The Divorce Expert: 86% Of People Who Divorce Remarry! Why Sex Is Causing Divorces!

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 who

gets 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 the question 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

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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've not 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 many

people 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 than

50% 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 very hard 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 just for 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 this

technology 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 does this 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've

been 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 skydiving it'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 time

it'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 ever

seen 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 person for 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 this this 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 that people 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 levity to 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 successful financially 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'm happy 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're

honest 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 his

personality 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 he wasn'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 yeah so 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 to in 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 legal status 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 you

could 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 of the 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 government agency 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 and

obligations 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 the discretion 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 that

moment 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 create structures 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 three buckets 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 this much 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 his

business 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 right

like 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 if this 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 at least 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 it

excellent 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 on dying 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 at

statistics 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've seen 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 happening and 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 a woman 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 to hurt 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 able to 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 have a 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 going to 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 they came to you for a prenup their partner gave them an ultimatum and said listen no I'm not signing that how do you kind

of draw the line between being a lawyer versus like a therapist or an

advisor 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 this

is so personal that it's very hard to not give human advice while I'm giving legal

advice and I'm dealing in the clay of 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 how

enforcable 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 she had nothing and now they're getting divorced and under the terms of this

he's going to walk out with $100 million and she's going to walk out with almost nothing 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 uh influence 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 who was 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 would remain thin and that was enforceable meaning

they tried to challenge and set aside that provision and the court said this

is a disgusting provision I don't know why you married this person but it's

enforceable it's a contract the two of you signed it and you had a right to sign it and you agreed to these rules and they may be ridiculous rules but you

agreed to them and you have a right to do that do you think that was love again I I think it's a kind of love

I think it's a form of love I is it a form 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 impressive

number 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'm

representing 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 the date 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 I want 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 I was 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 fragile

maybe 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 postnups

put 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 defining cheating 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 to see 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 can agree 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 this

like 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 does anybody get out of infidelity without

hurting themselves and a bunch of other people whether it's not only their partner but even the person who they

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's

illegal 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's

going 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 it was 10 years ago 15 years ago certainly

25 years ago from when I started I think there's a more pragmatic view of

relationships I think that there's 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 from

the 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 people

without 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 about

our 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 them

was empty barrels make the most noise and he used to say that to me when I was a kid all the time whenever

somebody had something fancy that they owned because I grew up without a lot of money and they 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 New York 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-descript clothing 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 they

are 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 are the 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 eat

anymore you couldn't just live your life anymore now of course there were times where it probably felt really nice you

know it feels good listen I 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 but there'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 I have 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 tell me 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 they they'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 not

supposed 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 you

don't have to marry each other to do that you can just live together and be I mean sex is the glue sex is the thing

that brings you together sex is what makes a romantic relationship a romantic

relationship and again it can be any number of varieties of sex 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 I think it's great that people can talk about anything we can talk about Kink we

can talk about like I'm a big fan of people being able to speak openly about the things that make them happy and make

them feel good and 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 first started 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 about

in 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 in the 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 at some point you lost the plot

so my feeling is wouldn't it be better before you completely lose the plot to

just do the preventative maintenance 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 for you 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's also bringing tremendous value to my

life you know and so why not like why not trade what you want now which is

comfort in the moment for what you want most which is real connection real

intimacy like real joy and 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 better because 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'll never be alone like what a gorgeous

thought that is what a beautiful thought that is what a worthy Pursuit that is

but yeah you got to be uncomfortable once in a while you got to tell 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 their head 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 very

small 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 of my 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 on why 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 to

do 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 he slowed down a lot his back hurts he's not quite the puppy he used to

be I have never once looked at that dog and gone I 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 partner like 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 can then have for each other and this sort of disrespect as opposed to being like

so into each other which is what you were when you were strangers 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're

really 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 the

time 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 that true 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 I think 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 about

Quality 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 can

just 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 lower whereas 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 divorce court 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 is that 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 this

is 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 you said 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 craft

it and you're like about to hit send and you're like oh boy and then you hit it and you're like

well it's there now 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 my chest you don't have to respond right away you don't have to respond in

writing if you don't want to but I just want to put this out there because I want you to digest it and the key to

this is I read in your book is to do it quickly yep and do it honestly yep yep and 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 is

important so let's keep it good and the way we're going to do that is if I say to you you know we used to 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 at porn I don't want to think about other things I want to really be focused on you is there something I'm doing that

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 thousand different 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 right

like there are things in relationships that you might just say yeah I don't know that's changed like I used to be

really into that 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 so here'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's projection 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's emotional state my job is to make a judge feel good about my client bad

about the other side make the other side feel scared 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 from other kinds of relationships sex is a

thing that is definitional to a romantic relationship now again will it always be

the same will it always stay at the same level of importance no but is it a great

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 because

again sex is definitional in terms of what distinguishes a romantic relationship from a platonic

relationship because listen guys we can do this however we want as a society we don't have to get married we do not have

to get married we just have to 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 kids and 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 extended

is 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 then leads to reproduction of some kind so I

think when you take that out of the equation or when there's a change in that there's a disruption in the force

right there's a disruption in the system and then you can trace it back 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 know and 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 the battle 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 more

expensive is that no I'm more expensive because I'm really good in high conflict

situations I'm really tactical I'm really strategic I think 10 moves ahead

and I outpace everyone with my work ethic I wake up at 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 because

I'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 counseling

and 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 more quality 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 I don'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 this person'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 mean

it's because cheating is a huge component to divorces so many divorces

but the question is always cause or effect and the danger of putting so much emphasis on

cheating is that it's an oversimplification so someone comes in and goes we're getting divorced why

because he's sleeping with his secretary I get it like yes that's true that is

one of the variables that has led to your divorce but you you hadn't slept with him in three years so I'm not

saying that makes the cheating forgivable but you're saying you had a really super awesome healthy marriage

and then this nefarious secretary came into the picture and suddenly he was wooed away 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 because he was never paying any attention to me well I wasn't paying attention to her

because what did I want to pay attention to she'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 had

people 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 the

mistress who he started a family with like thought he was divorced and the

wife thought that he was traveling for business and like he would literally have Christmas with both he would have

Thanksgiving with both like he would and he just found a way to sort of logistically do it 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 seen

father-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 to

be 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 in the 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 like take the time to like don't let your

spouse and your children Eclipse Who You Are like who you are is who your husband 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 our responsibilities 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 just murder 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 we fall 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 met someone 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 it

starts with just one sort of bad choice you know and then that bad choice leads to a series of choice like you know they

always say 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 I

I've only had one client in 25 years of practice who there was an active effort

made by their spouse to try to kill them and they 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 of domestic 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't

want 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 himself yeah 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 get

out of this situation so you would be working with a client and then you get a notification an email a message saying

that they've ended their life yeah yeah it's more commonly happened to me it's

only happened to me where I 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 because

that'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 yeah

sure 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 um

you 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 to believe that it's just that they're just so much heart and so much love you know

and I had this guy who at the beginning of the case he just said look man I don't care 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 the

dog 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 and that 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 more

and 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 our child 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 a there is a finite number of times you

will watch the sunset you don't know that number but it exists you just don't

know it yet there's only so many more Summers that you will be here to see you

just don't know the number 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 with

how 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 like that'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've

shared 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 think

about that they've died and this is the last time you're hugging them before you let go of their body and

it's taken away and then remember that they're alive and you're hugging

them like how could that not choke you up like how could you not like when you

hug your dog you you will someday most likely

have to put your dog down 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 had to do it several times in my life it's

heartbreaking but it's the Final Act of love and service to something that you've had 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 you not right now just breathe that in every

chance you have because you don't know how many more times you'll have and 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 it was 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 be

gone 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 the pain that it's going to cause but oh my

God man I love that pain because it means I got to feel it 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 world I will never expose myself to that and

then a friend called me up and said hey man we're doing an adoption event with this dog and I just need you to watch

him for the night he's a puppy 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 and I 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 rather than 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 not brave 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 I know 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 like

tattooed up and down and does Brazilian jiu-jitsu for fun I cry constantly usually because something's

beautiful I think that that's what moves me the most is how beautiful it all is

like I 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 a religious 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

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get started now the link is in the description below it's interesting because you I saw in your face when we

halfway through the 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 that

you 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 but

see 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 them

as I did about this one when I first met it but I just don't remember that as much anymore so the soulmate thing oh

it's great for business for me but I think it's terrible for human beings I think you probably could have a whole

bunch of people that you could have had a very satisfying romantic relationship with

again not to keep comparing things to dogs but like because you love the dog

you have now does it mean you didn't really love the dog you had like that's ridiculous it's like people who have

children 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 breakup whatever 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 the

sustaining 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 idealized

thing 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 of the 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 yeah which 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 know they 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 then say to them so tell me about how you met all of a sudden they like soften tremendously and they start like

talking about who the who they were and who their partner was back in that day when they when it was all a possibility

and and they were choosing each other you know and so I think there's tremendous value

in you know great example I always try to like take non-relationship examples

of relationship items so one of my sons when he was a

teenager was very critical of me as a father he was very like sort of dismissive of me as a father we were

talking about something and he sort of said like well Dad you know you're not like the perfect father and I said well first of all like I don't know what a

perfect father is I was like but what are you comparing me to

your idea of a perfect father or like a father you actually know and have

seen because here's the thing if you compare me to your perfect father in

your imagination I'm going to compare you to my perfect son in my imagination and guess what you

suck cuz CU we all suck compared to the ideal of our imagination and by the way

I said to him learn this lesson now because if you compare a woman you're in

a relationship with with your imagined ideal of a woman I promise you you will

be dissatisfied for the rest of your life in your relationship and if she Compares You To

Her idealized Imagination of what the perfect man would be she's going to be disappointed we need to start comparing

relationships to real relationships but how are we going to do that if we're so

deeply committed to lying to each other about how great our relationship is

what's the quickest someone's gone from Marriage to divorce that you've seen in terms of how long the relationship lasted yeah 48 hours you're joking no 48

hours but that's usually an annulment that's I mean Vegas baby um yeah it

happens sometimes that happens sometimes where people just have like immediate immediate regret you know or they

married on a whim I mean you can there's no like there's a waiting period to get a firearm you know there's a waiting

period for almost anything marriage you go right now get married no problem you just go you just go to Justice of the

Peace pay $40 license fee and you're married that's it go to Vegas you can get b guy Nam guy dressed like Elvis

will marry you for 50 bucks you said there's two main reasons why people get divorced infidelity which we've talked

about and the other one we haven't talked about which is money I found this very interesting because um I wouldn't

imagine that money issues and it's not the money issues we think about it's not someone going broke yeah it's not that

in your book you talk about it being trans transparency yeah so so I mean money is

power right money has a lot to do with power

and I think there's a lot you know there's a it's a misattributed to Oscar wild but it's not something he would

have said there's the saying that that everything in the world is about sex except sex which is about

power and I think money is about power money is about control money is about opportuni

security it's about a whole bunch of things but it's not really about money like money is just a a currency right

that we trade in so I think money has a whole bunch of complicated stuff tied up

in it it's why we can't in polite conversation like talk about what did you pay for that how much do you make

you know it's it's considered sort of and delicate to do that because we've loaded it up with all kinds of emotional

things about worth and relative worth and so you know it's not

uncommon that people are dishonest with themselves and with each other money it's also not uncommon in a

relationship that one of two Dynamics emerges either one person has a tremendous

amount of economic disparity like Leverage or they have economic power

that they can or or can't leverage because of marriage or both people have

somewhat equal bargaining positions and then something changes so like I see a tremendous number of of divorces when

husband and wife are both working and husband loses job big big precipitar for divorce

because men it sends them spiraling into a depression that they've lost this job

that much of how they Define themselves in sort of the traditional masculine gender role is that of a provider and a

protector and now I failed at that through no fault of my own they laid off the entire Northeast region it's not my

fault but I no longer have a job and then I have to go around and try to find what and redefine myself and at the same

time my spouse has managed to keep their job and I've seen a lot of women that

when their spouse loses the job and they become the breadwinner they find that

very unappealing that they they that a man as the bread winner was appealing

the man as economic equal is appealing the man as I have to take care of him

financially and provide for him very uncomfortable so I see when a man loses

his job I I would love if they kept statistics on these kinds of things but I can tell you in my practice I've seen

plenty of women lose their job it has no impact on the marriage men lose their job in a heterosexual male female

marriage it is it is disastrous consequences a great deal of the

time and I think that has a lot to do again it's not about money it's about

what the money symbolizes it's about providing it's about power control

respect for the ability to to to go out there and like Forge something from the world we said at the start of this

conversation on this subject of money sometimes you give legal advice and sometimes you give human advice as it relates to money should I be telling my

partner how much money I have because I imagine there's kind of two different legal there's a legal answer and a human answer yeah I mean they're entitled to

find out so like part of yeah part of part of well in a divorce you have

what's called mandatory discovery which is that I have a right to review all of your financials in that process so a

tremendous amount of what I do all day and my team is they we go through people's books like we go through the

credit card slips we got through all the economics to find out like where the money is where it went you know and

that's how we find out what everybody spent on their girlfriend or boyfriend and all the credit card receipts really

when someone says I've got the receipts like no I've got the receipts because I can I can subpoena them meaning I can

get them directly from the credit card company I can get them directly from your employer all your about what you

actually were given and it's very hard to move money around without leaving a trace these days like but a lot of

people then must be trying to hide money cuz I think I've heard of cases where there was one particular case of a footballer who apparently put everything

in his mother's name did you see that mean yes and the problem with that is it's a great story makes for a great

story but there are in most jurisdictions protections against that

because it's what's called a a transfer in contemplation of divorce so so it's essentially a form it's like a

fraudulent conveyance it's it's designed to thwart someone's otherwise appropriate legal remedy so if

I know I'm being sued and that this person has a valid claim so I sell my Lamborghini for $5 to

my brother the court can void that transaction but what if I before that

before there was any you know suspicion of divorce or any issues I put everything in my my brother's or my mom's name do that you're allowed to do

as long as it was not done yeah I actually have seen that many times I I've seen well I represent a lot of

people in finance and people in finance have a way of seeing money very differently and I've seen people who

over a 20year period like did things to take things out of the marital estate so

that they were beyond the reach of the Court let's be quite surprising when you're the other partner and you assume that your partner is super rich you go

for the divorce and you find out that they they nothing it's more common that people don't realize the debt structure

that they're living under because a lot of people live under a tremendous debt structure this happens in Celebrity

divorces a lot because a lot of it is the appearance of wealth but it's not actual wealth and so you know they're

they're highly leveraged and so what does that mean for the average person that doesn't know what credit card debt

primarily credit card debt is a big thing or that cars that you don't own the cars you lease the cars so they're

actually owned by the bank even your home if if your home you know 70 80% of the equity in your home is the bank's

mortgage then you don't really have much you don't own your home the bank owns your home I think this is something people misunderstand is that you get 50%

of your partner's assets and you get 50% of their debts of course well you get your you get the assets net of

liabilities yeah and most people like their net worth is what do you own net

of liabilities so there are a lot of people making a very very good living but they don't really have a lot of

assets because what they've done is they've leveraged in a tremendous way they have they have mortgages and and

they have debts accumulating they have leased automobiles they have you know jewelry that they took a personal loan

to guarantee where that they purchased jewelry knowing that it will immediately depreciate in value you know that the

resale on it is much much lower than the value that they just paid for it so it's a it's a it's an illusion in many ways

what about the opposite of that where someone was in a relationship ship and their partner thought they were like

broke or didn't have much money it turns out their sound a fortune yeah what's actually funnier is when somebody when

someone really through no fault of even their own comes into some massive amount of money like I've had people I actually

had a client who won the lottery and so he went from like nothing

he had like a minimum wage kind of a job and they lived a very modest life and

they were unhappily married but they were like well we you know can't really afford to live as a couple we certainly

can't afford to live apart like it's bad enough we can't pay our electric bill to have two electric bills we'd have a hell of a time and he won the lottery he used

to play the Power Ball and he won like you know some insane amount it was like I don't know $50 million so then after

taxes it's like a 50% tax it was like $25 million and he was beyond thrilled

until he got told yeah she's gets half she gets exactly half and he was like wait why I bought the ticket I'm like

you are one person in the eyes of the law if she won the lottery you'd get half of it you won the lottery she gets

half of it it's how it works did they stay together no of course not she was like they're miserable with each other I

mean at that point he was suddenly very motivated that maybe we should stay together but she was like I get wait a

minute I get I get you know half a 25 million and I don't have to deal with you anymore see you and that was it that

was it that's why he was in my office she had served him with divorce papers what about

LGBT couples yeah does everything we've said apply an equal measure do they do

they get divorced in the same do they have the same issues with talking about sex do they yeah you know I don't I I

don't think I think a lot of the same things are true meaning impermanence

soulmates all of those kinds of issues but I think

because gay and lesbian couples were forced to the outskirts of the culture

they were the outsider for so long so much of my life even as a 51-year-old

man so much of my life I saw my gay and lesbian friends ostracized marginalized

and put on the periphery that when you are put on the periphery there is as awful as that is

and as unfair as that is and unjust as that is and how much it should rightly offend our sensibility to see people

marginalized and ostracized it creates a certain Freedom where it's like okay then we we don't

have to follow those rules we can make our own rules invention yeah we can just we can do it how we want to do it

because you know what they think we stink they think we're the worst they think we're just you know okay so then

we can we can do it how we want to do it because no matter what they're not going to accept us so we might as well do it

the way it makes sense for us instead of you know tradition is pure pressure from dead people so if you're someone who's

like my parents have rejected me sorry tradition is is peer pressure exerted by dead people I mean it's really what it

is I'm not saying Traditions aren't valuable but at their core tradition is peer pressure from dead people like your

grandma did it this way so you should do it this way like okay your grandma lived in a whole different time your grandma

did not have the entire totality of human wisdom in her hand that she could

press a few buttons on so to say oh yeah like the same rules the same

institutions the same ways of being they should be exactly the same that's insane we didn't make rules for

non-heterosexual relationships so they they're getting to make their own rules and it turns out and they did and they

did like I have a lot of gay male friends I live in Chelsea which is a section of New York City that for many years was a primarily gay male section

to live in and so I happen to have a lot of gay male friends and it's very funny

to me because when I would talk to them even before marriage equality and before the sort of widespread accept of gay and

lesbian families um and gay and lesbian lives and relationships as being valid

like it wasn't that long ago that Will and Grace like will couldn't kiss his boyfriend on TV this was like the 90s

that that was going on so this isn't that long ago G I have suits older than

that like this is a thing so what you know they they used to my gay mail

friends used to have these very kind of non-conventional permutations of relationships they were like yeah you

know we we can kiss other people but like we can't have sex with other people or we can do oral sex with other people

we can't but we have to let them know that we're doing like because they were like Hey we're on the outskirts we get to kind of make up our own rules and

there's something very and what's funny to me about that is when marriage equality was coming about and i' I've

been a Consulting attorney for for something called lamba Legal which is a a gay and lesbian legal defense which

you know 20 years ago it meant like the the right to exist like the right to

like not be fired from your job because you're gay like that seems to me like

basic human rights you know the idea now like we've gone quite far in terms of

now there's some controversies that I kind of go okay wait I'm not quite sure even as someone who's identified as a progressive liberal for quite some of my

life I I don't know that I can go this bridge too far but but the basic

fundamental right like the right to marry I always felt you know what if you want to be able to participate in this

unbelievably failing technology you have every right in the world like if you hate gay people let them marry why

should they be having all the fun like let them marry and I remember sort of thinking that jokingly and when marriage

equality finally happened in the United States I went to a good friend of mine

who will remain nameless and I said to him he'd been in a long-term relationship maybe like two years and I said so man psyched you like you know

you get married he goes no I'm not psyched why would I be excited about this and I said what do you mean like

you can get married now he goes yeah like I never had to deal with that I never had to have the

conversation it never had to be like you know where's this going you know are we in a he's like if anything I could go

like oh I would marry you but oh the government they won't let me oh I wish I

wish we could but the government it's out of my hands he's like now now I have to have this conversation now

I have to like well where is this going and are we getting married and what do you think and if we should we move in and should we even kids should we have

kids like it used to be we were barred from having kids or adopting kids now we can adopt kids it's no problem it's like

great now I got to have that conversation so again I'm not suggesting that that we shouldn't have

marriage equality we shouldn't have the freedom to adopt and to have children but I I think it's a fan bargain for

everybody and and so my experience of of gay and lesbian couples currently cuz I'm currently

doing a number of divorces for lesbian couples and gay couples I think that you know the

honeymoon period isn't quite over yet like marriage equality has only been the law of the land for like you know 10

years something like that so give it some time we'll see maybe they're better at it maybe they'll be worse at it maybe

they'll be just as equally awful at it as we are what about open relationships do they work

more you know I'm I'm not qualified to answer that question for the following reason I meet a lot of people who have

tried various types of ethical non- monogamy

polyamory but they all have in common that they're in my office yeah of course so I see all the ones that didn't work

yeah so me saying well I've met a lot of couples where they tried the polyamory

thing or they tried ethical non monogamy and it didn't work and it led to divorce is like an oncologist saying like dude

everybody's got cancer I met like 10 people today who have cancer right you're an oncologist like of course you

meet a lot of people that have cancer like a a guy who's a cab driver doesn't meet that many people who have cancer like you might meet one or two but he's

not going to meet all of them but you working cancer so you're going to meet people like I happen to meet people getting divorced so all of the I've met

a lot of people that gave that a shot and it did not work now again was that

the like in case of emergency break glass like let's just try this have you ever seen it

work I've never in any of my friendships in any of my personal relationships I've

never seen non- monogamy successful but I don't think

we're quite at a place as a culture where we're really being honest

about monogamy like Esther Perell some of her work I think is brilliant about

monogamy infidelity because I I don't think it's quite I think there are a lot

of couples where there is non- monogamy happening but there's sort of a don't

ask don't tell policy and there's a sense of you know if this is what you

need to do to sort of stay happily committed because if we're honest a a

marriage is a whole bunch of different relationships in one relationship it's

your roommate it's your co-parent it's your travel companion it's your family

companion meaning like they have to deal with your mother-in-law and your father-in-law too and like it's a whole

bunch of relationships and it may be that men and women or a particular man and a

particular woman in a relationship have a different sense of how important sex

is and you know it's okay to delegate it's okay to say you know

listen I don't really like football so go watch football with your friends do you see that a lot where the partner or

the the other partner that you're not dealing with has accepted yes the other partner cheating well not cheating but

they've allowed them to just quietly go in I've had a lot of people who come in and say to me he had a bunch of Affairs

over the years and I just let it go like or she had a bunch of Affairs over the years and it wasn't didn't make an issue

of it yeah really and see just the fact that you and it's understandable I'm not criticizing you but the fact that you go

really is okay why would that be that shocking like people cheat all the time

people step outside of their relationship all the time people like diversity of sexual partners okay so

here's the question then have you ever seen an affair in the presence of

someone being in love I don't know that i''d be qualified to say whether someone was in love or not here here's what I

will say because love is an emotion and Love Is A Verb so I've seen I've certainly seen people that were having

Affairs and in every aspect of their outward life appear to be deeply

committed to their marriage okay so they were okay they were an economic provider they were a diligent parent they were uh

attentive to the emotional state of their partner they still had an active sexual relationship with their partner

but it wasn't a uh let's say a terribly prolific one perhaps um so you can't

cheat and be in love sure I mean listen just the term cheat you know like like

okay well then a cheat meal like you can be on a healthy diet and enjoy a cheat meal you know and and it there's

something great about it because it's a cheap meal it's like a little thing you do to treat yourself and then you go back to eating healthy and regular right

because look at there's something about the human desire for variety there's

something about passion I mean you know I always say this I'm not a religious person but like we're all familiar with

the Ten Commandments you know and and theoretically if that story is true

which again it's not provable or disprovable but God handed down 10 rules

like that's they talked to humanity and said here's 10 rules don't kill good one

honor the Sabbath good one okay don't cheat on your

spouse don't covet your neighbor's wife it got two it got two rules like he

didn't say thou shalt not kill like seriously don't kill that's no but but don't sleep with other people got two

out of 10 rules from God theoretically like that's amazing that should show you

how long this has been a thing how human of a problem or issue or compulsion this

is it's the most human thing this desire like yeah we want to you know Freud

civilization and its disconect intense you know all of these all of these Brilliant Minds from all over the world

over the whole span of time have struggled with monogamy have struggled

with sex have struggled with the desire for sex Wars are fought over sex people

rise and Empires rise and fall people rise and fall I I I used to say that like I think 90% of what most of the men

I do they do to get laid they do they why work card so I can

make money why so I can get a nice car why so I can attract beautiful women like look at look at the red pill space

the manosphere all this everything is about making yourself appealing to women or making yourself appealing to

potential sexual partners whether it's just one or a whole diversity of them okay that's a different thing but it's

about that it's about that so should we get

married should we get married I mean from a job security place I hope people

continue to get married because if they don't I'll be out of a job but in seriousness I I don't

think I think we will continue to get married should we I don't think we should say all of us

should I think we should ask the question I think we shouldn't assume we should get married that's what I think I

think that we should ask the question what is the problem to which marriage is a solution and do I have that problem

and will it solve that problem because the fact that it's an odd question to

say when someone says I want to get married that it would be odd for me to

go why yeah why is that weird like if you said I want to have a

podcast why it's a perfectly reasonable question I want to go to

Florida why I like the weather I have a friend there whatever I want to get married why what do people respond when

when you typically ask that question what's the most frequent response to the reason for the invention of the

technology of marriage because I I posted many years ago that I I was suspicious about marriage and I remember

all the comments that I got and different people arguing different things well it's it holds them it holds the it's controversial it's super

controversial people get very attached to it I remember one of them I remember was a case that it's the best

environment to raise kids in when the parents are in that kind of bond I had another one which means that you stay and you solve the problems instead of

running away so marriage is really good for that regard but but you know the reasons why people say marriage makes

sense what are those key reasons why I think that there's religious reasons that's a big one I get all the time like

like in the comments there will be like a billion people that go marriage is a covenant between God and and as if like

I hadn't heard of this you know as if I didn't go to Catholic School my entire life like yes I get it I get it that's a

belief you have and that's okay like my beliefs don't require that you believe them yours may require that I believe

them and that's okay like where' you going to agree to disagree if your fundamental thing is that God spoke to

you and told you a thing whether it was in written form or verbally like I can't

argue with that you sound like you're a big fan of love and not a big fan of marriage I'm a fan of marriage to the

extent that it facilitates love but I just don't see a Nexus between those two things I don't think these two two

things have that much to do with each other and I think to the extent that they have something to do with each other they probably could have existed

without the marriage like I think I think marriage is a symbol of something

and I don't think you need the symbol to have the something it's confusing a finger pointing at the Moon with the

moon like it's it's confusing the the the S like marriage is supposed to be I

think a symbol and I love it for that I love the idea of two people people who

are so excited about how they make each other feel and how the effect they have

on each other and the effect that the other has on them that they want to get up in front of a bunch of people who

they know and say this is my person I found them and I'm I'm going to stick

with them through good and through bad and I'm going to see their blind spots and I'm going to not be a yes man I'm

going to tell them when they get wrong but with love and I want them to do the same thing for me I want them to to

cheer for me and I want them to be on my side and I want them to disagree with me when I need to be disagreed with so I don't make really dumb decisions just

because I got a cheerleader all the time behind me like I got a cheerleader because I need one the world sucks and everybody's always criticizing me and I

criticize myself constantly but having this person next to me who goes man you can do this come on get up you can do it

you know or I fell down it's okay people fall down you're great get up come on you can do it or who's going to say to

me you know that's I know you're doing this for this reason and I get it but I don't I don't think it's going to make

you feel what you think it's going to make you feel so maybe don't do it and I'm going to go okay they wouldn't say that if it wasn't out of love so I'm

going to hear that and I'm not going to be afraid of it like and I want to get up we're going to say this to a bunch of people and then we're going to wear

Rings because it'll be a reminder for us and for the world that I got a person I

got a person and that's my person you know dude how do you not cheer for that that's incredible it's great but you can

have that without the yeah of course without the contract are you going to get the government involved like well you have to get the government involved

really like you that story I just told that's that's the story that's the

feeling that's the interpersonal connect when you say to most people they say I'm getting married you

go why they first of all they look at you like you have lobsters coming out of your nose like they've never the

question never even occurred to them why because you get married that's what you do that's insane but if you say to them

why they'll usually say something that's a total non-answer well I'm in love okay

what why does that mean you have to get married well because I want to you know I want to maintain that connection okay

wait how how specifically is marriage going to maintain that connection and

again if it's a public declaration okay I think there's value in a public declar if I want to I don't smoke cigarettes

but if I wanted if I was smoking cigarettes I want to quit smoking cigarettes there's value in getting up

and saying hey guys just so y all know I'm going to quit smoking and if you love me I want you to help hold me

accountable so if you see me smoking or if I ask you for a cigarette don't give me one because I really do want to quit

smoking you know there's value in that there's value in the tribe all going all right man you know that's what you want

let's do it we're gonna we're committed to it it's the same thing with marriage if Mar if the purpose of marriage is to

say hey guys it's really hard to be monogamous I don't know if anyone's noticed so and like the world is really

antagonistic to marriage but like I really want all the great things that come from having a person who sees my

blind spots and who's supporting me and I'm supporting them and the symbiosis the beauty of that relationship and the

connection of those two people so I want you to hold me accountable I want you my friend that when I you see me looking at

the other girl that you go to me hey hey bro forget about what you got at home come on man you got a good you got a

good one what are you doing you know like I want you to hold me accountable I want women out there to see that wedding

ring and to go yep not him not him even if he talks to me not him he's married let's let's leave that one why cuz if if

it was my one I wouldn't want him talking to some other girl so I'm not going to talk to him you know instead

it's not what we do that is not what we do as a culture you ever want to get laid put on a wedding ring and go out

suddenly you're safe suddenly you're a guy they can talk to and he's not on the make because he's married he's obvious

he's wearing an outward symbol of his relationship again like this is crazy it's crazy because we're just not being

honest about what this thing really is marriage is a legal status it's a government

intervention it's a it it everything else is just stuff we're putting on top of it and calling it that thing but you

can have all that stuff without having legally the status of marit James we

have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest not knowing who they're going to be leaving it for but I

might have told them who they're leaving it for and the question that's has been left for you is a brilliant one because

it's very on topic and once in a while this happens when was the first time you

experienced true love oh boy you made me cry

again um was the first time I experienced true

love gosh that's a great question and just the fact that just the experience

of being asked that question is running my mind through the most lovely

slideshow of so many times I felt loved and felt deep love so boy what a lovely

thing to ask every morning if I could like that's a lovely question because just the fact that there's just

the fact that there's a competition going on in my brain right now is the greatest thing in the world cuz all the

stuff that's running through my head and it's so diverse there's me kissing an

amazing woman for the first time and feeling that there's my sons each of my

sons kissing me or hugging me there is cabba and Buster and pickles lady and

Maggie every dog I ever had and there's an image I can imagine of it there's

my the first thing that popped into my head which is going to sound crazy but

maybe it's the stage in life that I'm in when I was a little boy my my father my father was not a

particularly effusively loving guy he was a Vietnam veteran he was a bad

alcoholic um he's been sober now for eight years I'm very proud of him um and

he's in his 80s now but growing up he was very unemotional to me and I

remember um I had this best friend Tom and we had pizza one night at my my

parents house and um you know pizza's cut into like eight slices and Tommy and I were like you

know growing boys we wanted to eat you know the CRA we ate really fast you know we each ate our three slices and my dad

would have had two left you know for him and uh we ate so fast that that our

six slices were gone and there was just two left and I I know my dad was like super hungry but he was like if you guys want

you can have you can have them and I remember you know we just ate them like you would obliviously like a kid

and a couple of weeks later I was at my friend's house same friend and his they ordered pizza and there was like you

know same thing eight slices and and his dad ate like four slices and I remember

thinking my dad would never do that and I remember I felt very

loved cuz I remember thinking like this is a guy who' never said he loved me like ever it just wasn't in his

vocabulary it wasn't who he was but I just remember thinking like oh he loves me like it it satisfied him

more to see me eating that extra piece of pizza than what eating that piece of

pizza would have given to him and I remember thinking like oh he loves me so I would say to

me that was a very pure and true kind of love and when I had my

sons I remember thinking oh I get I get that like they can have the whole

pizza so to me that's you know that's

true love is when it's it's not even sacrificing to give that the joy of the

other person just gives you so much joy and fills you so much that that it's just the greatest thing

James thank you thank you for um all the work you do you've given me so interesting you know went into

this conversation thinking I'd learn about divorce and relationships but I leave this conversation with a profound

appreciation for love good that's great in a way that I don't think I've ever had before and I also with that profound

appreciation I think causes you to want to take a certain set of actions I hope so the and I think about what you said

about the impermanence of Love you've made me want to cuddle Pablo because I know that I don't have many years left

with him but also there's many people in my life that maybe I do have many years with I don't know how many years I have with them you don't and I have to tell

you I I think I'm really grateful to hear you say that I hope you do that

because I really think we are the most we are the most aware of the joy of

our good health when we're in the presence of illness we are most aware of

the beauty of life when we're in the presence of death and the impermanence and we can be the most

aware of the power and presence and beauty of romantic love when we remember

that that it is impermanent it is not permanently gifted it's loaned and that

we're blessed to have it for however long we have it so if if that's what