Prof G Markets - Marriage Is the Biggest Financial Risk You’ll Take — ft. James Sexton

Episode Date: April 3, 2026

Ed Elson and Scott Galloway are joined by top divorce attorney James Sexton to explore how money impacts relationships and divorce rates. He also shares practical marriage advice, key relationship red... flags, and explains why prenuptial agreements are essential for protecting your future. James Sexton has been an attorney in New York since 2001. He is a bestselling author and the host of the podcast “Better Call Sexton.” Subscribe to the Prof G Markets Youtube Channel  Check out our latest Prof G Markets newsletter Follow Prof G Markets on Instagram Follow Ed on Instagram, X and Substack Follow Scott on Instagram Send us your questions or comments by emailing Markets@profgmedia.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:32 Use promo code the Profi for an extra 20% off. Wharton Professor Ethan Malik says that with AI, his students are doing a semester's worth of work in just a couple of days. In Malik's classroom, AI is required. I'm Henry Blodgett, and this week on
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Starting point is 00:01:13 even if it's deceitful, illegal, or harmful. I just ask my ex-wife once she wanted for Christmas, and she said, a divorce. And I said, that's way too fucking expensive. Listen to me. Markets are bigger than I. What you have here is a structural change in the world distribution. Cash is trash.
Starting point is 00:01:32 Stocks look pretty attractive. Something's going to break. Forget about it. Ed, how are you? I'm doing all right. I'm in New York. Yeah, I'm doing okay. How are you doing?
Starting point is 00:01:43 Well, that was fascinating, Ed. We don't talk about me enough. Okay, I'm doing great. I'm headed to Florida on Thursday. I'm going to take some time off. My kids are coming with me. They'll get to see their friends. And, yeah, I'm super excited.
Starting point is 00:01:58 I'm going to Los Angeles to get more projects going that will soon be canceled. Movie projects? Yeah, or TV. My book has been optioned, notes on being a man. And it's either going to be a documentary or a... Seventh time, lucky. Yeah, there you go. It's either going to be... I can mock my failure in Hollywood. You cannot. It's either going to be, which you like better, a documentary on young men and the challenges
Starting point is 00:02:24 they face, including solutions, or an original scripted series that's sort of an R-rated wonder years. Original scripted series. Louis Thoreau already did it, and he did it better than anyone's... could. Yeah, this would be a little bit different. Have you seen the Manosphere? I have. I thought it was one of the best documentaries I've seen in years. Well, let's talk about that. What did you, what did you take away from that? Honestly, I think my biggest takeaway was the fact that there is an entirely different media ecosystem that is flourishing beneath a lot of people's noses. And I mean, I thought Louis, the way he conducted himself was excellent, and I thought that the way he exposed what is happening and the messages
Starting point is 00:03:05 that are being put out there by these guys was excellent. But honestly, I think the big takeaway, what I loved about it is that he shined a light on how huge these guys have become. And most people don't really know the names of these people. They don't really know who Justin Waller and and Sneco and H.S. Tiki-Toki are. But, I mean, thousands, hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of young children, loved these guys. And so what he did was he showed, like,
Starting point is 00:03:40 this is what is exactly happening. And he didn't, you know, he didn't really mince words about it. He literally went into the, as the documentary says, he went inside of it and he showed us what's really happening there. I thought the way he did it was just excellent.
Starting point is 00:03:55 Even the way that they showed how the live streams work and the comments streaming in and how things get reposted and clipped up and repackaged. It was really a lesson on how media works today in a way that I think a lot of people could honestly benefit from. The Manistphere starts off positive. The fact that there's a group of people or thought leaders trying to speak to young men, I think it's a positive thing. And it starts fine. Be fit, be action-oriented, take responsibility for your life.
Starting point is 00:04:24 initiate action, and then it just comes off the tracks. It's all about money. It's all about dominance. It's all about the grift. It's all about misogyny, which is really a shame. But I have another theory I want to lay on you as a young person, and maybe we'll get Claire's reaction. So 80% of women under the age of 30 now don't have a kid.
Starting point is 00:04:47 And I don't think it's because they've decided they don't like kids. I think it's because they're having trouble finding economically and emotionally viable partners. And also, there's less venues for men to demonstrate excellence. And I think one of the ways that men demonstrate excellence and bear with me right now, I think that the lack of bars, the lack of venues, the lack of people going out, I think the young people, I think we should have tax subsidies for places that offer dancing. I'm convinced that one of the venues for mating is when people dance, and now nobody dances. I just read an article saying the number of times a person under the age of 25 dances is off 60 percent because they're worried about being filmed and mocked,
Starting point is 00:05:35 and that people aren't drinking as much, so they aren't dancing. And I remember I go back, you know, everything is anecdotal here, but I remember in college, the initial stages of flirtation, we're dancing with somebody, and that we need more dancing in young people's lives. Anyways, Ed and Claire, more dancing? Could that be a solve here? I think that's one of the problems, but there are way more problems. I'm not suggesting it's the solve.
Starting point is 00:06:02 You said tax subsidies, right, for places that offer it? My idea is to have subsidies for third places, and that is a place we don't work or sleep for the young people get together in the company of each other for no other reason than to do something together. Yeah, I love the idea. I also think some of the best clubs in New York
Starting point is 00:06:17 are the ones that don't allow phones on the dance floor for exactly that reason. I mean, I think partying has gotten, has just been ruined by phones and concerts have been ruined by phones. It's kind of sad to go to them these days and everyone just has their phone out recording the situation instead of just living in it. Instead of being in the moment, yeah. Yeah, instead of being in the moment and meeting people. So clubs that have phone-free dance floors, I think, would be a good thing to encourage. All that said, we have our guests in the lobby.
Starting point is 00:06:50 Are we good to move on? All right. Let's bring them on. We spend a lot of time on this podcast talking about where young people are struggling and relationships are near the top of the list. Fewer young people are getting into relationships and even fewer are getting married. The shift is dramatic. Sixty years ago, more than 75% of 25-year-olds were married. Today, it's less than 25%.
Starting point is 00:07:15 So instead of asking why relationships are breaking down, we brought in someone who sees firsthand how they fall. apart. James Sexton is a divorce attorney who spent his career on the front lines of failed marriages, making him uniquely qualified to tell us what not to do. He has been an attorney for 25 years and has earned a place in the top 1% of family law attorneys practicing in New York. So James Sexton, thank you very much for joining us on Prof G Markets. Thanks so much for having me. Great to see you guys. So I'll start with a question here. Something that we often talk about on this show, is the fact that money seems to be a big problem in relationships. Some people say that it's the number one issue that married couples fight about.
Starting point is 00:08:02 And we've also seen that it's actually the second leading cause of divorce behind infidelity. I'd just be curious to get your perspective. To what extent has money and money management played a role in the divorces that you've seen over the course of your career? Yeah, I mean, money is a tremendous piece of the puzzle. I think it's not just the money itself, but it's also what the money comes to symbolize for people. You know, I think people who grow up with economic insecurity, money comes to symbolize all the things they didn't have in their life. So it becomes, you know, money is a symbol of security. Money is a symbol of, you know, peace and tranquility, safety, a feeling of not being so afraid. So I think, you know, when that gets threatened, it creates tremendous distrust between parties.
Starting point is 00:08:49 When people lose their jobs, when there's economic instability, when technological innovation changes the job landscape that has a tremendous effect. I mean, there's a high correlation between men losing their job and the divorce rate because there's a significant hit to a man, you know, as men being defined in many cultures as being, you know, the provider, the protector, feeling like as a result of factors beyond your control, you've lost your job, you know, is a tremendous difficult. experience for anyone, but certainly for men when they're defined in their role as a provider. And then you see second order effects that come from that. Substance use issues as a coping mechanism, you know, men being disincentivized to, you know, participate in genuine things like therapy, that might be a better solution than trying to pour whiskey on the, on the shame. So you see money underneath all these things, but I always try to say to people, even when you're talking about infidelity, we want simple explanations for the complex problem of a divorce and the breakdown of a
Starting point is 00:09:47 relationship. But I think, you know, people go, you know, get divorced the same way they go bankrupt very slowly and then all at once. And so no single raindrops responsible for the flood, but all of these little things add up. And then there is some final indignity, some final moment, whether that's infidelity, whether that's financial impropriety, that, you know, really is the straw that breaks the camel's back. And, you know, I see that both with, when I used to represent, you know, the cop and the teacher and all they really have is a 401k and a house. And now I represent billionaires. And they have some of the same problems. You know, there's there's, there's just no, if $100 million is it enough, $500 is not going to be enough. If a billion's not enough, $8 billion is not going to be enough.
Starting point is 00:10:32 And I think that has, you know, a lot of second order effects on relationships. James, it's really good to see. I feel so if I know you, I see you so much on TikTok. Yeah, the algorithm, it consistently says you'll be interested in what this guy has to say. So you see, you see, couples on the back end after it's gone south. Do you have kids, James? I do. You and I both are fathers of sons. I'm a little further down the road. I have a 26-year-old and a 28-year-old. So if you had, I would imagine at this point you're asked on the front end for advice around how to avoid ever seeing you or your colleagues. You've talked really eloquently about some of the red flags in a relationship. If you were to advise people who are
Starting point is 00:11:16 are thinking about getting married and say, and by the way, I don't expect any of them to listen, I find that when people are in that situation, they don't listen to it. By the way, I found it as a no-win situation to tell your friend not to get married, because they get married anyways, but they tell their spouse that you told them not to get married. Anyway, so what are the two or three red flags you would say you really want to be mindful of if you're thinking about getting married in a partner or in the relationship more broadly? I am very much a believer still in marriage. I think the value that a good marriage adds to someone's life is just beyond measure, and I think on every level. But I think marriage is like the lottery, you're probably not going to win. But if you win, what you win is so good that it would be really difficult to argue you shouldn't buy the ticket. And unlike the lottery, you can actually do things to improve your chances of success in a marriage. And I think the red flags are actually sort of the counter of what I would see. as what you need to do for the marriage to be a successful and stable one. And I think, you know, you're a divorced man. I'm a divorced man. Like we learn, I learn from my mistakes. I have to step on the rake in order to learn how to do something well. And I think sometimes people who've been
Starting point is 00:12:31 divorced or have shepherded, you know, hundreds, if not thousands now, people through a divorce, we get a very unique view of, okay, here's where people get things wrong. I think big red flags are the things that draw us together are sometimes things that in the long term are going to be hard for us to navigate. So, you know, you may love the fact that you're this discipline-focused, really, you know, like OCD person,
Starting point is 00:12:53 and she is, you know, more like, you know, free and easy. It's a barefoot in the park kind of a thing going on, you know. In dating, like, you help her be a little more serious. She helps you be a little lighter-hearted. Man, that feels so good when you're dating somebody. But when you marry someone, those have... habits and those, you know, that polarity that brought you together, it might start being something
Starting point is 00:13:15 that's antagonistic. And it's going to start creating long-term issues. Because again, marriage, it's such an odd thing, modern marriage, because we've really packaged it as this person's your best friend, best roommate, best co-parent, best financial partner, best travel partner, best companion animal partner. Like, it's a long list. You know, if I was talking to you about a chef and said, you know, Jose Andre is an amazing chef. Would you be like, well, but can he farm? You know, like, well, no, like those things have to do with food, both of them, but it doesn't mean, like, if you're not good at one or you're automatically good at one, you'd be good at the others. So I think, you know, not being mindful of how the polarity that drew you together might have
Starting point is 00:13:57 long-term difficult effects. So that would be red flag number one. Red flag number two would be the inability or the fear. Like, if you feel a real fear about talking to this person, about issues between the two of you. That's a huge red flag. Like you are going to have disagreements with your partner. You're going to have to navigate difficult conversations. When I talk to people about prenuptial agreements, you know, very often people say like,
Starting point is 00:14:24 well, I'm just, you know, I don't want to have this uncomfortable conversation. And I want to say to them, if you don't feel comfortable having an uncomfortable conversation with this person, you might want to choose one of the other eight billion other options because you're going to have to have difficult conversation. from time to time. And I guess a third one, you know, would be your, it's sort of, you know,
Starting point is 00:14:46 like it's a little contrary to each other, right, or a little contradictory. But I think two major mistakes people make when they're getting married is thinking that if I marry this person, they're never going to change. They're going to stay the way they are. Like, this is so great, it's going so well. I want it to stay really good, so I'm going to marry them, because that will be like the wall we build around this thing, the fortress that'll keep it safe. And I just don't think that's honest. I don't think you can have a long-term relationship with someone, have the changes, the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that everybody has in their life. And conversely, thinking that marriage will change a person is another big problem. Like, like, it is, they are
Starting point is 00:15:30 going to change, but they may not change in the ways you hope they would as a function of marriage. Like, you know, he drinks a little too much now. But once we get married, if we have kids, he'll stop that. Or, you know, he works. a ton now, but once we get married, he'll make more time and he won't push it so redline. Like, I think sometimes the things we think are going to change don't and the things we hope won't do. And that leads, unless there's good communication, that leads to a lot of disappointment. So just a follow on here. So Ed's girlfriend is much higher character, much hotter than him. Is that a problem? Sorry, couldn't resist. I've been waiting. I mean, listen, playing above the
Starting point is 00:16:04 rim is excellent. I've been waiting for 10 minutes to say that. So, Let's talk about, let's say that things work out in a moment of weakness she agrees to marry him. Give them advice. What are two or three best practices during the marriage that make it less likely they'll be in your office? I mean, you know, Ed, first of all, what I'll say is Scott and I are proof of the fact that thank God for good women with terrible taste in men. That is something you... Bad vision. That is a good thing.
Starting point is 00:16:36 Okay. So, yeah, when you're playing above the rim, realize you're playing above the rim. So that's a good thing. But, you know, I think one step I think is really important is to talk when you're not fighting about, hey, at some point, we're going to disagree on something. What does that look like for you? Do you need a minute? Are you somebody that, like, give me a minute so the emotion of it calms down and maybe
Starting point is 00:17:01 we sleep on it, we'll talk in the morning? Or are you the, hey, we got to figure this out right now. I'm not going to be able to sleep tonight if we don't work it out. right now, like, I need you to engage with me on this because I can't let this sit and fester. The time to have that conversation is when you are in that place of abundant goodwill and deep connection to each other. Because, look, this is a job the two of you signed up for, the job of loving each other, the job of being the other person's person. Like, marriage is fundamentally you're my favorite person. Like, there are $8 billion in the world, and you're my favorite one.
Starting point is 00:17:35 I like that. What more beautiful four words could someone say than you're my favorite person? And what more beautiful four words could you hear someone say and know they mean than you're my favorite person? Like, that's the most lovely sentiment. And if I had a toast for you at your wedding, you know, it would be, I hope 50 years from now, one of you when you're losing each other, because every marriage ends, it ends in death or divorce. And I hope yours will end in death.
Starting point is 00:18:03 That's a weird thing to say to a human being, but I hope it does. I hope what you'll say to each other is, this person helped me become the most authentic version of myself, and they're still my favorite person. And that's the greatest blessing you can shoot for. And I think the way to do that is to not be afraid to talk about, hey, when we disconnect, what's the best way to reconnect? The other thing is, I think that, look, man,
Starting point is 00:18:28 we have all these gadgets, all these reminders, all these little watches and whoops and all the things we all use, you know. I don't think there's anything wrong with, you know, every day, just take in a minute to remind yourself, hey, her, like keep her in your line of sight, you know, we're busy people, we're hardworking people, we got a million things going on, we're spinning all kinds of plates, and any woman who's signing up for someone like you or either of us, they're doing it for, you know, a reason. They know, we're as advertised. But take a minute, take a minute to just, because right
Starting point is 00:18:59 now you're still trying to close the deal. You know, you're still trying to impress each other, And I think that if you can keep a little piece of that, like, what does it take to send her a text message that just says, hey, I was in the coffee shop and that song came on that, you know, it makes me think of you. Or, you know, hey, you know, it was so fun on the couch watching TV with you last night. I'm so glad I have the prettiest girl in the world. You know, I caught her eye. What does that take? 30 seconds? That is the equivalent of her sending you nudes.
Starting point is 00:19:29 Like, that is for her, like, that's flowers. Like you just send a dozen roses if you send that, you know? And it's a lot cheaper and it's a lot easier. And it's something that, again, if you make a point of just, you don't even have to tell her that you put a reminder in your phone, but put something that just remind yourself to just that little bit of connection. Because it's really easy for all of us to say, all right, I've got that. Thank God.
Starting point is 00:19:56 You know, I found my person. I can focus on these other million things now. But take the time. Like take the time to just. keep that little bit of connection, that little bit of gratitude, that reminder that this is your person. I think that's a giant piece. And then the last thing I would say is, you know, I think it's really important to be able to share with each other. Again, I like things that are a practice. So I would say build into your week. You know, once a week, just have like a walk and talk or send
Starting point is 00:20:29 each other an email. Whatever works for the two of you in your dynamic. What are three things I did this week that, you know, made you feel loved? What are three things I did this week that maybe I could have done better? Make it fun. What are three things I did this week that turns you on? Like, I have to tell you, you'll be shocked. You'll be shocked. They won't be the things you thought.
Starting point is 00:20:51 Like, it won't be, oh, you had to have eight-pack abs. Like, it was something like, oh, when the dog was running around and you wiped his paws off in the mud, you looked like so sweet that you were careful. that turns you off. Like what? I've been doing my obliques in the gym? Like, what was that? You know, and the truth is, like, never stop exploring that connection. I think that's so easy, so low percentage, it's free. That's why you don't hear about it because it's free.
Starting point is 00:21:16 You don't have to buy anything. You don't have to get an app for it. Like, there's nothing you have to do except that little bit of connection. And I'm telling you, I think that keeps, that'll keep you connected to each other, keep you communicating with each other. if you add in that piece of what's something that I could have done better this week, then I think that that starts to create a space where both of you feel like you can give each other pointers. Because I'd tell you, like, I'm 53 years old, I've been in therapy 20 years.
Starting point is 00:21:44 I understand about 70% of this guy, and I'm in here. You know, like, so to think another human being, I'm going to be able to navigate them perfectly. Like, you're kidding yourself. That's insane to think. So I think there's real value in creating habits. of connection and communication. We'll be right back after the break. And if you're enjoying the show,
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Starting point is 00:25:24 Terms and conditions apply. To learn more about SOFi Plus, head to sophy.com slash SOFi-hy-plus. We're back with ProfiMarkets. So, James, I've read that 70% of divorce filings are now from women, and some of that is that women no longer feel economically indentured, and that an increase in divorce rates in some ways represents progress in our society, but also that potentially women bring, quote-unquote, more divorce energy to a relationship. And the data I saw that, and I'm very open to pushback here, is that the lowest divorce rates are among gay men, second lowest heterosexual couples,
Starting point is 00:26:13 highest divorce rates, gay women. Thoughts on divorce energy by gender and different types of marriages and what you observe in terms of the likelihood of them deciding to end it. Yeah, I mean, those statistics are accurate. I think they're often weaponized in the wrong ways. So, you know, in what I'll roughly call the red pill manosphere space, although, you know, our mutual friend, Chris Williamson describes you and I and he as the gentleman's sphere. So we're sort of You know, we have a male audience or a percentage of our audience that's male, but we don't have that sort of, you know, hardline position that made for an interesting documentary for Louis Thruh. I think the way that gets weaponized is this idea that women are somehow playing at the casino of marriage and then when the chips get high enough, they cash out. What I think it really is is the tendency of men more than women to go out for milk and never come back.
Starting point is 00:27:11 and then what happens is the woman comes to my office or one like it and says he left he left for his secretary and I don't know where he is and he's not paying the mortgage and I don't know what to do and I go okay we have to file a divorce action and she goes wait
Starting point is 00:27:29 I don't want a divorce I didn't ask for a divorce he's the one who left I want him to come back I want us to figure it out or I want us to be civilized with each other and I say look if you want that mortgage paid if you want temporary child support we have to go to a judge. And the only way to go to a judge, there's no such thing as an action
Starting point is 00:27:45 for I'd like to work it out, if possible. It's an action for divorce. So we have to file the divorce action. And I can't tell you, the number of divorces I've done over the span of 25 years is a high number. But I would say, very few of them
Starting point is 00:27:58 have ever been a woman just cashing the chips out at the casino, whereas I've had a large number where the guy just leaves and the woman ends up having to be the plaintiff. And adding indignity to that is that very often that man will say,
Starting point is 00:28:11 on, well, you're the one who filed for divorce. You know, you're the plane, your mom filed for divorce. So it's misleading. But I do think the idea of like divorce energy, I think we're in a, you know, unfortunately, we're in a misandrous moment, I think. And it's, it's become very acceptable for women to engage in behavior in relation to marriage, that if it occurred with men would be viewed very differently. I've always said that in the context, even of like, you know, the song maybe next time he'll think before he cheats, you know, where she breaks his car with baseball bat and all these things. If that was a song by a man about maybe next time she'll think before she cheat, it would be a hate crime. Like, it's multiple felonies
Starting point is 00:28:54 being described in that song. And, you know, if a man cheats on a woman, even if she hasn't had sex with him in years, it's, well, he couldn't keep it in his pants and he's a lethario. If a woman cheats on her husband, even if it's with like the hot personal trainer or tennis instructor. It's, you know, he wasn't keeping her happy, her husband. She needed to figure out who she was. So if he cheats, it's his fault. If she cheats, it's his fault. And there's a lot of that energy out there on the internet and a lot of that content. And I think the algorithm continues to drive that. And, you know, I know that you understand better than most in the context of your writing and thinking that, you know, this boys versus girls' world that we've created and
Starting point is 00:29:36 that the algorithm pushes because it creates engagement. You know, whether you're shouting in opposition or shouting amen, it's just engagement. And so, you know, the social media gods love it. So I think that's only increasing. We're getting further from each other, and we're not recognizing what you've rightly pointed out, which is that a world in which men are flailing is not a world where women are thriving and vice versa. Such an obvious insight that more men end marriages than is perceived because it's the woman that ends up filing. I never thought of that.
Starting point is 00:30:11 What you're saying is that number is misleading. A lot of men effectively end their marriages. They're just not the ones legally filing for divorce. Correct. Yeah. I mean, the divorce statistics that are tracked. See, I get into this conversation a lot because I talk to people about how marriage is arguably from a legal standpoint, not just a negligent activity. It's potentially a reckless activity.
Starting point is 00:30:34 So the law makes a distinction between negligence and recklessness. Negligence is a failure to perceive a substantial and unjustifiable risk of serious harm, and recklessness is a conscious disregard for a substantial and justifiable risk of serious harm. With the divorce rate hovering just over 50%, and then you add to it, and there's been quite a bit of interesting studies about marriage dissatisfaction, because remember, those are just the marriages that catastrophically failed, meaning they divorced. There was the entry of a certificate of dissolution of marriage, which means that divorce was finalized. But there's another 15 to 20 percent that are physically separated.
Starting point is 00:31:11 under a binding written agreement, but not finalizing a divorce for whatever reason. So they can stay on each other's health insurance, religious reasons, whatever it might be. And then there are the percentages of people, and there's been a lot of interesting research on this, that stay unhappy in a relationship, either for the children or because they don't want to give away half their things or economic insecurity that you can't move out now of two cable bills because you're barely affording your single cable bill. So it really turns into something where statistically, this is a very unlikely to exceed enterprise and one that is likely to cause tremendous harm. But again, it's wildly popular.
Starting point is 00:31:49 And it's not one that we would ever ask the question of someone. Like if Ed said, hey, guess what, my girl and I were getting married, if I said, really, why? That would be indelicate. That would be a rude question to ask. Whereas most things that catastrophically fail 50% of the time and generally failed to achieve the objective, which was living happily ever after, roughly 75% of the time. It's not unreasonable to say to this person, hey, what are you, what is the problem to which marriage is a solution? And, you know, my graduate work before I went to law school was at NYU, and I was Neil Postman's research assistant on a few of his books, and I was in his department, the Department of Culture and Communication. And when I was there, you know, Neil had this
Starting point is 00:32:34 approach to technology of saying anytime you encounter any technology, ask yourself, what is the problem to which this technology is a solution? Who has that problem? How does it practically solve the problem? And what new problems might it unintentionally cause? And if you apply that model to the technology of marriage, you're going to have people that are going to approach it very differently. Because marriage is, above all else, a contract with the state in regards to the rule set for your relationship. And that's not how most people look at it. So I just want to push back or ask for a follow up on that 50% number because my understanding of the 50% number is that each year at that moment, they look at the number of marriages, the number of
Starting point is 00:33:19 divorces, and they divide one into another. But my understanding is that a lot of divorces come into fruition right now are a function of the economic dependence women may have felt 20, 30, 40 years ago that they no longer feel. And that if you look at the data around young people, Gen Z, millennials getting married now, who start out on more of an economic equal footing, that the divorce rates may in fact be much lower, that that 50% number is actually misleading. And young people getting married today will, in fact, have much lower divorce rates. So I've spent a lot of discussing this and defending this. So I've really done the research on it. So, you know, and I'm going to rely a little bit on notes here, because I want to get the numbers right. But, you know, there's what we
Starting point is 00:34:08 call the crude divorce rate, and the CDC does the National Vital Statistics system that looks at a crude divorce rate of approximately 2.5 per 1,000 population in recent years, which, again, seems low in the scheme of things, but it translates to literally hundreds of thousands of divorces. Second and third marriages, it's much higher. Second marriages, you're looking at 60 to 67%. Third marriage is 73 to 74%. You know, what's really interesting is couples who marry before the age of 25 have a significantly higher divorce rate, roughly 60%, and couples where one or both partners did not complete college divorce at much higher rates than college educated couples. So what often happens is people do a great job of lying with statistics on this, because they'll say, well, you know, a survey of college-educated
Starting point is 00:34:58 women over the age of 30, at divorce rates only 5%. You're like, right, you just cherry-picked people who graduated college, which is not the majority of the world or of the United States, and people who marry after the age of 25. And so this is like, you're, again, you're picking a statistical model that's going to work best for you. And then on top of that, like I said, you have these statistics of a marital breakdown without a formal divorce. And the American Psychological Association did some good work on that. The U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey. Bowling Green State University has something called the National Center for Family and Marriage
Starting point is 00:35:35 Research. And they've done a ton of research, not with that simplified model of saying, here's the marriage rate, here's the divorce rate, and let's match those up. Because people are very rarely in the same year getting married and divorced. And when you have things like the pandemic, where the court system essentially, slowed or shut down for a period of time. Then, of course, right after, you know, the world sort of came out of lockdown, there was a glut and backlog of divorces that happened. So really, you have to look at the data in a long-term way, and you have to sort of try to control for all
Starting point is 00:36:08 of those variables. But the marriage rate has gone down. The divorce rate has gone down as a function of the marriage rate going down. But what's frightening in terms of what you'd like the refined divorce rate is it's really the majority of Americans, and people don't, you know, like to talk about that, but the majority of Americans don't have a college education. And the college education framing is a very important piece of this because there is such a disparity in the divorce rate when people are college educated versus not college educated. And again, I'm not sure of the reasons behind that. I'm sure there are people more qualified than me to answer that.
Starting point is 00:36:52 But if, you know, like if one in four planes crashed, people just wouldn't fly. And so even if you just said 25 percent of marriages catastrophically fail in divorce, I think that would be, you know, a very frightening number. But again, I still think legal separation and unhappily married. Like there's a what's called the Tishiro estimate, which was a psychologist named Tishiro, wrote a book called The The Science of Happily Ever After. He talks about, you know, the percentages of people who express real satisfaction in their marriage. And I'd tell you, some of the stuff that comes out of that is absolutely terrifying. Because what you've got basically is 42 to 45 percent of people that formally divorce, three to four percent separate without divorcing, and 14 to 19 percent report their
Starting point is 00:37:40 marriages unhappy, loveless, feeling obligated to stay, and actually report that they dislike their spouse. Now, I don't think anybody who gets married is saying that would be success, that if I could maintain that level of connection, that would be success. So again, are we looking at marriage as like an endurance race that if you don't divorce, you won? Or are we looking at as we maintain this high level of connection in goodwill with each other and that we say, hey, I don't regret this choice that I made? And I think that impacts statistics in a real way. We try on this show, this is Profitem Market, so we try to look at things through a general lens of economics and economic security. One of our views, and I'd be curious to get your perspective on this, is that marriage, if just strictly from an economic security perspective, is generally a good thing, that it means that we kind of get our shit together, we work harder, we notice this anecdotally among the people who work at our company.
Starting point is 00:38:44 but generally speaking, if you're trying to get rich, if you're trying to build economic security, then you should probably try to get married to. And I have some follow-up questions, but first I want to hear your response to that question. I don't disagree. I mean, I think a successful marriage is a tremendous asset. I think Warren Buffett, you know, said that the best investment he ever made was his marriage and that, you know, choosing the right spouse is the most important economic decision you're ever going to make. I think many, many people would agree with that. I represent a tremendous number. You know, I'm in New York. So, you know, if you're talking to Laura Wasser, you know, she's going to tell you about her clients that are all
Starting point is 00:39:23 celebrities. My clients, you'd pass them on the street. You wouldn't know who they are. Scott might know. You might actually, you recognize a different, you guys are a different kind of geek. You might be like, hey, I know him. He's from Black Rock, you know. But they're the Patagonia vest wearing guys that I do the prenups for when they marry a yoga teacher. And what I'll say is, yeah, I think they realize value. You know, they see that this is bringing something to my life. And I think what that is is it's eliminating a certain noise, and that is the noise of mate selection. It's grounding someone, you know, in connection with another person.
Starting point is 00:39:58 I mean, look, I'm still very much a romantic at heart even after doing this for 25 years. Like, I think that the value that a good, strong relationship brings to someone, in their life is, you can't measure it. I mean, I've, I've seen some incredibly successful people have incredibly successful marriages. And by the way, I don't think a marriage has to last forever for it to be successful. I think, you know, you can have a happily ever after separately. You know, my ex-wife has been remarried for 15 years. She's a wonderful person. The man she married is a wonderful guy. I consider him part of our family, you know, and we raised our, sons as a group, and I'm so blessed to have had that chapter. And I think that it would be much
Starting point is 00:40:44 healthier if we viewed relationships as chapters in a long story. And I think, you know, marriage came about when most women died in childbirth and most men died before they were 50. And now happily ever after, marriage is running into the same problems that the pension system is running into, which is it made sense when you paid in for 20 years and then you died when you were in payout for 10 years. But now you pay in for 25 years and then your defined benefit plan kicks in and it's paying you for the next 40 years. This is why the postal system is going to go under because the pension, it was not designed for these current climate conditions. I mean, marriage is like so many other things. We are primates living in medieval
Starting point is 00:41:28 institutions with godlike technology in our hands. Like how does that story end? Does it end with a happily ever after? Does it end with a tremendous amount of confusion? I think it creates a lot of confusion. But I do think if, again, if you get it right, the stability and security that a pair bond brings, even without children. Like with children, of course, I think it takes multiple people and it takes, you know, a tremendous amount of energy. I won't even call it masculine or feminine energy because I actually think it's human traits that tend to cluster in men or cluster in in women for a variety of reasons, but it takes the unique skill set of multiple people to raise children successfully. And I think marriage is a great opportunity to bond very closely with
Starting point is 00:42:16 another person in raising, you know, new humans, or even if you don't have children, in navigating the self and having someone there who genuinely sees your blind spots and calls them out with real love and helps you again. When I gave my example earlier about what I hope on your deathbed you get to say, it's not this person became who I wanted them to be. It's I helped this person become the most authentic version of who they are, who they were. And I think that is something we need other people to be able to do. Given how high these marriage rates have gotten, it seems as though that's something that everyone should at least recognize. Yes, you're getting into this relationship,
Starting point is 00:42:58 this also contractual agreement, which might pay dividends later. Hopefully it will. That's why you're doing it. But also, it comes with tremendous, tremendous risk, which makes me think, shouldn't everyone be signing prenups? What is your advice to most people getting married today? Every marriage has a pre-up. It's either one that was written by the state legislature or the state in which you reside and can be changed by them without your consent. and then once they change it, you don't have the right to opt out anymore. I mean, find me another contract where you sign up for something and they can change the essential terms. And you're not allowed to say, well, wait a minute, if you change the amount of my car lease, I don't want it anymore. No, you change what apartment I get in my apartment lease?
Starting point is 00:43:43 No, no, I signed up for this one. Like, the state legislature in the state in which you reside for a period of six months or more has jurisdiction over your divorce. And they can change. Now, by the way, I don't care what side of the political aisle left. right or a raging moderate. That was my little plug for you, Scott. The reality is you put yourself in this situation and you're, I guarantee over the last 16 years, every single person you know has looked at the government at some point and said, these people are idiots. So you're signing a pre-up with the government or the person you like better than the other eight billion other options.
Starting point is 00:44:21 You tell me. You tell me which of those two things is more sensible. relying on a future government that will be elected by a popularity contest and you hope it'll work out and the rule set they came up with will make sense for your specific dynamic. Or this person and I, this person I've chosen out of the 8 billion options, we are going to make a rule set for our marriage. There is no contest there as far as I'm concerned. I think some people would say that the trouble is that it's a little overwhelming. And at least if you're going with what the government has decided, you're depending on some level of precedent. for these very, very difficult questions that often do have to do exactly with money, the kinds of questions that people don't really want to confront.
Starting point is 00:45:03 So I guess my follow-out question of you is, what kinds of things should be going into a pre-up? How should couples be thinking about their finances? Are they together? Are they separate? What are the kinds of things you run into? Yeah, look, it may be a difficult conversation, and that's what I was saying earlier about don't marry someone if you can't have difficult conversations with them.
Starting point is 00:45:22 The solution to it, though, is, look, I've been to the DMV. I've never walked into the DMV and thought, oh yeah, these people should be in charge of everything. They've got this whole thing locked down. I'm going to put them in charge of my finances. This is great. This is the best and brightest the world has to offer. Like, that's who you're trusting if you don't do a pre-up together.
Starting point is 00:45:39 But look, I don't, I've represented victims of intimate partner abuse, coercive controlled domestic violence for many years. And what I will say is, I've learned conclusively from that that you cannot feel loved if you don't feel safe. Like, the most important thing is to feel safe. And safety comes in a lot of forms. It comes in the form of physical safety, which is obviously the most important, but also emotional safety, economic safety. When you love someone, enough to marry them, you should want them to feel safe.
Starting point is 00:46:09 And, you know, there's a line from a song by Prince off the album, Sign of the Times. It's a song called If I Was Your Girlfriend. And Prince, as a man, is singing it to a woman he's dating. And one of the lyrics is, if I was your girlfriend, would you run to me if somebody hurt you, even if that somebody was me? And I always thought that was a very romantic line because the truth is, like, that's what a pre-up conversation is. What are you afraid of? Like, what are you afraid of in this relationship?
Starting point is 00:46:35 I'm afraid that I'm going to sacrifice a bunch of things and trust you to take care of the finances and I'm going to diminish my lifetime earning capacity. And then you're going to find a younger model and split. Hey, you know what? That's a very fair thing to be afraid of. There's lots of examples of that you can point to. So say it out loud. Sometimes when you're afraid of something, you know, Scott knows this as a father.
Starting point is 00:46:58 You know, my kids were little and they would say out loud like, yeah, I'm afraid of this, or I think there might be something under the bed. Like, that's the way you go, okay, let's look. Let's look under there. Let's put the light over here and let's see what that is. You know, let's not, you don't do well by like pretending it's not something you're afraid of. So I think sharing with each other, look, I'm afraid that you're going to weaponize against me someday and try to take everything I built, including the things I had before we got me.
Starting point is 00:47:24 married, and that you're going to, the threat of litigation is going to be so potentially expensive and the valuation of my business interests is going to be, and the things I'm going to do for wealth preservation and tax avoidance that are legitimate fair, things are going to get weaponized and spun in the full contact storytelling that is divorce law, and the lawyers are going to walk out with hundreds of thousands of dollars in fee, and we're going to walk out with a lot less and a lot of pain, and I don't want that. Okay, those are both really legitimate fears. If we can give them voice, I think if you love someone, you'll want to understand their fear and not go, oh, you don't trust me. You'll look at it and say, okay, I know you trust me,
Starting point is 00:48:04 but you're afraid. It's okay to be afraid. Let's figure out how we can make each other feel safe. Is there some form of managing finances? Is there a way to go about the money problem in a relationship, in a marriage that is ultimately either going to maybe decrease the likelihood of getting a divorce or if we're not trying to make a boogeyman out of divorce, that makes the divorce less difficult that is, generally speaking, a good thing for the marriage. Obviously, everything in a relationship, like how much sex should people be having,
Starting point is 00:48:36 what should they do in terms of dinner rituals or date nights? I think the particular chemistry of two people is important to look at. So I'm not a fan of giant, like, one-size-fits-all approaches. But what I will say is, for me, I think a very sensible system that I can understand is the yours, mine, and ours. Because I think really our relationships
Starting point is 00:48:56 are based on a series of Venn diagrams. You know, like, there's the you, the me, and the we. And like, you know, you met her. There was you and there was she, and then there's we. And so whether it's economic or whether it's interests or how we spend our time, you want that Venn diagram
Starting point is 00:49:15 to continue to be a Venn diagram. Like, there's a temptation to make the we, because it's so warm and cozy, to make the we everything and reject all the Venn diagram. you and the me, but that's not healthy, because you fell in love with each other, and that's the you and the me. So the we wouldn't exist if you didn't like each other, so you can't let it subsume your identity. And I think the same thing financially. I think that there should be
Starting point is 00:49:34 some shared sense of the finances, but there should also be some separateness. If I'm buying you a Christmas present and you're going to always see exactly how much it costs, we have no privacy or autonomy in our spending. And so, again, I think for each couple, the conversation about what should be the you, the me, and the we economically. It's the same conversation that you should be having on every other thing, which is, what do you want, what do I want, what's good for us, and how do we have that, you know, check in. And again, it's kind of like estate planning. When somebody says to me, you know, when should I do my estate planning? I would say early and often, you know, and it's the same thing. Like, you can, you should check in early in the relationship and often and constantly say,
Starting point is 00:50:20 is this still working for the two of us? Because you're going to see on a long timeline, as a young buck, you're going to see that as time goes on, like what's incredibly important in your 30s and even in your 40s, it shifts. It starts to change. Like, it moves in different ways. And again, that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Starting point is 00:50:38 As long as you say to each other, hey, something changed. Is it good? Is it bad? Is it just a function of the natural flow and progression of time? that's, I think, the most important thing is to have the mechanisms for just constantly checking in. We'll be right back. And by the way, first time founders is officially moving to the ProfG Markets feed. The first episode on the feed is coming out tomorrow with the CEO and co-founder of Portiful.
Starting point is 00:51:08 You can find it right here on ProfG Markets. Support for the show comes from Hostinger. The biggest barrier to entry for most entrepreneurs is no lack of capital. It's the friction of starting. You can spend months in the strategizing phase, which is precious time that could instead be spent actually making moves. But these days, the rules have changed. AI is redefining who gets to build a business. So, when you're building the next big thing, go live in minutes, not weeks, with Hostinger.
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Starting point is 00:53:07 You said something that, some data that was really illuminating, that people who get married when they're over the age of 25 have lower divorce rates and people with college educations have lower divorce rates. So if you take away that as you get older, you're more mature, better perspective, and if you are fortunate enough to have a college degree, it might, it doesn't necessarily mean you're smarter, but maybe have more historical context. Maybe even again, you're blessed with not only privilege, but maybe some perspective that comes from education. Isn't the takeaway that it's a smart thing to do to wait to get married and also a really smart thing to try and stay married?
Starting point is 00:53:47 Yeah, I mean, I think you can make that argument from that data. The downside of making that argument is the biological reality of people wanting to marry for the purpose of having children. So if you say to somebody, and this is where this, you know, this becomes such a fraught conversation to have. And somehow, you know, thankfully I've managed to like have it without too much offending either side, partly because I've represented both sides of every single argument in the divorce space, you know. And so whenever somebody, like I posted something a few weeks ago on International Women's Day that got me a lot of negative and positive
Starting point is 00:54:28 press because I posted five of the wealthiest women in the world and they the majority of them, the ones that I posted, were all billionaires as a function of divorce. And, you know, of course I was
Starting point is 00:54:44 immediately getting attacked and people were saying, you know, well, didn't these women deserve this? And I wanted to say, what argument do you... The men were billionaires because of the women they married. What are the women? do you think I make in court? Like, I represent those women and I represent the men they're married to in roughly equal measure. So, like, I'm, I think it's hilarious when people are saying to me an argument that I've
Starting point is 00:55:05 made in a court, you know, they're saying, like, well, don't you know that those women contribute? Of course I know those women contribute. I've made those arguments. Some of those women are my clients. So, of course, I get that. But I also get the other side of that argument as well. I think the truth of marriage statistics is people who have a college education, it's usually a sign of other things like they're, you know, again, the substance use disorder rates related to a person who has a college education and doesn't. This is not a function of the fact that they had a good liberal arts education. This is a function of the fact that this is a person who probably had the economic stability that they could go to college in the present client. You know, again, it's not, you know, it's not your story of a person who could get into a state school and could do that. They're not, I went back to, I went to a state school in New Jersey.
Starting point is 00:55:56 I went to Ramapo College of New Jersey. And they asked me about 10 years ago to come back and to speak at an open house. And, you know, I was very effusive about the fact that, hey, I didn't have good SAT scores. I was a really unambitious bad student. I had long hair and a bad attitude. And I said, you know, this is a school that took a chance on. me and I'm so grateful of the fact that I moved on to become someone very successful. And afterwards, one of the admissions people came to me and said, you know, this was so great
Starting point is 00:56:27 and you were so funny. But in the future, when you come, like, maybe don't talk about that because you wouldn't get in now. Like, you then wouldn't get in now. And I said, do you know how horrified you should be to say that out loud? Like, because you just admitted you would have passed on me. And look at me. You have me speaking here today.
Starting point is 00:56:48 That's right. So I think that there is a reality. And, I mean, again, I don't want to sound like a me in college saying there's no war, but the class war. But I do think that, you know, if you really care, this is why I always think it's funny when, like, right-wing conservatives, you know, I debated with Matt Walsh on the Daily Wire about this because he was very gung-ho about how we got to get rid of no-fault divorce. You know, that no-fault divorce is to blame for the demise of marriages, which is kind of
Starting point is 00:57:13 like saying, like, emergency rooms are to blame for the number of injuries people have. Like, you're mistaking cause and effect and you're thinking barriers to exit. I would actually say barriers to entry makes more sense. Like, you got to, you know, it's the most legally significant thing you're ever going to do other than die. And you don't even have to take a test, you know, before you do it or fill out, like, there's no waiting period, nothing like that. But if the Wright really cared about marriage and keeping marriages together,
Starting point is 00:57:38 they would care about creating economic stability. They would care about creating opportunities for people to, go to college and to be able to get educated. They would look at the raw data and say, hey, this improves marriage outcomes. So let's feed that. And that, by the way, it would have a lot of other cascading effects because that would increase the number of people that don't deal with, you know, substance use disorder, which again, when you take that demographic out, improves the marriage rate. So all of these things, they're all tied to each other. And the answer is not that difficult to suss out, but it's not going to be popular among the left or the
Starting point is 00:58:12 right, the left because it's got a lot of gender stuff in it, which becomes fraught to rain. And on the right, they don't want to have to look at the fact that the, you know, the wealth disparity in the United States is a big piece of this. When we look at the way that divorce rates have changed over time, also we've been talking about how young people are not really dating as much as they used to, they're not having sex as much as they used to, and they're not really having children as much as they used to. I think the start that always kind of shocks me is the fact that around half of Gen Z, my generation, say they don't want to have children. And a lot of people try to figure out why is that? We believe that it's mostly to do with financial anxiety. But I guess my question, as someone who is literally a practitioner of marriage and divorce, how would you say that the digital age has changed marriage? And are there any ways, I mean, I guess how is it changed marriage as an institution for the worst? and perhaps has it maybe changed marriage for the better?
Starting point is 00:59:15 It has not changed marriage for the better. It has changed it for the worse, I think unequivocally. There's a chapter in my book called If We Were Going to Invent an infidelity generating machine, it would be called Facebook. I would probably change that now to meta, because I think Instagram and TikTok are better. But look, I think, you know, Ed, you're too young to remember this song Part-Time Lover by Stevie Wonder. But it was a song about a man who's having an affair and he's singing to his missing. And he says, you know, call up, ring once, hang up the phone to let me know you made it home. So then my wife won't suspect, you know.
Starting point is 00:59:48 And the whole song is about like if there's an emergency, have a male friend call and ask for me. Now it would just be, I'm going to text you. Don't worry. I'll slide. I'll DM you. Like we have created technologies that are wildly antagonistic to monogamous paribons. Because A, you're watching everyone else's relationship greatest hits while living your gag reel, which creates this.
Starting point is 01:00:11 endless comparison. And by the way, I cannot tell you how many people, celebrities, because I represent a lot of athletes, celebrities, that I see them on social media, hashtag blessed, greatest husband ever, and they were just in my office. They were just in my office for a constipation. They've been living apart for the last two years. Like, this is an absolute, but again, we don't show that to anybody. And then what happens is one day they just go, it's with great pain. We tell you that we're separating. We'd like some privacy
Starting point is 01:00:42 during this difficult time as we navigated and move on in our relationship. We're grateful for the gifts that we gave each other and our conscious uncompleting. Like, and this is, but meanwhile, the rest of us,
Starting point is 01:00:52 the civilians are looking at this and going like, my relationship doesn't look like that. They're so happy. Look at how happy they are. And by the way, at the same time, while we're, again, when are you looking at your social media?
Starting point is 01:01:03 Like, when you're bored, when you're on the subway or on the toilet. It's not when you're having, like, great moments. So you're watching everyone's greatest tits, you're sitting in this bored, sad moment of your own. And what are you looking at? Everyone's curated, wonderful life. And you now have reasons to communicate with people you have absolutely no business communicating with. Like in the past, if you wanted to flirt with a woman who was
Starting point is 01:01:24 one of the moms on your son's soccer team, you would have had to like slide up to her in person at practice, which is pretty obvious. Whereas following her on Facebook or Instagram, because there's a group where you guys share information about who's doing rides and who's doing snacks, well, that's perfectly harmless. And now you're seeing her vacation pictures with her in a bikini. And you have a message, oh, where'd you guys stay in Tulum? We were thinking about maybe going ourselves, oh, well, you look great, you know, da-da-da-da. Now we're talking. And we're talking privately, by the way. Like if at the soccer practice, I grabbed that mom, was like, let's go over here behind the bleachers and talk. Everyone would look and go, what are you doing, man? Whereas
Starting point is 01:02:01 if I'm doing that on the couch next to my wife, she doesn't even know I'm having that conversation. So there is so much coming at marriage right now that I am shocked that the divorce rate isn't higher than it is, and that the marriage satisfaction rate is going to survive this at all, because there is just such an endless progression of comparison and false performative things. I want to believe the optimist to me wants to believe that part of the popularity of my work is how honest and bluntly. I am about the challenges we're facing, but how it has not taken my optimism and belief in love and how ultimately the most important thing in life is to find deep connection and to feel loved and to feel worthy of love. I think our greatest fear is that if people knew us, the real us, they couldn't possibly love us. And I think that real romantic love is about someone looking at you and seeing, I see you. I see the good, the bad, the fool in you, the hero in you, and I love you.
Starting point is 01:03:15 I love the whole thing of you, and I'm cheering for you, and I believe in you. To me, that's the most worthwhile, beautiful sentiment in the world. It's a superpower if you find it and can keep it. But like everything that has value, it requires some effort. And I think we're not doing anybody any favors by pretending that it's effortless. You know, we make these rom-coms, and it's like, everything's fine. They live happily after. Right, because you end the story, you know, but if Jack had survived the Titanic, eventually Kate Winslet's character would have been like, dude, what would paint
Starting point is 01:03:48 the French girls? Are we going to get a real job? What are you doing? You know, and it, we're not doing people of service by showing them, like, only the greatest hits and not the day-to-day maintaining of connection part. James Sexton has been an attorney. in New York since 2001. He holds a law degree from Fordham Law School and a Master of Arts degree from NYU where he focused his graduate studies on persuasive speech and propaganda. After nearly
Starting point is 01:04:13 two decades of refining his skills, as a lawyer in the courtrooms of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Rockland, Westchester, and Orange County's James turned a place in the top 1% of family law attorneys practicing in New York. James is the best-selling author of, if you're in my office, it's already too late, how to stay in love and how not to fuck up your marriage. He's also the host of the podcast, Better Call Sexton. James, this was entertaining and meaningful. Very much appreciate your time and good work. Thank you. It was a pleasure, Scott. I'm a fan of your work for many years now, and if I had a dollar for every person that said to me, you and Scott Galloway should chat some time. And I do have to say, I owe you a big one. I've heard the same thing. Yeah, I owe you a big
Starting point is 01:04:53 one, too, because you got me through the pandemic. I jokingly say that you and Cody Rigsby were my two best friends in the pandemic, because I listened to pivot constantly during that time, and it was like a lifeline. And I remember, and I did Peloton rides like three times a day, and Cody Rigsby was like my savior. So, no, I'm thrilled. We finally intersected.
Starting point is 01:05:14 We have a lot of people in common. And I'm glad, Ed, that we got to meet as well, and it's always fun. Like Scott, I really share Scott's passion and enthusiasm for men connecting with younger men and us trying to sort of collaboratively share, share our life experience and wisdom and share from you and get from you, you know, all the, the different perspective that you bring to, uh, to the older guys like us. So I think we're,
Starting point is 01:05:38 we're all really lucky to have each other. I'm really glad we chatted and I hope we'll connect again. Really appreciate it, James. Thank you so much. It's a blast. Good to see you guys. Scott. Reactions. Uh, so I really enjoy James' content because just as we've normalized, I think it's important we normalize talking about cancer before you didn't talk about, even when my mom got cancer. I remember you only told your closest friends because it was somehow embarrassing. Then we normalized mental health struggles. You never said, oh, my kids struggling with anxiety or I'm in a relationship with someone who's bipolar, and we've normalized that, which is really healthy, or made it a topic of conversation, which is an acceptable topic of conversation. And I think
Starting point is 01:06:28 divorce is finally an acceptable topic of conversation outside of kind of TMZing it. And it's something I consider one of my biggest failures. You know, I had a wonderful relationship with my ex. And, and I'm still very fond of her. We still speak pretty regularly. And it's just, I find his, I find his content comforting. Because I think, I mean, I actually don't think he's a divorce attorney. I mean, he may be in practice during the day, but on TikTok, he's basically a marriage counselor. He's basically saying, these are the, these are the, it's like, if you want to understand how how to be a good pilot. You should go to air disaster.com and listen to every black box recording of every crash in history so you know how to avoid air disasters. And I think he's very
Starting point is 01:07:15 instructive and informative for people your age around how you, what are the red flags, how do you set yourself up for success? So I really like his content. I also appreciate, I think he's a fantastic communicator. He's sort of, again, I said this, he's kind of tailor-made for TikTok. Your thoughts, Ed? Also tailor-made for podcasts. I mean, I always just gripped the entire time. Yeah, I found it really interesting the thing he said about pre-ups, the fact that you're signing a pre-up either way, and it's either you sign it with your spouse or you sign it with the government. And it just kind of got me thinking, I mean, it reminds me of a conversation that we had with Ramit Satie, where Remit was talking about this cult of home ownership, this idea
Starting point is 01:08:00 that everyone believes that you have to own a home. And so we'll kind of do whatever we can just to make sure that we can say, yes, I am a homeowner, and then we forget about all the fixed costs, and we just completely disregard doing the cost-benefit analysis of, could I be renting versus owning. And it makes me think that marriage is kind of one of those things that there's almost a cult of marriage where we're so obsessed with the precedent, we're so obsessed with what you're supposed to do, that we refuse and get anxious, at the concept of just thinking for ourselves. And the pre-nap is almost the perfect example of that. Like, his point is exactly right. You're signing a pre-up either way. But it's up to you on whether you want to negotiate the terms of your own relationship or if you want to outsource those terms to someone else.
Starting point is 01:08:54 So I guess my big takeaway from him is I think he's really empowering people to think about the institution of marriage. one, he's promoting it because he believes that it's a good thing, which I appreciate it. I think it's a good thing too. But he's kind of encouraging us to rethink the terms or at least view it from a more first principles perspective and think, okay, what are we actually trying to do here? What is the goal of this? And that's a far more powerful and wise decision versus just doing things because that's what everyone else does. So that's kind of what resonated for me. I always joke about it. I always say, when I meet women that I'm attracted to, I'm like, number three. And now the pot is ruined. Oh, my best line. You could be the future ex-Mrs. Galloway. Zero lessons learned. This episode was produced by Claire Miller and Alison Weiss and engineered by Benjamin Spencer.
Starting point is 01:09:57 Our video editor is Jorge Carty. Our research team is Dan Shalon, Isabella Kinsel, Chris Nodonohue, and Mia Silverio. Jake McPherson is our social producer. Drew Burrows is our technical director and Catherine Dillon is our executive producer. Thank you for listening to Profitie Markets from Profitie Media. If you liked what you heard, give us a follow and join us for a fresh take on markets on Monday.

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