know I couldn’t love anything more than this other child so I’m not having any more children because you know I couldn’t possibly love 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 it’s chapters you’re saying 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 breakupwhatever it might be it doesn’t mean it wasn’t successful did did you leave it a better person than than you came to it with did did they did your partner did did you learn from it did did you learn what you want or don’t want did 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 it why not look at it as what was good for me in this chapter may not be thesustaining thing like who you find attractive and what’s compelling in your 20s and your 30s and your 40s and your 50s it’s going to be different you talk to a lot of 20-some year olds and say what car do you want when you’re in your Lambo want the lambo great you’re going to put a car seat Lambo if you get one car and that’s car you’re going to drive for the rest of your life okay and you’ve never been 50 yet so you don’t know what you’re going to want when you’re 50 now there’s this idealizedthing where everybody goes like well but you know you’ll grow together and then what you’ll want you’ll grow together and you’ll change okay where what are you BAS in that on like is that is that a thing is that demonstrably true or is that just like your hope like we 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 God so many ofthe couples you see they 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 like they they’ll come to me and say my relationship struggling and the first thing you try and figure out is whether this is something that is fixable or it’s they’re the wrong and what do you do in that equation you compare right yeah you compare and what are you compareed to something fake yes you compare to something fake you compare it to the romcom yeahwhich is basically porn for women yeah right like it’s it’s an idealized stylized version you saw Titanic you you know why they had that perfect romance cuz he died before he 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 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 knowthey end the movie like the 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 you 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 t