The Iced Coffee Hour - “This Is Why You’re Single!” - Divorce Lawyer on Love, Lies, and Cheating | James Sexton

Episode Date: January 21, 2024

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Okay, when I sell my business, I want the best tax and investment advice. I want to help my kids, and I want to give back to the community. Ooh, then it's the vacation of a lifetime. I wonder if my head of office has a forever setting. An IG Private Wealth advisor creates the clarity you need with plans that harmonize your business, your family, and your dreams. Get financial advice that puts you at the center. Find your advisor at IG Private Wealth.com.

It's never too early to plan your summer story in Europe with WestJet, from rolling countryside to cobblestone streets. Begin your next chapter. Book your seat at westjet.com or call your travel agent. WestJet, where your story takes off. Anger is reaching into a pile of hot coals to throw them at the other person. You may or may not hit them, but you're going to burn yourself for sure. I represent victims of domestic violence, and I represent perpetrators of domestic violence.

You spend enough time in the room with people, and you start to figure out that, like, They're just hurt people, hurting people. And sometimes it's really obvious. Like, oh, yeah, he's sleeping with his secretary. Okay, you haven't slept with him in four years. What was he supposed to do? The line of good and evil runs through the human heart, and all marriages end, all of them.

They end in death or they end in divorce. There are people that are not meant to be together. I've been a divorce lawyer for 23 years, and I'm divorced myself. I believe in divorce. So why is it, do you think that most relationships fail? Jim Sexton, publicly known as James Sexton, Welcome to the iced coffee hour. That's great.

I was excited to be here. I love you guys' content, and I actually was really excited when you reached out. We're super stoked to have you on. We saw the Soft White Underbelly interview. We saw Lex Friedman, and they've just absolutely blown up. People love you. They love hearing all the tea, the drama about why people get divorced, how settlements happen. And they love you, too.

Yeah, it's kind of funny to me. I didn't think I was that interesting. You know, mostly the judges of the state of New York have to tolerate me. And I didn't really know that it was going to catch fire the way that it I did a lot of media stuff when my book came out in 2019. You know, I do segments for Access Hollywood and some of the other shows every now and then where I talk about celebrity divorces and things like that. But I hadn't really, you know, I have a full-time job.

You know, being a divorce lawyer is like more than a full-time job. It's a really, really agonizing, constant grind. It applies to so many people because practically everyone is in a relationship. Yeah. Almost everyone at some point will get married. Yeah. Half of those will end in divorce. And even before this, like you were giving me great advice of just keeping a successful marriage together.

Yeah. It's a tremendous equalizer. It's not a rich person's problem. It's not a poor person's problem. It's everybody. Everybody, again, heterosexual, you know, same-sex couples, everything. Like, we all have this desire for love and connection, pair bonds, figuring out that permutation. And it's one of those problems that, like, having an abundance of resources only makes you slightly better or maybe slightly worse at it.

Like, there's not, like, oh, rich people have much better marriages or poor people have much better marriages. Like there's nothing out there that suggests that in any really significant, statistically significant way. So I think it is something that it's got a very broad audience where all of us, whether we're people who are in unhappy marriages and want to hear about what divorce looks like or people that want to avoid having an unhappy marriage or people who are single and going, who should I be looking for and pairing with in order for me to not have those kinds of problems. I think that's a very big basket of people out there. So I'm surprised by it. I'm gratified by it. But I guess when I think about it, I get it. So we'll get into the recipe of having a wonderful and successful relationship.

But first, we got to know what is the craziest divorce you've ever settled? Or like the muddiest divorce. I mean, I've been doing this for 23 years. So I have seen some amazingly good people at their absolute worst. I mean, I've had people who, you know, I've watched the other side just immolate themselves and end up in jail, you know, over how much they dislike. Yeah, I've had people who violate court orders. I mean, I would say from my perspective,

the disliking someone else so much, especially someone you used to love, right? Like, that's the thing that makes it weird. Everybody's got like a cultivated enemies list maybe of people that you go, I don't really care for that person. But it's rarely someone who at some point you went, hey, there's 8 billion people in the world,

and I want this one to be my partner. So when that goes south, it's like intimacy weaponized. And so that often, I would think it would bring out like softness in you. Like I'm a divorced man myself. My ex-wife, you know, is one of the great loves of my life. Like she has a tremendous place in my heart still. Like we weren't right for each other. Like we're both happily in other relationships now.

She's been remarried for 12 years. But we have a tremendous amount of affection for each other, you know. I've never had an ex that I looked at and went like, I hate that. him like I've never hated anybody. But I get it because if you get betrayed by someone who you deeply, deeply trusted, that can create a violent sense of like anger, right? So I get it. So does that mean you've never been betrayed by an ex?

I've been betrayed by an ex, but I generally don't, I don't think people do evil things because they're evil. I think they mistake it for happiness. I represent victims of domestic violence and I represent perpetrators of domestic violence. I represent people who are married to someone with substance abuse issues, and I represent people who have substance abuse issues. And you spend enough time in the room with people, and you start to figure out that, like, they're just hurt people hurting people. Like, they're just trying to figure it out, you know, and maybe they grew up in a home where violence was acceptable. And I'm not excusing that behavior.

I think there should be consequences for behavior without question. But if it explains it, it doesn't excuse it. But I still like to understand it. So, like, a lot of the really haywire crazy cases where people violate orders. I mean, the craziest case I've ever seen my client was run over six times by her ex. He tried to kill her while the divorce was pending. And thank God, she survived after many, many surgeries, and then ended up, he went to jail, and he's still in jail, be in jail for the rest of his life for attempted murder.

So that's the craziest one I ever had. Was that while you were working on the case? Yeah, yeah. So you were seeing her all the time, and then randomly she was in the hospital. Well, even more than that, I got the call from her brother saying that this had happened, and they believed it was him because she had no other enemies. Oh, she was unconscious and everything. She was unconscious for days.

She was in the hospital for six months, I think. She was run over six times. Why does someone become so self-destructive? Like, did this guy have a history of abuse like this? He was the perpetrator of domestic violence, intimate partner abuse, yeah, but not at such a level. Like, he was not a guy who was routinely harming. her in that way. I think the way that it happened, you know, I think he lost it. I mean, he was a pretty crazy guy to begin with. But I, you know, there was no way to really see that coming.

See, I see that kind of thing often. That was an extreme example of it. But anger, you know, the Dalai Lama said that, you know, anger is reaching into a pile of hot coals to throw them at the other person. Like you may or may not hit them, but you're going to burn yourself for sure. And this was a guy who was just so consumed with anger and resentment, and he had pointed all of it at her. And I see that all the time in divorce, where people just blame everything in their life that they are unhappy about on their spouse or soon-to-be former spouse.

And I don't think it's rarely honest. It's rarely honest to say this person is the singular cause of all of my... Do you think that's a coping mechanism that they have to do that to justify, this is a person that I loved so deeply? how could I get rid of this person, let me demonize them in my head to justify everything that I'm doing? Yeah, that makes sense to me. I mean, I think that's as good a theory. We're both, you know, neither of us is psychologists, but that makes sense to me. I mean, the only analogy I can give is when my sons, both of my sons, when they were getting ready to go off to college, for that like six months or year before they went off to college, we would get in like much more arguments and they were much more hostile to me. And I remember saying to their mom, like, man, I, I don't know. We used to get along so well, and now they're like so kind of defiant to me.

And she was like, you know, maybe they kind of need to push away so they can go, you know? Like they love you, but they're not going to be living with you anymore. They're going off to college. Like they got to leave the nest. And to do that, they have to like dislike you a little, you know? And when that was said, I thought, oh, that makes sense. Like if you love something so much, you just want to hold it so close to you always. And so I do think when you're going to lose.

something, maybe you have to, in your head, say, okay, it has no value, it has no value. I don't think it has to be that way. I think some people, that's how they process loss. You know, like some people, like, you're going to die. I'm going to die. We're all going to die. I hope that's not like news to you. But, you know, you can either see that as something to be terrified of or as an invitation to, like, live your life because it's, the clock is running, you know. And I think it's the same thing. I think when you're losing someone, you can either say, this person gave me unique gifts. Like, their presence in my life created certain unique gifts for me.

Or you can say, like, oh, man, my life without them would have been so many. I would have done all these other things if I knew it was going to end this way. But I just don't think that's honest. What is your background? How did you get into this? Were you always so good with people and negotiation? You know, I was a psychology major in college. I wanted to be a therapist.

and then I figured out that therapists have to listen better than they talk, and I talk better than I listen. And I also found out what they make compared to lawyers. Now, I was going to go into mental health. I was going to be a psychologist. I was a psychology major with a minor in East Asian Studies and substance abuse was the name of one thing. Whenever I tell people I minored in substance abuse in college,

they was thinking that they drank a lot. But that was what I was going to be is either an addiction counselor or psychologist, therapist, some kind. And then I just ended up, I went and got my master's degree at NYU. I was teaching at NYU for a little while. I was going to work on my PhD. And then I decided to take the L-Sat because my then-wife was pregnant with our first child, who's now also an attorney.

And I said, you know what, I did really well on the L-Sat. I got to go to law school for free. And as soon as I went to law school, I said, I think I want to be a divorce lawyer. And that was weird. if you say to someone, oh, you know, how did you become a divorce lawyer? They always say, well, I ended up. It's always got the word ended up in it, which I always thought was funny because ended up is always like I made a wrong turn.

Like you never say, like, I ended up and, I thought I was doing this. I got drunk and I ended up in Tijuana. Like it's always, it's never like I meant to do the things. So for me, it was a deliberate choice. Like I really wanted to because it was the best parts of what I liked about being a therapist, which was working with people in a really difficult, moment in their life that they kind of couldn't pretend they meant to be in, you know, like no one meant to get divorced. You can't, you can, you're full of shit. If you say, you know, I intended to get

to, no, you didn't. You intended to stay together. Like, you considered divorce was a possibility, maybe, but you didn't mean to. So I liked that about it. And I always liked speech and debate and extemporaneous speaking. I always had a performer streak. So I always enjoyed that. And being a trial lawyer, it's just all the things I love. It's, it's, you know, it's extemporary speaking. It's debate. It's very fast-paced. It's never boring. It's, I mean, I, 23 years I've been doing the same job and I still look forward to going to work every day. But before we go on to that, I want to take a moment and talk about something that's incredibly important to all of us, and that would be mental well-being. So I've mentioned this before briefly on the show, but I've had

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Again, the link is down below in the description to get 10% off. Enjoy. Thank you so much. And now let's get back to the episode. Are your parents still married? My mom passed away eight years ago, after a long battle with cancer, but they were married for 53 years until she passed away. Wow.

And they had a lovely love story and they had a lovely life together. And after she passed away, my dad remarried a couple of years later to a very nice woman who'd lost her husband and who had been a friend to my mom and my dad. And my dad's in his 80s. He's of a generation where he needed someone to take care of him. And his new spouse is of the generation where she needed someone to take care of. And so they're a lovely combination, you know, and he's very happy. But yeah, my parents were married for 53 years.

What did you learn from your parents' marriage that you wanted to apply in your marriage or some advice maybe that you give to some people your... You know, my parents were an interesting amalgam. My dad was a Naval Academy graduate in a Vietnam veteran, and he was a Reagan conservative, and my mom was a left-wing lunatic, like almost a Marxist. She was the most progressive, liberal person you'd ever meet. And so I think I had no choice of it to become a lawyer because I had to see both sides of everything from infancy, you know, because my parents just never voted for the same people,

were never on the same side of any political issue. I learned a lot from that because I knew they were both smart and good people with good hearts, and I knew they loved each other, but they didn't agree on most political things and social things, but they still respected and loved each other. So I think I learned a lot about that you can disagree with someone and they're not your enemy, you know, that you can still love someone and disagree with their point of view.

And I also learned a lot because my mom was a stay-at-home mom. She had been a nurse, and then when my sister and I were born, my sister's six-year-older than me. When my sister was born, she stopped working and was a stay-at-home mom, of that generation was a common thing to be. And my dad was a salesman for a medical device company. He worked really, really hard,

but he never, ever once said that my mother didn't work. He was very mindful of reminding my sister and I that he and my mother both worked, that he worked outside the home and my mom worked inside the home. And he was always reminding me, like, at dinner, did you thank your mother for making this beautiful dinner for us? You know, it was ingrained in me that she provided tremendous value and he provided tremendous value.

And they were never counting the cost. They were never, I never once heard my father say, well, I worked so hard, you just sit home all day. It was nothing like that. And I never heard her say, you know, you're always working. They always had tremendous respect for the role that each of them played in the family. And I really, I think I got a tremendous amount out of that. Would they have those conversations behind closed doors? Do you think or you think they just didn't do it in front of like?

I think that they didn't have those. I don't think they had that resentment. I think my father was very appreciative for the value my mother brought to our family. And my mother was very, you know, considered his value as a provider as a very real thing. I don't think it was insincere at all or performative. I think they really, you know, it translated into my own relationships. Like I really, I worked in restaurants, you know, all through, I grew up without money. And so I worked in restaurants all through college and part of grad school.

And, you know, what you learn when you work in a restaurant is like if anybody goes down, we're all going down. Like, so if the hostess isn't seating properly, it's going to have a ripple effect. It's going to, and we're all going to be in the weeds. So like the servers, the busboys, the chef, you know, the grill cooks, like if anybody falls off, we're all going down. So there's this tremendous sense of like, hey, we all got to support each other as best we can, while doing our individual job. And so I think there's a lot of value to that. I think that my parents saw that very early on,

that like, hey, we all have a role in this family and we all have to perform our role. Do you think people are losing that respect today because it seems like a lot of grandparents have been together for a very long time? We don't quite see that to that extent today. I don't think anybody knows how to behave anymore. I think everyone just now feels awful most of the time.

I think because I really do think there is a, greater discord out there. I think that, you know, women who stay at home are constantly told, well, why aren't you a boss, babe? Why aren't you out in the world making money? Are you under your husband's thumb? You're dependent on him. And women who are out in the working world are like, yeah, you're in the working world and you're making lots of money and you're a girl boss, but what's your home life like? And are you really there for your kids? Are they being raised by nannies? And are you really there for your partner? Like everyone all the time feels like they're doing a terrible job. Because whatever you're doing, there's someone out there who's going to say,

yeah, but, yeah, but what about, you know, instead of sort of, look, there was a problem when everyone was expected to do exactly the same thing. Women stayed at home and had babies and men went to work. And that was unfair because there are women who wanted to be in the workforce and men who wanted to be home with babies or men who wanted to pursue creative enterprises and things like that. So that was terribly unfair. But it certainly created a stability. People didn't have to be so apologetic about the choices that they make. Like, they just felt better in their own skin. Now, personally, I think what the greater culture thinks of the dynamic of a family isn't

as important as the two people in the relationship. And so, you know, most of the people who end up in my office are people who have either convinced themselves or been convinced by the world that the grass on the other side of the fence is going to be greener. And very often, you know, that's a side effect of, like, not just paying attention to what's going on in their own house and their own dynamic. If the two people in the relationship are happy and they're the best version of themselves and they're supporting each other, you know, I don't think that society should have much to do with it.

So do you think people are more influenced today than they were 50, 60 years ago? Well, of course. I mean, how many people do you interact with now? I'm not talking about interacting with in person. Right. I'm talking about interacting. How many women do you see? my father would see what?

The women who lived on his street, the women you'd see in church on Sunday, and the women you might run into in the grocery store. You take out your phone right now, scroll through your Instagram, there's 200 women going to come up on your Instagram, either ones that are absolutely there to show you their half-naked body or ones that are just sort of in the background or married to someone you know or whatever it might be or suggested by the algorithm.

So, yeah, we're constantly, we're seeing so many other examples of everyone else's greatest hits while we live, live our gag real. And so of course, I think that's going to create an endless number of comparisons, right? And comparison is the thief of joy. So you're going to spend so much of your time going, wow, that guy looks so much better than me. Wow, that woman, look at the woman he's got. And oh, my God, it's constant. And again, it's everyone's greatest hits. It's a curated, performative look into their life. I can't tell you how many people come into my office for a consultation. And then I look at their social media. And their social media is, you know, hashtag

blessed, like they're the greatest husband ever, you know, hashtag best wife ever. I'm like, you're sleeping with three different people. I know because you just told me it in my office, but you're not going to put that on your Instagram, you know, you're not going to tell me that, yeah, on our last vacation, like we got in a screaming fight and he broke a lamp at the resort when he threw it at me. No, no, there's great photos from that vacation. That vacation was wonderful if you look at social media. So if you're comparing your vacation with your significant other to that vacation, the social media version of that. of it, your vacation sucked, but it didn't show the throwing.

I was thinking so much as reading other people's thoughts, that it's a lot easier to go and read it, let's just say, and post something, and get hundreds or thousands of different perspectives, whereas 60 years ago it would just be your circle of influence, who knows you in your specific situation, knows who you are as a person, what's important to you. Maybe it could give you more tailored advice than someone just commenting something. But advice just falls out of the sky now, too, doesn't it? I mean, I think having a defined sense of self was easier because it was clearer what was expected of you. Like, I don't think my father ever really sat around and went, I wonder if I'm a good father.

Like, I wonder how I'm doing is if am I meeting my child's emotional needs. Like, I don't think that ever crossed his mind. He's like, my job is to keep the bills paid and the lights on and to make sure you have clothes and food. Like, that was his role. So anything he did other than that was extra. If you went fishing with me, it was like, now I'm like the gold standard dad, you know. But even like I have friends who are fathers in this modern sort of zeitgeist and they're jumping from one foot to the other and they still feel like failures. Because it's like, well, yeah, you're this, but you didn't take them to this.

Well, you took them to that, but you did you spend the whole day? And you're like, oh my God. Like, what do you expect of people? So I think a lot of the time now we all feel like we could be doing much better and we were not working hard enough at our relationship, at our job, at our side hub. at our parents, whatever it might be. But the truth is, like, we're comparing ourselves to such ideals as opposed to the people actually around us. Like, I never felt as handsome as when I went to Disney World.

I took my kids to Disney World. You know, I live in Manhattan. So when you live in Manhattan, it's just gorgeous people everywhere. Like, it's unbelievable. So I live in West Chelsea. So I live in a primarily gay neighborhood. So some of the gay men of Chelsea, they look Photoshopped. Like, this is the best-looking men I've ever.

ever seen in my life. And I'm in the elevator with them and I'm like, want, want, wah, wah. Because they just compare to these guys. I forget it. Like six pack ass, shizzle, just gorgeous. Like they're just, yeah, perfect hair. They have a skin regimen because I'm like heterosexual men who are like, you know, like, I don't want to talk about my skincare regimen. They're like, hey, we're not bound by these strict gender roles. We can talk about this stuff. So I really am, you know, but you go to Disney World and you're like, oh, this is America, you know? And I'm like, hey, I'm not. Everyone's thought it though. That's the thing. I said, sure, listen, man, there's people at Disney World going around on those jazis because they're so obese that they can't walk around.

And I'm not saying those people are terrible people. I'm just simply saying, compared to, if you hang out in a room full of supermodels, you're going to feel bad about how you look. You know, so if you want to feel skinny, hang out with overweight people, you know, if you want to feel fit, you know. So I really think that that is a little bit of this, is that people are now comparing themselves to a giant pool of performative relationships. as opposed to looking at their relationship compared to their friend, right? Like, look, when you're in a relationship, how much sex is a good amount of sex? None of us know? Yeah.

None of us know? Like, your friends don't, how many your friends really sit around and say, even your closest friends? How many of them really tell you how many times a week they have sex? And who initiates it? And are they doing, like, all kinds of stuff, or do they just do, like, the straight-up act? Or is it like, how often do you have oral sex? How often do you? No one's going to talk about it.

And to the extent that they do, are they really? really being honest about it? So what are you comparing it to? Right? And it's so natural to want to compare to other people. But we didn't have anything to compare it to for so long. Now we compare it to this idealized image of things. When really the answer is, are you happy? Do you feel satisfied? Does your partner feel satisfied? Great. That's all that matters. Doesn't matter. Keep your eyes on your plate. It doesn't matter what everybody else is doing. I always say that when it comes to money. It's like, listen, where? you are at financially guarantee there are better. I have clients worth hundreds of millions of

dollars who are jealous of my clients who are worth billions of dollars. Now, they already both have more money than they or their grandchildren will ever need. But if that's the metric by which you're measuring your success, there's always somebody who's going to be richer. There's always going to be somebody who's richer and younger or the same rich but younger so they can enjoy it more. Like, come on, you know. So if you can get a sense of, there's only two amounts of money. Enough and not enough. That's it.

There's only two amounts of sex. Enough and not enough. So that's really up to the two people in the relationship. This episode is brought to you by Tell Us Online Security. Oh, tax season is the worst. You mean hack season? Sorry, what? Yeah, cyber criminals love tax forms.

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again with the code iced coffee hour. Of course, terms apply. Again, it's current.com slash iced coffee hour. Join the future of banking and start building credit with a debit card. Thank you so much, Current. And back to the show. So why is it do you think that most relationships fail? I think they fail because people stop paying attention and people stop being grateful. You know, I think the best way to look at why things end is to look at how they started. And when a relationship starts, there's this tremendous period of like paying attention to each other and trying to impress each other with how much you're paying attention and how much you care about each other and how much you're noticing the other person.

And there's also a tremendous sense of like overlooking the flaws of someone. or even finding them charming, you know, and when somebody has like a snort to their laugh. You know, it's like, oh, she's so cute. She has a little snort to her laugh. Whereas, you know, you're together for a bunch of years and it's like, what is the snort? What was that? You know, so you start to really, and I don't understand really why we do that in romantic relationships, because we don't do it in other kinds of relationships. When you've had your kid for five years, you don't go like, oh, this freaking kid,

like, I've got to get a new one, you know? Or you don't have, like, a dog. Like anybody who's a dog owner, like if you have your dog for 10 years, you're not like, oh, I've had this dog. I've got to get a puppy, man. They're so much cuter and fuzzier. You know, like, you go, oh, my God, it's my dog. Like, I've had it for 10 years. I love that.

So relationships were very quick to just stop being grateful for the value the person brings to our life. We're very quick to stop noticing that they're even there and that they're what they're there for. And then we stop being kind to each other. We stop being attentive to each other. I think relationships are all about little things. I think it's all about little courtesies and little compliments and little ways of, like if you talk to most people about their love life, they will remember giant things, like when we went on this vacation,

or when we had this candlelit dinner on the beach, these dramatic gestures, because those are super interesting stories. But really love is like little day-to-day. things. You know, it's just like finance. Like finance is not, you know, yeah, is there the person that bought this crypto at this price and then suddenly they're a billionaire? Sure, but that's the exception not the rule. Most of the time it's just a grind and a grind and a grind. Right. First million is the hardest. And then once you got that, if you're smart about it and disciplined as an investor, you're going to be fine. You do really well. But it's not sexy. It's not sexy.

Like, you know, everybody wants like the crypto billionaire story, but they don't want to hear that. Like, oh yeah, municipal bonds might make sense for you for a certain percentage of your portfolio from a tax place. Like, nobody wants to hear that. They want to hear the like, yeah, this stock was 10 cents and now it's $50. So I think it's the same thing

with relationships. Like we, those little boring pieces of advice I could give you. Tell your partner how much you value them. Tell them how beautiful they are to you. Tell them, you know, what things you're thankful for in them,

you know? Why not? Like, what do you, what does that cost? Do you think this is just romantic relationships or also friendships? It's all relationships. I think it's human relationships.

Any relationship. These are human, relationships. I mean, I think there's different things you convey to a romantic partner. You know, it should be easier with a romantic partner because a romantic partner, there's so many other spheres of connection. Like a spouse is your roommate, maybe your co-parent or your pet co-parent, they're your travel companion, they're your sleeping companion. So that's a much larger field of things to feel like they're getting wrong, but it's also a much larger field of things to be grateful for, you know, deeply grateful for and to express that gratitude for, you know,

and I do genuinely, look, there are people that are not meant to be together. I've been a divorce lawyer for 23 years and I'm divorced myself. I believe in divorce. I think there are people that with good intentions and good faith tried to make it work and they realize, you know what, we are not bringing out the best in each other. And there might be someone else who would be able to do that for us. Do you ever see or can tell instantly these two people aren't going to be together? In a relationship? Yeah. Yeah, I can, I got a pretty good radar for that. And what do you notice in that? Like, the way I hone that skill was watching the Real Housewife shows on Bravo.

I used to watch those shows on Bravo. I'd watch the first season of each of them and I'd go, they're getting divorced, they're getting divorced, and they're getting divorced. What specifically stands out? It was the way they talked to each other, and it was also the way that they talk about each other when the other one's not there. Those were two things that stand out. I have to tell you, I genuinely believe that if you are not the cheerleader and fan of your partner, that you're not that far away from the ruin of that relationship. Like, there are 8 billion people in the world, and you picked this person as the one you're going to have the most intimate relationship with.

If you can't have kind words for them, the majority of the time, whether to them or to third parties talking about them, you made a wrong choice. So do you think that's a sign of maybe disrespect for the other person? I think it's disrespect. I think it's also just the lack of affection and gratitude for that person and their role in your life. I mean, it's a glass, half, full, half empty kind of a thing. Like this person, look, we're human, we're flawed, we're all flawed. And I don't want a partner who doesn't know that I'm flawed. I want a partner who knows I'm flawed and loves me and loves my flaws

and sees my flaws as a sign of my humanity and weakness that, It's also in them, that they have humanity and weakness in them, but they also have tremendous beauty and power and strengthen them. So I want a partner who inspires the best in me, and I inspire the best in them. And when I fall, they don't stand there and go, look, you fell. I knew you were going to fall. They say like, all right, yeah, you fell. Hey, man, people fall.

Come on, let's get up. Let's get up. Or they just are kind. And they just say, hey, you fell. That looks like it hurt. You okay? Because the rest of the world will be real quick to point out when you fell. and real quick to just cheer for the fact that you fell

or to say like I didn't fall, he fell but I didn't fall. So to have a partner who's there for all those potential possibilities, but look, you know, again, if your partner isn't the one who's cheering for you and trying to help and trying to prevent you from falling or helping you once you fall, you know, I don't think that there's anything noble in staying miserable together. Why do you think it is that most of the people that initiate divorces are women? You know, I get so many questions about that statistic, and I see in like the red pill space

and the Manosphere, people who I really like and respect, like Rolo and Mike, like these are all like bright people in the sort of Manosphere space who, I, they quote that statistic and I know how people take it. And that is that they're like, oh, women are just getting married and then they kind of cash out because divorce is so favorable to women. And then that's it. You know, women are just so, they're never happy. They're never satisfied.

And that's why they're getting divorced. and they instigate the divorces. I have not seen that to be my experience as a divorce lawyer for 23 years, having handled thousands of divorces. What I find is there are a lot of men and women who initiate divorce, right? But the question is, is that's who files for divorce, right? That's who files the papers. So I have lots of women who filed for divorce.

the husband left started sleeping with someone else barely visits the kids or doesn't pay any child support and they come to my office and they go hey how do I you know like like he moved out six months ago and he was paying and then he stopped paying and now he's dating and I go we have to file a divorce action and they go well but I don't want to do that because I really hope it'll still work out and I go we have to file we can't get a judge assigned to a case that doesn't exist we have to file for divorce So we file a divorce action. Now you tell me, is it her fault they're getting divorced? No, she just was willing to pay the $385 filing fee,

and he just went out for milk and never came back. So I'm not, I don't think those statistics say what they, I'm not suggesting there's not something to look at in the plight of modern men and modern women and how they relate to each other and how favorable divorce is to women versus men and how the traditional role of women is protected by, you know, is not protected by the state in divorce,

the traditional role of men is. So, you know, if we're married and you're being nice to me and sleeping with me and I'm paying your bills and protecting you, if we get divorced, the state can enforce my end of that bargain where I have to continue to provide for you financially, but they can't enforce the obligation for you to be nice to me or have sex with me. So there's a conversation to be had about men and women and who initiates divorce and blah. But it's not who files for divorce that tells you anything about what's going on in male-female

relationships. That's just who's willing to do the paperwork. That's what I was telling Jack about in the car. thought it was who's more culpable of that divorce. And if women are the ones initiating are men the ones who are doing things in the relationship to cause the women to file for divorce. Right. Right. And I think that's, I think that is something you will never be able to study because the truth is at the bottom of a bottomless pit. Like if you ask people who's to blame for the marriage, you'll be shocked to hear most people are the hero of their own story if you ask them.

And the other side's the villain. But but you talk to enough. people and you go, yeah, like this is a marriage. Like there's two sides to it. And sometimes it's really obvious. Like, oh, yeah, he's sleeping with his secretary. Okay, he's sleeping with you. You haven't slept with him in four years. What was he supposed to do? Was he supposed to just divorce you? You got kids together. He didn't want to do that, you know? So yeah, he's human. He took the bait. He slept with somebody else. I'm not saying that's morally acceptable, but you can't say it's his fault we're getting divorced because he slept with his secretary. Okay. But wait a minute. That's a symptom. of a greater problem.

And that is that the two of you disconnected at some point. You know, you didn't have the relationship either of you intended to have. So, you know, whose fault is that? So I don't think who files more is all that instructive about anything. I get it that it makes for like a really easy thing to point to. But all of these people now talking about no-fling, like I'm hearing in like the very traditional, you know, in the trad-con world, everyone's like, we've got to get rid of no-fault divorce. We got to get, as if getting rid of no-fault divorce.

divorce would somehow magically make people be happily married or not get to, but that's like saying, we got to get rid of all these emergency rooms because there's so many people, these sick people go into this place. And if you just got rid of those emergency, let's get rid of homeless shelters, because that'll get rid of all these stupid homeless people. You know, it's just creating the opportunity for people to just go to homeless shelters. Like, it's stupid. That makes no sense. No fault divorce. All that it did was took money out of my pocket as a divorce lawyer. Because divorce, when it's fault-based, you have to prove fault. So we used to do fault trials. And it was great. I made an extra $10,000, $20,000 to prove why someone was to blame in this divorce, which, by the way,

what does it matter? Do you think forcing, if one person wants to get divorced in the marriage, do you think forcing that person to stay married to the other person is going to benefit that family, that person, or our society one bit? It's not. You make barriers to entry of marriage. If you want to protect marriage, make barriers to entry, not exit. Right. Make barriers to, if you want to get married, you got to take a class or you got to have a waiting period like you do with a gun. Or you have to, like they're, make barriers to entry, not barriers to exit.

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best converting checkout. And remember, Grimm, that's 36% better on average compared to other leading e-commerce platforms. Funny you mentioned that, Jack, because Shopify also powers 10% of all e-commerce in the United States. How much of that 10% is bankroll coffee? Well, it's funny you mention that because bankroll coffee, my coffee company has been run through Shopify since its inception, and we did a lot of research on the best platform to use, and they consistently came up the best, and they've been absolutely fantastic. I wouldn't even consider anything else because Shopify's that good. So sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com slash ICH, all lowercase. All lowercase. All lowercase. Again, that's Shopify.com slash ICH to grow your business no matter

what stage you're in. Shopify.com slash ICH, $1 per month trial period. Thank you so much, Shopify. and back to the episode. For someone who's getting married, what is your recommendation for those barriers to have the highest chance of success? Know what you're doing. Know what you're doing.

Ask why you're getting married. What is the problem to which marriage is a solution? Because you're already in love, right? You're already with this person. You're already, you know, unless you are someone who's from a religious community that, okay, we can't have sex

unless we get married, okay? If you're already having a physical relationship, you're already having, you know, emotional relationship with this person, you're already monogamous with this person. Okay, you already have a lot of those things. So what is it that you're doing? Is it the legal benefits of marriage?

Most people, it's not. They couldn't even tell you what the legal benefits of marriage are. So if I gave you like a multiple choice quiz, you'd probably get a 50 on it, you know, if even. So really what it is is you want to tell the world something about your relationship. That's what I think most people are getting married. It's a public declaration. of we are the person's other.

Because it's a different thing. If I say, oh, this is my girlfriend. You're all right. It'll be my girlfriend for a week. What is that? But if I go, this is my wife, you go, okay, take that seriously. You know, if I'm your boss,

and I say, this is my girlfriend, you're like, she might not be around in a week. She might be like the goldfish that, you know, in a week she'll be belly up in the bowl. You know, but a wife, it's like, hey, you know, a wife's somebody that's got status. You know, I get hit by a car. She gets to come into the hospital room, you know?

So that's what most people are looking for when they marry. The problem is the state imposes a tremendous amount of legal rights and obligations on the relationship of marriage. And most people don't even know what that is. So my advice to a person who is engaged is, A, understand why you're getting engaged, you personally. And why is your partner getting engaged?

Like, why is your fiancé interested in getting engaged to you? Why does she want to get married? And see if those interests align or if they're in contrast to each other. Do you think this is going to change the nature of your relationship, that you'll take each other more seriously? Like, oh, he's cheating on me while we're boyfriend and girlfriend. But once we're married, he won't anymore? Like, that's naive, you know? So ask yourself, why are we doing this?

Educate yourself as to what are the legal implications of it. That's why I like people who do preempts, because prenups force people to have conversations about a difficult but real thing that I think is an invitation into talking about some of the most important. things in a relationship for it to be successful. Why does the state put so many limitations on marriage? Why do they do that? What's the point? If someone's, let's say together for 20 years, his boyfriend, girlfriend, versus someone who has met each other for a few weeks and signs of paper,

what's the difference between that? Why does the state say one is more important than the other? You know, I think the state designs laws based on the most irresponsible people. Right. Like, if you wanted to be honest about the sign on the highway, it should say, drive as fast as you feel comfortable based on the weather conditions, the flow of traffic, and your abilities as a driver. But that's, A, a very long sign, and B, a totally subjective standard. So what does it say? 65 miles an hour.

Is 64 safer? No, maybe not. Is 66 more dangerous? Probably not, right? Are you going to get pulled over if you do 70? Probably not, right? but we just got to pick a number so that's the number that we pick. So I think all of our laws around marriage are designed for specific purposes.

But they're designed for bad actors, really. They're designed for people who would not in good faith. Theoretically, we shouldn't need child support laws because people would just be like, hey, it's my kid. I'm going to support my kid, of course, you know. But there's tremendous variability in what someone might want for child support, what someone might need for child support, what someone might be willing to pay. for the support of their children.

And it could be a tremendously fraught conflict-filled things. So what do we do? 17% for one child, 25% for two children, 29% for three children, 31% for four children. Is that the right number? I don't know.

Is 65 miles an hour the right number for the highway? No, it's just a number. It's just a number that they put together and they picked. So it's designed theoretically to protect against bad actors and to make sure that we can function as a stable society. So those numbers that you just gave, that's a percentage of your income that's going to your ex-spouse.

For child, for child. How often is it that that money actually goes to the kids? There's really no way to know because you're not paying it to the kids. You're paying it to your ex. So I've had a lot of clients grapple with that question. I've had clients who call me up and go, I am paying $5,000 a month in child support. And my kids are telling me there's no food in the fridge. But she's driving a Mercedes.

Like what's going on? Or she's on vacation in, you know, the Bahamas with her boyfriend. and my kids are saying there's no food in the fridge. And the truth is that, yeah, I mean, there's nobody going to police that necessarily. If it happens consistently enough, you can go back to court and try to argue that it's not being used for the benefit of the kids,

but it's a rare thing to be able to prove. And if the man of the house, let's just say, is making like $3 million a year, then 30% of that if he has a few kids, like he's going to give away a million dollars. So there's, yeah, so there's caps. Yeah, there's caps. There's a presumptive statutory cap,

but there's a certain amount of discretion judges can do. The highest child support award I've ever had in a case is I had a client who I got $35,000 a month for. And that was a family, though, that was, you know, they were high profile. They had security. They had a lot of things that, you know, when you live a celebrity lifestyle or an ultra-high-net-worth lifestyle, you know, there's different considerations. You have to think about security. You have to think about kidnapping risk.

You have to think about all those kinds of things. So it's very much tied to the lifestyle of the children. you get to those higher numbers. But the presumptive statutory cap is in the couple of $100,000 range generally. What's the biggest alimony you've ever settled? The highest I've ever had on a monthly basis was $75,000 on a monthly basis for a period of, I think, eight years. I've seen some lump sum buyouts of spousal support where a person was given like $5 or $10 million in lieu. A good rule of thumb is like a third of your gross income for a third of the duration of the marriage. So if you were married for, yeah, if you were married for nine years, maybe three years of alimony roughly.

And if you make a hundred grand a year, maybe you're going to pay like $20,000, $30,000. And what's the biggest difference in wealth between the partners that you saw like the most, maybe, maybe unfair? You were telling us earlier about unconscionable, but not that, but just unfair. There's tons of unfair. I mean, but look at what it tracks. I mean, you know, it's, it's rare that like a hedge fund manager marries another hedge fund manager. you know, usually a hedge fund manager marry is a yoga teacher or a model, you know.

So what does she make? You know, she makes nothing. You know, she makes, you know, 20 grand a year. And he makes, you know, 10 million. So it's common for there to be tremendous disparities in wealth in a couple. And the question really is, you know, you're not going to, when you divorce someone, you're not going to have all the benefits of the marriage anymore. Like I've had clients who say to me, you know, like, well, I'm not going to be able to fly private anymore.

And you're like, right. And he's not going to get to sleep. with you anymore. Like there's some perks to being married to each other that go away. But the job of the court system in theory is to make sure, you know, there's what you need, there's what you want, and there's what you're entitled to. What you need you're going to get. You need food, you need shelter, you need to be able to live your life. What you want, there can be no limit to what you might want. So what you want is informed by what you're entitled to. So the law is supposed to create something that is approximately fair for all the totality of the circumstances.

You were mentioning earlier that people with pre-ups tend not to get divorced at the same rate as people without pre-nups. That's been my experience. What's the reason for that? You know, again, there's no statistics on this because there is nowhere you have to register a pre-nup. So like pre-nups just get put in a safe somewhere. Like they're not filed with the county clerk.

They're just put aside like the couple, the bride keeps one, the groom keeps one. and then their lawyers keep one, and that's it. So it's not filed anywhere. So I can tell you, like having done, I probably do a dozen pre-ups a month. And a lot of those people, like some of them celebrities in public, they will talk about, oh, we got married, we don't have a pre-up. They do.

I know. I wrote it. It's in my safe. I can't show it to anybody, but I know. I know they have a pre-up because I wrote their pre-nups and I watched them both sign it. So when they go out and say, oh, no, we would never, we have faith in our love. We didn't do a pre-up. You're lying.

It's fine. You have a right to lie. confidentiality, you're allowed to lie. But you're sending the wrong message. You're sending the wrong message to the world because it would be better. I would be more impressed if you said, like, yeah, we have a pre-nup. Like, we're pragmatic about it. We have every confidence we're never going to need it. But, you know, we did it. Of course. Like, I don't want to die tomorrow, but I have life insurance. You know, like I don't, I drive my car safely, but I have airbags. You know, it's good. You know, so I think people who have a pre-up, it's proof, no matter what,

it's proof that you have the ability to have a difficult conversation. You have the ability to talk pragmatically and realistically about the fact that this love is on loan. It's not owned. It's not permanently deeded to either of you. It's on loan. And all marriages end, all of them. They end in death or they end in divorce.

It's one of those weird things that you go, I really hope this ends in death. You know, like it's very few other things in life you say that about. I have found, and I've now done hundreds, if not thousands, of preempts over my career, that I've only had a small number of people that then move forward with a divorce action. Because I think the kind of people that can have honest, pragmatic conversations about, but what if?

Like, I hope it doesn't happen, but what if? And that those are the kind of people that can have hard conversations. What is a pre-nup of being proactive? What is a pre-nup but having, you know, trading what you want now for what you want most? And by the way, I think a pre-up's an act of love. I don't want my partner to be with me because they're afraid to get divorced. Like getting divorced sucks. It sucks.

It's unpleasant. It's unpleasant. But you don't want someone to stay with you because they're afraid of getting divorced from you. You want someone to stay with you because they like being with you. They're happy being with you that you bring value to their life and they bring it to yours. So a pre-up is a way to say like, hey, if we split up, you're okay. You'll be okay. I've always felt exactly that.

but other people without pre-ups say it's a barrier to getting divorced if we have to sell the house if we have to go through with the expense of finding and splitting everything down the middle it's one more step that we have to work through that's almost a bit of a barrier to getting to divorce.

No, not having a pre-up. So we've talked to people who say... Oh, the incentive. Yeah, yeah, exactly. That they say, hey, by not having a pre-up, it forces us. It puts a bit of a stopper on this, a bit of a gap in between us not wanting That's what the assumption that most people can make it work.

Yeah, that's the craziest thing. I just, that makes no sense. I understand it from a logic standpoint. It's like selling a stock from your phone by clicking sell or calling up someone on the phone. I don't want to buy a stock. It's a bit of a... So you know what? Let's take that logic a little further.

Yeah. So why don't we have penalty clauses where we're getting married, but if you cheat on me, I get half of what's in your bank account, even if we stay married? Like, why don't, are we, what are we doing? We're betting now? Like we're creating barriers. Like, oh, I want, because I'd say, man, the idea of someone's staying with you because it's going to be more unpleasant to get divorced, like, that does not seem appealing

to me. Like, you didn't marry each other because it was easy. Like, you didn't go like, oh, this is easy. Like, it's, you know, like, make barriers to entry that. Like, I mean, it just seems so bizarre to me. Like, to, why not have, like, a, you know, why I do, like, that fear factor show? Like, you want to divorce me? You have to eat these bull testicles.

you know, let's see how much you really want to divorce me. That seems silly to me. Like, look, if you're with me, you want to be with me. I want to be with you. Like, this is about if this marriage ends, do either of us feel terribly taken advantage of? Will either us crawl out of this marriage rather than walk out of it? Like, I don't want some, I don't want a woman to be with me

because she's like, where am I going to live if we break up? Don't, what am I? I'm an apartment? Like, you chose me for that? That's insane. You know, that's like me saying. to a woman, like, well, you break a nail, I'm out of here, you know? Like, I'm here because you're hot, you know? Like, if you leave, forget it, you get less hot.

I'm out. Like, that's, that's insane. I would be horrified if, if, if, if, if I said that to a woman. So I really don't, I think that there is a wonderful denial that people in love want to do. I get it. Like, I get it. I understand people don't want to go, like, I have lots of friends who don't want to get a physical. Why don't you want to get a physical?

Why don't you want to hear the doctor's going to say, I got to do this. Okay. So you'd rather wait until you're going to say, you'd rather wait until you're, you're super sick at some point because there was something preventable that you could have got checked out on. Like that makes no sense to me. Same thing with the prenupt. So why do you think pre-nups are so frowned upon, it seems like? It's almost as though you don't believe in the relationship, so you've got a pre-up.

Why do you think that connotation? That is the popular perception, which is- Why is that? You know, it's a great question. I think a piece of it is probably that people who don't have pre-nups want to convince themselves that it was a shrewd decision that they don't have one. you know like they don't want to be like yeah it was stupid i wish i had one like most it's you only have one shot at doing a pre-nup the day you get married it's no longer a pre-nup it's a post-nup if

anything so most people who don't have pre-nups they don't want to go yeah i'm an idiot you know like they want to say oh well yeah there was here's why i didn't have that pre-nup it's because i don't we have more faith in each other than that like okay there's a 56% chance you're getting divorced but cool yeah that's a great gamble like you know that's that's insane so i i don't i think we justify that lack of pre-ups because a lot of people don't have pre-ups. Pre-ups are, I will tell you, having done this for over 20 years, the last three, four years, pre-ups are much more common. It is much less. Again, we're still not at a place where people talk openly about it. And I think that's for the reason you said, which is people feel like it's, you don't have faith

in the marriage. It must be that you don't have faith in each other. But I'm telling you, behind closed doors, particularly the generation that's in their 20s and 30s now, that getting married, pre-nups up the wazoo. We're doing so, I had, I think I did seven pre-up consults last week, this past week. How effective are pre-nups in court? Do they hold up pretty firmly? Yeah, very. Because I feel like I've heard so many stories about people who, like, they get the pre-nup signed,

and then for some reason it doesn't hold up in court. Or is that something that was done wrong with the documentation? Yeah, so I think there's not necessarily the extraneous circumstances. One is that sometimes people are full of it, right? They're just lying, okay. But I think sometimes, like, I think, some of that's like urban mythology. Like, well, I know I got a friend. Everyone's got a friend who has a cousin who knows a guy whose pre-up didn't stand up. And you go, okay, who is this? Because I'm a

divorce lawyer for 20-something years and I've seen some pre-ups enforced that I was like, how could they enforce that? It's so unfair. I mean, I had a pre-up upheld in New York State Supreme Court that was 24 years ago while my client was six months pregnant standing in the vestibule of the church with 150 people inside the church. He handed it to her for the first time. in the vestibule of the church while she's six months pregnant wearing her white wedding dress. And he said, if you don't sign this, I'm not coming down that aisle with you. And the court, 24 years later, upheld that pre-nup. Now, that to me seems like an extreme.

How did they uphold that? To me, that seems like she's under duress, being pregnant, maybe fearing what's going to happen if I have a child and having 150 people. Dorese has a very specific legal definition, and it's a high burden for a good reason. How is that how a high burden? Sometimes in retrospect, you go, man, I shouldn't assign that. But the question is, at the time, was it a fair contract? And, you know, was it distasteful? Did the court probably feel good about upholding that contract?

No, but their attitude was, listen, you could have said no. You could have said no. It's not like you wouldn't be pregnant anymore. It's not like, you know, yeah, maybe he would have, you called his bluff. He would have said, all right, well, you're doing it anyway. His family was in there too, you know, but they are upheld. Are there some that don't get upheld? Sure.

You want to go on a website and download a pre-nails. Everybody's got Google now. So everybody's like, oh, I'm not going to spend $2,000 on a pre-up. I can Google it. I can get a Word document. This place will give you one for $50. And yeah, they screw up some piece of the drafting of it, or it's just a boilerplate that doesn't have some of the state-specific things

it should have. So those get set aside. They get set aside. And there's other reasons why pre-ups get set aside. Like if a lot of times people marry people who English isn't their first language, So if that person doesn't understand English sufficiently to know the contract that they signed, I've seen pre-nups set aside for that reason. Again, there's ways to control for that.

When I do a pre-up for someone who their soon-to-be spouse was raised in a different country, I have a certified translation done of either the entire agreement or of a provision that says that even though this person does not, they acknowledge English isn't their native language, that they've had a translate, they understand English sufficiently. And I make sure that that's translated that paragraph into their native language. so no one can. So there's like lawyers can solve four problems. But if you're just trusting Google to like give you your advice, yeah, you're going to get. And people talk about prenups that got set aside. That's why people think divorces are all horrible and ugly. Because you know who talks about their divorce, people who are wounded by it. Like my divorce was the least interesting thing. You know, when I go to a, I don't go to cocktail parties, but when I do occasionally go to a social event, people go, what do you do for living? I'm a divorce lawyer. They go, oh my God, you must have such stories. And, you know, I don't go to a cocktail parties. And, you know, when I go to occasionally, I don't have such stories. And. And, And if I said, yeah, like I got this one case where these two people fell in love where they were in college because they both found each other really attractive.

And then they got married. And then after a certain period of time, they realized they had really different value systems. And they realized that they weren't really a good match for each other. And so they decided that, you know, they should probably end the marriage and try to find better partners. So they respectfully divided their assets. People would be like, that's the stupidest story. Yeah. Like, that's not what I want to.

Oh, no. You want to hear about, yeah. So then he took a chainsaw. Yeah. And he cut the bed in half. And he said, you can have the left half or the right half because that's half is yours. Like, they want that story. So people who've had horrible divorces who've been wounded by it, they talk about their divorce all the time.

So then you start to go, oh, yeah, divorces, man, they're horrible. I heard this story about it. Right, but you didn't hear about the tons of people that get divorced that they're like, yeah, it didn't work out. But, you know, one of the great loves of my life, great person, good parent, you know, we still get along. What percentage are like that, though? The majority of divorces are boring. Okay. The majority of divorces are accounting problems.

Like they really are about who gets what and how do we divide it and what's the right numbers. It's not knock down, drag out trying to kill each other. But are the other ones way more interesting? Totally. A boring divorce, like a typical divorce, you know, figure out what we have and cut it in half. 20 grand, 30 grand in legal fees. A knockdown, drag out divorce? I think that a month.

In one of those cases, I can do 20, 30 grand. You make millions as a lawyer on ugly, horrible knockdown, drag out divorces. But the overwhelming majority of divorces, they're not like that. They're actually somewhat just civil transaction. Do lawyers have an incentive to sometimes make it worse than it actually is? Like, let's say you're representing someone saying, you know what? No, you should get more. You do deserve this.

Of course. Yeah. There's a tremendous incentive for that in a practical standpoint. but very few lawyers who do that last in this business or ever developed. You live and die by your reputation in this business. And if you're that kind of lawyer, word gets out that you're that kind of lawyer. And it hurts your business. People won't refer people to you.

People hate having you as an adversary. Judges start to figure out that you're just that kind of person who's obstructionist and unnecessarily, you know, obstreperous in the way that you handle cases. Like that's not. But, yeah, of course. By the way, I leverage that incentive all the time. Because I say to my clients, like, listen, I think we're within the parameter to settle this case. And they go, well, yeah, but I want this.

And I go, you understand, I get paid to fight that fight for you. So if I'm trying to talk you out of that fight, I must be telling you the truth. Because if you fight that fight, I'm going to make a lot of money, whether I win or lose. Like, you know, I'm not a personal injury lawyer. Personal injury lawyers, if I get you a recovery, I get to keep a third of it. Divorce lawyers, I win, I keep the money. I lose, I keep the money. So a divorce lawyer saying to you, no, no, settle on that issue, but no, let's fight the fight on that issue.

We have tremendous financial incentive to encourage people to fight, but very, very rarely have I seen that in, I don't see it in myself, I've rarely seen it in my colleagues. Because you just will not make it in this business if you do that. So if you're getting divorced without a pre-up, how does that conversation usually go in the courtroom? How do the assets usually get divided? And I heard you mentioned before something of the tune of good spouse bonus and bad spouse penalties. Yeah. And somehow they did away with that. But to me, I feel like that sounds fair to consider who was the bad actor in this situation.

How can we make that even? Yeah. So it's two different questions you asked. But the second one I'll take first. And that is, yeah, I always tell people there is no good spouse bonus and there's no bad spouse penalty. And a lot of times people are disheartened to hear that, mostly the bad spouse penalty part, not the good spouse bonus. because you have two good spouses that's like who gets the bonus. But yeah, bad spouse penalty, people very often are like, wait, what do you mean the fact that she cheated on me with four different people doesn't change what she's entitled to?

It should. The problem is what I said to you earlier, which is, okay, but why was she cheating on you? Like, what was going on there? Like, if you ask her, it's that you were never satisfying her needs. You were really discourteous to her. You made her feel unloved. She went into the arms of somebody else's a function of it. If you ask him, it's that she's just a whore, you know, and that she ran.

off with somebody else. So the truth is, again, kind of at the bottom of the bottom was pit. And think about how do you prove it? Like, look at a relationship you've had that broke up. Who, how do you, in a court of law, if you had to prove that you were the good guy in that relationship, how do you do it? Bring witnesses? Who? Your friends? Guess what? I'll tell you right now, your friends are going to say you did it right and she did it wrong. Her friends, they're going to have the opposite story. They're going to say, like, my mom, if you put her on the stand under cross-examination, she'll still say I'm the handsomest boy in the whole wide world. mean, it's true. It just means my mom loves me. You know, so it's the same thing. Like, it's your,

you really, you don't want the legal system deciding who was good at being married and who was bad at being married. And, and what the incentives were, you know, because again, like, he neglected my needs. I'm sorry, I was working three jobs. I neglected your needs. No, I would rather have been home meeting your needs, but I was working my second job, you know? So there's so many, and again, I don't know who's right and who's wrong. And I don't know that a person in a Blackrobe with a law degree would be better at making that decision, that there would then be a financial penalty. You know, so I get how in theory, you know, in theory, communism is a great idea.

Everybody will just take according to their need and give according to their means. Like, it's great. In practice, it leaves a trail of blood, and it's a short line to the gulag, you know, whereas in theory, it makes a lot of sense. Like, the perfect society would be an ordered anarchy, where everybody's, you does the right thing because it's the right thing to do because they have a moral say okay that's fairy tales gang that's not real real is look in we if if a relationship ends and that's your other question when a relationship ends if there wasn't a pre-nup what do we do it's easy identification valuation

distribution so we identify what the assets are what do we have how big is the pie valuation what's it worth if it's a house get it appraised if it's a bank account what's the you, how does it fluctuate, what went in, what went out? What did you have before you got married? What did you have during the marriage? How did it appreciate and depreciate? And then three, distribution. And what's that? Of course trading. All right, well, I'll keep, because what would you, I mean, if divorce was, when you get divorced, we just sell everything you own and split the proceeds. Like, I guess that's one way to do it. It's a stupid way to do it. Instead, you go, well, look, I want to stay in the house. Okay, well, I'll buy you out of the house. Well, I'm entitled to

part of your 401k, so why don't you keep your whole 401k and I'll keep the house? Right, but dollars aren't the same, like it's apples and oranges, because deferred assets is value. Okay, so let's do a present value analysis of that. Great. And that's what lawyers do at our best. I've had ultra high net worth clients who come in and say, yeah, we're splitting up. We don't have a pre-nup. Figure out what I have and give her half. Great. It takes me and six other lawyers six months to figure out what they have and how to divide it and have. because there's tax impacting, there's depreciation, there's all kinds of things to think about. So, you know, ultimately, whether it's the simplest of divorces with a small marital estate,

like I'm in a sense, I'm a little like a mortician, you know, like the body of a president and the body of a homeless person, it's just a body, it's just meat, it's just a circulatory system, respiratory system, all this thing. Whether I'm dividing, you know, a cop and a teacher with a 401k and a house with a little bit of equity and some credit card debt, or whether I'm helping someone divide, you know, the eight homes that they own in hundreds of millions of dollars. It's all the same thing. Identification, valuation, distribution, child support, spousal support, custody and visitation or custody and access. That's it. It seems cruel or like jaded to say to people, yeah, yeah, I don't

look at it. Like, I look at it. Just like your doctor looks at you like, like meat. You know what I mean? Like your, your, your fiance probably doesn't worry. that her gynecologist is checking out her naked body. You know, like, she just goes, yeah, that's what they see all day. Like, it's just meat. You're just meat to them. They don't really care, you know. And it's the same.

Divorce lawyers, it's like, we don't really get down in the muck of, like, who's the good guy, who's the bad guy. Like, it really is, okay, what's there? What are we doing with the kids? How are we going to, what are the problems? What are the legal issues? How do we identify them? How do we solve for them?

How do we create leverage, cultivate leverage, and how do we use leverage in the negotiation or litigation? How do you prevent your spouse from cheating on you? Just put like air tags and geo-tagging and everything and don't let them out of the house. You know, the old joke is, you know, what you call a woman who always knows where her husband is, a widow. You know, I don't think you can answer the question how do you prevent that? I think you can say how do you control for it? And I think there's probably a lot of different answers.

I mean, my answer to that would be to try to make. maintain connection with your partner. You know, try to, I don't believe people cheat when they're happy. I'm, I'm an expert on infidelity now. Like, I've spent a lot of time with the cheated on and a lot of time with the cheaters over the course of a two-decade career. And I got to tell you, Yang, you spend enough time with either of them. I wish there were good guys and bad guys.

They're kind of aren't. Like, it's just. But you've never seen someone, you're like, okay, this person just seemingly acted in bad, like, yeah, with malice. Yeah, they wanted to hurt the other person. It's got to be a personality sort of trait that might deviate more towards cheating than other. Yeah, well, you just said two different things, though. One of the things you just said is that they did this to hurt the other person.

I've rarely seen people who cheat to hurt the other person. Usually you're not thinking about the other person and you should have been. Like, I don't know a lot of people that are like, I'm going to go out and cheat on my partner. Usually what it is is they go out and they like the affection of this other person. They like the attention of this other person. and then they cross lines they shouldn't have crossed. And they're not doing it to hurt their partner. They're doing it to make themselves feel good.

And they're not thinking about their partner, which they should be doing at that moment. They should be thinking about, like, I don't eat chocolate cake because I want to screw my diet. No, like I want to eat chocolate cake because chocolate cake tastes good. And I don't think about my diet. And I go, you know what, I'll work out extra tomorrow. And then tomorrow comes and you didn't work out extra,

and now you ate your chocolate cake. So I think it's a matter of what are the incentives and what are the motivations. Now, again, I don't know how much intention matters. Like, what really matters is how you treat the people that you love. You know, it doesn't matter what your intentions were. So I'm not saying intentions are irrelevant. Like, if I punch you in the face because I don't like you versus I hit you in the face because there's a mosquito on your face, like those are two different intentions important in that situation.

But cheating is one of those things that, you know, did you cheat because you're lonely? did you cheat because you're stupid and you just didn't think about it. Like, I've had people come into my office and say to me like, yeah, I got caught cheating. And you go, like, okay, you know, and they go, yeah, I'm an idiot. Like, God, I love my wife so much. And I don't know, I just like saw the shiny object and I went after it. And it was a mistake and I'm an idiot. You know, and that breaks your heart.

It breaks your heart because I understand, like I'm human. Like, I've seen a shiny object and chased it. I've eaten things I shouldn't have done things I shouldn't have done. I feel like there's got to be more to it if you love that. the person. Really? Think about them and you regret it afterward. I feel like there's got to be something underlying that was always there that would

prompt you to go and do something like that. Or maybe there's a personality trait that's a little more likely to do that. I mean, wouldn't it be nice if that was true? I'd feel a whole lot safer, you know? Like I think we all want that to be true, right? Like when you're little, you get told like don't smoke cigarettes and, you know, like drive the speed limit, you know, you'll be like that, right? And then you hear about aneurisms.

where like one day you're just sitting there and then you're dead. And there's no rhyme or reason to it. And if you ask a doctor, well, how do I prevent aneurysms? They go, you can't. And then you go, well, how do you know you're going to have one? You don't. So how does it happen? God just goes, e-meet, miny-money-mo, and then takes you out.

Well, what can I do as warning signs? Nothing. You'll have a headache. And then five minutes later, you'll be dead. You know, okay, well, that's pretty scary. I'd like a world where there's more control than that. So let's talk about those other things. Let's talk about what I can do to increase my chain.

I'll do zone two cardio. That's good, right? Yes, that is good. That will help prevent things. Will it prevent aneurysms? Not at all. So cheating. Yeah. Okay, man, you're engaged. I get it. Like, you want to believe, like my personality traits and her personality traits are such that we will not cheat on each other. God, man, I wish I could say that to you. Like, I wish I could say to you that like, oh, no, here's the four thing. I wish you could give you like a BuzzFeed list. Here's the 10 things that you should watch out for. Here's the five things you can do that you'll adultery proof your marriage. Wouldn't that be, like that would just be great clickbait? Five things to guarantee your partner won't cheat. You know, here's three signs your partner's definitely cheating.

Like, that's going to get a lot of views. It's bullshit. It's not true. Like, the truth is, is that the line of good and evil runs through the human heart. You know, like, we are all just flawed people that, you know, again, I'm not suggesting that there aren't people who are remarkably short-sighted. Like, if you want to ask me what personality traits, I think they're all kind of the same. Like, people who are very short-sighted.

who don't trade, you know, trading what you want now for what you want most. That's the definition of discipline. Yeah. So if you're not someone who can be disciplined in life, you're probably more likely to cheat. Because what is cheating? Cheating in a relationship, adultery in a relationship is rather than doing the hard thing, which is sitting down with your partner and saying, hey, I don't know, man, like we're not, I'm not feeling satisfied.

Like, I'm not feeling like that hunger. because what is sex, but hunger? I'm hungry, right? I'm hungry. I can eat healthy choices that are going to be good for me and the next day I'll feel good, or I can go out and eat terrible food that's going to make me feel bad an hour,

but man, it tastes good. And trust me, adultery tastes good. Oh my God, are you kidding me? It's chocolate cake. It's new, it's novel. It's something different. Come on, gang. Like, let's all just be honest with each other.

But is it what you want? No, it's garbage. It's junk food. Like, we all know if you can have a fulfilling, loving, loving, deep, satisfying connection that's exciting with someone who's always there for you and you're always there for them and you support each other emotionally too,

but you also really have a lot of fun in bed, that's the lottery. That's the greatest thing. So that's the question, but that's a harder thing because the question is not, well, what's the personality type? Look at the question is, how do I cultivate that? And the answer isn't sexy.

It's like, how do I get rich? Work hard. you know, think, think through your choices. Be careful. Invest in a disciplined way. Don't be emotional about it. Like, those, that's not sexy advice. So the advice we should really be given to people is like, just pay attention.

Pay attention. Like right now, you and your fiancé, you're at the best place you're ever going to be. Like, you're, you've chosen each other, you know, and you have tremendous goodwill towards each other. And you love each other. Now is the time to figure out why do we feel so good about it. other and how do we keep it going? And how are we going to have a conversation when we start to feel it slip and not feel attacked and not feel judged and not make the other person feel bad for saying it?

Like if your romantic partner says to you, hey, I'm feeling like my eye is wandering. Like they're telling you that for a reason because they don't want it to feel, they don't want to feel that way. I don't want to cheat on you. So you should hear that as an expression of love and that. you. But you don't. I understand that. If your, if your girlfriend came home and said to you like, yeah, I've been looking at other guys lately, your first reaction is going to be, what? What's wrong? Well, why? What do you do? Well, you know how many other girls talk to me and I don't run on? But wait, like, they just shared this with you because they're trying to tell you something. And maybe the answer is, yes, so maybe we shouldn't get married or maybe we shouldn't stay in this

marriage. But maybe the answer is, hey, wait, what can I do to spice things and make things good and make you feel that way about me. Like, she was once a girl you wanted to get with, you know, and you were once a guy she wanted to get with. Like, every beautiful woman you ever see, right now someone somewhere is tired of that. Like, that's the reality. Like, no one's a hero to their butler. Like, no one's a hero to someone they see every single day necessarily.

So shiny new things are always going to be there. So the question really is, how brave are you, how disciplined are you, how willing are you to have scary conversations like that. And that's why I think pre-nup, people who have pre-nups are less likely to get divorced. Because it's proof that you can have a hard conversation, but a necessary one. Right. What keeps the mystery alive in a relationship for them to stay together for such a long time? Desire is such a weird thing, right?

Like, no, desire is a weird. When my kids were little, I was trying to sort of explain to them early, like, because, you know, I have a lot of gay and lesbian friends. and it was like trying to explain to a four-year-old what it means to be gay. You know, it was kind of like a weird, you know, because he'd be like, does he have a wife? And I was like, well, he doesn't have a wife. He's gay. What does that mean?

You're like, uh, well, you know, and I remember saying, well, you know, like, you know how I like to kiss mommy and I like that mommy has pretty blonde hair. Well, that's what I like, you know. But he likes, you know, guys who have a nice short hair, and that's what he likes. But what matters in life is that you find someone you like to kiss and they like to kiss you and you love each other, and that's what matters, right? So that's kind of how I tried to teach that to my kids. I'm sure I'll get pilloried for that in Drag-Con space.

But the reality is that, look, I think desire is something that's very unique to each of us, what we like, what we want. I think knowing what you want is really important. And then knowing how to express that to your partner is really important. And I think it's better to express it in a positive way than in a negative way. And the example I give of this is I have to shave five days a week.

I'd be clean cut. I have to look like Perry Mason, you know, courtroom lawyer, especially to like, you know, white old judges. I have to look very like what they'd imagine a lawyer to look like. So I can't grow a beard. So I shave five days a week.

So on the weekends I don't shave. I really like not having to shave. And I remember dating a girl who she had very sensitive skin. So anytime I would kiss her, if I hadn't shaved, it was the weekend. She would be like, oh, yeah, it's like, you know. And I remember, like, I would get kind of annoyed because she'd be like, oh, your beard is so scratchy. And I would be like, you know what? Then I won't kiss you. How about

that? Like, that's like, come on. Like, I work five days a week. I got to shave and drag this razor across my face and get razor burn. Like, you can't just let me, you know, like, but it, because it felt like a criticism. It didn't work out with that girl. The next person I dated, she had the same thing, sensitive skin. I have a rough beard. I didn't want to shave on the weekends. But she was brilliant because it was like a Friday or a Thursday. and I'd shaved and she comes up and she goes, oh, God, like, it's so sexy when you're fresh shaved like that. I love, like, your skin, like, it's so, like, you're like Don Draper on Mad Men. I love it. Dude, I would have shaved three times a day. I shaved every weekend. Anytime I was going to see her,

I shaved, and I'd be like, oh, yeah, I'd kiss her and I'd be like, yeah, I'd shave this morning. She'd be like, yeah, I love it, you know? Okay, you did the same thing. Like, you both just wanted to express the same thing, except one of you did it in a way that made me instantly defensive, and the other one did it in a way that was like, oh, I love this about you. And then I'm like, like, that, that's easy. I can serve that up easy. I do that all week. I can shave. No, I'll shave twice a day if you want me to. So it's the same thing. Like, if you share with your partner in the positive, right? Like, I love when you do this. Like, praising the positive, you know, even by the way, if they don't do it. Like, even if they don't do it. Like, I've always told guys, like, the best way is a life hack. The best way to get your partner to do new things sexually. is to say, I had a dream about you last night. I don't even want to tell you about it. She was like, wait, what?

Why? You'd be like, I don't know what it was, but I got to not eat dairy before bed. I don't even want to say anything. No, no, what? What was it? You know, you didn't think I'm crazy. And then you describe whatever it was you're having a fantasy about.

And at least it'll start a conversation. And if she goes, oh, my God, that's disgusting. You could go, yeah, no, I know. It's so this guy. I can't, like, what was that about? I would never want to do that in real life. It was just a dream. It was a weird dream.

I got to stop eating edibles before bed. Or she's going to go like, oh, did you like, did you like that? You'd be like, I don't know. Like I didn't think I would, but it was kind of hot. Really? Well, I wouldn't be against, really? You know, and that's how. But again, rather than going, well, you never do this or watching a movie and going like,

well, we never do that. Like, which is nothing, all you're going to want to do in response to that is go, well, because you didn't ever say you wanted to go to do that, you know? So it's the same thing. Like just you can, you can incentivize. so easily. And that's not just romantic relationships. You can do that in any relationship. You know, it really does not have to be about criticizing your partner. It can be about, you know, expressing what your needs and desires are in ways that don't bring out the defensive

side of it. When it's time to scale your business, it's time for Shopify. Get everything you need to grow the way you want. Like all the way. Stack more sales with the best converting checkout on the planet. track your cha-chings from every channel right in one spot and turn real-time reporting into big-time opportunities take your business to a whole new level switch to shopify start your free trial today how can a guy be a girl's hero in a relationship i feel like every guy wants to be seen as a heroic yeah to his girl yeah that's a great question i think first of all i think being heroic we we sometimes define it by these giant grand gestures you know like saving the

damsel from the train tracks or saving the puppies from the drowning in the lake but you know being heroic is really about like being someone's hero right like putting their needs maybe above your own sometimes or or like doing the I mean what is heroic but doing the hard thing you know like I told my sons when they were growing up I was like I don't know that I have a lot of wisdom to share with you but if you were to say to me what is one sentence that you think is the most important sentence to tell a human being. I would say the hard thing to do and the right thing to do are almost always the same thing in every sphere of life. The hard thing and the right thing are almost always the same thing. And what is the hero? But the person who does the hard thing because it's right and it's good, right?

That's what the hero is. Like think about it. Like every movie you've ever watched where like the hero, you know, says to the woman, I got to go. Like, I got to go fight that bad guy, or I got to go take out the villain who's in the saloon, or I got to go on this mission. And she goes, no, please don't. Don't go. Stay with me. Stay here.

Stay with us. If he went, yeah, you're right. Screw that. Let's go back inside. He's not the hero anymore. The hero, when she says that, kisses her, tells her, I love you, or if he's Han Solo, he just does the I know, which is so cool. And then goes and does what he has to do.

Because that's why he's the hero. because he does the hard thing because it's the right thing, you know, and it's for the benefit. Not even just for himself, it's for the benefit of the group or of her. So how do you be heroic? I think the way you're heroic is you don't shirk a task. And I think that's something that's starting to come into the popular zeitgeist is this idea that, like, man, the world, we're all, we're pushing so much comfort down the throat of everybody. You know, like everything is about, how can you be more comfortable, you've been more comfortable. And I see a lot of men now choosing discomfort, you know, doing cold plunges, you know, doing sick workouts, you know, like intermittent fasting.

They're all doing hard stuff. You know, and they're doing it for the reason Joe Rogan says he does it. Joe Rogan's like, I do workouts in the morning that are so brutal that the rest of my day, whatever happens, it's not going to be as hard as that workout was. And there's a lot of logic to that. There's this stoicism out there that makes sense. So I think the way to be heroic is what it has always been, which is to put the needs and values and goals of your partner in a place of high esteem. I'm not saying it should always be above yours, but it should be in a place of high esteem. And I think that's how you are heroic.

I think heroic is not just these giant gestures. It's lots of little things. How do you feel like the current dating culture and society is affecting relationships today? Well, I think people have choice paralysis. I mean, in dating, I think choice paralysis is a huge thing. There's just too, there's so many options. There's so many dating apps. There's so many.

But all of them are very image-based, very performative. So I think that, you know, I think we're living in a time where everyone has bright teeth and rotting gums. You know, we're really interested in what looks good. You know, everybody, you know, my secretary for many years drove a really nice Mercedes. and I drove a Jeep Wrangler. I know I made more money than her because I pay her salary. But she was very performative, you know. And so I think we live in a very performative society right now.

And I think dating, there's a lot of performative stuff going on in the world of dating. And this is the way people are meeting is largely online now. And so it's a lot of artifice and performance. And, you know, if you look at most people's Instagram, it's not who they are. It's who they aspire to be. Or it's who they want the world to think they. are, you know, and I think that that is, I think it's human, I understand why we do it, but I think it's difficult for dating purposes. I think that dating would in its best format, there'd be a tremendous

amount of honesty fairly early in the relationship, you know, like I understand you want to see her with makeup on, on the first date, but you want to see her shortly after that without any makeup on. You know, like I get, I don't think makeup is lying. You know, makeup is accentuating the positive and decensuating the negative. Like, your Instagram is the same thing. Like, you're accentuating the positive, dissentuating the negative. It's not lying. But eventually you want people's personality.

Take the makeup off. You know, I want to see what you really look like. I want to see what you really act like. I want to see what you're really afraid of, what you're really good at. Like, I want to see what you need to work on. So I think the barriers to successful relationships are now. what they always were, which is you don't know yourself that well, and you're not good at being honest with another person about it, and relationships become a form of habit. Like, I know people

that are in unhappy relationships, and they're getting married. And you go, why are you getting married if you're unhappy with each other? And they go, we've been together for like seven years. I'm not going to just walk away from it now. Like, really? Really? Because I would. It's not going to get better once you get married. I think dating right now, it's a difficult time. There's too many options. There's a lot of options. I won't even say too many. There's a lot of options out there, and it's a lot of performative stuff. And again, I think there's a lot more intelligent people than me. You've talked a lot about how the dating game, the online dating game, is really rigged in favor of a very small percentage of men. It's really bad for a large group of men, and it's

really bad for a large group of women for what they really want, which is a long-term partner, not just someone who'll sleep with them. Why does it seem so hard to appreciate the relationship? you're in, I feel like it's nearly impossible to not be influenced by Hollywood's portrayal of a successful relationship or like you said, social media's portrayal of a successful relationship. How do you know that what you're in is true? Like, what is a guarantee? And also, like, is it even wrong that I'm asking myself this question or asking you this question? I don't think there's anything wrong about that question at all. I actually think it's a great way to look at things. Look, it's porn. Rom-coms are porn. It's porn for women. That's all it is. Like, like the true.

truth is is that there is a tremendous, what is that, but an idealized, stylized, fake version of sex. Right? Like when you look at sex on a screen, okay, I always joke about shower sex. Like every movie has a sex scene in the shower. It looks awesome. Sex in the shower looks so good. You've had sex in the shower. It's terrible.

It's terrible. Sex and shower is the worst. It looks good. It's terrible in practice. You're standing. It's kind of weird. There's water washing everything. It's not great, okay?

But it looks really good, so it's in Hollywood. So now everybody looks at it and goes like, oh, we should, that's so hot. But it's not. In practice, it's not, right? So at the end of the day, I'm going to get pilloried, by the way, in the comments now, people being like, I have wonderful zero sex. So the truth is, like, I genuinely believe rom-coms are just a way of, like, it's an idealized version of things.

It's not necessarily honest. And, again, what starts to happen is, like, the tailwags the dog. because people start to compare their relationship to that idealized stylized thing. And then they start to go, well, I don't have a good one because it's not like that. Or they start to try to pretend to have that.

You know, I know plenty of men who they think the way they should act during sex is what they've seen on a screen on their computer. And that's not a great education to the reality of men and women having sex. So I don't know that, like I think, the problem is that of course the ideal, the fiction, it's the best version of something, or at least it becomes the best version, because it's what was shoved down our throat all

the time of what it should be. But those are tropes. Like, they're tropes. Like, the idea of, like, the girl boss is what's hot now. So everybody's being told in Hollywood, you're a girl boss. Every movie's a girl boss. She's a girl boss. She's a girl, she's great at everything. He's better than all the men at everything. And the only thing holding her back is meant, okay, not only is that a tired, tired trope now, but it doesn't. reflect what every woman wants. Like, if you don't aspire to be a girl boss, like, I don't know that everybody wants that. There are people that are now standing up and going, you know, I don't, I don't know that I want to be a CEO. Like, I kind of think that it would be nice to have a family

and, like, tend to them. You know, I don't know that, like, the best place, the most satisfying place to be is in a cubicle from nine to five. Like, I actually think, like, you know, having someone who cares about me and provides and protects me, that's nice, you know? And so, but that's a dirty thing to say anymore. Why? Because there's been this stylized version of what your life's supposed to look like. Why is it leaning towards that, though? Do you think that gender roles exist for a reason?

And why do you think we do think they exist for a reason, but I think we are a culture that has always treated dandruff with decapitation. Like, we always go the other way way too hard. Like, only an idiot would say that the 1950s made sense. They didn't. Men had no choice but to just put you get to work and shut up. And you're not there to take care of your kids. That's what your wife is for.

And you're not allowed to be gay or you're not allowed to be anything. You could be even me growing up, I'm 51. When I was growing up, you could be Clint Eastwood or Richard Simmons. Those were your two choices, guys. You didn't get to be anything in between. There was nothing in between. If you were the slightest bit nice or you cared about art or you weren't that interested in football, you were a faggot.

And that's a horrible thing. My mother was brilliant. She was an incredible mathematician. She was told you get to be a nurse or a teacher. And she was like, wait, I'm the best math student in the class. Maybe I'll want to go to med school. And they were like, you can be a nurse, you can be a teacher. Those are your choices.

Until you find a husband and then you can be a wife. And you be a mom. Those are your choices. So I think we needed to fix that. And we did. But we did what we always do. We wildly overcorrected. And it turned into, you want to stay home and take care of kids.

like, what is it, 1950? You could be a CEO. And suddenly women were, like, you know, afraid to go, like, I kind of don't want to be a CEO. I kind of wanted to be a teacher, you know? You don't have to be a teacher. I know, I want to be a teacher. But you don't have to be.

You could be a CEO. Okay. Like, I get, and by the way, the capitalist machinery loves it. Loves it. Let's get everybody in the workforce. Let's make everybody a cog in the machine. You know, so, yeah, of course. So capitalism bolsters it endlessly.

But at the end of the day, are people happier? No, they're miserable. People are miserable now. They are less happy. They're as unhappy probably as they were in 1950. We just track the data better. So is the solution now to go the other way again, to go like all men have to this and all women have to this?

I don't think so. I think that was ridiculous and horrible. But it doesn't have to be so extreme. Everything in our culture is so extreme. You can believe that gay and lesbian people, have a right to love each other, marry each other, have rights, you know, be treated with respect, and not support Drag Queen Story Hour for children. Those are two totally different things. You can say a woman has the right and should be, when a little girl, she should be told you can be

a surgeon, you could be the president, or you could be a mom, or you could be a teacher, or you could be a person who does pottery all day. You could be all those things. That's what feminism is. And feminism benefits men when it's done properly, not the ridiculous version of it that's out there now. But when it's done properly, I was raised in a feminist household. I was told that I didn't have to be strong or tough. But being strong and tough are still admirable traits. So it was cultivated in me to, yeah, this is why I was so blessed to have the parents I had. My father was a very traditional right-wing kind of a guy.

And he was like, no, a man's a provider. He's a protector. He knows how to fight. He knows he's not afraid. Like he puts the people, he's fighting not because he hates the person in front of him because he loves the people behind him who he's protecting. And that was what I was taught. But my mother also taught me, but it's okay.

You can be sad. You can be afraid. By the way, if you're not scared, it's not brave. It's only brave if you're scared and you do it anyway. That's what being brave is. So I feel like we've now created a culture. We're just no, whatever you're doing, you're doing it wrong. If you're a man who's strong and protective, you're getting pilloried for all.

It's such a traditional gender role. You're so out of day. And if you're the other, you're a soy boy and you're not strong. Why are we doing this to ourselves, guys? Like, we all have in us fear and strength, and women have strength and fear. A woman can protect me. I can protect her. We can protect each other in different ways.

You know, you can protect me emotionally. I can protect you physically. Or maybe you can protect me physically and I'll protect you emotionally. Like, we can do what suits our individual constitution. And so, yeah, I think we're all lost right now. But we don't, and so to then say, we're lost individually, so why are our marriages lost? Because the ingredients, if the ingredients suck, the dinner's going to suck, guys. Like, the ingredients are lost right now.

So the couple double lost right now. What do you think the solution is to that? I think the solution is the thing, which is, yeah, it's really hard to be in a couple right now because we each don't know ourselves. and we don't know what to do. But when it's done right, a couple can fix that. So you can see each other's blind spots.

You can call each other out with love. You can say, like, it's okay to be vulnerable. Or you can say to someone who's having trouble being strong, like, you're strong. I know you're strong. I'm cheering for you. You know, like, this is beautiful. Like, we break in relationship

and we can heal in relationship. Like, you can't fix alone what was broken in relationship. Like, if you, if someone betray, your trust in a relationship. They cheated on you. You're not going to fix that by sitting in a room by yourself ruminating over it. You're going to fix it by going out there again and trying again and learning that you can trust someone, that not everyone's going to betray you. You know, like that's how you learn. So I think the solution is relationships, but fearless relationships, honest relationships, relationships where we pay attention, where we value it, and we're again,

brutally honest with each other. Listen, I'm a romantic at heart, but I don't believe in fairy tales. So I don't believe in a culture that shoves fairy tales down people's throats. I think we should be that real flawed human relationships is really beautiful to me, and it's really romantic to me. RBC Training Ground has discovered potential in over 20,000 Canadian athletes and county. Your story could be next. If you've got the drive, they'll help you find your path to the Olympics. Let's see what you've got.

Sign up for free at rbc trainingground.ca. Welcome aboard via rail. Please sit and enjoy. Please sit and stretch. Steep. Flip. Or that. And enjoy.

via rail love the way so you talk about being brutally honest in relationships we had a clip that went viral of me asking our guest tom billyue actually what do you tell your wife if you think she doesn't look great in the dress and we've asked this question a few times in the podcast but I want to know what your answer is to this question what if she does not look good in that dress what do you say how can you approach it in a more like delicate way like you also said on on lex friedman I think um when she asks like oh how was that after you guys were in bed together or

whatever. And maybe it wasn't the best you've ever had, but she's asking you, was it the best you've ever had? Like, how do you approach that conversation? Yeah, so I think there's two different examples, but the outfit one, I think, is a lot easier. And that is, I remember my ex-wife, I don't think she'd be mad at me for sharing this with the world, but she was always very concerned about, like, does my butt look big in this? This is when big butts were not a good thing. That changed generation. Okay, but this is a 90s? This is the 90s. Yeah, this is the 90s, and she was very upset about the fact that like, you know, and by the way, lovely, beautiful woman, beautiful woman, was then, still is. But she was always, the women are so much more critical of themselves than we are of them,

you know? Like, I wish they could see us, they could see themselves through our eyes, you know. But she was very, like, do I use my book? And I would never, you know, like, I knew what she was saying. She was insecure. Like, she wanted there to be some praise of her, but there were something she'd wear that were not as flattering. So my answer to that was always, I would point out something she looked even better in. So she'd say, how do I look in this dress? And I go, I like it, you know, and why are you asking?

And she'd say, well, because I feel like maybe it's it. And I go, oh, okay, yeah. I mean, you know, that black dress that you wore to that other thing, you look in that. You looked great. That really just, and then she'd put that on and I go, oh, yeah, that's the one. Like, that just does, I don't know,

it's just something about your coloring or your figure. That just does it, you know? And, okay, you know. And what is that? It's the same Jedi mind trick with my shaving. It's positive reinforcement. It's positive reinforcement, but it's honest. But it's just not making a person self-conscious about something they're already self-conscious about.

So the same thing with sex. Like, you know, I like to, again, focus on how when someone says, how was that? I mean, first of all, I don't know how often people say, like, how was that? If you have to ask, it probably wasn't that good. But I think that sharing with your partner what they did well, like to me, I mean, look, we all do this in romantic relationship. You first start dating someone. You just throw everything at it. They're like, let me try every trick I've ever tried in bed with anyone.

But what you start to figure out is, oh, this one doesn't like the same things as the other one did. Or this one, you know, like, and she's maybe doing the same thing with you. Like the higher the body count, maybe the, like, more complicated the equation. But you try stuff until you figure out what each of you likes. And you usually figure it out by what you get positive feedback on. Like, what makes this person moan or what makes this person like when they say, oh, my God, that was so when you did this. And you go, okay, great, noted, you know. So I get it.

Like, I think that's the way to do it, is to share with each other what the other one's doing right. Because if you don't, if I do the same three things and you only praise two of them, I'm going to know eventually, okay, you didn't praise that third one. And then if somebody says to you, like, you know, hey, you never mentioned that you like that third one, you don't have to say, I don't like the third one.

You can say, like, yeah, I mean, those other two are so good that, like, I don't know, you can put that one by the side. It doesn't matter. I don't need it. And so there's ways to, again, to be a cheerleader for your partner. And in my book, I call this, like, you know, psychological manipulation, but in a positive way. Like, it's a positive mind control, you know. It's you're trying to really drive home what they're doing right, which will then sort of

show the corollary of what is not right. What do you think is something important that everyone should be asking their partner, that they don't? I think there's a lot of good answers to that question. I mean, one of them would be, what am I doing right? Like, what do you like best about me? I know that's going to sound like a selfish question, but it actually is that sometimes I don't think we know what people like about us.

Like, we're not always a good gauge of what our partner finds most attractive about us. I think that there's more important things to do. Like, I think sharing with your partner what you like about them and what you find challenging in the relationship is more important than, asking that question of your partner. But I think asking your partner, like, what are they, you know, what are they afraid of right now? What are they grateful for right now? You know, there's a lot of really easy but deep conversations to be had with a partner, you know. And you can understand a lot about some, like, what are you excited for in the next year? You know,

what are you afraid of right now? Like, these are deep questions, you know? And I don't know how much incentive there is in our culture to ask those questions of your partner. Again, it might be in the context to like, let's just go for a walk or let's just devote an hour a week to like, you don't even need a couple couples counselor to do this with. Like, let's just, you know, ask each other those questions. Like, what are you grateful for this week? Like, what did I do right this week as your partner? And I'll tell you what you did right, you know, in this. Like, we're human beings. Like, you and I right now can have this conversation. Like I could say to you, you know, hey, what? What have I done right as a guest for the last couple of hours?

And I could tell you what I think you've done really well in this conversation. And then we're both going to get better, not only at this conversation, but at the next conversation that you have or the next time I'm a guest. But we don't do that because we're just supposed to naturally be excellent at everything. And then after we'll find out if we got it right or we got it wrong. And I don't, why? Why? Like, why are we, you know, we're building a bridge while we drive over it? Like, why don't we have some conversations about, how am I doing?

How are you doing? And here's what you did so great last week. Or here's what last week we kind of missed the plot on. You know, like that's important. It seems like the solution to a lot of these issues, because there's so many different bridges to cross in relationships, the main thing to consider would be just having those deeper conversations, whatever they are.

Because I feel like a lot of people in relationships, and I've experienced this in my relationships as well, you kind of just go through the motions and time passes. And, you know, you're enjoying your time, but there could be some dissonance slowly increased. between you two. Yeah. And I think maybe just continuing to have these deeper conversations

and being maybe intentional and aware about that would probably be a generally good rule of thumb that can fix up a lot of the wounds that people have in their relationship. I think it's not only a good idea, it's the good idea. Like, I think people, their relationships fall apart the way that people go bankrupt, very slowly and then all at once. I think you have to do routine maintenance all the time

in a relationship and it's a whole lot easier. It's a whole lot easier to keep your weight where you want it to be than it is to get really overweight and then try to lose the weight. It's so much easier to stay connected to someone who loves you and you love them and you're happy with each other than it is to find distance, disconnect, and then try to find your way back.

It's so much harder. So just staying connected and all that is is just a matter of disciplined, routine habits that honor what's best in this person and what's best in you. And I don't think it's that hard. It just requires discipline. Do you think if you are once in love with somebody,

like true love with somebody, that that relationship can stay true all the way until the end as long as you are intentional about it? Or do you think that there are some random extraneous things that can happen? Well, I think you're one person in the relationship. So the other person also has an equal share of having to maintain. If the true love, let's say, was reflected.

Yeah. So I think if you're two people that have a true depth of connection and love for each other and you both approach this relationship with the same seriousness, do bombs still fall out of the sky? Like, is there still aneurysms? Yeah, there are.

Like, I've represented the most heartbreaking cases I have are when someone's lost a child. The divorce rate for people who have a child who dies is through the roof. And it's heartbreaking. I've done about five divorces where people lost a child. Like one of them, the kid fell in the pool and they found this three-year-old.

They found that, you know, and this other one parent was like, why weren't you watching them? But they know that it was like they turned their head for a second and the kid snuck out. Like it was nobody's fault. But they forever then were reminding each other of this thing that was taken from them and they break up. The problem with that is that's like someone saying to you, if I said, want to quit smoking. And someone says, well, I know someone who live to 100 and still smoked cigarettes. Like, right, but they're in the minority. Like, that's not usually what it is. Like, most marriages don't end because they lost a child. Like, so are there still things? Yep, there's still things.

Like, you can take the best care of yourself and you can walk out and get hit by a bus. So does that mean that you should just not invest in your 401K and smoke cigarettes? Like, I don't think so. Like, life is short. And horrible things happen all the time. time and you know, you could love someone so well and so deeply and they could still break your heart, you know, so does that mean don't do it? Like, I don't think so. I think be brave. Like, be brave. Like, get out there and try, you know. And so, but is there a guarantee? No, there's no guarantee. But do I think if someone has that strong starting point of a deep connection and real affection and an honest love for each other that's deep and visceral? And is that a great

place to start from and is it easier to just try to keep that from day one than to like, I kind of like this person and maybe they're a fixer up or and I could turn. That's not a great place to start from. So I think good beginnings can lead to, you know, good endings if you're vigilant. But yeah, there's still always bombs could fall out of the sky. Have you ever been settling a divorce and you thought that they were actually still really good for each other? Yeah, yeah, several times.

And what happens in situations? Like, have you ever brought it up or is it just not your place whatsoever? I bring it up. Yeah, I bring it up. I don't. I mean, I work from the assumption that people have autonomy and agency, so I don't like to be paternal and say to people like, why are you guys splitting up? But if in a consultation I get any sense that there's hope for a marriage to remain, I encourage people. I have a whole network of marriage therapists, individual therapists who I'll refer people to. If I think that they could divorce amicably, I'll send them to a mediator instead of me. I'll tell them, listen, I'm a chainsaw. You want to say, scalpel, it's fine, just go mediate, you better off. Like, I'm a very specific set of tools, you know, like I'm a weapon, you know, you don't want to point me at somebody unless you want to do them harm. So I would say that more than once I have said to someone, hey, look, it sounds

like you guys are kind of in a good place, and it sounds like maybe you're not sure you want to do this. And don't just because you hired lawyers see this thing through, especially if you got kids. Like if there's a way to make a marriage work that you'll both be happy, like, do that, do that without question. I'd love to be out of business. Have you ever felt morally conflicted when you're representing a case? Like you said, you're used as a weapon against somebody else. But maybe in this case, you feel like you're asking for a lot, something that you maybe morally have deemed not fair, but you're just doing your job assigned by a marketplace to basically represent your client. Yeah, yeah, that happens all the time.

Any lawyer who says to you that they don't represent positions or people that make them morally uncomfortable is either lying or has a very inert practice. Like, yeah, I represent horrible people sometimes. So how do you toy with that in your body? I believe in our system. I believe in democracy. I believe in the way our justice system works, that people are entitled to vigorous advocacy under the bounds of advocacy.

Like, I don't, listen, there's a chapter in my book about a case I should not. have won. I represented a horrible person who beat a woman unmercifully, and we won, because I knew the rules of evidence better than the other lawyer, and he had more money so he could afford me, and she got a court-assigned lawyer who had hardly any idea what they were doing, and I ate their lunch for them. And as we walked out, he patted me on the shoulder, and he said, one good lawyer is better than 20 stick-up men. And I remember I felt dirty. Like, when I recorded my audio book, and I read that chapter into the microphone in the sound booth, I had to stop because I got choked up

because I felt really weird about it. But the thing is, I believe in our system. I believe in democracy. I believe in the rule of law. I believe in advocacy. And I didn't cheat in that case. I won under the rule set that everyone agreed on. And it's not my fault that that lawyer doesn't know how to try a case.

And it's not my fault. So I believe in our system. I don't think I should be the one. Our system doesn't think the lawyer should be the one who makes a moral decision as to who the people have a right to representation. And I do the best I can for them. Are there times where I feel icky about that? Absolutely. But more often than not, I don't.

More often than not, I'm advocating for someone I believe in. But now you could say that she did not get the same level of service that you were able to deliver because she didn't have the resources. Capitalism, baby. You get as much justice as you can afford. like there's a reason why OJ walked because he wasn't guilty like there's it the reality is that you get you know our system

listen I'm not saying it's always that if you have more money you win but you have a significant tactical advantage if you have good lawyers like if you afford a good lawyer like we're better we're better at this job so we'll do a better job you know it's not it's not quite so simple

like a really good chef you know can take good ingredients and make an amazing meal. They can take junk ingredients to still make a really good meal. They can't take junk ingredients and make it into something fantastic. No chef in the world can. But a bad chef, you can take bad choice. You can take good ingredients and make bad meal. Like a good lawyer is worth a lot. So your faith in the system is not bulletproof, right? Because you gave the example of like when you represented this person, you didn't think that you should have won the case. Well, no, I should have won the case. I just felt badly about that. Right, right, right. Okay. Do you think that there's ever a point

in the future where you can forsake your faith in the system to adjudicate on your own behalf and think like, okay, this is what should happen. Let's just say you had a billion dollars that's your last case ever. Now obviously this is a very tricky. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, it's not tricky. You know, got to ask the word. I love this question. I've never been asked it and I love it. And what I'll say to you is, I'll tell you how the sausage is made. I'll tell you a secret. This is what lawyers fantasize about. When we fantasize, that's what we fantasize about. We fantasize about, I fantasize about two things more often than I'd care to admit. One is telling a judge what I actually think.

Like I have fantasies about in the middle of court being like, you know what? You're an idiot. You're an idiot. I'm a better lawyer than you. You don't know the law? You're lazy. You know what you call a lawyer with a 70 IQ, your honor? Like I want to say it someday in court, I plan to get dragged off in handcuffs because I said that.

I guarantee it's going to happen. Stay tuned. So that's one thing I fantasize about. thing I really fan. And by the way, there are some phenomenal judges who know the law and are way better lawyers than me and they do it for the right reasons. But there's also some terrible ones. And unlike bad lawyers, bad judges can hurt a lot of people really badly. So that's why we have to have good judges. The other thing we fantasize about is betraying attorney-client privilege, like calling the other side anonymously and saying, look in the bank accounts at blah, blah, blah,

blah, blah, he's hiding money and then just hanging up the phone. Like I have fantasies about like taking a cell phone or a burner phone and like just narking on something that I know that is like, you know, or here's where those photographs are, or send a subpoena for the audio recordings on his thing because you're going to find X, Y, and Z. That's what we fantasize about. I'd never do it, but that's what we fantasize about. But if your client has asked about potentially missing funds or something like that, wouldn't it be perjury? If I know, yes, we can't suborn perjury. It's why criminal defense lawyers will tell you the question they never asked their clients is, did you do it? Because once the client tells you, if the client says, yes, I did it, you can't suborn

perjury. So clients don't come in and say to you, I'm hiding money, or I'm hacking her email, and I'm reading her emails with her lawyer. They just like know stuff. And you are afraid to say, how do you know this? Because they'll go, I have her email hacked. Like every once in a while I'll have an idiot who says, like, yeah, I hacked her email in her cell phone. And I go, great, I'm off your case now. because you're asking me to suborn purd, you're committing a crime. That's wiretapping. It's a felony. You're intercepting electronic communications to which you're not an intended recipient. That's a crime.

And you're now telling me that you're giving me information that you only know because you're surrepitously intercepting communications between her and her lawyer. So I can't be your lawyer anymore. Those are the rules. So that's great when that happens because I like to know. Like I liked when the KKK wore white robes instead of three-piece suits. because I like to know what someone's do. I like to know if you're a racist. I like to know who you are.

I like to know if you're a criminal. But the reality is is that most of the time that's not how it works. Most of the time people won't say, yeah, I beat her. I beat her. She's totally telling the truth. They go, that never happened. She was attacking me, and then I pushed her,

and she hit herself and fell. And you go, I don't believe that, but I don't know that it's false. And the system, I'm supposed to credit what my client says until there is an admission to the contrary, you know. There was a great YouTube video that I got recommended last night on the way here.

And it was a two-minute video from a lawyer posted 10 years ago. He said, how do you represent clients that you know are guilty? And he gave a great example. He said, when I first started my career, I represented a client. He was guilty. He came up with this elaborate story involving all these other people. But I knew he was so guilty. The proof was there.

This guy was guilty. And I tried my best to represent him. But he was guilty. And he was found guilty, went to jail. He said, years later, another case came up with an identical story. And as it turned out, that guy was innocent. And he went to jail. And he said, after that, I learned that I can't let my own judgments get in the way.

And even if something sounds so ridiculous, and I believe in my heart, I'm 100% he's guilty. There's a chance he's not. And you've got to give him the same representation. Here's the thing about our system. The truth fears no trial. the truth has a way of coming out. Sometimes, despite my best efforts. Like, I represent some awful people sometimes,

and I do my absolute best, and I am great at my job, and we lose. Because there's only so much. Like, the truth has a way of coming out. Like, if you're a liar, you've got to have a great memory. You got to remember what you told everybody. You got to remember what records are out there. You know, like, we come after you.

If I come after you, it's coming out. So there's times where, like, listen, People want to roll the dice. They want to lie. They want to pretend. It's okay, cool. Truth has a way of coming out. And I'll do my best.

I'll do my best to put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig. Like, I'm going to do my best. But that's the way our system works. It's designed to do that. The system works. It's not perfect, but it works a lot of the time. The truth has a way of coming out. I've represented a lot of people who've been accused of sexual abuse of children

because those cases come out in family court sometimes. They're done as neglect cases. So they fall more into the realm of family law than criminal law. And so I've represented a lot of people who are facing allegations of child sexual abuse. And there are some that I go, I think this person did it. And then as the evidence comes out, I realize, no, they didn't. And then there are people that I genuinely go, there's no way. There's no way this guy did this.

And then as the evidence comes out, I go, oh, my God, he did it. You know, same thing with domestic violence. I've met perpetrators of domestic violence who I would have let them date my sister. Like, they're lovely. They're charming narcissists. You know? And I've met perpetrators of domestic violence that, you know, I never would have known that they were abusive, but they were. You know, I've, I have a case right now where I'm representing a woman who's, you know, accused her husband of very serious domestic violence. And he came into court and I was like, she is lying. This guy is so charming, so nice. He's so even keeled. Everybody who ever met them was like he's the nicest guy you ever met. And thank God they have a ring doorbell. Because the ring doorbell. caught him on camera beating the shit out of their six-month-old Labrador puppy. No.

Yep. And kicking this dog and grabbing the leash and yank and smack it against the wall. And I had listened to this and I had to watch this. But I'd tell you something, and I hated it. It was like one of those moments where I go, why am I doing this for a living? But I brought that into court. And I showed that to the judge. It felt good.

Because I brought it in and I showed it to the judge. And the judge went, okay, she's telling the truth. Like, she's telling the truth. because this guy came into court all buttoned up and so lovely. And then you have a video and audio of him beating the snout out of a six-month-old puppy. And you go, okay, that's what this guy's really like. So that's a beautiful thing. Like when you get to feel that happen, when you get to go,

I was part of making justice move forward. No one believed this woman. I didn't believe this woman because he seemed real nice. You know, Jeffrey Dahmer seemed nice too to a lot of people until he ate them. You know, so like the private lives of people and the public face of people is very, very, very, different, which is why I like the rule of law and due process, because the truth has a way of coming out. How often does someone's image affect the outcome if they're buttoned up, clean cut versus someone with like face tattoos? Yeah, pretty often, pretty often. But again, that's what

trials are for. Trials are full contact storytelling. Like in a good storyteller, you're going to, if I know a client has face tattoos, I got to work harder. I got to work harder. Like I had a client who we were fighting over custody of his five-year-old son. And he had a baby with a woman who we had very, they'd only been dating for like three months, and then she got pregnant. And she had a whole series of text messages from him where he was trying to get her to have an abortion.

And he was saying to her like, I'm not going to be involved in this kid's life. And you're going to be a single mom. And I think this is foolish. You're ruining your life having this kid. And this guy loved his son like you wouldn't believe. He loved his son. so much. And I said to him, I was like, we got to get out in front of this. We get out in front of

this in this trial because you're going to look like a terrible person. Like, I read those texts and I don't like that guy. So I put him on a stand in his trial. And before the other side got a chance to eat him, I put him on. And I put those text messages into evidence. And I had him read them into the record. And I said, how do you feel when you read those text messages? And he cried, legitimately cried, and said, I feel horrified. I'm ashamed. He's like, I'm so glad. she didn't listen to me. He was like, I feel disgusted. I'll never forgive myself for that. But I was scared at the time and I didn't know. And I hadn't met my son yet. And thank God, she didn't listen to me. And I got because I love my kid. The minute he was born, I knew like,

oh my God, I'm so glad. So to me, like, you know, again, that's what's so beautiful about this job is you get to like let the truth come out, you know. And that's an amazing thing to be part of. A little bit of a change of pace, but you spoke before about some really unique alimony payments, some really unique pre-ups. You said there was one that you signed where every 10 pounds the woman in the relationship gains, she's going to receive $10,000 less per month on her alimony payments. Yes, and that stood up in court. That's hilarious.

I'm sorry, that's funny. I'm sorry, it's funny. I'm sorry, it's funny. It's very funny. Of course it's incredibly funny. And what are some of the other really creative pre-up agreements you've seen? Can you write in literally anything you want to? Yeah, as long as it's not, as long as it doesn't require someone to break the law.

So you can't put in like if you kill my brother-in-law, I'll give you X, Y, and Z. Like, it has to be something that's legal for a person to do. But yeah, you can write in all kinds of crazy creative things. Like you can write fidelity clauses. Like if you cheat, you have liquidated damages of this much. But what's interesting, what's actually more interesting about that that no one's ever asked me about, but a lot of people found that pre-nup thing with the 10 pounds, you lose 10,000. What's funny about that is that here's what law school does to your brain.

I heard that story and my first thought was not, who's going to marry this guy? Like, are you kidding me? Like, what kind of person are you? Nor did I go like, yeah, that's a good point, man. You don't want her to, you know, the most fattening food in the world is wedding cake. Like, you don't, you know, control that. I didn't look at either of it those ways. I looked at it and I went, all right, well, wait a minute.

How do we establish the baseline? So when they sign it, will there be a way in? because you'd have to establish baseline. And if there is a baseline, if I'm representing her, I'm going to want to be like wrestling, like you don't cut weight. Like you're going to want to bloat up as much as you can and put as much in your pockets as you can so your baseline weights as high as possible

so that the gauge, the delta. How do you certify that way? And then, by the way, when she, well, and how do you certify that way? Is it written into the document? This is what, so now you're thinking like a lawyer. So I heard that, like we hear that provision and I go, okay, how are we going to?

And then when we have the way in, at the time of divorce. You have to calibrate that. Can she cut weight? Like is she in a sauna with the suit on, like a boxer or a wrestler? Like, what are we doing here? You know, like, to me, it became a legal issue. Like, okay, so how would I prove it? And what is the baseline and how to...

So I had to start thinking, like, in that provision about, okay, so we have to put in this contract the way in, the way out, who will, it be neutral? Like, what time of the month would it be? There's women who say, like, hey, right before my period, I blowed up. and there's women who say, oh, my, like, two days after my period, I'm, like, super lean. How do we do it? So I was thinking about it from, so a lot of what lawyers get caught up in is, like, the details of what do we prove?

And when you say, oh, cheating clause, like everybody, like a layperson goes, like, yeah, you should have pay a penalty when you cheat. Okay, what, how do we define cheating? How do we define proving cheating, you know, like, if you saw me going into a restaurant with a woman, is it proof I'm cheating, or you see me going into a hotel? But if they have a restaurant in the hotel, maybe I'm just going to eat at the restaurant. You know, so like what is cheating for the purposes of fidelity clause for the purposes of a penalty? And again, you know, you may say that it has a plain meaning, but does it?

Like if I say to you a reasonable amount of time, what does that mean? We might have three totally different definitions of a reasonable amount of time. So lawyers are very caught up in how do we define things in specific enough ways that they're enforceable. So what are some of the other really creative arrangements you've seen? Well, I'm curious in that case about the power. pounds. Did she have an objection to that or was she totally on board? She was on board with it when they signed it and she resented it when they, she tried to use it as a basis to set aside the pre-nup. What if she had lost 10 pounds? Would it have any? It did not.

I asked that question before they signed it. And it was not, she didn't get like a bonus. She was a model. She had been a model. Like it was, it was fairly clear that what she brought to the relationship was that she was very attractive and what he brought to the relationship is that he was very rich. Did she end up gaining weight? No. She gained a bit. She lost, I think she lost 20 grand a month, but she was getting... 20 pounds.

Yeah, she gained like 20 pounds over the course of the marriage. How much was her final alimony amount? 30 or 40 grand. And how long was the marriage? Seven years. It was short. There was no kids. Okay. Because we had actually put in a clause that said if there were children, that changed. Oh, interesting. Okay.

Because we realized that there was a function of, you know. So what are the other creative arrangements you've seen. I mean, I've had a lot of, what's actually interesting to me is, is the, and it maybe not be as interesting to others, but the like instead of alimony. Like I had a, you know, like a hedge fund guy marry like a yoga teacher and she made like nothing. And he made, you know, he's in his 30s and made like three, four million a year. He was doing really well. And we were talking about alimony. We're going back and forth about how much would the alimony be. It should be this percentage of amount versus how long they're married.

And if they're married five years or more, it'll be this percentage. And if it's this, then it'll be this percentage. But then there was a question of because a lot of guys in finance, like they get paid, their bonuses are often much bigger than their salary. So it was like, well, do we do it on last year's salary? Because last year might have been a great year or it might have been a bad year. So it might not be indicative. So we'd do like a three year average.

And my client, who's a very pragmatic guy in finance, just went, yeah, just give her a million bucks. And I was like, wait, what do you mean? And he was like, yeah, just if we split up, she gets a million bucks. And I was like, wait, but like, what if you're married like three months? Yeah, give her a million bucks. What if you married 10 years? A million bucks. You know, I was like, well, are you sure? Like, you married three months?

You give her a million bucks? He was like, yeah, you know, I'll make more money. It's fine. So those are the things that I'm sort of shocked by. Whereas I have some people in finance who make, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars and they're very like down to the penny. They want to argue over. So what's more fascinating to me is, like, how different people's approach to marriages,

to finances. It's just such a diversity of people. But pre-ups, I mean, I've seen a lot of stuff in pre-ups about pets. That's a big thing lately. People put a lot of stuff in about pets because people love their pets often as much as they would their kids. And a lot of times when people are cohabitating before they get married. I've had people put in clauses about family members that like we won't, if we won't allow this family member in our home, you know, or we won't communicate with this person or that person.

So it doesn't even have anything to do with money? No, but it has, but it has financial. repercussions. Oh, got it. Okay. So if you were to talk to this person or have this person in our household, then you don't get it. Well, see, lawyers, we're very caught up in the, or what? Like, everything's or what? Yeah. You know, like, lawyers are the worst at that. Like, when you say, like, you're not allowed to sit there or what? Or what? Like, you know, it's very, I used to always get criticized for this because I park illegally all the time in New York City. Yeah. Because I'm always like, you know, you can't park there or what? You get a $50 ticket. No problem. That's

cool. Because this garage over here, $75 for the amount of time on a park. This is a ticket for $50. No problem. I'll give you $50 to park here. And there's a chance I might not even get a ticket. So even better. You know, so or what?

It's always or what? You know, well, you better do this. Or what? You know, I'll give you 20 years in prison. Okay, good disincentive. I will not do that thing, you know? But so that's how preempts are. Like, it's always, well, I want to put in the prenupt this.

Okay, or what? And how do you enforce it? And is it enforceable? You know, so like all that's, a lot of our legal system, a lot of our world is based on, people's misunderstanding of their rights. So like, you know when you pull your car into a garage in the city and there's that sign that says, we are not responsible for damage to your car, you are, they are, they are. But a lot of people will go, look at the thing, oh, darn it, I didn't say the sign,

they're not responsible, oh well, and they'll drive off. Like, they believe it, so it becomes true. But it's not true. Like, it's not true. Like, they're not allowed to damage your car. It doesn't matter if they have a sign. Like, if I have a sign that says, if you come in my house, I get to rape you. Like that does, it's not true. It's not true. It's not how it works. So it's really,

really important that people understand their rights and their obligations in life. I'm curious what type of relationships you find to be the most successful. We had Alex Ramose on the podcast, and he said that there are different dynamics of relationships. One is a footballer and a cheerleader, where you have someone going out

and you have the cheerleader just behind. You have another where both people are in the trenches. And you have another where one is very masculine, one is very feminine. Do you find a commonality between who's the most successful? The best relationships are the ones that have some polarity. I think when like marries like too much, that lack of polarity becomes challenging. It becomes almost a competitive relationship. There are exceptions to this, but what I have seen as a divorce lawyer, polarity usually feeds a relationship. But too much polarity is a problem. Like if you're a neat freak and this person

is an absolute mess, that's not going to work out well. But if I'm like a super over-scheduled, tightly wound person, and you're a little more freewheeling and, like, see, it is, then I might organize you up a bit, and you might get me to get out of my comfort zone a little. And that really works. So I really think that finding the right amount of polarity is really, really important.

So, you know, hyper-masculine, hyper-feminine, or both very masculine, both very feminine, I don't know that either of those are the best permutation. Like sometimes in my experience, hyper-masculine, hyper-feminid, like hyper-polarity is better than hyper-similarity. But that's just from where I'm sitting as a divorce lawyer and from my experience in life and relationships. Got one last question before we wrap up.

You said on Lex Friedman, I don't know that I'll ever love anyone or anything more than I love the work. And that was after nearly an hour of talking about how a person's spouse is the most important thing and the most coveted thing in their life. You said, I think there is something like the womb, like cocoon like joy of love. When you're just tucked in and pressed against each other, it's just the two of you that's lovely. We're just dying for connection.

That connection is so big. It's everything. So how can you have these two things? Like, you have your spouse and then you have work. You said you don't think that you can ever love a spouse as much as you love work. And I'm questioning. Me in particular. Yeah.

You're not married. Yeah. Right? Or you were divorced. You currently have a girlfriend. I don't know how long you've been with this. with this girlfriend, how do you juggle this extreme love of work? Because I think this is a lot of people's problem.

Yeah. At the same point of having like relationship, arguably everything in life. Yeah, so I had a benefit that some people don't have. And that is that when I started my relationship, I was established in my career. So I was very as advertised. Like I was very open about the fact that the law is a harsh mistress and that the law is really kind of my first love and that it will always be a distraction that when I'm with you, I will a lot of the time.

be thinking about clients and cases and every once in a while we'll be just sitting there having a conversation and all of a sudden my brain will go oh my god that's a perfect question for cross examination i got to go write it down and i was very as advertised about it and um i have found in my relationship having polarity is really important having someone who is not who understands the dedication and passion i have for my work but who is the one who says okay like that's great but now it's time to, come on, like, let's rest now. Like, let's, it's okay. We're going to, you're going to go back to it tomorrow morning.

I know that. But, like, you did a really good job. Let's take, can you give me a few hours? And if I go, I can't, I have a, and they go, okay, I get it. But who reminds me to go, like, yeah, okay, it's okay to rest your head, you know? So I think that it's as advertised. And I, listen, I don't, I think connection, the reason why I was very cautious about when I said that to Lex, I was making a comment about the nature of connection.

I don't know that it has to be a romantic partner. Like I have friends that have, you know, pets, friends, a community, a team, a jiu-jitsu group, whatever, like that from which they find deep love in connection. I think there is something hardwired in us and very special about romantic love. And I don't even want to say there were love between a man and a woman because I have lots of gay and lesbian friends who have deep, deep satisfaction. in their same-sex relationship. So I think there is something very magical about love and romance and sex.

I mean, it's why we're here. It's what keeps us going as a species. And it's, you know, most of us will say, like, when you think back on your life, like some of the greatest moments of your life were moments of romantic connection, sexual connection, any of those things. So, but I don't think that that means,

like, I have a mission, you know? And it's just like that story I said earlier about like when the guy goes, like she goes, please don't go. And he goes, yeah, but I got to go. Like, I do my, I love my job. I love my job. I love the woman in my life, too.

Would you get married again? But she knows. Marriage doesn't mean anything to me. Like marriage to me doesn't mean anything. It's a legal status. You know, it's like, would you go to the DMV? Only if I had to, you know? Like, I don't see what that adds to things.

Like, I don't, when people say, would you get married again? What they're asking is, would you have a monogamous long-term relationship where you're committed to this person deeply and where you're the only. And to me, yeah, that's great. I can't imagine life without that. I mean, I guess I can't imagine life without that, but I'd work more. But it just, you know, it wouldn't be as fulfilling of a life. I think love is really, really an amazing thing. But I know how I'm wired and I'm weird. I'm the first to admit it. Like, I'm not anybody's like, I'm a strange guy. Like, I love my job in the most amazing way. And I don't think most people love their work that way.

I got one last one really quick. Yeah. Why do you think Joe Rogan has such a successful relationship? You know, Joe is very private about his marriage. And every single person who I know who knows him personally through the Jiu-Jitsu community or through media things all say that this is like a guy who loves his wife and his wife really loves him and that they also really like each other. but he's not super public about the details of that marriage.

And so I think that's a really, you know, I've been wanting to appear. I've been a fan of Joe's for years. We've met before in the jiu-jitsu world. I've wanted to be a guest on his show because, you know, talking with Lex was great and sort of, you know, the natural corollary as you'd have a very different conversation with Joe. But the truth is, like, I would be very interested in hearing Joe's answer to that question. I just don't know if Joe wants to share that with the world. And if he did, I would love to hear it.

and I'd love to be part of that conversation. And if he didn't, I would really respect and understand that too. That's a very personal choice. But what I can say is it looks like whatever they're doing, they're doing it right. And that's what we should be looking at, is we should be looking at that guy. I hope at some point he shares that either with me or with the world, even if it's not with me. Like if he just shares it with a different guest, like I hope he shares that with the world. because anytime somebody's doing it right and both people in it are like, man, we're doing it right,

I want to know. I want to know what they're doing. Because I'm on the other end. I watch what everybody does wrong and I'm reverse engineering something from it. But I would love to hear what Joe's doing right and I'd love to hear. I'd actually love to hear what is what. To me, like when I fantasize about that, I'd love to sit down with Joe Rogan and his wife and hear from their point of view what it is that they're doing right.

I'd love to hear what she says he's doing right. I'd love to hear what he says she's doing right. And I'd love to know the truth of that. But look, at the end of the day, like, there are so many, whether you're a celebrity like Joe is, or whether you're just somebody I pass on the street or a guy who's my Uber driver, I find people who are happily married,

it's really cool to be around them, you know? Next time you're at a group, you know, dinner, and you ask people, like, so tell me how you guys met. Like, watch how they light up and they tell that story. Like, that's it, man. It's the greatest thing in the world. that warmth that comes off of a couple when they're talking about like, yeah, and she was there and then she walked by and I thought she was. And you kind of look at it and you go like, man, it was 40 years ago or it was four months ago.

It's just, it's something great to behold. So anybody's story of how they fell in love or how they stay in love, I'm in. I want to hear it. Thank you so much. Great see. Also, huge thank you to WTF Media down below in the description for letting us use their studio. I absolutely love it. You guys like the way that the shots look, the way the audio sounds. They basically did it all. What's your name? Remy.

Shout out Remy. He was cutting this entire thing. Amazing. That's awesome. Really appreciate you. Great to see you. Hopefully we do it again. Let's do it.

I wish we could do another five hours. You've got to come back. We could do it anytime you want. We had double the question. Anytime you're in the Big Apple, you guys have a divorce lawyer on hold. Awesome. Thanks so much. Thanks so much.

Thank you guys for watching. Until next time.