Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Divorce lawyer's SECRETS for marriage, SEX, LIES, & LOVE | James Sexton

Episode Date: December 24, 2023

Divorce lawyer's SECRETS for marriage, SEX, LIES, & LOVE | James Sexton

When a woman has been cheated on and a man has been cheated on, the question they ask is different. A man asks, did you have sex with him? And the woman asks, do you love her? Just like a surgeon looks at a person's body differently. I look at marriage different. Look, all marriages end. They end in death or divorce.

So what happens in between is what's mattered? Was it lovely to be loved? And was it lovely to have someone to love? I wish people could hold on to that. Because to love anything is to accept the inevitability of losing. Do you have any like all-time, the worst divorces? The chapter, everyone's fucking a nanny was a true story. And that's one of my favorite stories, only because it has a karmic piece to it.

They have this very cute nanny. And he convinced his wife, he's like, Let's try to get the nanny to have it's recent ones. I went to law school to be a divorce lawyer. Oh, okay. So, which is a rare thing. You know, I think it's very funny when you ask someone who's a divorce lawyer, how did you become a divorce lawyer? You always hear two words that I think are very funny to hear in his story.

And that is, I ended up. I ended up. you never end up somewhere you meant to go like it's always like yeah i was trying to get to giant stadium and then i ended up taking the wrong road and i all of a sudden i'm in rutherford you know like you you it's never a good thing usually i ended up there you know yeah my luggage ended up in Tulsa you know but so i whenever you ask a divorce lawyer how you come to worstler there was like well i was working in a firm that did this and then i this and then i ended up taking a case. The words ended always end up in there. And I always thought it was really funny

because it's just not something like if you meet someone who works for Scadden or Simpson Thatcher or any white shoe law firm, there was a well, I did a federal clerk ship and then I did this and it's never well I ended up like it's always it wasn't consolation prize, you know. But I went to law school to be a divorce lawyer. I my undergraduate degree was in psychology. I wanted to be a therapist. But I was always. is a debater. I had debated in high school at a fairly high level. Like my freshman year, they put me on the varsity team. And I just enjoyed debate. And I figured out pretty quickly that as a therapist, you're really supposed to listen more than you talk. And I'm better at

talking than listening if you haven't figured that out. And so I said, okay, that's not the career for me. So I went to graduate school and I was studying culture and communication, persuasive speech. I was basically studying propaganda studies. And I was teaching at NYU. I'd finished my master's degree. I was working on my PhD. And then I realized how little money college professors make. And I went, okay, my son had just been born my first child who's now 27. He's a lawyer. Now he's an ADA in the Bronx. So he's put people in jail. and in the Bronx people still commit crimes so you know that's like one of those places where people still are he's got job security uh and I decided well you know what I always like debate

I always liked to sort of you know weaponize my verbal abilities so let me take the law school admission test and I took it and I got in the 99th percentile and I got to go to the law school for free so um but when I went to law school I remember thinking well I don't I don't want to do corporate law. I don't want to be a highly paid proofreader. I don't want to do transactional stuff like real estate and bankruptcy or immigration. Criminal law sounded really interesting to me, but I was honest with myself that the people who commit interesting crimes and have money usually only do it once. And the people who commit really interesting crimes frequently usually have no money. So you're not going to get paid a lot. Right. So I kind of went,

well where else could I get courtroom work other than and personal injury sounded no fun to me because personal injury work you're essentially staking your own money like your own time and if you win okay you get a return if you don't you lost and I'm not that much of a cowboy like I just don't enjoy gambling that yeah so a lot of people don't realize that that a hundred percent yeah and if you've ever been around a personal injury lawyer when there was a defendant's verdict like that it's like somebody killed their puppy. Like they're like, oh, you could see them doing the math in their head going like,

oh my God, I've spent so many hours and so much of my own money. So I sort of went, well, look, you know, the weather man have it good. You know, if you get the weather wrong, you still get paid. You know, you get it right. You still get paid.

So I went, well, divorce slayer. If you win, you get paid, you lose, you get paid. Like, I'll do that. And I also liked that it checked some of the other boxes, you know, gave me that courtroom stuff that I like, the performative streak that I like. And it also, what I liked about the potential of being a therapist, which was helping people who are going through a serious time and sort of an opportunity for transformation. And I like the fact that people couldn't be full of shit when they're getting divorced because no one could ever say they meant to be there.

You know, that's what I think you and I have in common in terms of the stories we tell or help facilitate people telling is no one meant to be in jail. no one meant to be getting divorced. Yeah, I was, I was going to say it's funny every time I would, I would, I'll meet people and you'll meet some, you know, a woman or a guy or something. They'll say, you know, oh, yeah, well, I'm divorced. I'm like, oh, I'm sorry. And they'll say, oh, no, I'm glad. And I'm thinking, really?

And I've always, I've always been like, well, I mean, I'm sorry because I know you didn't enter into that marriage thinking you were going to get divorced. That's what I mean. And you know, the jerky thing for them to say, oh, I'm not. okay i get it yeah you know i think i know what people mean i and i think you do too when they say that and that is that people do sometimes i i think that what people mean to say when they say oh i'm sorry like i i i never make someone feel odd about that like my the eighth anniversary my mother's passing away from cancer just past past sunday and i was when i tell people oh i was

doing this because it's the anniversary of my mom's passing. They go, oh, I'm sorry. And of course, I understand what they mean, which is I'm sorry for your loss. But there is a part of you that if you have a dark sense of humor, it's like, well, you didn't kill her. Like, you didn't give her cancer. Like, what are you sorry about? Like if sorry is, I am sorry for my responsibility for what occurred. So like divorce, like I'm a divorced person. I'm thrilled that I got divorced. I did it, it was, it turned out to be one of the greatest things that happened to. me and to her. You know, we're still dear friends. We have one of her sons together. We're now adults. She's been remarried for 12 years to a wonderful guy who's a much better fit for her.

And we all, everybody gets along and, you know, really enjoys each other. But was it terribly painful when we were going through? Of course, it was very painful. So when someone says, I'm sorry, I hear it as I'm sorry you went through that, not I'm sorry that happened to you. Like I, you know, you're someone who's been through tremendously stressful and traumatic things. And I'm sure that you're not sorry that they happened to you because you, you wouldn't be who you were or were it not for the things you've gone through. Yeah, I understand what they meant. I mean, obviously, when they always say, but it's funny that people, I mean, I don't think

I've ever met anybody that didn't say, you know, where I'd say, I'm sorry. And they immediately, you know, oh, I'm not sorry. That's just always like, yeah. It's like almost all of buddy. It's always like, I guess people don't want to feel wounded. I don't, I don't know. I think there people do feel self-conscious about like that there's something wrong with them. I mean, I think we have been very cruel to people when it comes to divorce.

You know, I grew up, I went to Catholic school my whole life. I'm 51. I went to Catholic school my whole life. And so growing up in the 70s and in a Catholic environment, there was like, one kid in the class whose parents are divorced. It was like, be nice to him,

his parents are divorced. But it was like the one kid, you know. Right. And he happened to be biracial too, which is like that poor fucking kid. Like, he had everything in the 70s.

These were two very complex things to navigate at Catholic school. But the truth is like, you know, I don't know that now. I wish we were a little more like, oh yeah. Like it's a chapter in a book. Like,

love is, you know, I've had some great loves in my life. Like, and I, maybe three, four, you know, and each one of them, like I used to tell my sons when they, they were five and seven when the mom had divorced. And as they got older, I would say to them all the time, like, oh, your mom's one of the great loves of my life. She made me such a better man, you know, like, and like we made our lives so much better because of each other. And, you know, we had a chapter where we loved each other in the way that married people are supposed to. but then we realized we didn't love each other in that very special way. It doesn't mean we don't love each other,

but there's a lot of people I love it would want to be married to. But, you know, we're family and we always will be. And so when you say it, if you divorce that way, there's nothing to be sorry for. You know, it's sorry for the pain you went through because every divorce is painful, every breakup is painful. But it's certainly nothing. People I think don't want to be pitied, I guess, is.

Maybe that's it. what they're what they're responding to but i think that instinct in you to say that is actually like an empathetic one you know which is to say to something like oh man i'm sorry that things didn't go the way you wanted them to but i do think sometimes the lives one of the things it's really cool about being a divorce lawyer that you wouldn't think because people are always like oh my god like how do you deal with a sea of human misery you must have to do with but there's also like so many redemption arts because like i've had clients who come in and They're just destroyed, like their spouse was cheating on them, or they've been a victim of an intimate partner abuse, or their spouse walked out on them.

And they're just sitting at my conference room table and like their life's over. Like, their life's over. They're just, they're miserable. They're crying. They're just, they don't want this, but they can't, you can't make someone love you. You can't make someone stay with you. You can't make someone not cheat on you. And they're just, they can't imagine that they're going to be okay, you know.

And then, you know, we have to go. through the whole thing. But it's like five, 10 years later, I get invited to their next wedding. You know, or they send me a holiday card or they stop in. Like, their life is so good. You know, their life is so good. And they're okay. And their kids are okay. And they find new love. And like, you know, I always say like 56% of marriage is in and divorce. And people love that statistic because they love to be like, look at how reckless it is to get married. But the more interesting statistic in my point of view is that 86% of people are remarried within five years of their divorce. So that's people who've already been through it. And they still go,

fuck it. I'm doing it again. Like, let's go. Like, let's go. So that tells me there's something there, you know. Right. So I kind of love that, that part. That's the part of it that drew me to it was the opportunity to be with people and part of the architecture of their, their redemption arc or their next chapter. And that's been really, really gratifying. Sometimes you have to wait a long time to see it. But one of the most enjoyable things I get to do now is when I have that broken person at my conference room table, I'll say to them, you know, in that chair you're in right

now, 10 years ago was a person in exactly your situation. And I'm going to give you their phone number. and I want you to call them and I want you to tell them that what's going on in your life and that I'm representing you and I want you to hear their story. And I'll, I have a roster of former clients and I've said to them, do you mind if I give a client your number so that you can say like, hey, I was sat in that chair. I know where you think you're at the bottom now, but trust me, like your life is going to be so good. And those clients like, they love that opportunity. They're always like, oh my God, if someone had done that for me when I was sitting in that chair,

like that would have been like something to hold on to so that's the joy of having done this for so long now is that I've got this whole roster of people that I can kind of you know and I can do it on the negative too. I've guys who are women who are going to do some dumb shit in a divorce litigation. I'll say okay before you do that can I connect you with one of my other clients who did the same thing for the same reasons understandable but they'll tell you how it went for them and then I'll connect them and sometimes that's really like a transformative thing for people

so I have a question and this is funny because it's actually kind of related to a friend of mine who was locked up like a year ago and he was and he's got all these stories from being locked up and he was telling me he said listen he said you want to hear one of the weirdest things I was like what he said there was this he is

there's this guy who's in for stalking I was like, okay, what did he do? He was, he, he was his wife. So they're in the middle of a divorced. Yep. He wouldn't stop calling her. He wouldn't stop coming by. She got a restraining order.

He gets locked up again because he shows up or he calls. He had been, while he was there, the guy got locked up, did like 10 or 15 days, got out, got locked up again, did like 60 days, got out. And he said, came back like two days before he was leaving. And he said, every time he was leaving, these guys in jail were like, listen, you understand. You cannot contact her. No, no, I understand. I don't know. I don't know what I was thinking.

And then he would leave him. You come back, you go, you know, I just wanted to, if I could just sit down and explain to her. If I could tell you how many times I have had that conversation with a client, it's a lot. It's a lot. and they are sincere. Like, no, no, if I can judge, the only thing I can compare it to, what it reminds me of is it reminds me of the gambler

who goes, I just got to get ahead. I just got to get. If I just, no, no, no, I know I'm 50,000 down. I just need another grand. If I get that grand, I'm going to get right back up and then I'm going to cash out. Once I get back up, now I know I'm 150 grand down now, but I'm telling you, if I get an,

and you look at them and go, do you, how do you not know how ridiculous you sound right now? Like this is no different than when you were 5,000 down and you threw another 5 on top of it, $50,000 ago. They don't see it. They just don't see it. They just don't. I've had so many clients that just do not understand that you have,

this is one of the most shocking things I tell people, is that you have the right to say to someone, never contact me again directly, period. Ever. I refuse to speak to you. And then if they contact you again, if you make clear that contacting me will serve no legitimate purpose but to harass a lawyer norm and intimidate, then if they contact you again, ever, they have engaged in harassment in the second degree, period. And you get a restraining order.

You get a restraining order. They violate the restraining order. It's harassment. They violate the restraining order. It's criminal contempt to court. Like, I've seen so many people locked up because they just do not. understand. No, no, I just have to explain to her. No, I'm telling you, she's going to understand. And it's like the human desire to be understood is like the undoing of so many people. It's like the desire for closure. There is no closure. It is not going to happen. I was so vines that. I'm like, they want to have a trial, you know, and they're like, well, no, I want her to hear. I'm like, listen, there is a moment where she's good, like, because guys, the women will say all the time, like, I want him to know what he did.

I want him to feel how much he hurt me. I want him to, I want him to regret. And I go, listen, there will be a moment where that happens. It's not going to be in a courtroom. He's in, you're probably never even going to see it. It's going to be when he's alone in bed at night when the monsters come for all of us. You know, we're years from now in that. Years from now when we're alone and the air is still and the night is silent is when we go,

you know, I was a piece of shit like that's what our demons come for us. And I said, I'm like, and you think he's going to call you in that? You're kidding yourself. But just know that, you know, if your truth is like, my beliefs don't require you to believe. You know, the truth is the truth, whether you believe the truth or not. Truth is the truth. So there is a desire humans have for some kind of closure or some kind of aha moment. And I just, I don't know.

I think sometimes it's like a siren song that just leads us to the crash because we just want. to be heard and understood so badly and we're just willing to just sacrifice so much to try to for that illusion you know and it's a myth it's it's a siren song you think it's more of men that do this or women or is it 50 50 50 I think it's 50 yeah I think it's I don't think either either gender has the market cornered on delusion and on you know men I heard an interesting comment once in my experience has proven it true because I work in the clay of adultery. You know, adultery is either a cause or an underlying symptom of a lot of the marriages that end up in my office. And someone once pointed out to me, and it's absolutely true

in my experience, is that when a woman has been cheated on and a man has been cheated on, the question they ask is different a man asks did you have sex with him and the woman asks do you love her and that's proven to be true in my experience is that men are very like possessive of a woman's body and possessive of their right to intimacy with her or or the access they have to her as an intimate partner and women are more tied to like your bond with me, your connection to me, your devotion to me, your loyalty and love for me. And so I think men and women are, they engage in that same behavior, that same delusion, that same, but to different ends. Because with the woman, it's like I want to understand how you could do this to me. I thought you felt

this way and you couldn't feel this way because if you really felt that way you wouldn't do this to me and men it's more obsessive about details like men are just obsessed with the details of infidelity like they are just here's where were they and where what position was it or like well they want to know everything they think it's going to make feel better it never does in my I can't imagine it oh my never does like I don't want to know you kidding me why would you want to know it's like when guys talk about like a woman's body count like they're like well you know how many women did she's how many men did she sleep with before you i'm like i don't want to know and i don't want to have to tell you how many women i was with before you like i just look

we're all born and new in a relationship so you know judge me by how i behave towards you if i cheated on somebody else it doesn't mean i'm going to cheat on you you know if i was happy with someone else doesn't mean i'm going to be happy with you if i was not like i don't buy that so i i have a okay yeah i i wish i hadn't watched that it interview because I'm going to ask some of the same questions. I do have I one of the questions is that you know and I I already know the answer to this but it's funny that real quick I want to mention that it's something that you had you had brought up was I think the the love thing will like people going out and getting married again right away whatever people ask me like in my own story when when the girl

with at the very end of my little, you know, being on the run, guys are like, when you found out that you, she knew who you were, why didn't you leave? All I ever have to say is I was in love. And every guy is like, they totally, like, all those rules go out the window the moment you're in love because of that feeling. And, you know, and so. I would actually overly even simplify it, drill it down beyond that. That's even a more complex emotional state. like to say I was in love that's sort of like I had rose colored glasses on you know and that that's when you're wearing rose colored glasses all the red flags just collect flags you know but I I I jokingly have said that there was a couple of relationships I stayed in way too long just because they were

good in bed like we were just good and bet like honestly like I was I was dating her for a month because I really liked her and thought we were compatible and then we were together for a year and a half because she, you know, was really good and bad. Like, that's really, you know, but, but it's, but it's true. Like, there's so much we will overlook. Like, there's a lot of people that would say, oh, I stayed with this person because they were very reliable or they were very financially secure or my parents liked them. Like, people stay in relationships for very odd reasons. You know, sometimes they'll, they just have invested so much time. They're like, I am not. It's like people's investments. You know, I bought this stock a long time. I'm not going to

sell it now and it's like well yeah but you should you know like but yeah i think people do um you know people will under do under say anyone who's ever been you know there are people that say that love is a delusion brought on by inadequate lighting you know and and anyone who's ever been under the spell of love knows what it feels like to go yeah but that's nothing no like it's i love this person like you can just overlook everything but You know, in my line of work, it's fascinating because it goes the other way fast, which is that same phenomenon that like, oh, like everything this person does just see it in the best possible light.

And even the things they do that might be annoying if someone else did them, you're just like, oh, it's so cute. Like she snores. Like it's so cute if she snores. Like meanwhile, anybody else would like, fucking stop snoring. Jesus, you know, but like in the early days. Like, that's just so lovely that this sperm care. If you're in love with a person, you just don't fucking care, you know.

But it goes so easily the other way when the relationship ends, like, that they can do nothing right, that they're just horrible. Like, I've had cases where, you know, a client will just like do the right thing, like, just because it's the right thing to do. Like, they'll be like, well, no, she wants the kids for Thanksgiving so she can have it. She's like, well, you know, obviously you gave me them for Thanksgiving because I did, you're like, dude, he just did something nice. Like just because he cheated on you Doesn't mean there's nothing good about him ever Like right It's just not how it works

Like people aren't all good and all bad Like this is what is this pro wrestling Like this is ridiculous This is real life So Um What like what do you have any like all time The worst divorces

The like the worst case I mean There's so many The last chapter of of my book is the final chapter, or may it even be the epilogue, is called cannibals. And I wrote it about a divorce that was finishing as I was finishing the book. And it was like it had gone on for four years. And you could actually use that divorce in law school to reverse engineer everything people

shouldn't do when they're getting divorced. They just did everything they could to kill each other in the divorce and ended up just destroying their own lives in the process, like protracting it, burning millions of dollars in council fees. Like it was just ruining their children, ruining any goodwill between them. And it wasn't that sexy. Like it was just a succession of really small, best. choices that just led them down this path where they just kept finding the permission of

their own conscience to do the wrong thing. And so in reality, to me, that's the worst. The worst is when people just make these small, terrible choices. Like you and I are both fit guys, you know. And I think when you have a healthy lifestyle or healthy body, you realize it's it's not like well what did you eat on Saturday you know whatever you ate one day it's not if you go on vacation for a week like eat whatever the hell you want on vacation you know it's small choices you make every day do I do my little half an hour workout or hour workout do I try to eat healthy you know most of the time like yeah like that's kind of how you you don't just gain weight in one day you it's a lot of little stupid bad choices you know and you don't get fit in one day it's a lot of

little healthy choices. And it's the same kind of thing. I think that, you know, a lot of these, it's like I, you know, on fire of the vanities, Tom Wolfe, one of the characters is talking about how they went bankrupt. And he says, well, I went bankrupt the way everybody goes bankrupt very slowly and then all at once. And I think that's what happens. You know, it's most, to me, the most painful things to watch are people making small bad choices that just lead them down this path of ruin that they don't even realize. Like, it's like when your clothes just start getting tight, like slowly. It happens so slowly that you're like, wait, how did this happen?

You know, and I think that to me is the most holy shit. But most of the time when someone asks, like, I don't really go to parties, but if I went to part, when I used to go to parties, people would say like, oh, what do you do for a living? Oh, I'm a dorsal. And holy shit, you must have stories. And they don't want to hear that story. They don't want to hear the like small succession of bad choices. They want to hear about the Methodist minister who was like 60-something years old and happily married,

but having sex with a 22-year-old, Guyanese male immigrant and who then as his defense tried to claim that the sex that they had had was not consensual, meaning that so he was, he claimed that he'd invited this young man over to dinner while his wife. was away just to have dinner with him. And then he was doing the dishes and the guy came up behind him and began having sex with him. But it wasn't consensual. And I said, so are you saying he raped you? And he said, well, no, I didn't tell him to stop. But I didn't tell him that he could either. So I was like, okay, so you resisted in some fashion. And he said, no, no, I allowed it to happen. I'm like, okay, then it was consensual that. And he's like, well, no, because I didn't

explicitly tell him. I'm like, listen, I, as a heterosexual man, if someone came up behind me and started even attempting to have sex with me, I would say, hey, excuse me, I'm not, you know, let's not do this, perhaps, you know, like, let's just be friends. And, uh, at a minimum, that's how I would handle that. And, uh, and he just, you know, would not, but then it turned out he'd embezzled a bunch of money from the church. I mean, like, those cases are, I have so many bizarre, salacious, only like a hundredth of them ended up in the book.

Like the chapter, everyone's fucking the nanny, was a true story, absolute true story. And that's one of my favorite stories, only because it has a karmic piece to it. And that is this guy who was kind of a dick, he wasn't my client,

but I'm not the kind of guy that, like, if you're not my client, you're the dick, and my client's the hero. Like, I acknowledge that I represent good people and bad people, whatever. I don't wear the white hat, you know, like I'm a weapon. You know, you point me at the person. That's it. And the weapon in the hands of a good person can save people and protect people. And the weapon in the hands of a villain can hurt people.

But I'm, it's, don't get mad at the weapon. Right. And I, this guy convinced his, they have this very cute nanny from South America. I think she was Brazilian, and he convinced his wife, he's like, let's try to get the nanny to have a threesome with us. And she was like, no, like this is like our nanny. We're paying her. It's inappropriate, you know, and he said, oh, come on, you know, she's cute, she's fun.

Like, let's, you know, and he, um, he convinced his wife. And then he went to the nanny and he said to her, look, you know, my wife thinks you're really attractive. and she wondered if we could have a threesome. And so the nanny goes to the wife and says, listen, did you really say this? And she said, yeah, you know, I think it would be fun, whatever. So they get drunk and they end up having threesome. And they end up doing this pretty frequently for like six months.

And then one day the wife is out and the husband goes to the nanny and is like, hey, what do you say you and I? And she says, no, no, no, I don't want to have a thing with you. It's, you know, either three of us or not or nothing. He didn't like that. But the wife, I guess sometime later that week, gets home and the nanny says to her, you know, he tried to sleep with me. And the wife gets very upset about this. The P.S. of this is within a month, the wife and the nanny left the husband and took the kids and divorced him. And then they subsequently have married each other and are quite happily married and have custody of the kids.

wow about the threesome gone wrong I was going to say first of all they always go wrong like they I don't ever I can't imagine a married couple

having a threesome and that marriage gets stronger as a result of it and goes on and becomes super healthy like if I'm sure I've heard a threesome workout is if it's like

both parties are into it and they do it like on vacation with someone they're never going to see ever again. And it's just a thing that happens and it has no connection to their life. Like it's like it's like on vacation. They did this thing and that's the thing and that's sad. And it was something both of them, both of them approached in roughly the same way. Like if one person initiated that conversation, that's the person who there are going to be

hurt feelings against that person at some point. But I totally agree. I mean, I totally agree that that is a, it is a red flag when somebody in the relationship goes, maybe we should invite someone else into the bedroom. Hey, so which one of those two couples or which one of those two parties did you represent the husband? The wife. The wife.

Oh, the wife. Yeah, the wife. How did that conversation go? You know, every one of these kinds of conversations goes the same way. And that is that they say to me, you're not going to believe this story. or well I've got a unique one for you and I'm like okay like it it never is it never is it's like while I secretly add two girlfriends or I this and I'm like aha like you don't know how fucking vanilla you are buddy like this is not like this is this is this is this one was different

you know the first person it this one they said she said it and it was her and her friend so the girl was with her right on the on the on the in the meeting just as though this is my friend whatever name was. And I said, hi, nice to meet you. A lot of times people do bring somebody because it's a stressful, scary thing, talk to a divorce lawyer the first time. And she's telling me this story. And I'm going, thinking, okay, this is a unique story, you know? And I realized that the girl who's with her is the nanny. Right. And then now that they're together. And I'm, I'm just trying to, but what's interesting is when that happens, you really do have to be sort of on you can't go

fucking really you serious like you have to you know like I I've all been joked with my law partner that like what would happen if somebody was telling us their story and I was going oh my God what are you going to do like holy shit like that's nuts oh my God like

you don't want like your lawyer you just want them to just uh huh sure sure okay oh and then uh huh yeah that happened sure like you have to but you develop this I mean in court you know your honor the suggestion that my client has an alcohol problem is utterly devoid of basis in fact this is rote speculation they're weaponizing this what about the fact your client at dw i last week last week yeah last week well obviously you know your honor listen no one

is impervious from the possibility with the the laws being where they are in terms of the blood alcohol content where it is does that conclusively prove the fact that he's had on one occasion perhaps one too many drinks and then operated a motor vehicle in order to return home to his children that night you know as well it's his fourth WI fourth fourth fourth fourth fourth one fourth okay you know to your honor

who among us as not a few you just have to find like a way to sort of go like mm-hmm sure that yep keep going okay yep but that is one where as she's telling the story I'm going holy shit this is going in the book

this is something this is this is I actually got an email from because of course you have a legal edit I had to change names and details right but people still knew who they were and it was all people that like if it was a story like that I always said to the person did you mind if I share this in the book and they were like yeah whatever as long as you change you know I gave him the changed version of it and uh you know she laugh because they're still together and quite happy from what I can tell you know sometimes when things are born of these bizarre adverse circumstances

Like the bonds that come from that are very deep. So what happened? So was it, I mean, was it, I'm not, not that, well, I'm sure there are amicable divorces, right? Like, you've had amicable divorce. Oh my God, tons of them. Okay. None. Number of them now because you kind of don't hire me if you're having an amicable divorce.

There's much cheaper options. So like if someone comes in and they're having an amicable divorce, I'd send them right back out the door. Like, I'll go, here's a mediator. Here's his number. Go do that. If it breaks down and turns into warfare, call me. But if you get, don't do it, you know, with a chainsaw. If you could do it with a scalpel.

Like, go, go do it, go do it the right way. Go do it the cheap way. Go do it the proper way. Where you're going to keep the goodwill between the two of you. It's just better on every level to have an amicable. And most divorces are amicable. Most divorces are amicable. With the nanny, was that, did that end up being amicable?

Oh, no. No. No. No. No. Well, this is an interesting phenomenon, Matt, because, you know, I like to imagine. It's never happened to me. But this is a fairly common thing that someone leaves for a same-sex partner. So like a man says, look, I'm gay. And he leaves his wife. Or a woman says,

listen, I'm in love with a woman. And this is how it is. And it's never happened to me. But I'd like to imagine that if it did that like I don't think I'd be as upset you know what I mean like if a woman I was in a relationship with said to me listen I'm leaving you for another man

that's like I won't one like you but not you right whereas if you're saying I'm leaving you because I'm in love with a woman it's like all right well I don't even have that equipment so like I feel like I'm fighting biology that I I'm unequipped to

If not, right, I think you with the same way. Right. Like, I don't serve that at this restaurant. Like, it's not that you don't like the restaurant. Like, you want sushi. This is a pizza. That's a bad choice. You want pizza.

And I'm, you know, I'm an Indian restaurant. Like, so, okay, like, we don't, you know, dislike my food. It's just, this is what you want. It is quite the opposite, really. In real life, people do not handle it. Like, because it amplifies, I think, that sense of you lied to me, like you lied to me about what you want, which is weird because I don't know that that's always the case. I think sometimes people lie to themselves.

You know, like, I've done a lot of divorces for men who came out of the closet, and they're like, I was lying to everyone that I was about being gay. I was lying to my family. I was like, I couldn't face consequences of being gay. Like, I didn't, you know, and I mean, it was a different time, I think, generationally. Like, you find yourself thinking like, all right, I get that. You know, like, I get that. We've all backed ourselves a new corner, you know, at some point in our lives, some more than others.

And I get it, you know, like, but, but in that case, he was so pissed. I mean, he lost his wife and he lost his girlfriend, sort of, you know, and he, it was good to take care of the kids. And he did it to himself. Right. He did it to himself over something fucking stupid. Like, the juice was not worth. squeeze, you know, like, I really hope you enjoyed those like whatever, seven, eight

threesomes that you got to have with the nanny because, boy, did that fucking cost you. Because this was not on his wife's radar. Like he had to, it took him a couple of months to talk and her into this for this to happen, you know. So talk about being an active participant in your own undoing. Yeah. But I think that what's interesting, the right response to that, I think is to be mad at yourself. But there's this human phenomenon where people are like, I can't fucking believe what you did to be. And it's like, you, she did to you.

What did she do? You know, like, I mean, that's crazy. Like, you, you cause this buddy. Like, you know, play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Like, I don't know what to tell you, you know. Yeah, there's so many people that typically have the, you know, inappropriate response to something. You know, they, that was a definition.

you know, fuck around and find out. Like that person fucked around and they found out, you know. And I think that turn that rage inward because, you know, you made your choices. Learn for a bit for the next relationship. So my wife had a question for you, but you've already answered it. I just don't think she, I think she had walked out when, but you're currently single. You're not with? I'm not married.

I'm not married. I'm in a relationship. Yeah. Oh, okay. Okay. I've been in a relationship for a number of years, and I'm very happy, yeah. Okay. But I, I don't, and again, I have no critique of marriage.

I think that, you know, I understand why people marry, and I'm certainly happy that they do. It provides job security for me, but I don't generally feel, because I view marriage differently than other people do, because I see it as a legal status. I see it as a, so I see. the nuts, just like a surgeon looks at a person's body differently and a car mechanic looks at a car differently. I look at marriage differently. And so I don't need the government or the state to get involved in the way I interact with another person with whom I romantically involved. But I believe I'm, you know, I'm very much a romantic at heart. I'm very much

someone who sees tremendous value in love and I'm a very monogamous guy. I've never been a guy who was interested in running around with multiple people. I enjoy being alone very much, but I also enjoy being in a relationship. I don't cohabitate with my romantic partner because I like having my own space and I I and she does too and um we have a tendency like share we share some space and then we also have our own spaces so it's kind of a nice thing you know that we have like a shared space together and then we have you know our own places to kind of go back to and retreat to and I like that for me for me relationships are about the you the me and the way and I think there's a tendency which is good for my business but I wouldn't want to emulate

in my personal life to turn the you and the me into the we and let the we just kill the you and the me. But like your wife met you and you're the one she fell in love with, like this autonomous island, this person, you know, this person that existed before her. And it's wonderful that love transforms us, but you know, you fell in love with her because she was this other person, this independent entity. And so I'm a big fan. in a lot of my writing, I just try to encourage people to remember that it's wonderful to grow together and to have intimacy with each other in terms of the ability to be yourself with another person. But don't forget who you are and who you were when you met because that's a terrible

loss to like, I love you so much that I'm going to try to extinguish who you are. That seems weird to me. Like let this person be who they are, you know, let them blossom into the fullness of who they are independently. And that doesn't, that doesn't mean you, aren't in love. It doesn't mean you're not monogamous. It doesn't mean any of those things. It just means that you're encouraging this person to be the best most authentic version of themselves they could ever be. I can't think of a better compliment at the end of someone's life than to be able to say, this person helped me become the most authentic version of myself. And to me, I love love. I love being in a relationship. I know I can't learn everything I need to know about

myself from myself. I know I can't see my blind spots. That's where they're blind spots. I need someone to help me see them. But I always, for me, want a partner who's cheering for me. You know, I don't want a partner who's an automatic yes person. But at the core, I really want someone who's like a fan. And when I'm getting it wrong, let's going to say you're getting it wrong, but I know you're capable of so much more. Like, you're getting it wrong, but you're not a bad person. You're just getting it wrong. You know? And like, they're cheering for me. And to me, that's a beautiful thing.

But, yeah, I don't think I'd ever, you know, legally marry again. But I mean, listen, with a pre-nup, like, marry as many times as you want. I mean, nothing more fun than getting married, the heart part's being, getting married. It's a blast. Oh. You're what's in the background going on. Oh, yeah. She's gone.

Yeah, that's good. Normally she would. She knows she talking to a divorce lawyer. That's right. She knows she's talking to divorce. Listen, what you should do, man. to keep my cart around. Just keep it around.

And then if she's ever, you know, not on her best behavior, you sort of go like, yeah, I was talking to sex in the other day, you know? And that's... See, I feel like I'm in a different category because... So I met my wife in the halfway house. Okay. And she was getting out of prison. And I was getting out of prison.

And we started just after that. Like, we were flirting in the halfway. house she really fell for me in the halfway house she doesn't want to admit that but that's fine um what a name for the what a name for the book you write it love in the halfway house i mean falling in the halfway house like that is um well you know honestly i this is the way i feel is like you know she's been beaten up you know by society by by just life in general so her expectations were really low like that's really the place to get one because that is you're going to get a lot you're going to get a lot for your buck because they're down on their lock they're living she's living in her dad's spare

room i'm looking pretty good yeah well i also think there is something very true about what you're saying that i think you know i don't know if you watched this is my guilty pleasure if you haven't watched it you should there's a show on netflix called love on the spectrum yeah you ever see yeah yeah two i need a couple episodes i am addicted to the show and and i'll tell you why because it's down to the core. These people just want to love someone and to be love. Yeah. That's it. There's no, they're not overthinking it because they're kind of not able to. Right. And they're not reading too heavily into anything because they can't, like they can't read cues properly because they're so on the spectrum. And they just the joy that they find of like, will you be my girlfriend? Yes. Will you be my boyfriend? Yes.

like okay great i have a girlfriend now okay i have a boyfriend now like there is something about just stripping away all of the other stuff and just going like i love stories of people that are like dude i fucked up yeah i fucked up too like you want to be fucked up together and figure it out yeah let's do that like let's just hold each other's hand and just walk through this thing and see where we can go and like he's in the background saying she's in the background saying you know that's definitely us. I mean, think about it. She's living in a beautiful story. That's a beautiful story. She's, you know, if you're, if you were the incredibly successful person and she, well, of course she finds that attractive. Right. Like, but there are people like, I have a buddy from

college I just talked to. And he's down on his luck a little bit and I helped him with some things. And he said to me like, oh man, you've been so good to me. And I said, you know, I'm like, you were good to me when there was fucking no reason to be good to me. Like, Like, I had nothing to offer you. I had nothing. I was broke. Like, I was the guy in college who would, like, go to the diner with everybody and I would eat all their coleslawn pickles because I just couldn't afford food.

Like, I literally, I could afford a pack of cigarettes or food. And I'd put the cigarettes for like a buck 50 a pack back then. And I don't, I quit smoking many years ago. But I, I look at people like that now and I just go like, man, you just loved me when there was no benefit to that. Like, there was no, like, dude, you. on paper when your wife met you, fuck that. Like there's no way. Like you are not the guy. Like you were not the guy. And yet, you know, so now like when you're ascendant and you like succeed, it's like,

man, that's a person who like, that is like I would have such loyalty to that woman. And I'm sure she has such loyalty to you because there was such a like, the fuck were you going to get out of that. You know, like you were like that's amazing. Like to me, that's where people, if they keep that gratitude, that sense of like there are fucking 8 billion people in the world. And you picked me. And you said, no, I'm in. Like, I'm going to hold your hand and walk into the fire. Whatever this looks like.

Like, to me, that's like the most beautiful thing. Like, like, how do you not love that? Like, I get misty-eyed at weddings. You know, you're going to make me cry, bro. We stop. You're going to make me cry. Look, I might also get you laid later. I mean, this is listening in here.

So this is like you get, you know, either way. I mean, you're right. Like, I'm, I'm living in someone's spare room. She's living in her dad's, a spare room. I'm, you know, we're both barely making it. You know, this is right out of the halfway house. We're both talking about, we have to get permission from our probation officers to date each other. I mean, it's, it's the most pathetic thing.

You know, we're meeting in a hotel rooms. I'm running my credit cards up, you know, just to get a hotel room. Like, it was just, it. And then, you know, and then, you know, and then. And ultimately, you know, we end up getting, you know, we end up moving in together, we get married, we, you know, so yeah, it's, it's a, that's a, I mean, that's a great, great story though. Like, it is a great story to have someone who, and see, that's why to me that I hope, look, all marriages end. They end in death or divorce, but they all end. And everything ends, right? Like, it's very Buddhist of me, but like everything ends, you know. So, like, every story ends the same. Both. of you die. So what happens in between is what matters, you know? And to me, like, I wish people could hold on to that. Like, like, it sounds like you're both still holding on to that story and that appreciation. Like, we do it in other relationships. Like, if you have a dog, like people,

you know, there's a lot of people that are dog people. I happen to be a dog person. And no one has ever looked at like an eight-year-old dog that they have had for eight years and kind of like I kind of get a new dog. I got to get a pubby. This fucking dogs all have had for like eight years. Like there's so many cooler, newer, nicer, you know, fuzzier looking dogs. Like, you'd never look at it that way. You love this thing more and more as time goes on. Like, so why, what is it about romantic relationships that were just so quick to just be like, oh, this same old meat loaf? Like, and not sort of go like, hey, this person is just, you know, they locked in with me. They're riding with me. Like, they're loyal to me. I'm loyal to them. Like, and that can just be such a,

I think, such a beautiful thing. And then if it does end, if you can hold on to, well, we had a great run, you know, like we had a great run. Like, I look at my ex-wife. We were married 12 years and we loved each other well, you know. We weren't right for each other for life permanently. But we left each other well. We did the best we could do at the time. And I'm really glad we were married. And I'm really, I don't look at that and go, that wasn't successful. Like I, I'd tell my current romantic partner, like, if you broke my heart tomorrow,

it had been worth it. It would have been worth it. Like, because, like, one day is the lion. You know what I mean? Like, I just, like, if I, one, one week of really being loved and really loving someone, break my heart. Go ahead. Break it. Like, I got to have.

that. I got to have that experience. And to me, that's it. Like, that's everything, you know. So I'll never count costs. Like, and I think that, you know, people like the relationship you have where all you had to offer each other was each other. Like, that's a really pure thing. And that's, you know, that's a really nice thing. And that's the kind of thing that if you can keep that in your line of vision, I don't think, you know, you ever end up in my office. did you ever see the movie Michael no wait no

City of Angels I don't think so well it's basically it's one of the angels decides not to be an angel he falls in love and it's gosh who is it Nicholas Cage

I did see it I did see it at the end he spends one night with her and then she gets hit the next day by a truck and it's over and his buddy's there to collect her, and he says, you know, and he's like, was it worth it? And he says Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. And I believe, I believe really that, you know, all of it is so uncertain. I have learned in my work how fragile love is. And love is never permanently gifted. It is on loan, you know. And it's either on loan with time, meaning this person,

will tie someday and be taken from us or I'll tie and be lost to them or the love changes and it no longer works, you know, for one or both of the people. But the question is, is like, was it, was it lovely to be loved and was it lovely to have someone to love? I believe it is. Like, I believe it is. I don't buy into the suggestion that, well, you know, things end this way, so why bother, you know, or you could be hurt. So why buy? Like, to love anything is just fucking crazy, like, because to love anything is to accept the inevitability of losing it. But I believe you should love anyway, you know, but I, you know, my favorite poem is a poem. If you've never read it, you should look it up. It's a poem by

Joseph Brodsky called, um, a song. And he wrote it after his wife died. And I won't, you know, but you should look it up. But, but the refrain of the poem is, I wish you were. here, dear. And it's, I wish you were here, dear, I wish you were here. I wish we sat on the porch and you sat near. It's a very sweet poem. One of the lines is, I wish you were here, dear, I wish you were here. I wish I knew no astronomy when stars appear. And I love that line because the idea that you've ever studied astronomy, like, it takes some of the magic of the stars away, you know, because you're like, oh, that's a flaming ball of gas. That's this many thousands of miles away. like whereas otherwise it's like all these little beautiful lights in the sky you know like and

i think that doing what i do for a living it's very easy to just become disillusioned with love and say like oh love is like a con love is just a con like it's just the ultimate con but i was just say one of the things you mentioned in one of the other interviews what was that you know when these people, when they're in your office or, you know, whatever, you're, you know, in the conference room and they're going at it. And he says sometimes if you can take them back to when they first met how it, they will transform back to that. And it, it, you know, they go back to that place. And I, you know, I definitely think that it's funny. I hate that I'm mentioning all these movies, but I'm not very, but Lex Predman and I, I,

half the cock we recorded for five and a half hours he edited down to like four at least two of the hours was that's talking about movies true romance made it in like four other movies made it in there was like 15 that didn't the wedding what about the uh um the wedding crashers love it at the beginning when they're in the they're fighting and he's like well what are we do in here come on let's get in here we'll get some strange like you move on you had some fun you made some bad choices together like come on what are you doing like when he gets them to talk about when they first met, they immediately started, okay, you go ahead and have that. Yeah, you're right. No, no, that's what happens. It's the truth. Because we get so invested in the

conflict that it takes on a life of its own and you forget that we loved each other. There's a poem. I see we keep bringing up movies. I keep bringing up poems. There's a poem that's called one last poem for Richard. And I forget who wrote it. You can look it up. But it's a poem this woman wrote to her ex-husband and it's just basically says well i think it's actually over now richard like and you've stormed out and you've stormed out before but this time you know you took your keys or whatever and and there's a line in it where she says you know um we we something along the lines that we loved each other as best we could you know and that there should be stars for wars like ours and champagne for the survivors you know and i really

believe that like if you kidding you know when you look back on a breakup 10 years later you look at it with such a helicopter view and like it's so much easier i'll tell you funny story so i saw i was in therapy for you know quite a bit of my 30s and 40s and then my therapist you know basically like retired. And so I had to, I went without being in therapy at all. And then I said, oh, you know, I'd want to go back into therapy. So I went to go find a new therapist. Now, I'd been with this other therapist weekly for like 20 years. So this person saw me through a divorce, the death of my mother, like my children growing, going off the college, so many things, you know. So now I'm sitting down with a brand new therapist and I'm giving them sort of the cliff notes of my life and I thought to

myself as it's coming out of my mouth like holy shit like this is just like a couple of sentence like yeah I was married for 10 years and then we got divorced and um myself like dude like your whole thing like everything you said in your soft white underbelly interview your prison everything it's like three sentences. Right. Like, three sentences. Like, if there's a Wikipedia page of you, it's like a paragraph. It's it.

And me, well, you were in it. Like, you were in it. You went through it. You had the long nights. You had the near misses. You had all. And so to me, like, if you can find a way cognitively to get to that place sooner, where you can look at it and go, all right, let's look at it in the totality of

the circumstances and let's have a little emotional distance from it and put it in context, but that's a very hard thing to do without time, lots of time. That's why would they say, like, time heals all wounds. Like, yeah, because time puts things in context, you know. So, like, if you were meant to marry your wife, and that was your destiny, you know, to love her and to be loved by her, right, and to have something with her, well, then you never would have done that if you hadn't done every fucking wrong, bad, illegal, crazy thing you did. And if you hadn't got caught, you owe the people who arrested you, the people responsible for you, you owe them a debt of gratitude. Because if you hadn't made

every one of those choices and every one of those things hadn't happened, you wouldn't have been in that exact halfway house at that exact moment. And the same thing's true of her. So I don't know to me, like that tapestry is so cool. You know, like to look at and to go like, So that's why when people get or get in divorce, like, I'm always like, why can't you just reproach the, like, hey, this is what happened. This is what it is. See it clearly. Like, we don't know if this is good or bad, but it is what it is.

It's, you know, there's a saying someone said to me once, I love it, which is, if you don't learn to find joy in the snow, you will have less joy in your life and precisely the same amount of snow. And I think that that's the truth. Like, if you don't learn to find joy, in the pain that's coming at you, then you'll have less joy in your life and precisely the same amount of pain. So you just have to make the choice to just go, okay, this is part of whatever, the universe is planned, God's plan, whatever you want to call it, karma, fate, you know, whatever.

It is what it is. And I think if people could connect to that the right way, I think I'd be out of a job at some point. I don't think it's happening soon. I was going to say there, I did I did a podcast the other day with someone we were talking about Sam Bankman-Fried. Sure. Right from FD.R.S.P. Yeah. Yeah. And we were talking about like what's prison going to be like for him. And I was explaining where he would go, depending on the time. You know, we're going back and forth and, you know, how bad will it be? And I was like, well, you know, here's the thing. If he's lucky, you know, it'll take whatever. you know well part of the problem is he's going to be but you know part of the problem is obviously

he's going to file you know he's he's going to appeal it he's going to so he'll have a couple years of hope yeah which really is a problem because it keeps it doesn't really make you realize I have to make a life in here so but once he gets past that and his expectations of life are dropped dramatically and he realizes I'm going to do some time is he federal time he's definitely federal yeah Yeah, it's federal. Okay, because I was going to say, because a lot of the problems my clients have is they end up in county while everything is pending. And actually, there's so much more in prison, like in state prison.

There's so much more in terms of resources and shit they do and quality of life to some degree. There's a lot more violence sometimes too, but there's certainly like county, if you stay in county, you're getting like, you know, additional credit for that time. But like I didn't, with federal, it's obviously it's a different animal. Yeah. I mean, for right now, he's still in, like, the U.S. Marshall's holdover. So it's basically county. It sucks. It's a better quality of criminal, but not that much great, better.

So my whole thing was once he goes to prison is that I was saying, look, at some point, you know, once he realizes, once he, I don't have access to this and this and this. And I basically have to make a life in here. And I have to get a job. And I have to keep myself occupied. And I those sort of things. And I was like, at some point, he'll get a group of friends. he'll get a group of guys that are like-minded that he can talk to that he can hang out with and if he can you know obviously the first part is that hey I made some mistakes like that's a

huge thing like going to prison is probably the only time I really stepped back and not just said yeah yeah I've you know I broke the law but really stepped back and said wow you're kind of a scumbag bro like like you've done some really shitty things you know and and stopped um you know where you basically justify, stop justifying everything, making it okay and just step back and said, hey, you're just not a good person. Like what you've done is fucked up.

But once you get, if he can get to that point, and then I was saying that at some point, though, you'll be surrounded by a bunch of guys. You'll be playing a board game or doing whatever you're doing. You will be laughing your ass off about something or talking to somebody. And in the middle of that,

If in that moment, you'll realize, like, this is a great guy. Like, these are great guys. Like, this is a great moment. I, this, there's nowhere I'd rather be right now. Like, right, this is great. And, you know, if he's lucky he gets there, I'm like, because that I think really, that's when you realize that you can be okay anywhere. Anywhere.

Anywhere, you know, and it's a great, because it wasn't until I think I got to prison, you know, and did all of those things. and got out of prison that I can kind of say, like I'm a different person that I was when I went into prison. Yeah. Myself different in the things that I did when I went in. Not that I'm saying I'm low and now I'm a really good person,

but what I'm saying is at least I can look at myself and say, here are my personality defects. Yeah. Well, and I think you have a lot less to be afraid of. Because I think when if horrible things happen or, you know, credibly traumatic things happen, you realize like the human capacity for pain, the human capacity for endurance is like so much greater than you'd think. Like, like you survived very, very difficult things. Like you're, you know,

and you, you know, I imagine that there's a period of time. I don't know how long it lasts, but you know, I just got over COVID. First time, I ducked it for almost four years and got it for the first time three weeks ago. I was quite sick for about a week. Half my voice is still kind of weak. That's why I keep coughing, as I'm still getting over it. I'm negative, no, thank God. But, you know, the first four days I could literally could not breathe through my nose and my throat was killing me like you wouldn't believe. And I remember laying in bed and thinking, oh, my God, if I could just breathe through

my nose again, I would be so happy. Like, I'll be so grateful. And I'd tell you, for about a week after I could breathe through my, I every day got up and was like, oh, my God, I can breathe through my nose. like it is going to be a good day it is going to be a good day because I can breathe through my nose I know in like three weeks

I'm just going to go back to me and the ungrateful fuck I am like I'm just not going to get up in the morning and go I can breathe through my nose look at that look at that you know good day it is a good day like I'm sure there was a time

where you woke up and we're like oh my God I'm not in jail this is awesome you know like my wife and I are I feel like I'm still like that Listen, something, that is, and that's a gift, that's a super, it is. Somebody cuts you off. There's a moment where I'm like, whoa, and then I'm like, you go ahead and get in.

Go ahead, buddy. You're a bigger rush than me. Yeah. And let me say, that is a superpower. Oh, yeah, listen, and I always say people have no idea. They have no idea, like, they have no idea how good they have it. Like, this is a magic box. Like, you have no idea.

You can turn the TV. You can eat what you want. you go to bed when you want you can you decide to work you decide that like you like the the choices that people complain about are such gifts and they have no idea how good it yeah how bad it could be well there's a line to go to movies there's a line in fight club where Tyler Durden says to the main character where you are now you can't even imagine what the bottom would be like like you can't even imagine what the bottom would be like like Like, most people, the shit they complain about, most like, I remember when I, I trained

Brazilian jiu-jitsu for many years, and I've been to Brazil several times to train. And one time we were training at a boxing gym inside the cantangelo favela. And you can't even go in the favelas, particularly the contangelo favela. It's where city of angels, city of God came from. City of God was a very good film about. Yeah, I remember. Okay. So it's run by drug cartel.

It's like if you went in, you'd just get killed. You either get killed or robbed or both. But the guy we were with who runs this boxing gym that's like for the kids in the favela is like he's a protected guy. So if you're with him, no one's going to, no one's going to bother you. So it's a big group of us and we're with this guy and everyone's just leaving us alone. And I walk through there at the level. I mean, there's just human sewage running through the things.

And you see like a little kid like dirty, like playing with the doll's head. like a broken doll's head like and I'm looking at this and going like the poorest person on Skid Row is doing so much better than anyone in this place like the wealthiest person in this favela

and we just don't like we're still so fucking unhappy so much of the time so I think when we can have that approach to life of like gratitude like a lot of what I do for a living, people's dissatisfaction with their marriage is a function of how fucking good we have it, that we just don't realize how good we have it.

Like it does not have to be, like we could just be so grateful for what we have and we choose not to be. We choose not to be. And it's to our own detriment and to our own poverty. But yeah, look, I think there's something to be said for, you know, for reminding yourself that you could do with a lot less and still survive and that you would still find moments of joy, you know, that my father is a Vietnam veteran and he used to say how, you know, in the middle of like this horrible setting, there were these moments of levity and joy,

you know, where like, you know, and I found that in my own parenting journey, like I remember I used to, I used to like want to bond with my sons, you know, I was a divorced dad and I wanted to like spend time with them and feel connected to them. and I would like make a plan like okay I'm going to make this for dinner and then we're going to do this and it would never end up the way I wanted it to I would never feel the way I wanted it to and then like every once in a while like I just wouldn't have a plan and they'd be over and I'd be like you want to go outside and throw the frisbee and he'd be like yeah sure we go outside and throw the frisbee and all of a sudden they're talking to me and like telling me about their day

and we're laughing and I'm like holy shit this is the thing I was trying to engineer like and it's just happening you know and actually you use that metaphor. I was talking to a friend the other day about sex, how, you know, all of us have had the experience where we, we're like, we're going to have like a sex night, you know, tonight. Like, we're going to get, you know, like, she got the lingerie or you got the dinner and the candles or whatever. You like make, and then it's good, but it was like, yeah, you know, like it was like a little overhyped in your head or whatever. And then we've all had the experience where it was like a random Tuesday where you didn't even think you were going to have

sex and then the two of you when you finish go what the fuck was that and you go like yeah i don't know i was who the stars aligned or i don't know what that was but where did that come from like and it was just like so good and if you tried to have it be that good or hyped it up of like you know what's going to happen this afternoon like it would be different but the fact that it just like organically happened is so and i think that that is there's something to learn there you know that like you can just sometimes the trying to make the thing happen prevents the thing from that and sometimes just letting it you know let it enfold you you know let it wash over you and i think if you if you let it wash over you it unfolds you like sometimes there's

tremendous joy that's just waiting you know what i mean in in your book do you go over i mean I mean, you kind of said it already, but do you go over, what is your, let me try and say that. Sure. Why do you feel like most marriages end? I think it's like bankruptcy. I think it's very slowly and then all at once. I think it's disconnection. I think, I think if we just took little.

steps every day to remember for ourselves and remind our partner that we love them and we chose them that we would never end up in my office. But it's little things. So the challenge I give to my male friends is to leave your wife a note. Just every day or a couple times a week, just leave her a note, like a little note. just so glad we had that date on the couch last night. I'm married to the prettiest girl in the world. You know,

can't wait to see you again. Text don't count. Just leave it. You know what? Text might count. No, text could count. Listen,

you send her a text that says, you know, I had such fun hanging out with you last night. You got to know. You got a no, by the way. Yeah. You got to know.

You got to know they count. I think the hand, I think there's something about a no. Because then they could, you know why they like shoes so much is so they can keep the fucking boxes and keep every card we ever gave them and every note we ever gave them? I think that's the truth. Because, you know, you like a girl breaks up with a guy and it's like, you know, fine,

screw you know, girl, you know, you can better tuck in for a day because there's good testimony and evidence. You know, they're going to be like, what about this card I've marked for Exhibit A that you gave me a Valentine's Day? Did you not say that you love me and would love me forever? my idol saying that well well here's the cord you set it in the car so that's why they keep all that stuff in shoeboxes but i i really do think that that if you leave a note or if there's just some small mindfulness that the connection that builds even from that like the first few days

most of my friends have been like yeah she wanted to know if i was cheating on her like she was like what the fucker why are you leaving me notes like what are you doing you know what's your agenda. But after a while, like most people, I think, figure out that like if you're really, most women, if you ask them in my experience, do you want four hours with me where I'm pretty distracted checking my phone and kind of half there but half not? Or do you want an hour where you have my undivided attention and you are the only person in the world and the only thing they will hand seven days a week and twice on Sunday. They will take the hour instead. So I think there is something to be said for just real small intimacies.

Like intimacy, we mistake. Sex is a form of intimacy, but intimacy is defined as the ability to be completely yourself with another person. And so to me, I think the thing you can do to prevent ending up in my office, before all the cheating and the finance, like all that shit is a. side effect of the underlying problem. The underlying problem is disconnection because at some point you were deeply connected. Just like at some point, you were deeply grateful you could breathe through your nose or you were deeply grateful that you weren't in prison anymore. Like, at some

point, you looked at this woman and you went, holy shit, I can't believe what I'm going to get with her. I can't believe it. Like, I can't believe like she's fucking giving me the time of day. Like, this is incredible. And she was looking at you going, oh, my God, I can't believe I found this guy. I can't believe this is the guy. Like, this is the guy. And she's still that person. You're still that guy. Like, you just forgot. Like, it's just not in your line of vision.

So to me, anything you can do that puts that person back in your line of vision, whether it's just reminding that person of a memory. Like, what do you have to lose? What does it cost? Like, what would it cost you to say to your wife after this call? You know, hey, babe, remember that time where we did da-da-da-da-da, and we did this. That was great. Like, I think about that sometimes.

Like, that's such a low percentage move. It didn't even cause the penny. It is. And I notice that periodically we do that already. You know, and you're right. Every time we've been, we've done that, there is this kind of moment, you know, there's that last, that honestly sometimes can change that the remainder of the day.

Right, right. If, you know, she's putting on chapstick. And she'll say, do you remember that night we first met and we kissed so much? Like, we couldn't see each other for four days because I'm like, oh, yeah, all right. And we were talk about and joke and laugh about that first on how bad it was. And then the next day, we're an hour later, you kiss her again. And you go, you know, I still really like kissing you. We don't kiss as much as we did those first days, but you know, I still really like it.

Like, there is something about that that's so real and transformative and beautiful and honest. like it's honest because it's it's not like you ever stopped loving this person it really is that you just the world gets in the way it gets distracting you get caught up in other things you want to be a good provider you want to be a good partner or you want to deal with all the shit that's you want to make sure the turkeys comes out right or you want to whatever you know like the truth is like at the end of the day like I said there there was 8 billion people in the world and picked each other and like I just believe that there's so much value in I even have friends who have taken the ideas from my book

and built it into their routine. So, like, I have a friend who he, they go for what they call a walk and talk and they do it every like Saturday or Sunday. And they built into that telling the other something they did that they really liked that week, you know, and or if there's something that they went the other way, sometimes work that in too, but it's usually they make a point of saying, like, oh, you know, I felt really loved when you did A, B, and safe. And I think that's such a cool thing because I know sometimes, like, I think I know everything and I know I don't, you know, and I think I

understand my partner, but I know sometimes I probably don't, like, we're a different species to some degree, you know? Right. And when sometimes she'll say to me something she liked that I did and I'll go that? Like I didn't even you know like oh you went and you know you took the recycling and didn't ask or you know like you always oh you made my tea and you like left me the tea you know and it's like

that like that was such a nothing throwaway thing or oh you asked about how my sister's doing you know and like you know I thought it was so sweet that you said that you know and I'm like really like I'm I'm like planning on like buying some shit to give to you and thought that was going to impress you this impressed you. Like it's my sister's six years older than me and I remember when I was a like young guy and she was like at her college age, we're a little older. I would listen to her

talking with her girlfriends. And the stuff that they would say they liked about a guy, like I remember being like, I should write this down. This is fucking not what we thought. Like it's rarely were they like, and he has an eight pack. Like we're not about that. They were like, yeah, he's like so like, you know, he listens to this and he said this. I'm always like, oh, okay. So, like, they're way more impressed by that, you know, like, and so it's a very, I really think sharing with your partner, no one likes, like, no one ever dislikes being told, but they did well, you know, like, no one dislikes being told you did a great job. Right. Like, so saying to someone like, oh, I loved when you did X, Y, and Z, like, constructive criticism is still just criticism. Well, you mentioned, you mentioned in another interview where you said that you had the one client.

And she said she knew, she knew it basically was that going, her, the marriage was over or going downhill when the husband stopped eyeing the granola bar or the granola. Yeah, granola for her yogurt. Which was something that was so silly and small. But it wasn't. But it wasn't. It was a symbol. Huge. Yeah.

Right. It was an indicator. It was the canary in the coal line. You know, like it was the thing. Like the granola showed you were paying attention. And when the granola stopped. it was an indicator that you're not fucking paying attention anymore you know and and and that is why like to me do you just let that go or do you go okay wait let's fix this before it becomes a real problem

like that's why the title of my book is if you're in my office it's already too late like if divorce is anything other than a passing thought you occasionally have when your stops to something particularly boneheaded like that you know most of the time like you know if it's already in my office it's bad you know it's better to just we all have moments where we just feel disconnected from our part or we feel disconnected from ourselves and therefore also our partner and that's the time to try to lean in to find in some connection and it's so easy like it's so easy to to honestly tell your partner the things they do right you know the things they do well and let those winds build on top of each other.

You know, and I've always said, like, this is a leverage that people don't exert enough because it's so easy. Like, it's so easy to, you can tell your spouse all the things that you wish they would do or that they don't do that you really wish they would do or you can criticize the things. Like, why? Like, that's not going to help. You know, why not parse it in a way?

that leans into the positive, you know, like I've always said, like rather than criticizing, if there's something you want to do in bed with your partner, rather than like, you know, just calling an audible in bed and trying it, you know, and just freaking everybody out, like, you know, there's ways or saying like, how come we never blah, blah, blah, which then is setting it up for them to explain why we're not doing that or making them feel like they've done something wrong by not doing that. Why not go, you know, I had the hottest stream about you the other night. It was crazy. Really? What was going on? I was real. I don't even know where a kid, but we were doing not something we normally would do.

What was it? And then you just, and then it's like, really? Yeah. Was that something you like, I don't know. I don't know. We've never done it. And remember we used to do that kind dream about it. It was like, ooh, everybody was brought me back to how good that was when we used to do that. Who's not going to jump on board? Who's not going to go like, oh yeah, I could do that. Like, you know, like, because it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's so subtle of a distinction, but it's a real distinction. Right. I think you're going to stay out of my office. I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got a good feeling. I got, listen, the whole time, it's just the, I'm getting the little, little tiny, little bits and pieces of, yeah,

uh-huh. I'm sending her an inscribed copy of the book. Oh, nice. I'm going to say, I'm going to say, you don't need this book but I hope you like it. What is it? Oh my God. You read L-B at all. It was a gender thing. Oh my God.

This is me mansplaining it. I mean, you know, I I think there's a lot of female divorce lawyers but I'm the only one who wrote the book so it's a weird thing it was such a good to know that both of us you know it's good to know both genders

see some of these same things you know I think these are human things like I don't I don't think that I even think they're true of you know same sex couples like I think it's just has to do with human connection I mean even a lot of the things I've said they don't even just apply to romantic relationships

they reply to you know they apply to any number of types of relationships you know interactions with family members interactions with business colleagues. Like, I think a lot of it's just how we relate to another human being. It's hard to navigate yourself, you know, much less another person, you know. So I just think it can be such a lovely thing to leverage those good things, you know. That's such a, such a, I have, for a divorce lawyer, I have an abundance of optimism. Oh, listen, what a mistake it was to mention.

Yeah. when she was leaving and she said so oh no what you said and she said um so are you who are you what are you doing today i said oh i have a i have a podcast i said you know i said it was this attorney i said i said we were supposed to do it before and then he had a um he had a trial that went longer and and then she's like who is it and i explained oh okay next thing i know sudden she's around see that oh and she knows did she watched your soft white underbelly A long time ago, okay, now Oh boy

In the background But you know, here's the thing You know, just to let you know She's unlike you and I She'll watch She also watches the You know, the fit in all ones The I can't

And I mean, we'll be at the gym We wake up around Around four And we go to the gym around like say five, five Well, you and I are in the same same habits You and her. And she'll, you know She listens to

she'll listen to the drug addicts and the this and she just and I'm like how can you watch those yeah oh okay well okay she said no I know she didn't usually watch all of them all the way through but she will watch it's like me I watch some of it and I it

I watch enough to remind me how goddamn lucky I am yeah you know and and and and also I can tell sometimes like if there's a redemption arc like because the part that's hard for me is like like I can I'm a animal person so like I can watch the thing about we found this

abandoned dog and it was near death store and it had been terribly abused and then it got rescued and now it's doing so great like that I can watch that shit all day long but if it's like and it was abused and terrible and yeah it's still kind of fucked like okay well I don't want to like now I'm just

leaving feeling terrible like so I think if it has a redemption arc it's easier to get through you know but listen those kinds of human stories are are amazing. But yeah, next time if, you know, if we have another conversation, you just have to tell her that like, oh yeah, I'm meeting with a dude

who, I don't know, makes the shit up. You like, I just out of, make me a boring white collar criminal. Yeah, I'll, like an empezzler or something like that. Ponsie scheme guy, he's not in. Yeah, but it's another one of these Ponzi guys, you know how it is, you know, yeah, you tell her you're talking to a divorce layer, he's going to be hovering nearby, you know? Why did you

write your, I mean, obviously, like, you're, I'm, this may be an assumption, but, you know, I'm assuming you obviously have a very successful practice. You know, you're doing, you're doing well. Like, why? Oh, yeah. I made no money. I mean, the book, you know, you make like a six figure advance, but your aging gets a third.

Government gets their piece of it. So I joke that I make more in a month than I did. As a divorce lawyer, I make more in a month that I didn't the whole book. Like, you make nothing on books. And you do very well as a divorce lawyer. No, I did what I did. I wrote the book because I'd been. doing the same job for 20 years at that point. And as much as I really love my work, it just felt

a little like the same thing every day. And I love to read. And I'm a big reader, a voracious reader. And I was listening to an interview with Stephen King. And he, they were asking him how he manages to write like three books a year. And he said, well, if you write a page a day in a year, you have a book. Yeah. And I thought, well, I could probably write a page or two every day. And I'm like, you, I get up at 4 a.m. every day. And I usually have about a half an hour that I drink my espresso.

I check email. I kind of just sit there and stare into the middle distance. And then I go to the gym. And because gym didn't open until five. So instead, I just would write a little bit during that window. I would get up, have a little spray. rest of them I'd write. And sometimes I'd write a page, sometimes I'd write 10 pages in that 45 minutes. But within like four months, I had a book. Yeah. And, you know, I gave it to a friend

who's a writer. And he read it and he was like, yes, it's great. He's like, let me, let me, you know, you should send it to some agents. And I found a literary agent, Richard Pine at Inkwell. And I sent it to him and he liked it. At the time, it was just a book of stories about divorces. It was not a self-help book. It was not relationship advice book. It was just like stories. And he said, this is really good. I think it would be better if it was like a self-help book. If it was the themes and then the stories backing up the themes or illustrating the themes. And so that's what I changed it to. And we shopped it out to a bunch of publishers and McMillan Henry Holt was the one that we got a couple of offers, but McMill and Henry Holt picked

it up. And they had the creative team that I really liked. It was an all female. editorial team at the time and um i thought that was really cool because it was a it was a male perspective and and i didn't because it was very much tied into like male female relationships i didn't really want it to get into like a misogynistic tone i wanted it to be something that was it had some female influence so having an editor serenna jones who's still with henry holt mcmillan um she was a great editor because she she saw things that i didn't see because i had my blind spots as a guy and um she brought asked interesting questions that i would then jump in to try to answer and yeah the book um it's been a fun little footnote you know but it my job's a

full-time job and then some i mean being a divorce lawyer is like the law is a harsh mistress like i i work all the damn time so um i say no to about 90% of the media requests that i got i once soft an underbelly hit i got invited on no joke at least a hundred other podcasts, you know, and I've turned a lot of them down because a lot of them, it's just me saying the same stuff over and over to someone who just wants content and has no real point of view that's in any way tied to what I'm doing. I was excited to do this because I've enjoyed your show and I do enjoy your show as a consumer. And, you know, I, again, you were one of the few soft white underbelly interviews I watched all the way through. And I saw so much commonality

in the way we our work for me my work is a lawyer for you at one time you're more illicit work and now I think your work doing the interviewing that you're doing and doing the perspective and writing that you're doing like we have to put ourselves in another person's mindset

and choose and try to understand the levers of persuasion and like I think that's a very interesting thing so I'm really glad we had a chance to chat you know I was looking forward to meeting you yeah and I'm definitely want to meet your wife at some point now. I feel like I know her because she's the third interview. She's, yeah, she's a character.

I mean, she's married to you. She'd have to be. Yeah. I mean, you know. She's, uh, definitely. So I, so she was in the military, got out, got married, was a hog. A tour guy. I always say hog hunting.

Basically, a hog hunting tour guide for six years with her ex-husband where they took people out and they haunted. hunted hogs and and gators and things like that in Florida then you know then she ended up they got you know they got divorced and they you know went their separate ways they got hoped on you know drugs and she ended up on a meth conspiracy ended up getting five years going to prison getting out and meeting me but so are are we have a very in some ways we have very traditional roles and in some ways it's like I tell you out of I take I take the garbage out once out of every

probably 10 I you know my old car breaks down she pulls out the jumper cables and jumps it I say she says hey you're she's a she is a marine mechanic so she works on

boat engines so you can you know you are never going to be bored my friends you are you've got a wellspring of knowledge and experience on tap right there I mean that is so it's you're not you don't meet you don't meet a hog hunter that often do you know what I mean it's just not a you know marine repair person these are these are not these are not traditional

her dowry would have been significant you know what I mean in olden times that is impressive oh yeah big on the uh if the um if the grid goes down worry well well I can hunt and I can and I'm like I'm not worried I'm not worried about the grid going down yeah yeah yeah yeah but You're like, I would prefer the grid not go down. Let's work on that. Let's work on that. Let's focus on that. You see, like, if there's a nuclear attack, I'm like, look, I want to be under the bomb.

Yeah, I want to be, I want to even not know what happened. I want to be lights out. Yeah, me too. In the walking dead, she's one of the survivors in the walking dead. I feel like I want to the walking dead. Oh, for sure. For sure. Oh, yeah, no, I'm definitely the guy that's like, nope, sorry, not sticking around for this.

Yeah, I don't want to see how this ends. Yeah, well, listen, man. I would not expect you to be married to anyone boring, and I would not expect anyone particularly boring to want to be married to you. So it sounds like you've made good choices. Hopefully. Well, I clearly have to. I'm going to have to get a notepad or something.

Get a notepad. It's worth a small investment. You know what? You know what? I've already done that. And I'm going to let you go. I'm going to give me one more minute. Listen, she and her father went to visit relatives, and I took notes because she wanted my book to read my book.

And I actually took and wrote notes and stuck it like every 10 or 20 pages of the book. Right. Right. This is how I know. Why read my book? Why did you do it? Because I was, you know, so in love and I wanted it. I thought it'd be sweet. I knew she'd love it. I think out of 10 notes, I think she read maybe three. Well, I mean, A, next time write a more interesting book. You know what I mean? I mean, that's on you. You know, she only got through the first.

That great word of you. What happened is Matt is she put it down because she picked up my book. And she just was like, I got it. This book is much more interesting than Matt says she's buying your book right now. Oh, I'll say it's all I need. This is the, this was a mistake. Matt, you got no one to blame it yourself. you're like this whole thing was a mistake

this is a terrible I'd be a terrible decision would be the worst decision you've ever made that would be a real that would be an accomplishment you know what I mean yeah yeah anyone who served time and I'm their worst mistake probably really impressive yeah my booking agent constantly

is mentioning you know he'll give me people and I'm like he's like hey what about this guy I'm like did that guy commit a crime and he's like well no but he this but he that I'm like okay stop bringing me people that didn't commit a crime or aren't in law enforcement. That's it. And then

when he called up and said, he said, listen, you know, I have James Saxton. And I was like, yeah, well, sorry, what, sexting. Common mistake. Sorry. And, uh, and I had, I, it was, I did mention to him that I think you're,

this was like a month or so before. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, he, and I was like, he's like, but you know, he hasn't committed a I was like, I don't care. Yeah. I haven't, I haven't been incarcerated for any of them. I mean, I are caught for any of them. We've all committed crimes. This is a question of, you know, which ones have we been caught up?

But yes, no, I think, listen, man, like I said, I was excited to do this. I'm glad we got to me. I felt as I think you've gone through, you know, when, when you give a long form interview like that, and then you get the kind of views that you and I both got in our interviews, like, A lot of people know a lot more about you than you do about them. You know, like, oh, yeah, I, I, there's 25,000 comments on my video. Like, and I, I can't possibly read them all. I've read, like, ten of them.

And all these people know a lot about me now because I talked about a lot of stuff, just like you talked about a lot of very personal stuff. So it's very funny because I felt like I know you a little bit. Like, I was like, ooh, Matt, yeah, definitely want to do that. Like, I've listened to that guy talked like longer than I've listened to a lot of people talk in my life, you know? So I was excited to do it. But yeah, man, no, this is big great.

And like I said, I love your show. I really enjoy it. I enjoy the people that you talk to. And I think you have a really cool point of view. And this conversation went in the directions I thought it would because I didn't know too much about your personal life in terms of your current marriage and you're the way you approach it. You mentioned it a few times on the show, but not too many. and I think it's it's really neat that you have the gratitude that you have and that you and she found each other in the circumstances that you did and that hopefully you guys you know keep that in your line of sight you know and I'll be cheering for you certainly listen always the thing that takes you down my wife is in the other room and she goes I hope you're recording oh yeah I know this is my problem when I'm Like Mark, I met Mark in the bar of like the W hotel in the city.

And we started talking for like 15 minutes. He goes, I do, we got to go upstairs and put the camera on because like this is, we're missing stuff right now. But yeah, I was on, I was on Mark's site as a fan and watched all of his stuff. And my secretary comes in. She goes, yeah, Mark, a guy named Mark called from something soft belly, some kind of soft belly. And I actually like dogs a lot.

So I contribute a lot to dog rescues. She's like, is that like a dog rescue you donate to, like Softbelly? And I was like, no, no, no. There's a website that it's like, it's like true stories. I said, I don't know. And I thought, wow, he's like, did my credit card get declined that he's like making his own phone calls for the $5 a month thing? Because that feels a little desperate.

And so I call and I'm like, hi, it's Jim Sexton. And he's like, hey, it's Mark Leatt from Softbed. And I recognize the voice. Yeah. I was like, oh, wow, how you do it? He goes, good, good, listen, I wanted to see about you coming on the show. And I said, well, you know, I'm not a sex worker or a fentanyl addicts, right? And he goes, yeah, yeah, I'm trying to branch out a little bit.

There's only so many of those you can do. And I said, yeah, I said, if there's anything, anyone to be interested in, you know, I'd be happy to do it. And he goes, no, I think you have some interesting stuff. So I went in and I met with him and I just, you know, you've done it. So you know, you just go in and he's such a great conversationalist, but he's good kind of queuing it and the way he has the room set up, you kind of forget that you're not just talking to somebody. And I just, you know, went. And we finished. And I said, well, how long was that?

He said, oh, it was about an hour and a half. I said, wow, it didn't feel like that. And he said, oh, my God. He goes, we could have done another two hours. And I said, well, I hope, you know, it was good. The next day, he text me and he said, you know, that was one of the best interviews I've ever done and I think it's going to do really well. And I thought, oh, I bet he says that to all the boys, you know. I was like, I bet that's just the thing he says. Sorry, back and I said, well, it was great to meet you and I'm a big fan of the site. And, you know, so I just left it. And about three, four days later, we said, look, it's going up this week. And I'm telling you, we're going to get four million views. And I said, I really, I think you might be overestimating

how interesting I am, but let's do it. That's great, you know. And within like two weeks, it had a million and a half and then it was up to two or three now it's almost at four so and it's a couple of months three months so yeah it's crazy i mean i think i think there are i think he's telling unique stories and i think you know it's the reason why i enjoyed watching yours is that i just think that unique lived experience of that kind presented in an unfiltered way you just can't beat that you know and um i guess what i do is interesting for me you know whoever discovered water it wasn't a fish like i'm in the thing i don't see it i it's just what i do but every once in a while there is this phenomenon where i'll be talking to someone and i'll say oh i have this trial next week

and they're like what's it about and i'm like oh this guy was sleeping with the nanny and then the nanny you know ran off with his wife because they'd had a threesome and you know and they're looking to me like what did jesus and i go oh yeah no i guess that yeah i guess that is kind of weird right like i guess that is a a thing like but to me it was like well it it's a fact pattern and how am I going to put this evidence in and like I don't get it that way. You know, I don't hear how interesting it is. So I don't think much of what I have to say. I used to joke with my publisher that my book should have been titled, you know, advice I just pulled out of my ass because it felt like it was like, well, yeah, like talk to your partner,

you know, like try to communicate, try to do the little things for them so that you don't ever get too far apart from which, like this didn't feel like anything revelatory. You know, but, but apparently there's a hunger for it out there, so I'll take it. Yeah, I was, I was going to say way at the end of my interview with Mark, he said, you know, I was like, okay. And, you know, he's like, oh, you know, well, thanks. I really appreciate him. And I'm getting off the thing. And as I was getting off, he said, you're getting off the stool.

I'm kind of trying to take the, you know, my mic off. He said, he said, yeah, I definitely think I'm going to use this. And I went, was there a question? Was there a question? And he goes, oh, yeah, he said, I do, I do, he said at this point, I'm up to doing two or three a day. You'd be shocked how many I don't use. And I'm thinking, I flew across the country. Like, he's like, yeah, yeah, I don't like to mention that to people.

I'm thinking of what I'm saying. Yeah. But I have to tell you, it's so funny because again, like having watched the finished product of yours. And I really do love all the Mark's work, but some of it, it just feels like I understand why he's trying to touch on some other areas because some of the commonalities, like it's just so sad to watch it. Like there's no redemption arc in a lot of them, you know, and it's like really, really painful. And it's really, you know, everyone's story is unique, but some of the themes are exactly the same, you know, people having difficult dysfunctional childhoods, involved in substance use issues and we're being raised with people with substance use issues and intergenerational trauma and then having that manifest in substance use and mental

health issues. So it's like, you know, a lot of it's the same. But so I watch all of them. But I don't make it all the way through all of them because I think that one of the things that makes Mark so skilled is that he lets people tell their story. And so you end up with two hours, three hours, an hour. Yours I watched beginning to end. And I think he had one sitting, which was really surprising to me because I have very little attention span for sitting and watching a thing and so I sat and watched it

but I really did it. It felt like if Catch Me If You Can was like modernized because every time I've read the book or watched the film Catch Me If You Can which is really I think the most detailed look into the life of a con man technically

is it all relies on the lack of an internet you know like none of this shit that he did you could ever do now because it would just be so easily you know and so yours was more of like the true like confidence you know like the true like one of the things i think you and i have as a commonality is i have found in my career that the the bravado or confidence with which one conveys information is like the most powerful force like it's it's the most most i was actually having this conversation with a friend of mine last night because I'd been invited to

a bunch of Thanksgiving. You know, whenever someone knows you're like a single guy, they always say like, oh, do you want to, you know, come to our place for Thanksgiving? The truth is like, no, I don't. Like, I'm so happy to just not have to interact with anybody. Like, I feel I'm liberated from them. Once my kids were old enough that I didn't have to like do a Thanksgiving for them, I was like, this is fucking great. I'm going to just hang out and do nothing. I'm doing a jigsaw puzzle. That's what I'm, so people invite you and they're very well intentioned. and I don't like saying to people, oh, yeah, I'm not going to come because I just don't like to or I don't want to.

Like, that feels rude, you know, like, oh, I thought you were going to come. Like, well, I was going to. But then I just went on living my life. Like, that feels rude. So I was saying to this friend that, you know, if you say something confidently enough, the human desire to make sense of what you're saying and to look like you know what you're talking about overrides logic. So I was saying to my friend, like when, you know, when someone says to me like, oh, can you come to this thing next Tuesday? I'll say like, oh, Tuesday. Yeah, see,

the thing, you know how Wednesdays are. Like Tuesday happens and then it's Wednesday. And then sometimes, you know, like there's so many trees in my yard right now that like all the leaves are off of them. And then there's people that come and it's the whole thing. And then, you know, so obviously like I'd love to, but I'm not going to be able to make it. And I just said nothing. but you as the listener go wait so the tree he can't come but because of trees but maybe I missed something like I don't want to look stupid and they go oh yeah no that's fine of course yeah like because they they cut to the core which is you can't come right so I think that's something you and I have in our past or present vocations in common which is this

ability to sort of shift optics and and do this sort of sleight of hand that has a person look over here instead of over here, you know. So I found your story fascinating. I, I mean, I appreciate it. I, so I typically do not. Whenever people mention that interview with me, I typically say, yeah, I was like, I was in full, you know, full flame, full mode. psychopath during that interview i mean i just straight just walked in i was irritated i we were in you know his his like most people don't realize that that mark's studio is on skid row yeah i had no

idea was on skid row i i used to hear like if i watched one and i'm the same way i watched five minutes to me they're so depressing they are i can't people are missing teeth people have you know they've got their they're missing eyeballs they're it's horrendous their lives are horrible they've been sex trafficked i'm just like i can't i can't do this i have enough problems i can't of the anxiety of your of your life yeah the hospital's full i can't take it anymore so so i um like i said i never get through them but so when i would hear the sirens on those interviews i always thought oh that's funny he pumps in like he puts a That's a sound effect.

No, people are outside screaming. People are yelling. We got inundated with homeless people when we got out of the car, them asking him for money. Nobody asks me for money. He's known as like kind of, you know. I've walked around like San Francisco in L.A. Nobody ever asked me for money. And I remember thinking, I just don't look like the kind of person you can ask for money.

Yeah, you look like you wouldn't give it to me. Right. Yeah. You're looking at that's not the way this goes. so he um anyway yeah it was that it was that i i'd had a horrible um interview uh the day before i had had just i had just a series of bad things and i was irritated when i got there then we drive it down in the middle of this hell hole we're in a name all these guys we get in there i'm thinking what am i what's going on so i just immediately just was and you get and when i look

at it i can see it i could but i think that's because you were see it yeah you're you're caught up i think in the in the because you know yourself so well i think that for someone who because look i've enjoyed your your your podcast as well and there's definitely a different layer of you you know than that interview that interview is i i always actually attributed that to the fact that you were you were relaying in its timeline and totality something that you've transcended you know and i know when i talk about the past especially about parts of the past that, you know, caused negative repercussions in my life. You know, as much as I feel some distance from it, it still was me. And I still remember what it felt like. And it feels

like, you know, when I talk about it, I have to sort of emotionally experience it a little bit, you know, again, even though I thought about it and done the work and kind of transcended it. My life is where it is. So I attributed it to that. And also that it's a weird setting. You know, I think when you're when you're I find all of this is kind of weird because I think whenever you're talking on any kind of a forum like you you know this you're talking about your life your experience your perspective and I don't know about you but I'm always like I just did Lex Friedman's show a couple of a couple months ago and we talked for five and a half hours and he edited it down like almost four right it's like three hours when 40 45 minute I just

yeah yeah and that that was edited we talked for five and a half hours and he talked for five and a half hours and we took two bathroom breaks of about 10 minutes. And I remember I enjoyed it tremendously because I'm again, big fan of Lex's work. But I remember finishing it going, yeah, there's nothing here. Like there's nothing that interesting. You don't. And millions of people have enjoyed that thing. They've got nothing positive. So I have no. I think sometimes we don't know because we're in it. all you do is you watch that softwood underbelly and you think oh I was so annoyed and that's like me

being so intense and feeling full on psycho. I don't think that's how it was perceived. Like I watched it and felt very like oh this is such a like hyper intelligent guy who's really intuitive and really empathetic and this is what happens

when you weaponized that. Like he weaponized it effectively. But that then the coda to it was you still have all of that talent and now you've just applied it to a different set of tools and so I love that because unlike the like junkie missing and I's story that there's no redemption arc and you're like okay in three months this person's

going to be dead you know and then victimized two or three more people before that happens to them like there's a feeling of like hope of like okay maybe you can just set your shit on fire and rise from the ashes of it. And I love those stories. Like that's why I went into divorce law because it, that's what inspired me. It was the feeling that like nobody meant to get divorced. Just like nobody meant to go to jail. Like no one meant to, it's like, you know, but it's like the old, you know, the barn burned

down and now I can see the moon, you know, like there's, there's so much opportunity in the ruin. So let's a two things. One, I am just narcissistic enough to. allow you to go on and on and on and on me how great I am. I can do that. Honestly, I do that for myself. Yeah. My wife couldn't do that. Jilt tell you. But, um, so the, the second thing is it, you mentioned something about, and I don't know why I immediately think I always say this. I'm like, you know, a fish, and I heard you say something similar. Yeah, where, yeah, where it doesn't

water wasn't a fish. Right. Well, yeah, but I, I always say like a fish doesn't know he's in water. You You know what I'm saying? Like you're surrounded by it. Just like you're saying, I don't think there's a story here. Well, that's because you're surrounded by it. So it's like, just guys, I would meet in prison and I would write their stories. And they would tell me their story and I'd be like, sometimes I would just go, this is, this is insane. And they go, do you think there's something here? I'm like, you robbed 30 banks. Like, we spent three hours telling one funny story after another. Like, but they just don't know. And it's the same thing. Like when you explain a. A. that you're currently, you know, it's the stuff of law and order. It's the stuff of, you know, and what's even more unique about it is that is that it is that it is unique. Like it's not like you're a cop. Oh, I showed up somebody, you know, two people got into a, two neighbors got into a fight. They shot each other. Yours is unique because it's kind of an offset of that. And that kind of like my stuff, it's not really prison stories. There's tons of prison channels. I try and do something where it's like, was the guy smart about it?

I don't always get, you know, was it, what was unique about his story? Right. That's kind of what, like, I try and hear. Yeah, and the human element to it, I think, is interesting. That is the part, the commonality is what interests me is, is like, what are the underlying, because I guess I do this professionally. It's like a guy comes in and he says, I want 50, 50 custody. And I think to myself, no, he doesn't.

Like, no one looks at their children. that way. Like, no one's ever in the history of children or parenting ever been like, well, I've only had 48% of the time with the children this week. I need another 2%. Like, no one's ever done that. What he's saying is I don't want to feel like a second-class parent. I don't want to be just a fun parent. I want to be involved in the heavy lifting parenting. So that I can understand, you know, and it's the same kind of thing. Like when you, you know, when you hear the stories, like your story or some of the stories you've documented, there are really stories about incredible tools that people have

and gifts that people have that they just applied to, and I'm not even going to say the wrong thing because, you know, I'm not, you know, being someone who works in the law, I'm not really someone who's like a choir boy about it. I think that, you know, people transcend the law all the time and the question is like, are you aware of the consequences, you know? And I always liked that, was it from Breaking Bad or better call Saul, one of the two, where

the Mike character says to the one guy, like, no, you're a criminal. Like, just acknowledge that you're a criminal. And then you can have a list of the things you'll do when you won't do. But don't lie to yourself and say you're not a criminal. You're a criminal. You know, like, and I think everyone's got criminal in. You know, and it's just a question of how far over a line are we willing to go, you know. Yeah, I was going to say everybody's bar is just, you know,

mine's just lower in yours. What you see in divorce is a similar thing, which is if you judge any of us as a parent or as a spouse by our best moment, then we're phenomenal spouses or phenomenal parents. If you judge us by our worst, weakest moment, we're terrible spouses and terrible parents. The truth is we're kind of the average of all of it, right? like that's kind of what you have to look at it like and and so i we have a tendency either to view ourselves if we're very narcissistic by only our best moments or if we're very self-effacing and you know the world's had its way with us we'll look at ourselves by our worst moment and

compare ourselves to someone else's best moment you know usually the performative one they've posted on social media but i think at the end of the day like we're really just all those things we're all just sort of flawed heroes all right well thank you man what a pleasure great spending some time with you and if you're ever Find yourself in New York City. Please make a point of getting in touch so we can get together. Hey, if you like the video, do me a favor. Hit the subscribe button.

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