BigDeal - #104 Divorce Lawyer: Why 53% of Marriages Fail | James Sexton
Episode Date: November 26, 2025After handling 2,000+ divorces over 25 years, the legendary divorce attorney James Sexton has seen it all: the affairs that start with attention instead of sex, the gestures that can end marriages, an...d the brutal truth that 53% of marriages end in divorce. In this raw, unfiltered conversation, James breaks down why half of all marriages fail and what the other half is doing right. From the real reason people cheat, to why Instagram is an infidelity-generating machine, James reveals the patterns that predict divorce with scary accuracy. We dive into the economics of relationships, why prenups are actually love letters, and how a dog can teach you more about marriage than any therapist. He shares the craziest prenup he's ever seen (10 pounds = $10,000 less in alimony), why "happy wife, happy life" is terrible advice, and the one question that softens even the most bitter couples. But this isn't just about what goes wrong — it's about what goes right. James explains why second marriages have better odds, how to fight fairly without weaponizing intimacy, and why the male equivalent of flowers might be exactly what you think it is. If you've ever wondered why some couples make it while others crash and burn, or if you want to save your relationship before it ends up in a lawyer's office, this episode will change how you think about love, commitment, and the bravest thing any human can do. Thanks to GoDaddy for sponsoring this video! Head to https://godaddy.com/codiesanchez to get started with GoDaddy Airo® today. Building real wealth doesn’t require a flashy startup — it just takes one boring, cash-flowing business. Join me at Main Street Millionaire Live to get my exact playbook for finding, buying, and scaling a business. Stop wondering how ownership could change your life, and come find out: https://contrarianthinking.biz/MSML26_BDYT ___________ 00:00:00 Introduction 00:01:51 Is Marriage Still Worth It? The Lottery Analogy 00:04:48 The 86% Remarriage Rate and Second Marriage Energy 00:05:53 Red Flags: How to Spot a Marriage Heading for Divorce 00:07:55 The Throw Pillow Test: Small Gestures That Say I Love You 00:12:50 The Weaponization of Intimacy: Why You Can't Take It Back 00:15:31 Dogs, Love, and the Bravery of Accepting Loss 00:18:48 Why James Isn't Jaded: Staying Romantic After 2,000 Divorces 00:23:42 People Stop Doing the Things That Kept Love Alive 00:24:41 The Two Biggest Problems: Not Knowing What You Want and Can't Express It 00:30:50 The Shaving Story: Positive Reinforcement vs. Criticism 00:33:28 Flowers and Nudes: Understanding What Your Partner Actually Wants 00:39:20 How Affairs Really Start: It's Never About the Sex 00:41:10 Instagram: The Infidelity Generating Machine 00:52:20 Prenups: Everyone Has One, Either Yours or the Government's 00:58:28 The Craziest Prenup: Ten Pounds Equals Ten Thousand Dollars 00:57:21 Democratizing Prenups: Making Marriage Contracts Accessible 01:03:54 Premarital Education: The Barrier to Entry Marriage Needs 01:23:35 Everyone's Sleeping With the Nanny: The Real Reason Why 01:10:34 The Weapon Analogy: Being a Divorce Lawyer and Believing in Justice 01:17:01 Poetry, Beauty, and Crying at Your Son's Wedding 01:19:36 Final Thoughts: Who Should Read This Book and Why ___________ MORE FROM BIGDEAL 🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@podcastbigdeal 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bigdeal.podcast 📽️ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@big.deal.pod MORE FROM CODIE SANCHEZ 🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@codiesanchezct 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/codiesanchez 📽️ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@realcodiesanchez OTHER THINGS WE DO 🌐 Our community: https://contrarianthinking.typeform.com/to/WBztXXID 📰 Free newsletter: https://contrarianthinking.biz/3XWLlZp 📚 Biz buying course: https://contrarianthinking.biz/3NhjGgN 🏠 Resibrands: https://resibrands.com/ 💰 CT Capital: https://contrarianthinking.biz/4eRyGOk 🏦 Main St Hold Co: https://contrarianthinking.biz/3YfGa8u Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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I could make a pretty easy legal argument with the divorce rate about 53% that it is definitely negligent, possibly reckless to get married.
How many people stay together miserable?
73% of it?
Like, that's insane.
If I said there's a 73% chance we walk out of here today to get a hit and head with a bullet.
Like you would never, yeah, willy-nilly go for it.
James Sexton is one of the best divorce attorneys in the world.
He has the keys to why people stay married, why people stay happy, and what will.
100% lead to you getting divorced, whether you want it or not.
This episode is going to shock you,
and it is going to teach you the things
that they should have taught us before we said, I do.
You said affairs almost never start with sex.
What do they actually start with?
You know, I think they start the way relationships start,
which is you're interested and you're interested.
I've represented the cheated on,
and I've represented the cheater.
The two biggest problems are,
we don't know what we want,
and we don't know how to express it to another person.
But when's the last time?
that you said to your partner, what are some things I do that make you feel about?
There's something to be said for kind words and bl-h-
because I don't know which comes first, but I'll tell you right now,
you do one, you'll probably get the other more often.
What are the first signs that a marriage is going sideways,
and it's going to end in your office?
What I would say are the red flags that a relationship is not likely to continue successfully.
I don't know if these numbers are right, but if they are, this is insane.
It says you've handled 2,000-plus divorce.
Is that right?
Yeah, easily.
It's 25 years, almost 26 now.
Wow.
You get hundreds of millions of views on divorce.
Your work also interestingly to me goes way beyond divorce.
It's about like almost the wake-up calls people need to hear before they get divorced.
So given all you've seen and all this breakup, is marriage still a good idea?
I think so.
You know, I tell people marriage is like the lottery.
You're probably not going to win.
But if you win, what you win is so good that like, why not?
not buy a ticket? Like I think, you know, and the difference is that, you know, lottery, like,
you can't really do much to increase your chances of winning a lottery. It's a game of chance.
But marriage, there's a lot you could do to make it work. And when you meet the overwhelming
majority of people are bad at marriage. Like marriage, you could make an argument, and this is
why lawyers don't get invited to parties very often, like, you could make an argument that marriage is
negligent. Like, negligence is defined as any activity where, you know, and it's a lot of
you fail to perceive a substantial and unjustifiable risk of serious harm. Okay, that's the like
dictionary definition of negligence. Recklessness is a conscious disregard for a substantial
unjustifiable risk of harm. So I could make a pretty easy legal argument with the divorce rate
about 53 percent, that it is definitely negligent, possibly reckless to get married. And keep in
mind, that's 53 percent end in divorce. How many people stay together miserable?
for the kids, for religious reasons, they don't want to give away half their shit,
whatever it might be.
Another 10% I'm being nice.
Maybe 20.
Now you've got a technology fails like 73% of it.
Like that's insane.
Like that's insane.
If I said there's a 73% chance we walk out of here today, you're going to hit and head with a bowling ball.
You would stay in, or you'd wear a helmet at a minimum, right?
Like you would never just, yeah, willy-nilly go for it.
But yet, we're actually not only super into marriage still as a question.
culture, there's a presumption you should do it. Like if someone, one of your friends came to you and said,
I'm getting married. And you said, really, why? Like, that would be the most indelicate, unpleasant
question, right? But realistically, it's a barely, like, we're really happy we want to get the
government involved. Like, that's a very odd thing for a person to say. But you're not allowed to even
question it because sort of the wedding industrial complex and, you know, there's just this
theory, like it's just a tradition now.
And I've said before that, you know, to some degree tradition is the wisdom of the people
who were here before us.
And to some degree, tradition is pure pressure exerted by dead people.
And I think that, you know, when you say, like, well, why are you getting married?
Well, because you're supposed to.
Well, why?
Well, my parents were married.
My grandparents were married.
Okay.
But like, your grandmother didn't have this sum total of all human wisdom in a digital device
in her hand.
Like, the world she lived in was very different.
so why would a technology that worked for her necessarily make sense for you?
So, you know, marriage is just shockingly challenging at a minimum.
I still think it's a good idea because the other statistic I find equally, if not more
interesting, is that 86% of people remarry within five years of their divorce.
Yeah, I did.
Yeah, yeah.
And I've watched so many people.
people do it and do it quite successfully. Sometimes because I think that they bring, I think second
marriage energy is a different thing. I think it's like, okay, I figure it out what I don't want.
And I've seen and made some mistakes. And now I know what not to do, hopefully. And failure is a
phenomenal teacher in that regard. And I think that people who have been through it, they kind of go,
okay, like I'm not quite as afraid anymore because I've had this happy.
You know, it's like when you've had a failed business, it's unfortunate.
But it's also, there's a freedom of like, okay, I failed and I'm still alive.
Didn't die.
Like, I'm still here.
I didn't die.
So you know what?
Let me ante up again.
Let's do this.
And let me learn from, let me take the lessons and do something with it.
So I think that marriage is still something that's incredibly important, us as a species.
And I think there has to be some greater reason for that, you know.
Yeah.
What about?
Can you tell after all of these divorces and being around all of these people who are unhappily married?
If you look at a couple, can you tell if they are moving towards divorce or not?
And if so, how, why, what are the signs?
You know, I've been told I have good, we don't know what to call it yet.
You know, like, I have good Gator because I live in Chelsea and I can kind of be like, maybe he is.
But I don't know what the divorce equivalent of Gator would be, where I can just sort of like smell the,
I used to be very good at it
I'm watching the Real Housewives shows on Bravo.
I would be like, oh, they're done.
Oh, yeah, they're on their way out.
And some of their divorces I've actually done.
I've represented a couple of them.
That's public knowledge.
But, yeah, I mean, I think that I can,
when I spend time with a couple,
I definitely have a radar for the habits,
the ways they interact with each other,
and a sensitivity to it.
I think we actually all do, probably.
but I think that my sensitivity to it is much higher because I spend so much time with people who are in that level of conflict to the point where it's so irattractable that now they're getting divorced.
Like a couple's counselor probably would spend time with people that are in marital challenge but might find their way to navigate out of it.
I am, you know, I am the look, it's dead and I'm here to bury it person.
And what do they typically look like?
Like what are the first signs that a marriage is going sideways and it's going in your office?
Yeah.
You know, my mom used to say to me that it's hard to spot intelligence, but you can spot stupid a mile away.
And so maybe intelligence is like an absence of stupid, right?
So I think a lot of what I would say are the red flags that a relationship is not likely to continue successfully are an absence of things rather than a presence, right?
So, like, one of the things that's present in almost all the happy couples I know is this sense of, like, cheering for each other.
You know, this sense of like, you're interested, you're interesting, and I'm cheering for you.
When you have that, it's a superpower of sorts.
And the absence of it or the opposite of it, we've all been to the dinner party where, like, whatever he says she's rolling her eyes,
And whatever she says, he's like, not even really listening.
And he's kind of like, wait, what?
Like, yeah, okay, whatever.
You know, and it's just a vibe.
It's a feeling.
And I think it looks cool.
Yeah.
Well, you know, the zeitgeist has told people it's cool.
Like, I don't know what that's about, but like, you know, this is something that is a man and a woman we probably experience a little differently.
But, like, you go out with a group of men.
And if a guy is like, dude, my wife's like the coolest man.
Like, it's sort of like, what is with this guy?
Whereas if the guy is like, my wife's like the most loathsome harpy ever to castrate a man, you know, they were like, yeah, I know, man, that's how they are.
And women, it's the same thing.
Like if you, you know, say like, oh, my husband's just so great, you know, it's kind of, maybe it's a little more acceptable.
But if you do the like, you know, man, they're just so stupid.
It's like, amen, sister, you know, and that's, we've really been taught to this, like, have this battle, you know, and see it that way.
And look, for whatever reason, you know, the battle of the sex is and the sort of girls'
versus boys. I get there's a bonding element to that or whatever. But like if you, if you're saying
there are eight billion people in the world and you're the one, like I want you. Like I want you to
hold my hand and let's figure this thing out. Let's walk together. Let's see each other's blind spots.
Let's like try to just cheer for each other, help each other. Like to me, the goal of marriage should be
that at the end of your life,
you could say,
this person helped me
be the most authentic version of myself.
And I helped them do the same thing.
Like, what could be more worthy of a pursuit than that?
Like, what could be a greater asset to have than that?
But for most people, I don't know that that's the goal.
There's this sense of like, you know, yeah, like, this is my person.
Like, I picked them.
I don't know if I'd pick them again, if I had it to do over again.
And like, that's, when you feel that around people, that rolling of the eyes, that,
but one of the things I think is really fun to do is when you're out, you know, with a group of
couples or whatever and someone's got that vibe of like, oh, you can tell they had to fight
and then the car on the way there, they have that sort of like rolling their eyes at each other.
If you go, so how'd you guys meet?
Tell me about how you met.
There's a softening that happens that is fascinating to me because people kind of go back in their
head to like when they were trying to close the deal, you know, and when it still was something
they were aspiring to was to be this person's person. And they go back there in their mind for a
minute. And there's something that shifts. So for me, the long answer to that question is
when I feel like people have lost that plot completely, they've stopped trying to close,
you know, they've lost sight of the fact that like this is their person. And
You know, constructive criticism is important in any relationship, but it's still criticism.
Like, and it never feels good to be criticized.
And you know, obviously, as someone who has a lot of management experience, that, you know,
there are ways to modify the behaviors of people around you that don't require direct criticism,
even constructive criticism.
Like, praising the behavior that you're trying to facilitate is the way.
to do it. And in marriage, that's incredibly easy. It's incredibly easy because you have all these
levers. You have affection, sex, romance, you know, you have all of these things that you can weaponize
in a good way to modify the behavior of this person and help improve the dynamic without them
feeling criticized. So to me, when I see criticism, that to me is the biggest red flag.
It's so good. My husband actually was the one who taught me. He taught me that that wasn't cool to even make jokes about your partner in front of other people. And he was like, it's just a disrespectful thing. We don't do that in front of other people. And I had really, you know, my parents have been married forever. They're very happily married still. They're incredible partners. But that was okay in their marriage. You know, they could have a little. And but when I saw it, I thought, yeah, actually it is kind of disrespectful. And you know, Chris and I, it's us against the world. And don't get me wrong. We fight. But I love how you.
you say healthy couples fight, they just fight fairly.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's no low blows.
It's no like the weaponization of intimacy to me is the scariest thing in the world because
it's so, it's so brave to love someone.
Like it's so brave, like to go, I'm going to show you all of these soft spots.
Like, you know, you marry a Navy SEAL, he's got soft spots.
I guarantee it, you know.
And maybe he doesn't show him to anybody, you know, but he's got to be able to show him to
you. And if, if when someone makes you the keeper of that, if you ever use that to like weapon
like we all, anyone who's ever been in a relationship for more than a month, you have a sentence,
like you keep it in the chamber, hopefully forever. But you have a sentence you know you could say
to your partner that would literally reduce them to tears. Like you, we all do. We all do.
Like you have it with your friends. You have it. Anyone you know really well, you're like, I know what
would crush them.
And as a divorce lawyer, like, I see what happens when people unleash that cracking, you
know, and you can't take it back.
You can't take it back.
And those little indignities, those little jabs, those little, like people, people's
relationships fall apart the way people go bankrupt, very slowly and then all at once.
And that's, and how companies fail, very slowly and then all at once.
And relationships are the same thing.
It's like very slowly and then you just go right off the cliff.
You know, I loved how you talked about why people shouldn't talk badly about their spouses.
And you also had this story about a dog that my husband and I were watching last night.
And we were sort of laughing about it and saying like, I had never, I think one of the interesting things about you and why I wanted you to come talk to our people is I've been through a divorce.
And it was terrible.
And it wasn't his fault entirely and it wasn't my fault entirely.
were two super flawed people that just couldn't figure it out. And if I could, I don't have very
many regrets in life, but I, that, that one's damn near close. Just like getting there, having
that presupposition that we have to get married and I just should marry a person because there
are these boxes that it fit into. And I, I take that on my shoulders. Like, I think that was my
fault for even saying yes, fully, you know, and I was the one that wanted to leave. And, and so I'm
I was like, man, if I could go to Young Cody and say a few things differently, it would be a lot of the stuff that you talk about. And it's weird that I would say I would talk to Young Cody about a divorce attorney. You know, that's not like my immediate thought is like maybe a fucking counselor, a priest, I don't know. But you have this story about how a dog has a lot in common with how a good relationship is today and how we're kind of fucked up in the way we think about relationships. Will you share it? Yeah. I mean, I'm a dog person. So I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I,
I've always had dogs, and I think they teach us a lot about love, because if I've learned anything from my dogs, it's how absolutely insane it is to love anything.
And I think part of it really is the acknowledgement, because they have this incredibly short lifespan, we know that a dog is not gifted to us permanently.
It's loaned.
Like, we're going to have it for this little period of time.
And I think there's something about when someone says it's going to be you and me forever.
That there's a very human part to go, who, great, all right, got that done now.
I can focus on some other things, you know, because there's no shortage of things to focus on.
But really, like, love is loaned.
Like, your husband's love is loaned to you and your love is loaned to him.
It's not permanently gifted.
And your marriage will end.
Every marriage ends.
It ends in death or divorce.
It's weird because it's one of those things you go, I really hope yours ends in death.
Like, what a weird thing to say out loud.
But the truth is, like, your marriage will end.
And you want it to end in death.
You want it to end way down the road in death.
But more likely than not, marriage is end in divorce.
But there is something about the love we have for a dog, the love we have for our pets,
that I think knows that this is not going to be here forever
and that we should be really enjoying it and really focusing on it
and really being selfless in our love of it.
And also, too, there's something about the way,
I mean, dogs just are always cheering for us, you know.
Like, there's an old joke.
Like, if you want to know who loves you more,
lock your spouse and your dog in the trunk of the car,
open it up a half hour later and see which one's happy to see you.
My father-in-law told me that joke right before we got married.
Yeah, it's a fair joke, you know.
But I really do think that we learn a lot about ourselves
and about love and about loss by having pets.
I think that for me, I've learned a lot about love from having a dog.
And also from my heart's in infinite capacity for love.
Because every time I go, yeah, I'm never doing that again,
I could never love any dog the way I love Buster.
I could never love any dog the way I love Huckleberry.
There's no way I could love.
And then somehow I do.
And it doesn't take anything away from how much I loved them
to have this new additional love in my life.
But it reminds me that, you know, that we have this infinite capacity for love and that
it's incredibly brave.
Like, it's incredibly brave to love something.
It's incredibly brave because to love anything is to accept the fact that you will inevitably
lose it.
And so acknowledging that I'm going to hold on to this thing that I can never hold on to
forever and I'm going to open myself up to it and I'm going to let it become part of me
I think is the bravest thing a person can do.
And I think, you know, if you're not scared, it's not brave.
You know, like, I'm sure you're a husband and any of everyone he's ever served with.
Like, I'm sure they've all been scared.
Of course.
And that's what makes them brave is that they're scared and they do the thing that needs to be done anyway.
And I think love should be approached that way.
Why do you think that you're not more jaded having seen all these divorces?
I mean, I've met a lot of attorneys.
And we talked about this a little bit beforehand.
But, you know, you seem to be a tough guy, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, tattoos, divorce attorney, some of the biggest divorces in the world you've done.
But you also seem really kind and very open-hearted.
How did you keep that?
I blame my mom.
She was, you know, I was the perfect amalgam of my two parents.
My father was a Napolis, Vietnam veteran, like, really hard, really rigid man.
My mom was, like, left wing so far left, it was like the leftist you could ever be.
and progressive liberal and a total hippie.
So I guess I had to become a lawyer
because I had to see both sides of every argument always.
They never voted for the same person.
But they really loved each other.
They were married over 50 years when my mom passed away.
My mom passed away 10 years ago today.
I'm so sorry.
And no, she lived an amazing life.
She was an amazing person.
And I think a lot of it came from her.
You know, I, there's a line from a Joseph Brodsky poem.
It's one of my favorite poems.
It's called a song.
He wrote it when his wife died.
And the refrain of the poem,
is, I wish you were here, dear, I wish you were here.
And one of the lines is, I wish you were here,
I wish you were here.
I wish I knew no astronomy when the stars appear.
And there's something to me about when you watch how fragile love is
and you watch so many people lose it
and you feel and you sit across the table
from people who are in so much pain because they had it
and they had this path and this plan
and they were certain and then it's gone.
sometimes they screwed it up
sometimes it's through no fault of their own
their spouse just came home and said
and there's something about when you
when you were around that all the time
that you realize like
how beautiful and fragile love is
like because we
it is the greatest I mean anyone
like people say to me like oh how do you believe
in love still and I'm like that's like saying
like do you believe in gravity
like gravity is there whether I believe in or not
like love is of course I believe in love
love loves everywhere
Love's the only thing. Like all this other stuff we're doing, why are we doing it? We're doing it
because we want love. We want to feel worthy of love. We want to care for the people we love.
We want to have some level of safety, security, and control for the people we love or for ourselves so we can continue to enjoy time with the people we love.
It all comes back to love. Like all of it comes back to love. So watching the fragility of love, watching the quote unquote failure of love,
has not made me less of a romantic.
It's not made me less.
It makes me more humbled by this vital, beautiful, fragile thing.
And even though I know the astronomy, I still think the stars are beautiful.
Like, I don't think that knowing that love can go horribly wrong is, has,
ever for a moment shaken my faith in how important it is and how beautiful it is. Because even as a
divorced person myself, even as someone who has had love and seen that love end in the way you
didn't expect it to end, like I am a better person for every one of those loves. And even when you
say like, oh, you know, I look back at Young Cody and I kind of want to say to her like, oh, maybe
this is the wrong place. You would never be who you are if you hadn't that experience. And
You would not have the marriage you have now if you hadn't had that experience.
And even if the lesson of that experience was to show you, okay, that isn't what I need.
So I need to find something different than that in some ways.
And that's where I think there's so much overlap in my relationship on perspective
and a lot of the things you do in terms of business and entrepreneurship is it's a lot about,
you know, can people take the same ingredients?
and make a different meal with it, you know?
And we all know the answer is yes.
Like, we all know.
Like, you can take the same people in a business and restructure it
and change the way they interact with each other as manager and employee.
And you can make an entirely new business with the exact same ingredients.
You could give Thomas Keller or, you know, any amazing, you know, Michelin Star Chef
the same ingredients as me.
And they're going to make something incredible out of it because they have this technique.
ability. So I think it's the same thing. Like I think that the ingredients of who we are,
when paired with other different ingredients, we can make something radically different. Or even
in a relationship that's struggling, we can take those same ingredients and figure out ways to make
something different with it. Here's something nobody tells you. When I buy businesses,
I don't just look at the cash flow. I look at how fast I can make them look credible online.
Why? Because perception creates opportunity. Customers, lenders, even sellers judge you by
your digital footprint before they ever shake your hand. That's why I like GoDaddy Arrow. You plug in
what you're building and it instantly spins up a professional website logo, email, even social
posts. In other words, it gives you instant credibility and credibility is currency. I've turned invisible
businesses into deal ready, customer ready plays just by tightening their online presence. That's leverage.
That's how you win. So if you want to look like you belong in the owner's seat from day one,
go to goaddy.com slash Cody Sanchez and launch with GoDaddy.
arrow today. Okay, I want to talk about a couple of different things you said. Like, one of the
lines that I love is you said, people say they fell out of love. No, they stopped doing the things
that kept love alive. Yeah. Can you expand on that? I think the biggest problem in relationships
is that we just stop paying attention. Like, we just stop paying attention. And there's all these,
there's all these little tiny things when you first fall in love with someone that they do
that you absolutely love and that make you feel loved
and that you do for them
and that probably make them feel loved.
But like when's the last time,
I'm not going to put you on the spot,
but when's the last time that you said to your partner or your spouse,
hey, what are some things I do that make you feel loved?
Or when's the last time you said,
hey, you know, you know when you get that,
when you see that I'm out of that sparkling water that I like
and you just buy a case of it when you're out at the store,
that makes me feel so seen and so loved.
Like, we kind of don't do that.
Like, we just don't do it.
It's sort of like, oh, yeah, like, you know, this person's with me now.
Like, they're legally obliged to be here.
Like, I don't have to do all that anymore.
And it's absolutely true.
Like, you don't.
Like, but there's so many things when you first meet someone
and you're kind of trying to close the deal.
You know, it's like the job interview.
At the interview,
And the first week of work, like, everything is new and fascinating and wonderful.
And it's like, oh, my God, but you do this.
And I'm just so glad to have the job.
Like, this is so great.
Like, I'm so tired of sending resumes.
Like, I got the job.
And, like, four months in, you're like, oh, you know.
I mean, what's the same job?
But your perception of how special it is and how lucky you are to have it has now been
completely jaded by the fact that you have it.
And so I think in relationships, we stop paying attention.
And when we stop paying attention, you know, no single raindrop is responsible for the flood.
But the flood is just a bunch of little raindrops.
And so people always, when they're talking about marriage is ending, they're like, you know, and I get this a lot.
Like, because not everybody interviews at the level of nuance, you do.
They'll say, like, what are four things that people can do to save their marriage?
And you're like, or one of the main three reasons why marriages end, you know?
I'm always tempted to say like a snarky answer when they're like, what's the number one reason people get divorced?
I'm like, well, because they don't want to be married anymore.
You know, like, you know, but really what they want me to say is infidelity, you know, or financial impropriety or.
But those are symptoms.
Like, infidelity is a symptom of the problem.
The problem is almost always the same disconnection, disconnection from self and then disconnection
from the other person.
Because the two biggest problems are we don't know what.
we want and we don't know how to express it to another person. And the most dangerous lies are the
ones we tell ourselves. I mean, I think in both of our lines of work, we know that. That like the
most dangerous lies are the things you tell yourself. Oh, no, no, no, we're going to, next month,
next quarter, we're going to turn this thing around. Like, the lies you tell yourself are so dangerous
in marriage because you can't possibly identify what it is you need, what your partner needs,
how you're meeting it, how your meets, they're not getting met.
If you're not having an honest conversation with yourself,
and then ideally with your partner in some fashion.
Yeah, you know, it's fascinating because one of the things Chris is really good at
is he will tell, you know, me frequently, like we have to have the difficult
conversations that most people want to push aside because if we don't,
they're a little bit like a festering wound, right?
You just let it like rot away at the edges, rot away at the edges.
And so sure, it is about, I don't know, trash left on the countertop,
but it's not really about that.
There's like something deeper.
But see, trash left on the countertop is a great example.
Because trash left, like, it's not about the pasta.
Like, trash left on the countertop is not about trash on the countertop.
It's about why are you not respecting our space?
It's about why do you not know that that kind of bothers me?
And if you do know it and you do it anyway, why is my feeling not important to you?
So that's kind of everything, you know?
Like how you do anything is how you do.
everything and the passion with which you do it. Because if you think about it, that actually can be
equally leveraged as a sign of love. Because if he doesn't mind having the thing on the counter
and he knows you do and he moves it off the counter, then he's saying, I love you. Like, that's
what that is. Like, he's saying, like, best example I have is throw pillows. Like, I would never
have a throw pillow in my whole life. What is it with best of us? What man would be like,
Throw pillows.
Like, we just don't.
But women love them.
And so I really could tell I was in love when I was like, oh, yeah, I should straighten the throw pillows up, you know?
Because it was like, it's in no way important to me.
But I'd love to believe that my partner would see that and go, he doesn't give a shit about throw pillows.
Like, he likes me.
Because that's what that is.
Like, that's what that is.
Like, that's a sign of love.
And to me, we never say, like we rarely say these things out loud.
Like we rarely say to our partner these dumb little things you do that make me feel seen and loved and cared for.
And these dumb little things you do that make me feel not valued and not cared for and kind of dismissed or ignored.
But I feel like that's the stuff.
And if we could, if we could isolate on that stuff and find ways to have discussions about that stuff that aren't.
going to bring out defensiveness in our partner, or we find ways to, like, engage in what I call
loving behavior modification. You know, the best example I give of that is I dated a, so I, you know,
I'm a lawyer by trade, so I have to do like, I always have to be clean shaven. Like, your husband
gets to have the cool beard, you know, or he gets that. But he couldn't for like 15 years.
Oh, yeah. Now it's like he's bouncing back. Now he's like, fuck you. Or like Chris, you know,
Williamson has the like, oops, I didn't know I was sex and stubble, you know, which is like,
Chris is going to think I'm like man crushing on him now.
But like, it's going to like, yeah, if I was going to, he'd be a good man crush.
But the truth is, like, I have to be clean-shaven.
And I have one of those, like, thick beards that like, you know, so on the weekends I tend
not to shave because it's like I have two days off from shaving.
I don't have to go to court.
It's good.
It's just like, you're never going to get me in a suit on the weekend.
If someone invents me to a wedding on the weekend, I'm like, I'm not wearing a suit.
It's not happening.
I wear a suit five days a week.
So I remember dating a girl and she had really sensitive skin.
And so when I would kiss her, and I was a little stubbly like I'd be on the weekend,
she would get like a little redness, you know, like, you all have sensitive skin.
Yeah.
And she would be like, oh, yeah, like your beard is prickly.
And it really brought out something defensive in me.
Like, and I was very like, like, you know, like, I wouldn't say it, but I find myself thinking,
like, you know, you should be happy that I'm kissing you.
And like, now I got to shave when I'm going to see you and Monday through Friday.
Like, this is just, this is great.
Like, I have no break from this whatsoever.
Need to say that relationship didn't work out.
Not solely for that reason, although maybe it was a symptom.
The next woman I dated had the exact same issue, but she was a genius because I would shave.
Usually it was on Monday morning, if she spent the weekend or something, Monday morning, she would come in after I'd shaved and she'd be like, oh, God, you're like so sexy when you're clean shaven.
And she would like press up against my skin and she'd be like, you're like Don Draper and madman.
I love it, you know?
Dude, I would shave like three times.
a day. Like I, I, and I would, by the way, I was like a little kid. Like, I would shave and then
I would come downstairs and I'd be like, I just shave, you know? And she would be like, oh my God,
I love it. Now, she was doing the exact same thing. She was trying to get me to shave for her
benefit. But she went about it brilliantly because I really felt like, oh, this is like something
she likes about me. And this is an opportunity I have to like, like, become even more
attractive to her and to have some praise from her. What was it? It was the exact same thing as
behavior modification. But it was approached from this place of like positive reinforcement,
reframing what it is that you want. And to me, like, that's how in a successful marriage,
you shape the behavior of your behavior. God, it's so good. I'm going to take this so literally.
Because now when my man, when I want him to not have a beard, you can't listen to this podcast.
Yeah. You got to watch, like, you got to watch old episodes of like Mad Men and be like,
like, you look so, remember when you were, oh, God, that was so hot.
Most guys will be like, really?
Okay.
You know, like, if it's going to, if we're going to get laid from it, we usually will do it.
We'll usually do what needs to be.
Yeah, you know, you have said a few funny things about what men want.
Yeah.
And I think you had a funny answer that I liked to what the male version of flowers is.
Nudes.
Yeah, noots.
Yeah.
Yeah, it was very funny because that was actually off the top of my head.
Somebody said, like, what's the male equivalent of getting flowers?
I was like, nudes.
Oh, wait.
Was that too quick of it?
an answer? Let me think about it for a minute. Nudes. Yeah. Well, because it really is like we're
visual, this is important, but it's that same, because what are flowers? Like, it really isn't like,
hey, something was alive and now we've killed it and you can put it in water. Like, that's not,
like, in and of itself, a particularly romantic gesture. But we've assigned something to it,
which is I was thinking of you. I wanted to give you this gesture of my affection. Like, it's
really what it is. Well, for men, that's like a tremendous gesture of affection. Because, you know,
the old adage of, you know, every guy wants a good girl who's only bad for him and every woman
wants a bad boy who's only good for her. So true. And it really is. See? Read every romance novel.
And it's all that. It's always like the hard, you know, so. But with her, he's gentle, you know. And like,
come on. You're married to a seal for God's sake. Yeah. Like he could kill people with a pop.
stick and meanwhile he's like soft and gentle and lovely with you like that's like the whole thing that's
like every female fantasy right there and guys we really want someone who's like oh i've never been with a man
and yet and bodice ripping you know it's like our thing so look if these are the archetypes of the
collective romantic unconscious okay leverage it use it you know like i believe in living in reality
and that's reality so yeah i think nudes is the equivalent of flowers i think i've never
ever heard of a man getting a nude from a woman he has a relationship with and going,
that is not appropriate right now.
Like, wherever are you, I've been in a courtroom and got one and went,
because it's true.
Like, most heterosexual men, I'm really talking out of school here.
I'm going to get kicked out of the like bro club.
But like, it is hard not to applaud when a woman takes her shirt off.
Like, it's hard not to.
Like, it feels like a bit like a kid at Christmas.
Even if you've seen these same breasts a million times, you just feel like a kid.
Like, oh, my God, it's just what I wanted.
Those, those.
Perfect.
Look at those.
I don't know why.
They don't really do anything.
It's like the flowers.
What do the flowers really do?
They smell nice for a couple days.
Then you got to throw them out.
But it's something about it, you know, like something, that intoxication.
If you can keep that, I think, in relationships, like, that's the good stuff.
Like, why would you, why would you let it go away?
It's so low percentage of a move.
Like to me, big investment with big risk, okay, I get it.
People are risk adverse.
Or small investment with unlikely success.
Okay, I get it.
Maybe people don't want to fail.
But like, if you leave your partner a note in the morning,
it was so fun hanging out with you on the couch last night.
I married the prettiest girl in the world.
What does that take?
Ten seconds.
10 seconds. What did it cost? Nothing. But what does it do? It's just saying, I see you. You're important to me. I want you to feel seen. I want you to feel heard. And this downward spiral that everyone who ends up in my office at some point starts and then gracefully finishes in the chair in front of my desk, it starts with, well, why should I do that? He didn't do this. Yeah. Like, why should I sleep with him? He's nothing but unfriendly to me.
Well, why should I be friendly to her?
All she does is dismisses everything I say.
You know, like, and that's what I mean when I say, well, like, okay, you're both right.
Like, you don't owe each other anything.
By the way, you don't even have to be married.
So don't.
Don't be married.
But at some point, you went, yep, eight billion choices.
That's the one I want.
And so why wouldn't you water that plant?
Like, why wouldn't you just take that?
Because that spiral starts to work in the other direction.
Like, even if you kind of lost the plot, like, you can, you can, you can, you can, you
get it back, but it's a little bit of a slow process. And the hard part is just like, like,
you know, getting back in shape when you've fallen out of shape. It's like, you know, you don't go back
into the gym for four hours and go, okay, this is great. Like, you'll be so sore the next day
you'll never be able to move and it won't accomplish month. But do 20 minutes a day for a couple of
days. And you'll start to get stronger and stronger and stronger. And it's the same thing.
Just start those little gestures and see if that reconnection starts to happen and it starts to
feed the other person inspire them into do it. Because I'm,
I'll tell you something. I feel like, and I haven't tested the theory, if you sent more flowers,
you'd get more nudes. If you gave more nudes, you might get more flowers. Like, I don't know
which came first, the flowers are the nudes, the chicken or the egg. But I'm telling you,
like, there's something to be said for this. There's something to be said for kind words and blowjubs.
There's something to be said for it. Because I don't know which comes first, but I'll tell you right now,
you do one, you'll probably get the other more often. So I feel like there's value in that. And
It's the part we don't say out loud.
We say dumb shit like happy wife, happy life.
It's a terrible line.
It's a terrible line that everybody says at the wedding.
Like the uncle who says it at the wedding, I should pay him a dividend.
He's like, he made a lot of money for me.
But it really is.
I mean, if anything, it should be happy spouse, happy house.
But even that, if your meaning is, yeah, just like do what they want you to do.
Like, just make them out.
Like, whatever it did.
Like, no, no.
Like, that is not a recipe for success in this coupling that is supposed to be the paramount
connection you have with another person.
But you know what is interesting is you talk a lot about infidelity and affairs.
A couple of the ways you talk about them were fascinating to me, which is you said affairs
almost never start with sex.
Yeah.
What do they actually start with?
They start with attention.
Attention.
You know, I think they start the way relationships start, which is, you know, you know,
you're interested and you're interesting, you know, which is something that very quickly can go away
in marriage. Like, because you've heard each other's stories. You've heard each other's jokes.
You kind of, you know, you know each other. You know what to expect. That's, by the way,
it's part of the joy of being married is it's like, oh, I know what this person's going to,
like, I know what they think's funny and what they don't. And I kind of like, the world is so
mysterious and challenging and we have so little control that, like, knowing someone's levers,
like, I know it makes them feel good. I know it makes them smile. I know what food they like.
Yeah. That's a nice feeling. But there is something exciting about the mystery.
of another person and being interesting to someone.
Because I don't think love is just about how I feel about you.
It's how you and what you feel about me makes me feel about me.
Right?
Like there's something about when your partner looks at you like, wow, look at you,
that you look at yourself like, yeah, look at me, you know?
And it's kind of like your grandma saying, like looking at the old version of her.
and going, oh my God, look at how good you looked.
Like, look at how good I looked.
Like, there's something about seeing yourself
through the eyes of this person who sees you with desire
and excitement and fascination.
Like, fascination, it's pretty hard to have fascination
for someone you've been with for a decade
and who, like, you've cleaned up their socks, you know?
Like, it's hard.
Like, no one's a hero to their butler, you know?
And so it really is about, like,
how do I still keep this sense
of like excitement and fascination
because in a fair
it usually starts
as some other kind of interaction.
It starts as our kids
are on the same softball team
or or you know
and social media by the way
like if we were going to invent
an infidelity generating machine
it would be called Instagram.
Wait, why?
Because it's putting us in touch
with a bunch of people
that we probably have no business
really talking to.
Yeah.
It's giving us benign,
neutral points of entry
that we have no reason
to feel guilty about at all
because it's like,
no, I'm talking to that.
I added this person because our kids are on the same team or our kids are in the same team.
We work together.
But now I see you in a bikini.
You know?
And I wasn't going to see you in a bikini before Instagram.
That wouldn't have happened, you know?
I wouldn't have seen you out with your girlfriends wearing something low cut.
Like, I wouldn't have started seeing you in this different setting as an object potentially
of desire.
And by the way, I don't know about your experience of social media, but mine is everyone's posting
their greatest hits while we live our gag reel.
And no one is in the height moments of their life, like when they're having a wonderful time taking out their phone and scrolling through Instagram.
It's always when you're like bored or like on the toilet or like sitting and waiting in the waiting room at the doctor's office or on the subway.
It's like some moment of kind of, yeah.
And what are you doing in that moment?
But looking at the most exciting curated, perfect filtered version of everyone else's life.
So of course, your life in that moment sucks compared to that.
So now I'm seeing this idealized, stylized version of this other person.
And we have some interaction.
And it's benign interaction.
We can message each other and like, oh, yeah.
I see you guys.
How is that?
Where did you guys stay when you were in Greece?
And then it's very easy to have like that little, because again, no one's watching.
Like you're not posting it on the Facebook wall.
These are DMs.
So you're doing the like, you know, like, wow, you look great.
You know, da, da, da, da.
And it turns into, okay, now we're flirting.
But we're just flirting.
it's no big deal.
And then that's how it starts.
Because it starts to feel really good.
Like it feels really good because of who you feel like.
Like you feel interesting again.
You feel interested again.
And that's what it's about.
Like it's about that.
It's not it's not about the sex.
Like it really isn't about the sex.
Yes, of course, sex is an important piece of things.
And sex, I think, is the glue in marriages.
Otherwise, just be roommates.
Yeah.
But like sex is glue.
And without that glue, like, yeah, you start to, you know, there starts to be some distance from each other in terms of like, you are not the thing I align with sexuality.
Same thing. Pornography has the same effect for men. If, like, 90% of your sexual outlet is women on a screen you will never meet and not your primary sexual partner, you're going to have issues with that.
It's one of the reasons why I've said, and again, I'm not trying to be like the proponent of nudes here.
But, you know, if your spouse is the kind of person who's a very visual person and otherwise would be very into pornography or you have to spend extended periods of time away from each other, having some nudes of your primary sexual partner and having them and looking at them as your...
I don't think that that's a bad thing.
Like, you want to be the object of your partner's desire.
And you want to be the primary association they make with sexuality is you.
So again, what happens in these other relationships?
It starts with just an interested connection, a benign, safe connection, and then it just turns into something different.
It's probably why you're such a voice to this generation about marriage because you're so straight talking.
It's almost like we're not allowed to say these things anymore.
I know people say that about they're always like, he's so blunt.
He's so blunt.
And you're like, it's pretty actually obvious and rational.
Yeah.
But we're just told that.
That's politically incorrect.
No, no, no, we just don't talk about those things anymore.
And so because of that, we have all these narratives that really do not help us progress in marriage.
Well, I have a safe place that I can do it from because in a world where it's very easy to get canceled and where therapists come in or researchers come in and say, well, this is what my research has shown or this is what I've studied.
I'm just telling you who's sitting in front of me in the chair.
And like you can't pretend they meant to be there.
They didn't.
And you can't be like, well, but you don't really know.
No, I do.
Like, people lie to their therapists all the time.
They don't lie to their divorce lawyer.
Like, there's absolutely no profit in line to your divorce lawyer.
If anything, you've got to tell me all your stuff.
And by the way, it's protected by attorney-client privilege.
Like, I've never once told any client confidence in any public setting.
Like, I take my oath as an attorney very seriously.
I anonymize everything that I talk about publicly.
And the truth is, like, yeah, but I get to see a really honest version of this.
And people talk to me about, like, you get to tell.
know your divorce lawyer. Like we, you know, we have a really intimate relationship and that you
have to be really honest with me. And I get to know your finances and your kids and your parenting
and your substance issues issues and your mental health issues and your whole family history.
So I get to know you really well. And in 25 years of getting to know people that well,
like you really see human emotional complexity. Because I've represented the cheated on.
And I've represented the cheater. And I've represented victims of domestic violence and intimate
partner abuse, and I've represented perpetrators of domestic violence and intimate partner abuse.
And I have to tell you, you spend enough time with people, and you figure out, like,
okay, these are hurt people, hurting people. And they did not set out to do that. And if only
there were just evil people, and we could just sequester them from the good people. But it's not
true. Like the line of good and evil runs right through the human heart. And none of us wants
to cut a piece of our own heart out.
And so when you spend time with people and start to realize, okay, like horns and halos
isn't really a thing.
Like people have moments.
Like, I'm sure if I looked at the best moment of you as a wife, I would, and said, that's
what kind of wife she is.
I'm giving you way too much credit.
Way too much.
And if I look at the most impatient, crap moment you've had as a spouse, where you just
really missed it.
Not good.
And I said, that's who she is as a wife.
I'm not giving you enough credit.
The truth is, it's kind of about like ratios.
It's kind of about how it works.
And I think that's what I get to see is when it's failed catastrophically.
And that gives me the ability to just go, look, don't get mad at me.
That's how it is.
You know, I feel like I know a lot about this because I watched your new favorite show,
which is the Kardashians show about divorce attorney.
How do you make it through the first episode of that fever dream of a show?
I like everything Ryan Murphy has ever done.
I'm such a devotee of every American horror story.
That show made my eyes bleed.
I think you are missing the brilliance.
You know what?
The camp nature.
I am absolutely missing any scintilla of brilliance.
I actually see it as a brilliance black hole.
Like it is the event horizon of brilliant.
It's gone.
Watching you watch the vagina entryway part was just, that was like, that's peak internet for me.
There was a line in the first episode where they say Kim Kardashian's character says to one of the other people, come work with us.
In two years, you'll be a multi-millionaire.
And I went, okay, when I sell my business, I want the best tax and investment advice.
I want to help my kids.
And I want to give back to the community.
Ooh.
Then it's the business.
The vacation of a lifetime.
I wonder if my out of office has a forever center.
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In divorce law?
Like in divorce, you think in two years you're going to be a multi-millionaire in divorce?
By the way, with offices, like, and she also, too,
is like Kim Kardashian's character is driving a best.
has certain, I'm sorry, are you in venture capital? Like, what are you in? Because divorce, like, listen,
we're not wearing sackcloth and ashes. We're doing all right. But, like, there's only a certain
number of hours in the day I can bill. And there's only so many, like, I'd have a bunch of lawyers
working for me, but they're not me. So people eventually would go, um, where's Jim? I hired him.
Like, if I'm going to go, no, no, I'm not your lawyer. I know you hired me, but here's Bob. He's
going to be your lawyer. Like, people eventually get very mad about that. Like, if your therapist
said, I'm not going to be your therapist this week. I have Steve. He's coming. He's going to do it.
be like, yeah, we're not doing that, you know.
So I just don't know.
Maybe they could have just spoken to like one actual divorce lawyer and made some aspect of it with the all-star amazing cast that they have.
I loved it so much.
I told my, I know, is that terrible.
I'm a terrible person.
But I got to, I got to leave.
I know.
I know.
I've never walked off of the show.
And like I was like a, I think I'm a Kim Kardashian stand now, like, which is not something young Cody would say.
I got no beef with Kim Kardashian.
I really don't.
I really don't.
No, I was not her divorce attorney.
She's California.
I think she had Laura.
Laura Wasser is amazing and a beloved colleague and a super talent.
No, I think that she.
She's amazing at outrage, though.
I think she planned it all.
Maybe.
Like even her, she did this post that I was like, God, the internet fascinates me,
like psychology of how people engage on the internet.
And in the same way, like, I find you fascinating because you seem to feed off of, you know,
people get amped. You're like, no, it doesn't fucking bother me.
And I think she's like that on the internet.
When people get amped, she's like, no fucking money.
Well, listen, that entire family has figured out how to leverage, you know,
people's emotional state into something very profitable.
Yeah. It's not for me. I can do it.
I don't want to try to, you know, be an armchair psychologist of Kim.
But what I will say is I have a son who's 28 years old and he's a lawyer.
And I'd never pushed him to be a lawyer.
I really was find something you love as much as I love what I do.
because I'm blessed to be one of those people that,
one of those rare people that does not spend five days a week
looking forward to two.
You know, like I can't wait to get back to work.
I love it.
And I get the feeling that, because her father was a phenomenal attorney.
Her father was an amazing attorney.
I mean, he's legendary in the legal profession.
As his skill is a trial lawyer.
Yeah, he was a criminal defense lawyer.
But he was an incredibly gifted courtroom lawyer.
Those are big, big, it's a big shadow that man cast.
So my heart really, really,
goes out to her because I didn't know her father, but I can't imagine that he would not be
incredibly proud of her. Like she is such a successful business person. She's a mom. She's so many
things so well. Yeah. But I think there is still this piece that goes, yeah, but I want to be a lawyer.
Because it would be like something he'd be proud of. And so if that's what this comes from,
is this desire to keep taking the bar and trying and da-da-da-da.
I'm cheering for her.
I'm cheering for her.
I hope she pulls it out.
But I don't think she needs to do it to have her father be proud of her.
I think he's probably incredibly proud of her.
I love that.
I know.
It goes back to your big heart.
I mean, one of the things that I wanted to talk to you about was pre-nups.
Speaking of famous people.
Pre-nup.
Pre-nups.
There was a video I saw where you gave Taylor Swift some advice pre-Travice Kelsey,
which was one word, a lot of times repeated.
Yeah, Taylor.
Prenup, Taylor.
Tell me, obviously, do you think everybody should get a pre-up?
Yeah.
Well, I'll take it a step further.
Everybody has a pre-op.
Everybody has a pre-op.
It's either one that the government wrote,
or it's one that you and the person that you've decided you like mother,
other than the eight billion other options.
Who do you think is better at?
Have you been to the DMV?
You ever walk into the DMV and go,
oh, yeah, these people should be in charge of everything.
This is great.
Like, I've never been in any government office
and went, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, these people, let's put them in charge of everything.
Like, if you don't do a pre-nuth, you've decided that the state legislature of the state
in which you reside at the time you divorce.
Okay.
So not even the current government, a future government you haven't met yet.
They'll do a better job than you and your partner.
That's insane.
whether you're on the left or the right or the like, you know, unhappy middle.
I think we can all agree in the last 10 years.
Both sides of the political fence have said the government sucks, right?
In 2016, the left was like, the government sucks.
2020, the right was like the government sucks.
Like everybody suddenly, you know, okay.
So can we all agree then that signing up for a contract, because that's all marriage is,
a contract, okay, you're signing a contract.
unlike, by the way, every other contract you ever say, you know as a business person,
get it in paper, sign contracts.
Yes, handshake deals are important, principles are important.
Get lawyers involved.
100% on paper.
Okay.
All right.
And you put them on paper while you're getting along.
You don't go, well, my partner and I, we get along so good.
We don't need to do it to every business that fails.
And as the ugliest courtroom battle, it's because we were friends and we trust each other.
We need to write things down.
And then when it goes wrong and when it's successful, that's when it falls apart.
That's when everyone goes, well, wait a minute, we'd agree to that, but that was when that.
So you get it in writing while you're getting along.
Okay.
So are you going to say the state legislature in the future, I trust them so much that I'm going to say whatever rules they think are fair, I agree to.
And by the way, if they change the rules, I'm okay with that too and I can't opt out of the contract.
Like if you lease, if you like a simple contract is a car lease.
So let's say you lease a Porsche
And halfway through the lease
They go, by the way, your payment's staying the same
But now we're giving you a Honda Civic
You would be like, well, no, then I'm out of this contract.
Well, imagine if they could say, yeah, sorry, you can't opt out of the contract.
We can change the contract, but you can't change the contract
And you're in the contract no matter what.
Well, that's what you're doing if you marry without a pre-up.
So I think the reason why preempts are so dramatically on the rise now
Are they? Absolutely.
Like what percentage of people get a pre-nup?
It's very hard to say because pre-nups are not filed anywhere.
They're only filed when they're filed as part of a divorce.
And when they're filed as part of a divorce, they're in a sealed matrimonial file.
And people lie about prenups because I will tell you, I represent a lot of celebrities and athletes.
And I have more than once been watching, you know, Access Hollywood or Entertainment Tonight.
And they're interviewing a celebrity who's getting married.
And they go, so did you guys do a pre-napp?
And they go, oh, no, we don't need a pre-I'm like, you're lying.
It's in my safe.
Like, it's in my safe.
You signed it at my conference table two days ago.
Why are you telling people you don't have a pre-tum?
Because I understand why.
Because it's this like, no, that's how much we love each other.
We just trust that we're never going to get divorced.
Like, which, by the way, you know, again, I tell people, because I represent a lot of people in finance because I'm a divorce lawyer in New York City.
I always tell people, don't look at marriage like.
gambling or like buying a stock.
Because a stock, if you invest a million dollars, it can go to zero.
Getting married is like shorting stocks.
Like there's no amount.
There's no stop loss.
Like it's just like they could change the law anytime and really screw you and you can't
get out of it.
So there is so much value in my opinion.
What's happening with younger people, they're pragmatic.
When I say younger, I mean in their 20s, their 30s, the demographic that's
getting married.
they're just starting to say pragmatically, like, yeah, we got, by the way, all of us, all of my colleagues, we all see a dramatic increase in the number of prenups that we're doing.
And then there are, you know, it's also getting easier to do prenups.
You know, one of the ventures I'm involved in is trusted prenup.com.
And what we did is we basically used like AI.
We used large language model and several hundred preempts that I've done in various financial situations.
We fed into this thing.
That's brilliant.
And we created basically a online kind of.
kind of choose your own adventure of how to do a pre-up. We guarantee it's, it's, you know, airtight
ability, it's enforceability. And we basically say valid in all 50 states. And we make it affordable to
people. We've democratized pre-tips. What does it cost? $599 is the price point for it. If you
want to have attorney review, meaning that you want to have an attorney licensed in the state in which
you reside, review it for you and also have one for your spouse. It's still under $2,000.
That's incredible. To put that in perspective, the retainer.
most divorce lawyers take for drafting a pre-nups $15,000.
Oh, I remember.
So, yeah.
So it's a much, much cleaner, easier way of doing it.
And again, do I still think the old-fashioned way of going and hiring an attorney and having
your question answered?
I think that's a great way to do it.
But the way we did it on trusted prenup.com is I've counseled so many hundreds of people
on pre-nups.
We just made all these little videos of me answering the most common questions that people
have about their pre-up.
And at each stage along the way, when you're trying to decide which option to take,
you can watch a video of me answering that question.
So it's a way to just sort of make this scalable.
And again, we did it really to democratize prenups because everyone has a prenupt.
Again, it's either one that's written by the government or it's one that's written by these two people.
And to me, that's a no-brainer.
So good.
What is the craziest pre-up you've ever seen?
I mean, I've seen a lot of crazy prenups.
I will say two.
One of them I've talked about before and that is there was a pre-nup.
where for every 10 pounds she gained during the marriage,
she lost $10,000 a month in alimony.
And it was enforceable.
That was the funniest thing,
is that a court upheld it.
And the judge who upheld it, who was female,
said, I want to say,
I don't know why you married this man.
This is a boorish clause.
It's disgusting.
But it's a contract,
and the two of you signed it,
and you had a lawyer,
and he had a lawyer,
and it's enforceable.
So it was upheld.
Now, I'd tell you,
here's why lawyers are weird.
I mean, it's one of the many reasons.
But when I read the provision, I remember thinking, oh, I could work with this.
Because if I was her, like, you have to have a baseline weight.
Yeah.
So I was like, all right, just like put like pennies in your pockets and wear your heaviest clothes.
And then if you get divorced, be like a pro fighter, like wear the sweatsuit be in the sauna, get butt naked on the scale and like strip it down as much as you can.
But here's what I'll tell you.
There was something honest about that preno.
because he was an ogreish fellow, and he had a lot of money.
And she was beautiful and didn't really bring much else to the table.
And I think they were honest about the economy of that relationship.
Because I think relationships are an economy.
I don't think that's a dirty word.
I think that if an economy is an exchange of value,
then you marry someone because there's an exchange of value.
You give value, receive value.
And what value is worth what is a very subjective concept between those two people.
very hard to quantify, like, oh, how much is this worth or that worth? So that's the most crazy
pre-up I ever saw. I see a lot of pre-ups where people make insane demands. I'm seeing a lot of
it lately, and I'm seeing it more with women, where women are, because I do a lot of pre-ups for guys
in finance, so they're in their 30s or 40s, and they've got, you know, 10 million, 20 million,
and they're marrying like a yoga teacher
or they're marrying like a, you know,
someone who does does not have the assets that they have
and is usually beautiful and brings that to the table
and more fun than them because they've had their head down
and been, you know, you've been at Goldman,
you know, they've got their head down
and they're doing their thing.
They're working the hours.
And, you know, they, the men very quickly are like,
yeah, just I wanted to waive everything.
Like unless it's in her name, like if it's in my name,
it's mine.
if it's in joint names, okay, we'll split it 50, 50.
If it's in her name, it's hers, but nothing.
Nothing.
She gets nothing.
No alimony, no anything.
And I have seen a lot more women now say, okay, like, I'll do a pre-up, but I want, I have some
things I'm going to want.
Yeah.
Like, I want in the marriage and some things if the marriage ends.
Because you can put in a pre-up some of the things that we want in the marriage, too.
So I've had women that are like, oh, I want a push present if we have kids of no less
value than this.
I want this many vacations of no less value than this.
I want a monthly personal appearance allowance that'll cover like things I want for
myself care.
And they're being very pragmatic about it.
And there's a little more pushback.
And I think that that, you know, that's an interesting thing to me.
I think I actually don't, you know, there are probably some people that would be
judgmental about that transaction.
But I really do think at the risk of getting misty-eyed about it that I don't think you
can feel loved if you don't feel safe.
And I think a pre-up is about both people feeling safe.
Like, I'll give, but do I have to give everything?
Like, will I get my legs chopped out from under me?
And, you know, I need security.
Like, I need security.
If you're going to be the breadwinner and I'm going to be a supportive other,
and I'm going to, like, diminish my lifetime earning capacity by not pursuing other ventures
or I'm going to give you my skinny years or I'm going to, whatever it is.
Like, I need some security.
And I think a rational.
person who wants their partner to feel safe would go, okay, I get that. So what is it? Like, what's the
answer? I don't know that the answer is half of everything I have, but there's probably an answer we can
come to. And I think just having that conversation is potentially an opportunity for us to, like,
talk about some important things in this relationship and what we mean to each other and what we
owe each other. It's a good point because I've seen a lot of, so I went through kind of, I'm almost 40 now,
I'm 39. And I remember like my first round of friends who all got married. And we lived in Dallas.
And most of us got divorced. And for whatever reason, we all got married kind of young. And I was the first one.
And then they would call me later, you know, and kind of be like, how does it happen? So you talked to a divorce attorney. How much does that cost? What do I do with the finances? I was probably one of the only ones that worked. And I was, I made the money then. And so they didn't know where any of the money was. You know, there was a lot of hidden stuff for them. You know, the men obviously felt like I did all the work, but they felt like they had all the babies because it was Dallas and everybody was having babies. And there was like this massive amount of fear, I think, on both sides, which seems like it's not good for.
divorce because when you're both scared, then you do crazy things. And I wonder how much better
many of them would have been if they would have said the quiet part out loud first.
I think all of them would have been better. I think premarital education would have been really good
for everybody. Like all of the people that talk about, oh, no fault divorce is bad for our culture
because it makes it too easy to get divorced. Like, I don't believe that for a second. But I think
if you actually want to change the
divorce rate, we have to create
barriers to entry.
Like, I can't get a driver's license
without taking a written test,
passing a vision test,
then passing a road
test, then having
a probationary license for a certain
period of time. Marriage,
50 bucks, Elvis will marry you in Nevada.
Like, that's it. Like, you don't
get a pamphlet. You just did the most
legally significant thing you're going to do other than
die. And you didn't, you didn't
pamphlet. Like the first time most people learn what legally happened when they got married is when
they're getting divorced. Like, you don't have to be a black belt in Brazilian jihitsu to tell somebody
the worst time to learn how to fight is when you're in a fight. Like, if I asked your husband,
when's the best time to learn how to shoot a gun? Is it when I'm in a gun fight? No, that's the
worst possible time. Like literally, any time in your entire life prior to that moment would have been a good
time to learn, right? So why don't we just have some basic premarital education? Why don't we have
some sense of, hey, by the way, you're opting out of the title system. Your estate rights have
automatically changed on both the state and federal level when you got married. Like, most people
have no idea. So why not? Like, why not have everyone asked to spend one hour with a divorce lawyer
before they can get marriage license? That seems very fair to me. Like, it seems like something that
would be useful for people, because at least that way, they'll know, take this thing seriously.
And I know what my downside risk is. And look, I think anybody, one of the beautiful things about
being in a relationship, in my opinion, is the ability that you're not doing all of it yourself.
You know, like, maybe you like to cook and I like doing dishes, you know, or maybe you don't mind
taking the dogs out and I don't mind doing the laundry. Like, and there's this sense of like, hey, like,
Let's both figure out what it did it.
But here's the thing.
You should know how to do laundry.
Like I'm not saying like if I don't mind doing laundry and you don't really like doing
laundry, cool, I'll do laundry.
Like if you like, let me tell you something.
We were in a relationship.
You can handle the finances.
Knock yourself out.
You're better at it than me.
I'm a good lawyer.
I'm not a great businessman.
Perfect.
Here you go.
You're in charge of that.
I trust you enough.
You're in charge.
Okay.
But I should know where the accounts are.
I should have some basic.
We should have a meeting once a month where we go, okay, babe.
So you remember, this is all here.
here and remember I invested in this and here's what's going on with that. And just so you know,
just you know, God forbid something happens to me. You'll know where everything was. But again,
there's this sense that like, no, no, it's like Voldemort. If we say it out loud, if we say like,
well, what if we ever split up or what if one of us died? By the way, one of those two things is
definitely going to happen. Like one of you is going to die or you're going to get divorced. Definitely.
Guaranteed. Like you're both going to die. Definitely. That's just reality. So why not just say,
hey, we need to both know how to do some things.
Like if you don't like to cook,
I'm not saying you have to learn to cook
if you're going to be a relationship.
But like your partner's going to be away sometimes.
You have to know how to like, okay,
I know how to like scramble an egg.
I know to do some basic thing.
Girl dinner, yeah, yeah.
Something, some bachelor dinner.
Like learn how to make some little thing, you know,
because again, otherwise you're creating a situation
where there's this imbalance of power
that I don't think is good.
I don't think it's healthy long term.
when you talk to a judge do you talk like that no you're really calm no i have to do a whole character
yeah no you have to do what's the character well here's what's funny you know like they're just saying
that fame is the mask that eats into the wearer oh like that's a bar some of these people know me now
so like i give them a little more sexton yeah i get to be a little more yeah this is you yeah this is
me and i get to be a little more me yeah it's a very polished up non-profane version of me but there's
So it depends on the judge.
Like, I'll tell you, a good lawyer knows the law.
A great lawyer knows the judge.
And, like, I know which judges, like, enjoy the sexton show.
So there's some judges when I'm trying cases, I can pull some shit.
You know, like, I can do the show.
And, like, they don't want the steak.
They want the sizzle.
And then there's some judges that they, like, they know that I'm a showman.
And they're expecting that and they don't like it.
So they don't get that.
They get the very, if it may it please the court, Your Honor, you know.
And at the end of the day, like, yes, I have this very performative streak.
I'm a trial lawyer and trial lawyers or closet hacks.
Like we all want to be like, you know, comedians or actors.
But I am a law geek to the core.
Like, I love this job.
I study the appellate division decisions as they come out.
Like, I know my trade.
Wow.
And I love what I do.
And I know the law.
And I've memorized most of Black's Law Dictionary.
Like I, like, hearsay as a statement made by the declarer,
another than one by testifying at trial or other proceeding offered into evidence
to prove the truth of the matter asserted.
Like, I have it all in here.
But I still like to put it on the show.
But at the end of the day, like, if the show's not going to work, okay.
And that's what's interesting about this profession is people will come into my office.
It's the only job where someone will come into your office and go,
I heard you're a ruthless son of a bitch.
And they mean it as a compliment.
Like, like I was described by New York Magazine as the sociopath you want on your side.
Now, I get misty-eyed talking about.
dogs. I'm clearly not a sociopath. But it's like sometimes that's what the tool, that's the task, right?
Like the task is like there's cases where I need to be like the ruthless sadistic person who's going to cross-examine you to death.
And then there are cases where like my job is to be consolatory and friendly and keep the energy of it, you know, in a calm place.
And you know, there's a saying I memorized years ago from recess, because people used to say to me like, how do you represent?
Like, how do you, like, eviscerate someone on cross-examination?
Like, how do you go at someone the way you have to as a lawyer sometimes?
And I think anyone who's ever been in the military and had to be in combat or anyone who's ever
had to, like, do things that feel, like, harsh or amoral or immoral.
There's a line for Bresa Sardinicus where he said, I've resigned myself to temporary complicity
with evil in order to accomplish certain specific objectives for people who's suffering
is more important than my need to maintain moral purity.
And so I feel like in my line of work,
I don't have a need to maintain moral purity.
Like I represent the good guy, I represent the bad guy.
Like, I'm a weapon.
And you point the weapon.
And a weapon in the hands of someone who's a good person
can protect and save.
And a weapon in the hands of a villain is a very dangerous thing.
But I'm the weapon.
And I don't always believe in the client.
But I don't just represent the client, I represent the system.
And I always believe in the system.
Like, I think our legal system is a good legal system.
It's got problems.
Like, we have the worst legal system except for all the other ones, you know.
And I believe in it.
And I think you get to be part of justice happening.
Yeah, it's interesting.
My husband always says this line from Ender's Game, which is about war.
Yeah, and how we will debate the morals of war after we've won it.
Yeah.
And I think there's a lot of similarities.
Well, and I think your husband would understand what I consider to be, you know, the world needs bad men.
We keep the other bad men from the door.
I think that's true.
And I think that that's something what we have to do.
And I think that a lot of the first 20 years of my profession was about becoming a weapon in a courtroom and honing that craft and honing.
that skill. And about five or six years ago, because I wake up at 4 a.m. every day and it's really
quiet, I just started writing the book, just as sort of something to do to use a different muscle.
And I started to write this sort of like reverse how to book. It was like a how not to,
like how not to screw up your marriage. And I suddenly like had a book. I found I'd written a book.
If you write a page a day, in a year you got a book.
And I remember thinking, oh, this is a completely different thing.
And I wonder if this will hurt the world's perception of me as this weapon and as this.
And I'm very happy to say it hasn't.
No.
Tell them the title in the UK again.
I really like that.
Yeah.
So the title in the U.S.
is how to stay in love, practical wisdom from an unlikely source.
And in the UK, is why I love the UK, is how to not fuck up your marriage, which I thought, I like it better.
I like it better. I like it better. But I do like this cover a lot too. And I think one of the interesting parts, too, I've met, like we have a dear friend whose name is Roy Altman. And he is one of the youngest, I'm going to get it wrong. He's a judge in Florida. And I think one day potentially will be on the Supreme Court. And he is an appointed judge.
Okay.
federal judge.
Okay.
And anyway, his memory recall of both for the law and quotes and scripts reminds me a lot of you
in a different way.
It's a weird skill you guys have.
But it's in the book too and in your quotes, which is this interweaving of 25 years of
experience from being an attorney, but also this like double life you have of reading all
of these laws continuously.
And then, I mean, I have to assume that you're a big, you seem, you've mentioned a few
poets. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. No, I'm very, I read constantly. I love literature. I love poetry. I love
film. I love art. I, I, I've always been a person who love to travel and to sort of take in
things from other cultures. So, yeah, I think that everything I do is infused. Like my Brazilian
Jiu-Jitsu, my interest in feudal Japan and sort of the ideas of like, you know, Bushido and the
Warrior Code and things like that. That infuses my practice. My undergraduate degree in psychology
and my interest in Carl Jung, my interest in psychedelics, like all of the things that these
have all infused what it is that I do. My upbringing, I was raised very religious. I was raised
very dogmatically Catholic and then went all the other way and became a total atheist and then
somehow found myself back in like this happy agnostic middle place. Yeah, I think that all of it
infuses, you know, the way that I, I think how you do everything, anything's how you do everything.
I mean, I really do. I think that we, if we bring the fullness of ourself to whatever the task is,
it's going to be infused with all the best parts of us.
It's so good. What is your favorite? Just as like a pure, this is a curious question for
Cody, not even for anybody listening, but like, you've mentioned a few poets and a few
fiction books. Like, what are your favorites? What are the, what's your favorite poem of all
Time.
My favorite poem of all.
Is it the Prozky?
Probably would be a song by Joseph Brodsky.
I think that's a beautiful, beautiful poem.
A summer one.
Yeah, I love that one.
Gosh, of poems.
I think Alan Ginsberg, some of his poems are incredible.
There are, I would say, let it enfold you by Charles Bukowski.
Charles Bukowski.
Yeah, so I would say probably my two favorite poems other than a song by Joseph Brodsky
would be Bluebird by Bukowski and let it enfold you.
Let it enfold you, I think is, I still can't get all the way through Bluebird without crying.
Get out.
Like, if I read Bluebird out loud, I get halfway through it and start crying.
Oh, mine is on writing by Bukowski.
Have you read that one?
Oh, yeah. That's a really powerful.
Especially as an author.
You know, that line about like the libraries of the world have yawned themselves to sleep by another book as a business card.
You're just like, fuck.
You're right.
Don't write a shitty book.
But it's interesting.
You like cynical Bukowski.
Yeah.
And I like.
I like
I like
this world has exhausted me
in some house
I haven't given up
Bukowski
Like let it enfold you
is about like
how broken he was
and he still found beauty
in the world
and bluebirds about that too
so those are
those are my favorite poems
but I don't think on writing
is cynical by Bukowski
because the last lines about like
you know either it'll die
inside you or you'll die if you don't write it.
No, it's meant to be inspirational.
It's not cynical.
But he was also a psychopath too.
Yeah.
Some of his stuff.
Yeah, I mean, some of the greatest artists, I think, are.
In all genius, there's madness.
I mean, I've represented some of these people and they're divorces, some musicians that are
incredibly gifted and they're really disturbed people.
But authors, I mean, I would say, I think the book that I find most powerful to me is all
the light we cannot see by Anthony Dorwer.
I think that's a beautiful book because I don't, I think what it's about isn't what it's about.
I think it's about like what does it mean to be human and love and the complex nature of human beings.
I just read an amazing book by an author named Jason Green.
It's a pretty new book.
It's called Unworld.
Arguably it's about like artificial intelligence, but it's really not.
It's about grief and loss and love.
It's still in hardcover.
It's a brand new book.
I bought it as like on a whim.
Anthony Jesselnik recommended it and I was like,
oh, I'll get it.
And I bought it and I was going to Vegas
just for like to play Blackjack
and have a nice, like, fun weekend.
And I'm sitting by the pool at the Palazzo crying.
Yeah, that was going to see that.
Like crying like a little, like,
like, because there's some passages in it
that are just so well written
that I would get mad at it
because I was like, we'll never write anything that good.
But also like some of it is just so,
it's so moving of a book.
It's just about like what is, what is consciousness?
What does it mean to love someone and lose them?
And I'm sitting by the pool at the plaza, like, really, like tears coming down my face,
trying to look like, oh, no, I'm just, you know, I got sunscreen in my eyes.
But it was so unwhirled by Jason Green.
That would be another one.
But, yeah, I mean, poetry has always spoken to me.
I was from my mother was a very, my mother was very moved by beauty.
And I was very lucky for that.
thinking about her a lot today because it was 10 years today.
And whenever I think about her,
I, you know, the longer that she's gone,
the more I see the pieces of me that are born of her
because those pieces are like the only way I get to see her now.
And something about her that was so amazing
that I didn't understand when I was a kid
is how she would just be moved to tears by things.
Like she'd be singing along with a song and just start crying.
And I, as a kid, like I was like,
Like, what's the matter?
Like, you know, like, did you like skin your knee?
What are you doing?
And it was just, she's like, oh, it's just so pretty.
And I would find myself going like, oh, wow, okay.
Like, like, and that was okay, you know.
And I never, I never let the experience of being a man beat that out of me.
Yeah, to still have the ability to have.
Yeah, to still be moved by beauty.
Like, I would cry from beauty much more than I ever cry from pain, you know.
And so I think poetry is still a way to, like, deeply connect to that.
With this book, who do you hope reads it and what do you hope they take away?
Gosh, there's a whole bunch of people I hope read it.
I hope that people who are just getting into relationships read it because I think you could give them some skills that they can use early on.
Because I think it's a whole lot easier to stay in good shape than it is to get super heavy and then try to lose all the weight.
So I think like it's a whole lot easier to like stay in love than it is to be in love, let it fall apart, neglect it, and then try to,
find your way back. But I hope that some people find it who maybe are starting that slide
and say, okay, is there a way to turn this thing around? I hope some people who are way down deep
in that valley of it will read it and either realize, okay, maybe there's a path or, okay,
there isn't. Because I think, you know, you and I have both found in our lives that sometimes
happily ever after means happily ever after separately. And that, you know, the,
barn burns down and now I can see the moon, you know? Like, and I think that, you know, you,
you are the sum of all of these things, you know, and, and as two people who divorced and then found
love after our divorce, and even my ex-wife, she's been remarried for 15 years to an amazing
guy. Our son just, our oldest son just got married a couple of months ago and we're all at the
wedding together. And I'll tell you a funny story. We're sitting at the wedding together. And my,
my daughter, my now daughter-in-law,
they were law school sweethearts, my son,
and she's this brilliant lawyer, and she's beautiful, and she's smart.
She's just an amazing young woman.
And they wrote their own vows.
And so my son, you know, gave his vows, and they were very lovely.
He has some of his dad's performance skills.
And he, but he's more intelligent.
He's more like academic and wonky.
And then she started her vows.
I'm going to try to get through this
without getting misty-eyed
and she's like
you know you're the strongest man I know
you make me feel so safe
like you're
and I was like
oh shit
like I taught him the cow says moo
like I had some piece in that
like and that
this was the goal
like this was the goal
to make that kind of man
that a woman that amazing
would feel
feel that way about.
And so she's reading these vows and all of a sudden, you know, just that's it.
You know, tears are start pouring out of me.
And my niece is sitting next to me, like very subtly hands me a tissue, you know.
Thank you.
And my ex-wife who's sitting next to me, who I'm still friendly with, leans over and goes,
you're such a fucking pussy.
And I was like, yep, that's my life.
That's my life right there.
You need both.
You do.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was like the real yin in the end.
You got him.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was amazing.
It was an amazing moment.
And I told my son about it later.
He's like, yep, that's mom.
That's mom.
I feel like I kind of like her.
Yeah, she's great.
Oh, I do too.
Please.
What are my thing?
There's a lot of people I love
and wouldn't want to be married to.
Oh, same.
She would say that about me.
She was like, oh, Jim's great in the rear of your mirror.
Like, he's a great co-parent.
I'm a great ex-husband.
By the way, the skill set for an ex-husband,
the resume for an ex-husband, totally different than for a husband.
Like, I'm bad at husband.
Husband, I have to be like, yeah, tell me about your day.
Oh, really?
Like, I'm not.
I'm like, come on, we got to land this plane.
Like, let's go.
Come on.
I got to skip to the end, you know.
And I, I, but ex-husband?
Ex-husband, reliable, punctual, reliable when it comes to the kids.
The check shows up on time.
Everything great.
It was great at being an ex-husband.
I always joke with my husband.
I'm like nannies.
I have a lot of rules when it comes to nannies.
I want to end on this one, actually.
I want to get your take on it.
And my two main rules are, I have age and weight minimums.
And they're pretty high.
They're pretty high.
Because I've seen what people do with their nannies.
Well, you know, there's a chapter in my book called Everyone's Fucking the Nanny.
Okay, it's true.
So am I right?
Do age and weight minimums help?
What are the real?
No, they don't help.
God damn it.
They don't help that much.
I mean, definitely don't go for like the super hot Polish nanny.
Like the Brazilian pair?
Terrible idea.
Absolutely not.
Well, I'll tell you two nanny stories very quickly.
Okay.
One is, I tell us.
in the book, there's a story about a guy. They hired a nanny. The husband decided to try to
convince the nanny to have a threesome with he and the wife without telling the wife he was going to
try to encourage her to do this. And then went to the wife and said, oh, the nanny wants to have a
threesome with us. And the wife was like, I don't think we should do that. And the nanny was like,
I don't think we should do that. And he was like, no, no, the other one wants this and did
and he somehow convinced both of them. And so they ended up having a threesome. It would happen every
couple of months. They'd have threesomes together. And then one night, wife is out. And he says to the nanny,
hey, she's not home. Why don't we? The two of us. And she's like, well, that wasn't the deal.
The deal was I thought we were doing like a group thing. And he was like, oh, no, it's no big deal.
She'd be fine with it. And the nanny a couple of weeks later says to the wife, by the way, you know,
the other night he approached me like and said it would be okay with you. And the wife was like,
yeah, that's not okay with me. The p.S of the story, the wife left him for the nanny.
and they lived happily over after.
Last time, this was like 12 years ago, they're still together.
That is the best karma I've ever heard in my whole life.
Yeah, so I was like, that is the risk of trying to convince the nanny to get involved in a threesome.
But I talk about in the book what I call the nanny fascination,
and I actually think that there's a fairly benign explanation for it,
and that is that the nanny, the nanny in some ways represents a lot of the aspects of the wife
before you guys had kids.
she has a life outside the home
she you know has interests
outside the home
she is still something of a mystery
to you and you're a mystery to her
she likes the father because he's like the dad
and it's kind of cool and you know and he's also
there's a you know there's an economic aspect
to their relationship that makes it very simple
that it's like I pay you you take care of the kids
and what I said the solution to it is
is actually not hire really unattractive nannies
because there are some examples even of celebrities
who have left for far less attractive people
There's a lot of celebrities have left for nannies and a lot of non-celebrities have left for nannies.
I actually think the secret is a pretty easy one, and that is reclaim the parts of yourself that were part of the nanny.
Like I think that a woman, particularly when you have children, there's a tremendous temptation to spend a lot of your time and energy focused on your children, to take whatever time you have left over, focus it on your husband.
And I think that there is tremendous value in really continuing to have the you, the me, and the we.
and to take time to be yourself, like to do the yoga class, do the Pilates class, go out with the friends, join the book club, do whatever it is that made you uniquely you and kept you as something other than just a mom.
Because being a mom is such an all-consuming task that, of course, it's understandable to say, I want to devote all of my attention and time to it.
But there is tremendous value for you, for your spouse, for your kids, for the betterment of this ecosystem that is your home.
in maintaining your connection to your true self
and who you are independently of the family.
So I think that's the lesson that can be learned
from the nanny thing.
But yeah, the nanny thing's a thing.
God, I knew it.
This is so good.
Yeah, you've got to be careful with the nannies.
So family members always the best.
Like, I've only had a couple of divorces
where someone was sleeping with someone's family members.
I've done a few of those, though.
Cousins, sisters, brothers.
I'm just going to have to not ask you some questions,
you know, because I don't want to know.
You know what's funny is they've been doing this so long
that every once in a while,
like I'll share with somebody like something that happened in a case.
And they're like, oh my God.
And I'll go, oh, I guess that is weird.
Yeah, but you just don't, like you just don't, you know, to like it.
I don't know, it's what I do.
That's so true.
Yeah, I just see, I navigate this weird world, you know.
Well, I just want to say thank you so much for coming today.
I have loved going down the rabbit hole.
I want people to follow you on all the socials.
I find your TikTok and Instagram to be fascinating.
I like the show that you're doing now too.
Better call Sexton.
Yeah, where you have people ask you questions.
Really good.
And then obviously read the book.
I have to stay in love.
James, thanks for radio.
Great to see.
Absolutely.
Thanks, God.
