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

All marriage problems arise from two things and that's what happens with sex. How often is sex the problem in

divorce

? Oh my God. James ston, the world's number one

divorce

lawyer, specializing in multi-millionaire athletes and celebrities for over two decades, giving him unique insight into how relationships fail. and be successful, there is about a 56% chance that your marriage will end in divorce, however, 86% of

people

agree with Mar within 5 years, but most

people

have no idea what they are getting into it and a great example of that would be prenuptial agreements about who gets what and when.

They were properly separated and the most shocking prenup I've ever seen said that for every 10 pounds the wife earned, she would lose $10,000 a month in alimony, 10 pounds of weight, and that could be enforced if money problems lead to divorce. Oh, it's controversial which one is fast. If someone has gone from marriage to divorce in 48 hours and cheats on more men or women, you will be surprised to know that you have ever seen violence during a divorce, she was run over four times and stabbed, Jesus Christ, so here is the question, should we respond? married and then you think love is a terrible idea?

I think it's crazy to love anything because one day it will go away and this will break my heart no matter what I lose but that's not a reason not to love and I think there's something really important congratulations diio gang we've made some progress . 63% of you who listen to this podcast regularly don't subscribe, which is down from 69%. Our goal is 50%, so if you ever liked any of the videos, I posted if you like this channel. Can you do me a quick favor and hit that subscribe button? It helps this channel more than you think and the bigger the channel gets, as you've seen, the bigger the guests get.

Thank you and enjoy this episode. James, I've never talked to anyone who does what you do, what you do. I am a divorce lawyer. I'm a divorce attorney who represents people in contested divorce and custody proceedings in court, so the fact is, you've never spoken. For someone who does what I do it's a good thing, it means you either haven't gotten married or it means you've successfully gotten married to the point where you'd never end up in my office when someone sets foot in it. in my office something went terribly wrong in their lives because no one had the intention of meeting me no one had the intention of being in my office what is the probability that one day I will meet someone like you and not in this context, well, if you get married , there is approximately There is a 56% chance that your marriage will end in divorce, that's not taking into account how many people may consult with a divorce lawyer because they are having difficulties in their marriage, but after meeting me they choose not to get divorced for some particular reason . reason, either because they don't want to part with half of their funds or they have simply decided that it is easier to remain miserable and with one person or they will stay together for the children, but they wanted to know what their rights were, so if you houses, the chances of meeting someone like me are more likely than not if we look at it that way because it's more than 50%, so it's a high number, you know, but if we define failure as all the other things that I have described there that we stay together but we are miserable or we stay together for some other reason.

What percentage of marriages on that basis do you think actually fail? I mean, if we consider failure, staying together is miserable for the rest. children or staying together for financial reasons and then we add that to the 56% that end in divorce, so I mean it would be very difficult to track that, but I think it's generous to think that it's probably another 20%, but I mean, think about what That adds up to meaning that you have something that fails 70% of the time. 75% of the time it's negligent activity, you know, it's more likely to cause significant damage to your life, so I, I'm not saying that to sound like the Grim Reaper when it comes down to it.

It's about marriage. In fact, I really think marriage is a lovely thing and I get looked at at weddings just like anyone else, um and not just for, you know, future business purposes, um. The statistic that's even more interesting to me than how many marriages end in divorce or how many people stay together miserably is that 86% of people who divorce

remarry

within five years, so think about that now that you've done it. this failed. You've gone through this difficult process of having to undo it and now, in five years, 86% of people

remarry

. I mean, that tells you how important this is to us as humans, how attracted we are to this idea, this technology of marriage and and that to me is fascinating because I've often said that I'm not sure which marriage was designed for what. problem marriage is designed to solve, look at the fact that it would take me so long to think if I told you what the purpose of this is. technology this cup what is it for that's easy true it's hard to drink from your hands and someone would have to keep coming up and pouring things into our hands well that's pretty simple what problem does this solve?

Well, that's easy, right? I want you to know what ring spots are out there. Our partner yells at us for not using a coaster, so these are easy things, but marriage is something so ubiquitous that it's assumed if you're dating someone for a few years and you say. guess what we're going to marry, everyone says of course phenomenal congratulations that's great of course you will you know you make her an honest woman of course whereas if you say you know we've been together for 3 4 years we decided that we are not going to get married, people ask what is wrong with this boy, he has intimacy problems, he is not going to understand Mar, do you know what the problem is?

You don't want to get married, whereas rationally the answer should be, you know? oh yeah, we're getting married, what are you kidding, why are you doing that? It's like if someone said, I'm going skydiving, it's like, wait, are you crazy? That's kind of dangerous, you know, and it's not, I mean, listen, skydiving, it's not like 75% 76% of the time. people die skydiving, so the truth is that it makes very little sense to me to assume that marriage is something you will do when in reality we, as a species, are so incredibly bad at it's that kind of 86% that then remarries after divorce, so they learned from their mistakes, they are better right now, it's different this time, it's different, it's this time, I'm really in love, that other time, when I thought I was.

In love, it wasn't like that this time, it's different, really, it's a blind spot, you know, and again, where does it come from, you'd have to ask people smarter than me, you know, it could be neuroscience, it could be the realm of truly deep social psychology, it could simply be cognitive bias. I have no idea it could be an illusion caused by inadequate lighting, you know, but whatever it is, come on, oh yeah, but this one's different. I took a test last week. for a guy who went through one of the ugliest

divorces

I've ever seen in my life and that's not hyperbole as I've been doing this for 25 years just to say it, for me to say the ugliest divorce I've ever seen in My life is incredible. it's like it's a big deal, it's like some chef michelene said this was the best food i've ever had, so this guy had a horrible divorce that lasted four or five years and remarries a woman 30 years younger than him whom he knew for four months. ago and when I said to him as skillfully and tactfully as I could, "you know each other," you've only known this person for a short time and you know, have you thought about maybe you just know that you need to be a little bit cautious in terms of what you've seen? how difficult a divorce can be, you know, do you think maybe it could be him?

Oh no, this is it. I have never felt anything like this. I have never been so in love. I have never been so connected to someone. We just know each other. another and you know it would be very indelicate and rude of me to say how to get out of this, man, you gotta get your like, you really know, bring your logical brain into this equation, don't bring the part of you that's just full of romance and you have Christmas in your eyes like you really have to watch this honestly do you see a lot of gold diggers?

Do you see many gold diggers? Do you see sort of gold digger patterns? I mean, you see someone who is incredibly rich. You see someone I know. 40 years younger than them, yes, yes, I see a lot of that. I mean, you know, I hesitate to say gold diggers because I think it has a built-in pejorative, that somehow I think people bring different things to the table. the table in relationships I I believe that love is an economy and I don't say that in a way that devalues ​​love I believe that love is a verb I believe that love is an emotion and I believe that love is an economy You know there is a giving and receiving of value and that can be incredibly symbiotic.

You know it can be incredibly healthy and wonderful. You know I'm too serious and the person I'm with is going to bring lightness and levity into the relationship and I'm going to help them be a little more serious and they're going to help me relax, you know, I'm tough and hardworking and everything is like 10 moves ahead and my partner is going to like help me calm down and help me, you know, not be so harsh and be a little softer and a little kinder and rest my head and give me kind of a warm place to do that, That's beautiful, each one contributes something different.

So if I am a powerful, hard-working, financially successful, financially secure man and I meet a beautiful young woman who has energy and enthusiasm and who has tremendous gifts but doesn't have the resources to be able to do much with it, you know she is a talented artist, but you know she's busy working, you know, a horrible, thankless job, you know, like serving cappuccinos, you know, and she can't, at this prime time in her life, focus on this thing she's so talented at. and I can say Hey, listen. Why don't you focus on that? I have resources and in abundance and I am happy to share them with you and feel that I am part of your success and that you, in turn, are part of My success because you give to Me. this wonderful respite from the chaos of my job and I don't think it's crooked economics, I don't think it's like that, so to say a gold digger implies something like, oh, she's in it for the money and that's fine.

Well, I'm in it for the beauty, you know, does that mean I'm a horrible, shallow person or that beauty is beautiful, beauty is something you want to be around and if we're honest about the interaction, how Is that predatory, what is it like? that's unfair to any of us, you know, if we're honest about it, what's hardest for me is when I have a client who's, you know, 150 pounds overweight, 5-foot-7 um and there's nothing about him. that is so aesthetic. or even personality-wise, a woman would say, "Oh, that's my guy, but he's a billionaire, you know?" and he has a beautiful young woman who is supposedly madly in love with him and he really believes that it is his personality and has nothing to do with the fact. that he's a billionaire or that that's a very small consideration that strikes me as the worst kind of deception, you know, while you could honestly say yes, each of us brings different things to the table, each of us brings different things to the lives of others. and then yes, he's a quote-unquote gold digger, but he's also a guy who wants to buy the company of someone who otherwise wouldn't be interested in him if he wasn't successful, so I think there's a give and take in that relationship. .

I think it's very fair. Have you seen examples of the last example where you know it describes that billionaire who doesn't have many redeeming qualities and who is headed toward the marriage he doesn't have yet? a prenuptial agreement, maybe you are advising them that they should get a prenuptial agreement and they are not interested because they are so deluded by the belief that the person is interested in his wonderful personality or yes, then the prenuptial conversation is really interesting. because I do a lot of prenuptial agreements, let's just define what prup is safe, prenuptial agreement is a contract between two people that defines the established rule essentially for their marriage, so when we talk about marriage, you know, people tend to use the word . marriage and they are actually talking about several different things, like in some context marriage is a spiritual commitment, right, it is a religious commitment to which it is tied in the Catholic ISM, it is a sacrament in Judaism, it is a covenant with God , you know, in Islam it has its own status, so marriage exists as a religious concept socially, we have a definition of marriage, like I am married to this person, we have married our destinies to each other, we have agreed that we are the person of the other and then marriage has a specific legal definition. and my job as a divorce attorney is to take that piece apart for someone or create protections for people who are contemplating entering into that legal status.

So, like you, you've been to weddings, right? I'm sure ofthat you have never done it in the end. at the wedding said, "great guys, I had a great time, the cake was delicious, I need to see the paperwork, I can see the license now, I just want to make sure everything was done correctly and there were witnesses you've never seen before." He said you've never told your parents can I see your marriage? I'd like to make sure everything is in order here, that's not how it works, like we don't do that, so you could go to a wedding and tell the people that you are married and never get legally married, you could just tell people that you are married. you're married you don't check people's documents like you can wear a ring if you want and similarly if you don't wear a ring it doesn't mean you're not legally married as you could be legally married and still take off the ring and you'll still be legally married if it were as easy as taking off your ring I would be out of a job so marriage is a legal state which is one of the meanings of marriage and a prenuptial agreement in the way I would describe it is two people deciding that , having chosen each other from 8 billion people to choose from in the world, are in a better position to set the rules that will govern the economics of their relationship, then the legislature would be, then the politicians would be, and anyone who has ever been at the Department of Motor Vehicles or who have been in you know any government agency, I would very rarely interact with a government agency and say we should definitely put these people in charge of our family life like they're going to do.

They do a great job, they're really crushing it, you know, that's not something that people, however, most people who are married have almost no idea what legal rights and obligations are conferred upon them when they get married, they just don't have idea that it is the most legally important thing they are going to do in their life other than die and they have no idea what their rights and obligations are and those rights and obligations can change, as can politics and legislature and the way the rules govern spousal support. rights child support rights the division of property are subject to change due to change of government, for example in the United States um alimony spousal support whatever we want to call it, which is a payment that a person makes to his or her spouse when there has been an economic disparity in marriage and now they're getting divorced, that used to be tax deductible, it used to have no formula, it was at the discretion of a judge, then in 2016 Trump took office and said, yeah, I'm not going to let it be taxes. . is no longer deductible, so it has completely changed now that you are already married at this time and now the rules about what governs your marriage have changed, so there are not many contracts in the world that people can enter into and whose terms can change greatly due to Circumstances outside your control and you are still in the same contract, so prenuptial agreements are designed for two people who at that moment have a lot of affection for each other, if they didn't then there is no reason for them to get married. making up a set of rules that will govern your relationship and that usually, as we see in movies and things like that and we hear about it in the culture, is really deciding who gets what when you break up, right now it's hard to say in advance who stays What happens when we separate at some point in the future because we don't know what we're going to have in 10 years in 20 years?

Then what do you do? You create structures like you create, you know. I refer to the simplest prenuptial agreement as yours. Mine and Ours, that is if it is in my name, whether an asset or a liability, it is mine, free of any Claim by you, free of any obligation to you, if it is in your name, it is yours, free of any Claim on my part, of any obligation towards me, ours if it is in our joint names, then we are equally responsible for it if it is an obligation or we are equally entitled to half its value if it is an asset.

You both sign it and get married, you can't just set it and forget it now, you actually have to have conversations with this person you're married to and in theory you should be able to do it right, like you've decided. this will be my main relationship this is the person I'm going to link my destiny with you I should be able to talk hey I just received this big bonus at work I'm going to put this in my soul account and I'm going to put this amount in the joint account and then you should be able to tell if you're the other person, well why do you put so much into your personal account like there's some weird stuff going on with us or something?

You know, we'll have a conversation again about why we're getting married. It's that economic concept that is, look, what do I owe you if I marry you? I wish I knew that beforehand because people tell me all the time, you know that well. I married this person and when we got married he had nothing and he built his business while he was married to me and I was very there for him while he was building it so I guess I'm entitled. at half the value of that business now, that's a logical argument. I don't know if I agree with him, but it's logical, but stick with that logic, so if that were true and I built this business and my wife, who was married to me.

While I was building that business she helped make everything right well her mother and father helped make who she is so I owe them something like me because if they hadn't done what they did I wouldn't have her and if I wouldn't have done it. If I didn't have it, I wouldn't have my business, so how much do I owe them? And now that I think about it, you know that her grandmother definitely influenced who her mother was, which influenced who she was, which influenced what she did for me, so can you? let me know in advance how far along the chain I owe people and how much I owe them.

Not everyone can get half. So did you get half of half of half or do I like it? And yes this is the logic. What are we going to continue so I would like to know in advance what that is because there are no other transactions in which if you are going to buy a car and you say how much this car costs and they tell you money, he said well, how much? You know it's a good amount. Well, again we continue talking in abstractions. I would like to know how much this amounts to. Know? Even if you can't convert it to a dollar number, it's x% of the last one. earnings for the year or something like that, give me a formula, something to tie it to and at least have that conversation because then you can decide if I'm going to sign up for this or not.

You must know a lot of people who are in a relationship where one of the people doesn't want to have a trial, yeah, because I, because when I think about having a trial, I'm with a woman right now, we've been together for 5 years. Frankly, if I told her I wanted to get a prenup, she would totally agree, she would do it, that's the kind of person she is, she would totally agree, she doesn't care, she would totally agree, great, You've done well, but I imagine myself in other relationships. I would be nervous to even say the words because you're immediately thinking about how you're going to get out before you get in, yeah, well, and you know there's a lot to unpack there, so the first thing I would say is all marriages end, end in death, or end in divorce, but they all end well, so if you said I was going to get life insurance, it would be silly for someone who is with you to say wait, are you planning to die soon?

No, but in case I do, I would like to make sure that things are resolved in a certain way and in case I do, there will be enough things that the people around me will be upset and sad about, so I I wish they had one less thing, you know, and I also know there's a chance, I hope I don't have it, but there's a chance I'll die in an hour, so I really hope it doesn't happen. but I can't say that it's definitely not going to happen, so divorce, you know, when we look at statistics like that, it's okay to say, hey, look, you know, I hope this never happens, but if it does, what do we think?

We owe each other, you know what? Would you need it to be more than just a conversation about what I want to keep? What am I entitled to? It's also what you would need. If you had seen him break up a marriage because someone mentioned a test. You've seen? Yes, I have seen marriages. I've seen marriages that were scheduled not to happen because the prenup happened, but more often than not I've seen the threat of not marrying someone because they want you to sign a prenup to get one person out. your request for a prenup, which to me is a very bad start to a marriage, so I've had a lot of clients come in and say, look, I want to have a prenup.

I have a lot of confidence in this marriage. I really love this person. but I would like to know that I have a prenuptial agreement and I write it up for PR for them and it has reasonable terms and they give it to their fiancé and their fiancé says yes, I'm not going to sign, it's not happening and instead of saying It's okay, so you're choosing for us not to get married, you know, okay, but I love you and I would love to marry you, but this is something I need to feel comfortable with, they just walk away, okay, yeah. it doesn't matter and they walk away from it and and um because they're intimidated and I think it's a terrible way to start a marriage, I think it's a lot worse than having an argument about difficult things, like I don't think you would think.

It's irresponsible that you've been with a woman for five years to tell her let's say a year ago or let's say four years ago to tell her you know we're going to fight at some point that's going to happen like us I'm going to disagree about something it's probably going to be my blame. I'll probably say something stupid. I do that sometimes, so when we get into a fight one day, which again I hope we don't, I'll do my best and not. I have ever argued with you but at some point something is going to happen you are going to say something it is going to hurt my feelings I am going to take it the wrong way I will say something you will take it the wrong way or maybe I am just an idiot sometimes I will be in a bad mood and I will say something Or I'll have too many drinks and say something that bothers you when that happens, how do you like it? to fight like what's better do you need a minute like do you need a minute to calm down?

Do you need to like sleep or do you need to like it? We have to fix this right now. I can't go to bed angry like me. I won't be able to sleep I won't be able to function like we have to address it right then and there because you know the best time to talk about how we're going to argue when we're not arguing with you I know the worst time to learn to fight in the middle of a fight, that's the worst time to learn to fight, so I like a prup. I think a prup can be a very romantic thing because it's basically saying look, I love you, you love me.

We want this to work or else we wouldn't sign up, but in case it breaks, you have the right to know what you're entitled to. I have the right to know what I am entitled to. Both. I have an interest in making sure that we both have the things we need so that neither of us feels like we're walking out of this relationship instead of walking out of it like if I lose you I'm going to have a lot more to do. Being sad about my stuff, well let me tell you, not knowing where I'm going to live or how I'm going to pay my bills, that will add a layer of pain and complexity to what will undoubtedly be a real difficult situation, so let's get that out of the way. to the other, let's know that because I never want the person who puts his head on the pillow next to me to be there because he doesn't want to get a divorce.

I would prefer it that way. Either they like having me there, their life is better because I'm there, they feel that I add value to their life and they add value to mine, well, I don't want to go through all that in that case. which you referenced there where he came to you for a prenuptial agreement, your partner gave you an ultimatum and said, listen, no, I'm not going to sign, how do you draw the line between being a lawyer and being a therapist or a adviser? as a kind of relationship coach, yeah, I mean, I have to tell you, it's very fluid.

I don't think it's easy to distinguish between lawyers and legal advisors. I have a bachelor's degree in psychology. M and I think I use it as much as I use my law degree because this is so personal that it's very difficult not to give human advice while I'm giving legal advice and dealing with the clay of, you know, human emotions. and human human connection and human fragility and human emotional complexity I thought prenuptial agreements were illegal I thought they were like people go and get them, but when it comes to law enforcement they can't hold up, you know, it could be true in the UK, but it's certainly not in the US, it's them, they're executable, they're binding, sometimes they're crazy about how executable they actually are, it's because the nature of a penup is as long as it's not the What is called disproportionate, inconceivable is a contract that is so unfair. that no person making a fair deal would offer it and no sane person would accept it, so that's what unconsciousness is, so you have to be a contract is to be inconceivable for it to be set aside.

Well,Now I have seen some prenuptial agreements that, in their interpretation, were unconscionable. which means you know that at the time they signed it he had nothing and she had nothing and now they're getting divorced and under the terms of this he's going to be left with $100 million and she's going to be left with almost nothing except as long as may be possible. Since it was not unconscionable at the time it was made, if it is unconscionable in its performance, it is still binding, which is why I have seen the result of prenuptial agreements sometimes be shockingly unfair, but you have the right to contract as long as there is no been fraud, as long as it was not. coercion or undoing influence or if someone was under the influence of drugs or alcohol when they signed it, it is a binding contract because we believe in human autonomy and agency and the right to make decisions about your life and your future.

So that example is really the most shocking you've ever seen, the most shocking prenuptial agreement I've ever seen in my life, that was enforceable. It had a provision that said that for every £10 the wife gained in the marriage, she would lose. $10,000 a month in alimony 10 pounds of weight yes yes so he was a very rich man who was going to marry a very attractive woman but he was very worried that she would become less attractive and he would become richer, so his Solution To this it was in the prenuptial agreement that he wanted a clause that said that if they divorced, she would receive around $70,000 a month in alimony, but for every 10 pounds she earned from the date of marriage, she would lose 10,000 per month for alimony. alimony and it was designed to create some sort of incentive for her to stay thin and that was enforceable, meaning they tried to challenge and strike down that provision and the court said it's a repugnant provision.

I don't know why you married this person but it's enforceable it's a contract you two signed it and you had the right to sign it and you agreed to these rules and they may be ridiculous rules but you agreed to them and you have the right to do it do you think it was love? again I think it's a type of love I think it's a form of love it's a form of love that I would be interested in I don't think it's very superficial in some ways there's something very honest about it I mean you can't argue with the fact that that there is something very direct about this, he made it very clear and put it in writing.

Here is the value you bring to this relationship. You know, I consider your physical appearance to be vitally important to this relationship and by the way, don't skip the other side. From that equation, yes, she was going to receive $70,000 a month, that's a very impressive figure, so I think she also understood that there was a value to be attributed to him, you know, and it's something that I would be interested in. Not on both sides of that equation, but do I have the right to tell someone that that's not love? I don't think I have the right to say that to anyone.

I think if this is an economy, you two have agreed. which you know, as a lawyer, look, my job as a lawyer is not to look like I don't see it that way. I look at the engineering, so if I'm representing it in that transaction, all I can think is. Okay, so we're going to want your starting weight to be as high as possible, so I'm going to want you to have pennies in your pockets after the day we sign the prenup because you have to establish a correct baseline, because if we say that to win 10 pounds would have to establish a reference weight on the date of the marriage, so they weighed her on the day of the marriage on or about the date of the marriage, the parties recognize that about her on the date of the marriage she weighed approximately pounds, so if I'm her, I want it to be as tall as possible, so I'm going to put pennies in my pockets and eat as many cheeseburgers as I can before weighing in now that we're getting divorced.

I'm going to be like a fighter. I'm going to be in the sauna. I'm going to be sweating as much as I can. I'm going to take diuretics. I won't eat anything but roasted vegetables for a week. or two, you know, and I'm going to take off every ounce of clothing she can because I want to minimize my weight. That's why they don't invite lawyers to parties, because that's how we analyze problems. as if I hadn't heard that and said what is the nature of her coupling. I looked at it and said, oh, I could play with that, I could look, I could, I could, I could, whoever I represent in that transaction, I could find a way. so you know, making that work you become a coach, I mean, it becomes an engineering issue rather than a human issue.

I heard about this when I was reading your book of these, um, also watching some of your stuff. online that I didn't know existed, what the fidelity contracts were Fidelity Clauses, yes, Fidelity Clauses, yes, yes, so it's something that people include in prenuptial agreements and also sometimes in what's called a postnuptial agreement, so a postnuptial agreement, you know, nuptial means marriage before marriage, it means before marriage and after. that is, after marriage, so if you didn't get a prenuptial agreement but your marriage, for whatever reason, becomes fragile, maybe someone finds out about an affair or maybe you are starting to have difficulties with each other, but They don't want to get divorced, but I would like there to be some clarity as to if we get divorced, what the rules will be.

You can make something called a postnuptial agreement. That, if you get divorced, would make the divorce a little less bitter because you have resolved certain issues. basically like the prenuptial agreement, you should have had it, so I've seen people in both prenuptial and postnuptial agreements include what are called Fidelity Clauses, which are essentially a clause that says if you cheat on your spouse, this will be the penalty and It could be a financial penalty, it could have a context related to support, it could be a percentage of certain property rights, you know, the things that you have, they are a good idea, from what you have seen, they are useful, I think they are terrible idea, yeah, from a legal standpoint, they're a terrible idea because, for a couple of reasons, defining cheating is very complicated, you know, if we're going to define cheating as a specific form of sexual contact, I guess it's a pretty clear definition, but even infidelity is not all the same.

I mean, I think we could all agree that if your partner, when drunk on vacation or at a party, had some kind of fleeting sexual contact with another person and then I woke up the next day and said, "Oh my God, what did I do?" if you were having an affair with someone else or I think there are probably some people if they were honest if they said that you would rather your spouse on a drunken night kiss someone or text someone else five times a day for six weeks and sharing the most intimate thoughts you know and what we call an emotional affair, well, I mean, I think we can agree on something about an emotional affair, like someone becoming your confidant.

I once heard someone say and I in my professional life. In my life I discovered that it is true that when men find out that a woman they are with has had an affair, their first question is: did you sleep with him? When women find out that a man had an affair, their first question is: are you in love? with her and I think that tells you a lot about relationships between men and women because there's a sense of okay, what was this sex or was this? I do not love you anymore. I don't want you in me. life because they are two really different things and so a Fidelity Clause is a one-size-fits-all concept that just says, "Okay, let's define deception" and then there will be a penalty for you to do it. now back to What I have observed in life cheating is its own penalty.

Cheating changes your life, at best, cheating turns your life into something incredibly complicated, like jumping from one foot to another lying to everyone involved, how rarely does anyone get out of infidelity without getting hurt, and a bunch of other people, whether it's not just their partner, but even the person they cheat with or that person's partner, there's a lot of pain for everyone when cheating happens, so to speak, and there will be a financial penalty. You know, it's a little bit like you know that using drugs is legal in a lot of places, but I can't imagine there's a heroin addict who goes, you know, I'm going to shoot up, oh wait, it's illegal, I don't want to. get in trouble, yeah, I think that's not how it works, like you're adding insult to injury, you know this person, they're already in a very difficult position.

I don't think making it illegal will do much except create an underground economy, same type of thing. I think that in infidelity there should be enough incentives in a relationship not to cheat and, by definition, there are already so many consequences for cheating that if we add a financial penalty to that, I don't know if a person is going to do it. About to cheat and then leave, this could cost me like 20 more Grand no, I'm not doing it. Are you seeing more and more people getting those prenups? Yes, prenuptial agreements. I have to tell you that a generational change is happening.

I see a I've been doing this job for 25 years and I'll tell you that people who are currently in their 20s and 30s, as the primary demographic for marriage in their 20s and 30s, are getting prenups at a rate that I I I would say it's probably 5 times what it was 10 years ago, 15 years ago, certainly 25 years ago since I started. I think there is a more pragmatic view of relationships. I think there's a lot more open discussion, I mean, although there's a tremendous increase. the amount of performative stuff, look how happy we are, you know, meanwhile, it's like you know white teeth and rotten gums, you know, like we're, we're, we're doing performative social media, look what a big explosion of hashish and it all means our life.

Know? Our relationship is rotting from the inside and we see a lot of that. I tell you something. I see people in my office who are publicly having the best relationships ever, if you believe their social media, they are so madly in love and it surprises me because I think of all the people who are dissatisfied with their perfectly acceptable relationship because it is not as amazing as that relationship and meanwhile that relationship is not as amazing as they want us to believe and we I have the audacity now as a culture that people without any apology, you know, we are perfectly happy, these hateful rumors that we are not happy are terrible and then we have decided to be Amic with heart in the way we asked you to respect our privacy during this difficult time and you're okay, but wait a minute, like a month ago when there were rumors that you two were breaking up, you yelled at all of us for say it's so bad that we're speculating and now You say yes, we've broken up, so we were right, then you made us feel really bad for our elves and how madly in love you were with each other, but now you know we were basing our lives as if we were.

Basing our level of satisfaction on seeing your greatest hits while we live our gag reel, do you think there is something to the idea that those who strive to convince the world that they are happy in their relationships are often not 100% happy? ? In fact, I'll extrapolate this further: my dad is a southerner, so he says a lot of southern things and one of them is that empty barrels make more noise and he used to tell me that when he was a kid all the time. someone had something fancy that they owned because I grew up without a lot of money and someone was driving a beautiful car and they were like, wow, that car is so cool, they were like, you know, empty barrels make more noise, that, people, that.

They have real joy in their relationship. They don't really feel like they have to advertise it to people like me. I represent some of the richest people in the world. New York is the epicenter of commerce and finance in the United States and to some extent. You know, in the United Arab Emirates you are more likely to find a gold-plated Ferrari, but in New York, like Finance Wall Street, it is home, so I represent that I have a client worth 8 billion dollars. Walking past him on the street, you'd never know he has a lot of money.

He drives a Jeep Grand Cherokee, which is like a mid-range car. He wears, as you know, completely nondescript clothes, as if he looked like a typical middle-class car. older guy and I wouldn't look at him and say he cuts his hair like Super Cuts for 25 bucks like he's not fancy in the things that he owns and makes and that he could buy, you know, his annual income is like the gross domestic income. product of a few companies in a few countries and you know it's not, but I still have clients who appear to be incredibly wealthy and as a divorce lawyer I get to see the absolutely unfiltered version of people's finances and I tell them that are deeply in debt, many of them you know this is particularly true of celebrities, you know that celebrities have to live these big performative lives because if they don't know how to drive a fancy car and they don't wear the latest designer brands, there is thisfeeling of oh, aren't they doing well and especially with a kind of influencer culture?

You know, there are so many things that you know that everything that everyone uses and does has to be the best of the best and the most expensive. I think very often it's what most people have to do. flaunt their wealth, the less wealth they probably have, as you know, money talks like wealth, it whispers and it's very comfortable to just whisper, it doesn't feel like you have to prove it to the world, in fact, I'd rather everyone don't know who era, there was a time when fame was an unfortunate side effect of talent, so you were really good at something, then everyone found out who you were and suddenly everyone knew who you were and that was it because you weren't there anymore. you could go out to eat, you couldn't just live your life anymore, now of course there were times when it probably felt really good, you know, it feels good, listen.

I walked down the street in New York City, sometimes people nowadays guys were like Yo, hey man, I love your stuff, thanks, that's cool, that feels good, it's definitely nice, there are times when I don't It's like this, there are times when I'm on the phone, I'm talking to a client and there's someone standing next to me. waiting to talk to me and I know they're waiting to say something so lovely, but there's a part of me that's like "it's okay, man." I have to like doing what I'm doing now. I'm doing what you know. and now being famous is a lot of people's goal so I think there's definitely when people say look how happy we are look how happy we are look how happy you know it's like please tell me how happy we are because if you don't tell me what happy we are I'm GNA I have to look at this relationship and I'm going to see how unhappy we are you know when someone wants to be famous it's like tell me I have courage please tell me I have courage oh god please tell me I have courage because you know the reason The reason I was never really interested in being famous is that praise from strangers never seemed that important to me, as if the people in my life thought I had something interesting to do. say and care about me and love me, that's really meaningful to me and it touches me that anyone who has ever appreciated my work or enjoyed it, but I never said I really want to go out and let people know who I am and tell me I'm smart because because I know I'm smart that's okay, like you know my beliefs don't require you to believe them, and so I think this performative culture when it comes to relationships is an unfortunate thing because again we're comparing ourselves, we can't help as a species, but comparing ourselves. with the things we see around us.

Why must you see so much of that in your office where someone comes in and says my marriage isn't working and they use? They use a comparative measure, they say, well, you know, and they are like that and we're not so right, but how much sex are they having? How much sex is enough? Honestly, we don't talk about it. these things we don't do there are so many things in our daily lives that we constantly feel like we aren't doing it right based on nothing like I don't think I'm doing that well compared to what I'm not attractive enough compared to what it is a photoshopped picture of a person on steroids, yes you're right, you don't look like a photoshopped person on steroids, you're not supposed to like them, women go to doctors offices. saying: make me look like that and showing the doctor something photoshopped that person doesn't look like that how would you know you're not having enough sex?

How much sex do people have? Is it that frequent? Yes, sex is huge sex. It's huge, okay, I mean, first of all, it better be because what's the difference between a spouse and a roommate? Otherwise, it was like, oh, let's be partners in a household together, like they don't have to marry each other. to do that you can just live together and be, I mean, sex is the glue, sex is what brings you together, sex is what makes a romantic relationship a romantic relationship and, again, it can be any number of varieties of sex, it can be sex preferences it can be anything, but we don't talk, we talk about all kinds of things in polite society now, if you can call it that, I mean, we talk more than ever about, you know, transgender issues and lgbtq plus issues and me.

I think that's progress. I think it's cool that people can talk about anything we can talk about. Kink we can talk like he's a big fan of people being able to talk openly about the things that make them happy and make them feel good. I know I don't have to feel embarrassed about certain things, but the bottom line is how well we're having enough sex, it's okay compared to the sex we used to have as a couple, that makes sense, that makes sense to me, like Let's say Baseline and we say Hey, we used to have sex every day when we first started dating, we had sex four times a day, okay, but then the glow wears off, you know, now we used to have sex once a day, now once a week is fine.

Natural is that part of the progression of a relationship or it is a sign that one or both of us feel dissatisfied with each other. Can we talk about this and not start a fight? Can we talk about it and not hear it as a fight? like something that we also react defensively about and that's what I tried to talk about in my book is that people come in and leave well, you know, we're not happy with a girl, she was cheating on her, but she was cheating on her. cheating her because she didn't sleep with me well, I didn't sleep with him because he is never nice to me, well, I'm not nice to her because every time I talk to her all she does is humiliate me, okay, and you sit down. everything's going well so you guys just been in this death spiral, you know, going down and down and down, you started with I love you over 8 billion people in the world, but somehow you started doing this death spiral and now they're right you won you won you're both right you don't have to sleep with him you don't have to be nice to her you don't have to say a kind word you don't have to do any of that you don't have to be married, good news , you don't have to be married, but you decided to get married, you signed up to get married, so at some point this made sense to you, you liked each other a lot and you were both pointing in the same direction and at some point you lost the plot, so my feeling is Wouldn't it be better before you completely lose the plot to simply do the preventive maintenance, what do we talk about preventive maintenance?

Are we still as connected as we were? Are we still as excited as we were? Do you still know? Are we still attracted to each other? Do we still enjoy each other physically, mentally and emotionally? However, we don't want to do that because it's uncomfortable, right, okay, a lot of things are uncomfortable. They're so good for you that you know the exercise is uncomfortable until you get into the rhythm and it feels really good, you know? So how would you know if the first time you went to the gym and worked out and then went home and said, "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry, I'm never going to work out again, then you're never going to get into a workout routine, you have to get over that part where everything hurts a lot and sometimes it still will, you overdid it." You know that, but you start to realize, yeah, but it also brings tremendous value to my life, you know?

Then why not? Why not trade what you want now, which is comfort in the moment, for what you want most, which is real connection, real intimacy? true joy and and that can be and again we want it 86% of people who get divorced would not remarry within 5 years if we didn't want it if we didn't believe it was possible and if you have ever done it Did you know someone who is happily married for a long period of time. You won the lottery like it was him. Then their lives are much better because they just leave. I had this couple because this is scary, like life is scary and brutal. and it ends invariably ends we're all going to die everyone we love is going to die like we're playing a game you can't win the most and for me to have a partner in that someone you can hug hold your hand and go when you're scared I'll be here for you and when I'm afraid, you'll be here for me and you'll help me see my blind spots and I'll help you see yours and just do this and we'll never be alone, what a beautiful thought, what a beautiful thought, what a valuable pursuit , but yes, they have to be uncomfortable from time to time, they have to tell each other something more than what The other person wants to hear from time to time, but I like it if the reward is a real connection.

Maintain real intimacy. Keep your partner happy and satisfied with you so that the thought of breaking up or running away with someone else is just a fleeting thought. That may come to mind from time to time, so it seems like an investment worth preventative maintenance. I want to go a little deeper into what that actually looks like because there will be a lot of people right now, including me, who heard you use this term preventive maintenance and immediately thought Jesus Christ CH I should probably make it a little more sure of what you mean by preventive maintenance.

It can be many things. I think they can be. I try to give a lot of examples, but I think. Some of the simplest examples are very small gestures of courtesy. I mean, think about when you first started dating all the little things that made your neck tingle about this person, like they said the smallest thing about you and it made you so happy. Because they noticed you, you know, and they saw beautiful things in you and that made you see and feel those things in yourself. You know that's an amazing thing we can do for each other.

You know, and that's why I mean the basic level of it as the example that I've given a lot of my male friends and several of them have done it and I've had a lot of really good feedback on it: letting leave a note just leaving a note on the tomorrow when you leave for work or wherever you go, just leave a note, you know, it was great hanging out with you last night. I'm with the most beautiful girl in the world. I can't wait to see you again. That's it, that takes 10 seconds 10 seconds and every guy I know who I say that to leaves, yeah, the first time I did it, she asked me what's going on, why did you leave me that note, what are you, what what what? is what's happening, but then after a while, if this is just something that you do, you go, yeah, you just know I want to practice how I want to tell you these things, sometimes I forget to tell you, you know?

Like what does it take for your partner to tell you that you're so smart like I love being around you like you're so handsome I'm so lucky like what does it take that's nothing it doesn't cost anything it doesn't take anything to do that why What don't we do? I do not know i do not know. I think whoever discovered water was not a fish. I think you're just in it and you just stop. see it and that person is there and again, I don't know and I also think that the culture is antagonistic because the example that I give to people because people love their dogs and I love my dogs, but since dogs are a great way to look at This is rational because I have a 13 year old dog.

I bought him when he was a puppy. He is now 13 and, like me, slowed down a lot. His back hurts. He is no longer the puppy he used to be. I never looked at it. to that dog and I left, I have a puppy that old, this old dog didn't look as cute as before and like, oh my God, if I saw how cute the puppies are, I would never do it, it's my dog, in which I fall in love more. I love that dog every day, you know, and yes, sure the puppies are cute and cool and I'll pet them, but that's my dog.

I wouldn't trade all the puppies in the world for that dog, your partner, your romantic partner. Like, when did it become acceptable, as it is in the culture, to just pee on your partner like all men? It's like the h. I'm married to the most disgusting harp you've ever castrated a man like this, the old man. ball and chain and women it's like the guy is like oh this idiot like this just adorable idiot you know he doesn't know he doesn't know anything he's so stupid men are so stupid like when did he do that? What do you think he's coming? of that apart from this disdain that we can then have for each other and this kind of lack of respect instead of being so mutual, which is what you were when you were strangers, you know, when you didn't know each other, you all know each other. all the same women sitting in a women's group talking about how much their husbands suck when her friend says oh my god.

I'm dating this guy. I just started to see what he did. oh my god he sounds so cool. All of this is. All this is your guy five years ago, but somehow now you are really GNA, buy into the illusion that if she everything works out with him and they get married and make their little fairy tale and the cake and the dress. and that whole thing about in 5 years she'll still be like he's so cool no she'll go back to being like the rest of you so we have to start as a culture you know maybe changing the way because I think there's something about that where we know we're trying not to make people feel self-conscious, so we just likemake fun of our partner all the time in front of people you know or around other people and I don't find that Charming does that.

Do you think we'll get to The Lovable idia, oh my god, happy wife, happy with all those things that are part of the culture, what the hell, happy wife, whoever said that, they should be beaten to death, happy wife, happy life , like listening to one more person? Give that advice to someone. I have to tell you that it is the most ridiculous. What does that mean? Happy wife. Happy life. If she is happy, then I am happy. It's true? I think it's used by men who think it's his wife. It's always unhappy so if you don't yell at me and I can just sit here and watch football, yeah then it's all good, it's something for Aspire too, you know, man, I can't wait for one day my kids feel there while the person up in the other.

The room is a little dissatisfied with them and they can just sit and watch, you know, the football game really, that's what we aspire to, that's what you expect, I have to say, just no, I think our goals are very varied. . LED, you know that my greatest achievement in life is my children, really, that is your greatest achievement in life, they are your children. Let me ask you this. What will be your children's greatest achievement in life? Have children, because guess what the ideology of cancer cell growth is? for the sake of growth for the sake of growth for the sake of growth reproduction for the sake of reproduction I don't think that's the noblest and highest goal I think there should be something in there about Quality of Life about how to make the world or The experience of others is better said again, it is not for me to define it, but I certainly do not know.

Intelligence is hard to define, but I can spot stupid from a mile away and I have to tell you a good ratio, you know, it's a little hard to quantify, but man, I know what sucks. I know a bad relationship when I see one and we all know them, so what's most uncomfortable is that relationship where you know Le, she's not yelling at me and she's only slightly dissatisfied and I can be alone for an hour and watch football or having to have an awkward conversation again while you still look like each other, but there's a little slip, there's something going in the other direction and I don't want it to go too far, I mean, put it in the physical context. , it is much easier to maintain a healthy weight than to gain 100 pounds and then try to figure out how to lose it, that is much harder and it is much worse for you and the chances of achieving it are much lower, whereas maintaining a healthy weight, something that It's not unrealistic, it's something that I sat here with a psychologist, um, that I'm sure you know a very famous individual, named Jordan Peterson, and he told me that he said it was yelling when he said it he said listen, he was, You're going to have to sit down for 90 minutes a week and you're going to have to listen to her and she's going to tell you everything that's wrong and he's going to go if you don't Don't listen to her for 90 minutes a week, you're going to hear her in divorce court. and he was almost screaming when he said the analogy he's making and what he's saying is what you're saying, yeah, you're I'm going to have to do it.

You know Jord. I find Jordan Peterson very entertaining. I've been a fan of his work for a long time. And I actually loved your conversation with him. What I will say is that I think he is a little hyperbolic in the presentation of him at times which I enjoy but I think we are in complete agreement on this. I think what he's saying more than anything is that now you can invest in sincerity and listening to this other person in a non-defensive way and then there's a chapter. in my book called hiten now where I talk about exactly that where I say you need to be able to have these conversations but have them in a way that you hear it and you say it, you agree that it's a contract. that we know that we love each other so we are going to try to say it with love we are going to try to listen to it with love because I only say it because this is important to me this relationship and I want it to be that way Be good for you and for me so I'm going to take a risk I'm going to take this risk because you're worth it.

You're worth it. For me to take this risk. It's scary. I'm not excited. have to say it but you know that I care enough and when you tell me things I'm going to listen to it I'm going to listen to it as if you were saying that I care a lot about this relationship I'm going to say this Something more difficult to say and it may not be enough, you may know that you said the other night that you were talking about my sister and you made that little joke about her and I felt like you were making fun of my sister and me.

I thought you liked my sister and it's very important to me that you like my sister because I really like my sister so maybe I misunderstood you and if I got it right great let me know hit send now just hit send now the reason I said press s now is when you ever like to write an email where you said something important and you like to write it and rewrite it and elaborate on it and you're about to hit send and you're like oh boy and then you hit it and you're like okay, now it's there, I can send it now like it's done.

I hit send now, that's where I got the term hit send now because, but I said, make it a technique like telling your partner. I want to do this. that you do it and I want to do it, but I want to make it clear, like make the email subject title hit send now, okay, so you know this is not an attack, this is something I want to get off my chest. You don't have to respond right away, you don't have to respond in writing if you don't want to, but I just want to post this because I want you to digest it and the key to this is that I read it in your book is to do it quickly, yes, and to do it honestly, yes. , yeah, and and again to highlight this as a technique when you're in a good place, so when you're already in a good place, there's an abundance of good will between us, we're in a good place, it's a good time to say : Hey, look, this is a good man and this is important, so let's keep it right and the way we're going to do it is if I tell you.

I know we used to, I'm giving an example, we used to have sex five times a week and now I feel like it's like you know once a week maybe and I think you're so attractive, I love it, I love it like not. I feel less attracted to you and I know that you know that we have been busy and things like that, but since I don't want to see that slip, I want you to be the person who fulfills all my desires and all my fantasies. I don't want to watch porn I don't want to think about other things I want to be really focused on you Is there something I'm doing that makes you less interested in me?

Is there anything I could do that would cause things? Better, is there something going on that I need to know in terms of how you feel about me? Yes, but what if it's personal and what if it's offensive? If not? It's better to know if it's personal and offensive, right? It's better to know because I told you so. I will come up with a thousand different reasons it could be and only one of them could be accurate and the other 999 could be complete garbage in my mind, like I'm convinced it's because of you. "You're cheating. Maybe I'm convinced I'm not attractive to you all of a sudden because you know my hair got grayer or I got a bad haircut or something stupid.

What if that's it? Wouldn't you rather know? I'd rather know, right?, find another one and listen. I'm not saying that, by the way, everything is not okay. There are things in relationships that you could say, yeah, I don't know, that's changed from what it used to be. , I'm not anymore, you know? That used to mean a lot to me and now it doesn't, and that gives your partner the opportunity to say, well, look, it's still very important to me, so can we find something in it? common ground, how often is sex the problem in divorce, since no, I'm not talking about affairs, I'm saying lack of sex, yes, that's a great question, and it's also increasing, yes, so This is what I will say, there is reverse engineering in the demise of a marriage it is a very difficult thing for anyone because the two people in the relationship are not even fully aware of what is happening in themselves let alone between them and then an observer external asks them so that they can do all the studies.

What you want to know about the satisfaction or lack of satisfaction that people report in a relationship or what caused them to feel dissatisfied, that's so loaded with people's delusions and projections and all these other things that I don't think you can quantify, like that. that all I say is as a divorce lawyer who I think is empathetic and who I think for a living he gets into other people's minds to try to understand what they are doing and why they did what they did and they the solution occurs. the best and worst possible excuses for it and then tell that story as if I were a full contact narrator, that's my job, and my job, if you're really honest, is to manipulate people's emotional state.

My job is to make a judge feel good. talk bad about my client about the other party make the other party feel scared make my client feel safe that's my job is to manipulate everyone's emotional state through the power of storytelling that's what being a divorced lawyer sounds like sexier when I say it that way but that's what it is so when we look at that as work where sex falls into that equation, it's everywhere in that equation because again it's what separates this relationship from other types of relationships, sex is something that is defining for a romantic relationship now again it will always be the same it will always remain at the same level of importance no, but it's great in the coal mine that you know something is wrong with sex now that that that tragedy is not far behind Yeah, because almost every couple, when I talk to my side of the equation about when this started, when the ship started sinking, there certainly was some change in sex because, again, sex is a definition in terms of what distinguishes a romantic relationship from a platonic relationship because listen guys we can do this however we want as a society we don't have to get married we don't have to get married we just have to reproduce but we could decide hey we just leave to reproduce and let's go to live like colonies of platonic relationships, you know, and we'll only have sex for the purpose of reproduction at certain times and then we'll figure out who can raise what children and that's because we don't do that and it's not that well, we don't do that because we did a set of rules, societies do not do that, in reality they have never done it, as if somehow this permutation existed in the human and the animal.

The kingdom keeps emerging where we have pair bonds and we reproduce with the person who is our partner and then we work together and you know how much the tribe gets involved, how much the rest of the world gets involved in that, how extended the family is. how widespread the tribe is that it varies from species to species from culture to culture from time to time, but we have this fundamental idea of ​​similar reproduction between the male and the female of the species and that then there is a continuous interaction and an exchange of responsibilities towards rearing young is quite common, so what makes A and B the sex?

There's some romantic or sexual component to that relationship that then leads to reproduction of some kind, so I think when you take that out of the equation or when there's a change in that there's a disruption in the strength, there's a disruption in the system and then you can trace it like yeah we and again sometimes it's not direct cause and effect like oh we start having less sex so we stop being nice to each other sometimes we stop being nice to each other like that that we stopped having as much sex, but it's an element, it's always an element, you know, and that's my key advice to everyone in the book.

That's what I try to say over and over again. If you had to sum it up, it's pay attention, just pay attention to what you feel, what your partner feels, and then say it. You know, I say that all marriage problems arise from two things: I don't know what I want, and I don't know how to express it and I think if you can figure out what you want and figure out how to express it, that's like 99% of things. battle when someone contacts you, how often do they go from going to a Divo lawyer and having that conversation that we want to separate to repairing and rebuilding and getting back to happiness?

Yeah, it's a great question, so as my career has progressed, I'm a guy now. who do you hire when you're in a really bad situation so I'm a trial lawyer so now you know you can do things with a scalpel and you can do things with a chainsaw. Now I am a chainsaw as I am now you. Hire me because your situation is bad because you are more expensive no, I am more expensive because I am very good in high conflict situations I am very tactical I am very strategic I think I am 10 moves ahead and I surpass everyone with my work ethic I wake up 400 a.m. and I wake up really hard and I wake up and I immediately think about clients and cases and I throw myself into this work absolutely crazy in a way that is in no way good as a human being, it's really really me.

I am a great lawyer. I am questionable as a human being, but I am actually very good as a lawyer because I ambetter at this than anything else in my life. Have you ever seen someone approach you and then? to be perfect again, yeah, for many years in my career, early in my career, the first decade or so of my career, when I handled more types of

divorces

than normal people, you know, um, yeah, I would often try to guide to people if they thought. that that was possible, still to this day if I think it's possible for people to work something out either in individual counseling or individual counseling and then maybe in couples counseling I'll guide them in that direction of course who's fooling more men or women.

I believe that both men and women cheat with tremendous frequency. I think um. I don't think you can say that one does it more than the other. I think there are more men accused of having ruined the relationship by cheating than women. Who is most dissatisfied with this? The amount of sex. Men or women. Men in general. men want more sex men generally want more sex women want more quality sex men go by quantity when in my experience they have sex and that's like men would prefer to have frequent sex which may not be of the highest quality possible, but somehow they get the job done.

In fact, I mean it's the same reason why porn is more popular among men than women. I think men are like that. I have to get the poison out of my system. I have to continue with my day here and I won't be there. able to think clearly until I'm done with it and then I think that, um, women, it's a, it's different. I don't think the women you know don't find sex important. I hate to make generalizations about gender, um, but Me from my seat, the amount of men that come in and say, yeah, like she's just not sleeping with me, well, what did I expect, of course, I slept with someone else, like she was sleeping with me once a week, she was sleeping.

With me once a month I've had clients come in and say yeah, we haven't had sex in six years, six years, first of all, why would you last that second if you're this person's spouse? What the hell did you think was going on? You thought things were okay, like, yeah, we haven't had sex in six years, we just forgot to do that, like, I get it, if you haven't cleaned your gutters in six years, or you know, maybe like I get it if you didn't change the oil in a year like that's a bad idea, but the way I understand it, I could forget you like, oh my god, I was at the dentist in a year, but you must have had a lot of sex. adventure stories, oh my god, please, if you could have a PhD and infidelity, I would, yeah, I mean, it's because cheating is a huge component in divorces, so many divorces, but the question is always cause or effect and the danger of putting so much emphasis. about cheating is that it is an oversimplification, so someone comes in and leaves, we are getting divorced, why because he is sleeping with his secretary, I understand that yes, it is true, that is one of the variables that has led to your divorce, but you hadn't done it.

I slept with him within three years, so I'm not saying that makes the cheating forgivable, but you are saying that you had a really amazing healthy marriage and then this nefarious secretary came into the picture and he was suddenly courted. No, there were conditions that made it very likely that that would happen, so let's start backing up the cause a little bit more like the truth is at the bottom of a bottomless pit so we can try to reverse engineer this and say well , he slept with his secretary because you didn't I didn't sleep with him I didn't sleep with him because he wasn't nice to me well I wasn't nice to him because he never paid attention to me well I wasn't paying attention to her because what did she want?

To pay attention, she hasn't changed at all or she has changed a lot and is nothing like she used to be there over and over again, you will be surprised to hear everyone when they tell the story of her life, they are usually the heroes. They rarely come to my office and listen. I'm a piece of trash, you know? But I will tell you that when it comes to cheating, sometimes they do. I was going to say that you must have had people come and admit things to you about their current affairs that just blow your mind, is there a particular example that you go to?

That was the most shocking example I had heard of someone cheating on a marriage commitment. Yeah, I mean, I've had people come up and tell me stories that I just think to myself, how did you really like engineering? I've had people come in and have several, they had two families going on at once and neither of them knew about the other so the mistress he started a family thinking he was divorced and the wife thought he was traveling for business and would literally have Christmas with both of them, he would celebrate Thanksgiving with both of them like he would and he just found a way to do it logistically.

I've seen things like this many times, I mean, I've seen people, it's almost become a cliché that people who sleep with their sister-in-law or their brother-in-law or her cousin, oh, I haven't seen their mother-in-law. -law still father-in-law um, I have seen the father-in-law, yes, I have seen the father-in-law, yes, I saw that one, I saw that one. There's a chapter in my book about babysitters, how people sleep with the babysitter, that's nice. common why you talk in the book about how rich clients like to sleep with the babysitter, yeah I don't know what that's about, I mean yeah I have a theory about that and I think what I call the fascination of Nanny, I think it's not as difficult to understand as the nanny has a lot of the characteristics of the wife, right, she's good with the kids, she's there to support the husband, um, she's a helpmate, you know. , but without autonomy, an agency without any is like she's an employee at the end of the day, a much simpler relationship in the sense that it's like you have to do a good job or I'm going to fire you, you know, like that don't answer, yes, don't answer. because I'm your employer, you know, and you're not going to do it, so I think I get it, you know, I get it.

I also believe that and this is dangerous ground, especially in the year of Our Lord 2024, but I believe. she is also a version of the wife as if she was a version of the wife when the wife was just the woman as if she had a life outside the home as if she when she was not caring she was outside doing things and that's why she has things to talk about Like she's gone In the places where she does things there's something mysterious about her, you know, and I think that's one of the tips I give in the book is that I think wives can embrace the part of themselves that is the babysitter, take the time not to like.

Don't let your spouse and children overshadow who you are, just like who you are is who your husband fell in love with, like your children, they exist because a man and a woman found each other attractive, you know it and therefore you don't. forget about your desire to be a good father and your desire to be a good partner, don't forget to be very good to yourself and cultivate your interests and your passions and try to enjoy them as best you can, without avoiding. obviously none of us want to eliminate our responsibilities to our families and to our children, but you are important as I think I think people are the husband and wife that you know are important or or in a same-sex marriage husband husband wife wife It's important to each other, you know, remember who you are, remember the value that you brought to the relationship, people often go to divorce lawyers when their marriages break down, but listen, I'm a big fan, maybe the biggest. admirer I have ever met. serial killer documentaries, sure and only murder documentaries, period, there aren't any that I haven't seen.

I've seen them all and in those documentaries, one of the first things you learn is that if the wife disappears like always, she is the husband. um and I was just thinking about how those types of people might see it as a choice, to go with you, yeah I should laugh but or take care of myself listen there's a reason because I understand how trapped people feel I think you Sign up for This feels so good Love We fell in love so fast Have you seen that on Netflix? The American dream was American. What was that Netflix documentary where the man has a wife and two kids and then meets a younger woman? at work and he, instead of getting a divorce, decides to murder his wife and the two girls, suffocate them both and throw them in a barrel at work and apparently, I'm obviously not, but apparently not, apparently he's a normal guy.

Yes, who, as you say, seemed to be stuck in a situation where he met someone new if this family hadn't known how to handle it and made this horrible decision. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think that's an extreme example, but I. In fact, when you spend enough time with people who are in scary, scary situations, like if they were having an affair for many years, or they had hidden money, or they had done it, you know that they have engaged in transgressions that if their spouse found out. If they knew, they would just say: Are you kidding me?

Know? And I think most of the time it starts with just one kind of bad choice, you know? and then that bad choice leads to a series of choices, as you know, they always say. If you watch enough serial killer stuff, it's not the crime, it's the cover-up. You know you don't get caught for the crime. They catch you for the cover-up. It's like the things you do to try to cover up. Your footprints are what leaves footprints. and it's the same. I think you've seen murders in your practice. What are you busy with? It's that part of your job.

You know it, thank God. I have only had one client in 25 years of practice where an active effort was made. by her husband to try to kill them and they ran her over four times and stabbed her um they thought she was dead they left her for dead and six months of surgeries and all kinds of things later she survived she's fine she has injuries for the rest of her life that He will torment her, but she is alive and he is in prison for the rest of his life. Thank God, that's the only time I've seen that happen.

I mean, I see a lot of domestic violence. I see a lot of intimate violence. partner abuse she was your client in that case she was my client in that case yes she was your client before that happened to her yes she was my client before that happened to her he was a perpetrator of domestic violence for many years but There was nothing in his story that would make you believe that he had that support towards violence the divorce was going very badly for him I was doing my job very well um and he you know I don't want to say that he broke because it gives him too much credit um, I think he got it into his head that she was his enemy and the cause of everything bad that had happened to him and that killing her would be a better option and he got her to meet him in some kind of remote location, the parking lot of a hotel under the false pretense that he wanted to give her something related to children or something and he stabbed her several times and then ran her over several times, he did it himself, yes, he. he did it himself and it was shocking, I mean, you don't want it, what's happened most commonly is I've had clients who have committed suicide and self-harm and I've had clients whose spouses, you know, have committed suicide.

That's happened a lot of times where I think people feel like they're losing everything, their whole life is falling apart, they can't imagine what their life will be like after the divorce or they're so horrified by the behavior they had during that they believe. that it is simply impossible to get out of this situation, so you would be working with a client and then you receive a notification, an email, a message saying that he has ended his life, yes, yes, it is more common that it has happened to me, it's only happened to me where I'm a client, I lost a client that way once it happened four times on the other side where I got an email saying they had found this person and, you know, that ends the case, obviously, like that which is a difficult thing as a professional because I know that I have done a lot to make life very difficult for this person because that is my job, but if that person had hired me, you know, a month before his house, I would have been arguing in his benefit.

She would have been arguing as his defender. I have been trying to help them as best I can and instead I was hired by his spouse and my job is to disarm them as best I can. I am a weapon. You know, a divorce lawyer is a weapon and a weapon in the. The hands of a good person protect things and a gun in the hands of a villain is very harmful, so how has your work at CME shaped you? Yes, of course, absolutely. I think I have cried for many reasons about my work. I cried. out of frustration when I couldn't when justice wasn't served and I felt like I could have done more or differently um out of frustration I've cried I've cried I think I've cried more often for beauty I I I I I'm much more excited about who I am, about the things that are beautiful to me than for the things that bother me, like me.

I am amazed by the strength of people, sometimes I am amazed by the resilience of people, can you think of an example? on either end of the spectrum, yeah, yeah, you know, I had a client, I gave him his dog back,You know, there's something about animals that I think is so pure how much we love them as if they really didn't. They don't care what we do, they don't care if we are awesome or not or if someone bought our book, if someone how many views we have or clicks we have, they don't care, they just love us, you know, maybe it's because we feed them, maybe Whether it's because we scratch them the right way, but I want to believe it's just that they have so much heart and so much love, you know, and I had this guy who at the beginning of the case just said, look. man I don't care, I don't care what I have to pay her, I don't care what she gives me my dog, just bring me my dog, she doesn't.

I really love the dog, but she took him because she knows how much I love him , so bring my dog ​​back to me like I just want him back and he was a scruffy old guy, this is the last guy you would think would like him. that the dog would be very important to him and we fought very hard and we got the dog back and I remember him when I went out and ran across the lake, okay, I have this for you, we have this for you, we have this for you and you. and the dog and he started crying and I started crying like a child, you know, because there was something so beautiful about that, yeah, that's what he cared about, so he got his dog back, you know, and I I could imagine in my head. like the reunion between those two and that was very moving for me, the impermanence of a relationship with a dog is something that I've heard you talk about before, yeah, and how we can and kind of impermanence, the fact that we only have dogs.

I recently had a dog too and I've had him since he was a puppy and now he has gray hair and he's older and he doesn't run like before and Pablo I already have him. Now I'm realizing that he is in the last season of his life, yes, and that tells you It makes you want to play with them more and appreciate those moments more, be kinder and give them another gift, and yes, and we are, yes We're honest, we're always losing everyone all the time and that's why loving anything is crazy, true, because to love anything is to expose yourself to the inevitability of losing it and I have learned, I learned it as I was a hospice volunteer for many years and I learned it as a human being and I learned it as a divorce attorney, that we are all losing everything all the time. , even our son, as if you have a son, that child tomorrow, the child. they were the day before they're dead they're gone they're something new every day until you know until we're all ghosts until we're all gone and then to me, keeping that awareness in your mind is all like you honor that dog saying You know what I took for granted when I was a puppy peeing on everything and running around and eating all my shoes you know like me I didn't realize there was a limited amount of time like there was a finite time Number of times you'll see the sunset sun You don't know that number, but it exists, you just don't know it yet.

There are many more summers you will be here to see, but you don't know how many that could be. one could be a hundred. It's probably not a hundred, so I think when people say, well, what's a divorce lawyer like? I know when you face every day how fragile love is, how transitory and how powerful it is. It means a lot to us. Much of what we do all day is find love, be loved, and feel worthy. of love and and then we have it and we just forget that we have it until it's gone and then it's too late or it's gone and now it's completely too late like if you realize it was Pablo, you're done if you realize how amazing It's Pablo when Pablo is ashamed of you like you should when you pick him up and smell him, you know, that's it for me, that's it.

There is a I don't know if you've ever read the work of Tikn Han, the Buddhist monk. Tikn Han was a Vietnamese Buddhist monk. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in the 80s. He wrote some beautiful books. He passed away a few years ago, but he wrote several books, one of them, Peace, is beautiful. a lot of books peace at every step, but he, as a Buddhist monk, has this mindfulness exercise and I have told people about it. I've shared it with people a couple of times, they always look at me like I'm crazy when Say it, I'll share it with you because you mentioned death.

If I bring it up too much in polite conversation, people just think I'm morbid and then say, "Okay, all this guy does is talk about death and divorce, we need to hang out with nicer, funnier people, but he has this mindfulness exercise and it's this thing that says: when you hug someone, think about the fact that they're there and you're hugging them, then close your eyes and they think about how they've died and this is the last time you hug them before of letting go of their body and they take it away and then you remember that they're alive and you're hugging them like, how could that not choke you?

How can you not like it when you hug your dog, someday you'll most likely have to put them down? your dog, you will have to make the very painful but very responsible and loving decision that the best of this dog's life is over and that there is nothing left but pain ahead. I have had to do it several times in my life. It is heartbreaking but it is. the Final Act of love and service to something that you have had dominion and care for and have a duty to care for and I know every time I've had to do that three times and just smell it and say oh that's it, it's gone and the The memory of that smell will fade, but right now that dog is alive, Pablo is alive and you can smell him. him and and and and you're not going to let go now he's there he's there right now so how do you not breathe that right now every chance you get because you don't know how many more times you'll get? and I don't, when people say to me, well, how can you think so much about death or how can you think so much about rest?

How is it possible that you haven't lost anything? Have you forgotten what it was like? Didn't you have in your mind how beautiful this was and how it was gone? My mother died eight years ago and I found an old video tape that I didn't even know existed that was my dad. a video camera and would like to film, you know all these videos and I could hear my mother's voice and I liked listening to it. I liked it oh my God, that was her voice like I hadn't heard it in eight years and I heard it.

I heard it again and it was so familiar, you know, and I thought to myself, oh my God, like I was so glad I got to hear that, but when she was alive I never thought, oh my God, she's here, I can hear her. voice because someday that will disappear like it's gone the memory of his voice will be gone it will fade away like tears and rain it will just fade away and so to me like that if we could have that presence of mind when it comes to love like love is not a permanent gift, it is lent and the people you love, the dog, you love the people who are lent to you and you are Lo to them and if you could remember every day to treat it as something that is impermanent and that you are wasting all the time because I will tell you something.

I think it's crazy to love something because of the pain it's going to cause, but oh my god, I love that pain because it means I have to do it. I feel like, I know, when I had my dog ​​cabba, I only got cabba because the bustard died, if he hadn't died I would never have had room in my life to have another dog, so in some horrible way, I guess I glad about that. He doesn't like it, but that's not how it works, how it works, he died, Buster and I went. I will never love again.

I will never do this to myself again. I will never feel this pain again. It's the worst thing in the world. I will never feel this pain again. exposed myself to that and then a friend called me and said, "hey, we're doing an adoption event with this dog and I just need you to watch him at night, he's a puppy, he has an M, he's a little goofy, but like me ". I just need you to take care of him for the night and I was like, yeah, you know I don't have kids this weekend, like I took care of a dog for one night and then you fell in love, bring this stupid dog, this stupid little mange set up. . worms and he comes into my apartment and immediately pees on the floor and I thought, oh, I just got a dog, I just got a dog again.

I'm doing this again and that was 13 years ago and man, I'm so happy I'm so happy and he'll sit there, you know, with the little gray face of him now and he'll sit next to me and look at me. He is as crazy about me as I am about him. because he knows that I saved him and I know that he saved me and he looks at me and I think oh you're going to kill me how you're going to kill me when I lose you and it's going to happen sooner than later I'm not going to have another 13 years.

I'm lucky if I get another year, but man, I don't know, I'll do it. I'm so glad I did, he saved you, yeah, yeah, because he. he reminded me of one thing that I forget that we all forget that I have an infinite capacity to love, no matter what I lose, because we are losing everything all the time, but that is not a reason not to love, that is not a reason. not liking is very brave to love and it's only brave because it's scary like you're not afraid it's not brave it's just brave because it's scary it's scary to know that this is going to break my heart and I'm going to let it go I'm going to let it break my heart Because the joy it's going to give me in the meantime, I wouldn't change it for anything in the world, and you know right now, if you tell me when Cabba dies, will I ever do it again?

I'm like no, absolutely not, absolutely not, but you know what I'm lying, I'm lying like I'm lying, I'll love again, I know, I know and and I think it's the same with romantic love, our hearts break, we , we, you know, we break down, we break up the relationship and we heal in the relationship and we recover from that relationship breakup and I think there's something really important there, you, you. I have truly become the first person to make me cry on a podcast. It's nice, it's really something to be proud of. I cry all the time, although to answer your question, yes, I cry constantly over a guy who is tattooed from top to bottom and does Brazilian. jiu-jitsu for fun I usually cry constantly because something is beautiful.

I think that's what moves me the most, how beautiful everything is. I think that's all. It's a game we can't win. You know, and we just kept playing. that's so lovely, that's so brave, that's so cool that everything ends all the time and we keep doing it, you know, we keep doing it CU, if there's something in our hearts that wants it, you know, maybe it's me. I don't know that I'm not a religious person, but maybe that's an insight into the nature of God, that, like us, we come from something and disconnect and then spend our entire lives trying to reconnect with something.

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I guess I think that doing what I do for a living, I see it as better than most people like because we just keep putting these giant bets on the table and we wouldn't do it if we didn't think the prize was worth the money. shame, you know? But look, I also think we should start looking at romantic relationships as chapters in a long book like I do. We are not soul mates, but look soul. I have to tell you who created the term soulmate. I owe them a tremendous debt of gratitude because they really helped facilitate divorcees in the industry because the idea that we have a soulmate and that's the one.

It always creates the possibility that this person is perfect for us because how could I be dissatisfied with them? Yes she is perfect for me. I must have chosen the wrong person and looked at the one over there who might be the perfect one. Because? great with them like I did with this one when I first met him, but I don't remember it as much anymore, so the soulmate thing, oh, it's great for business for me, but I think it's terrible for human beings. I think you probably could have done it. a lot of people you could have had a very satisfying romantic relationship with again so you wouldn't keep comparing things to dogs, but because you love the dog you have now means you really don't.you loved the dog you had, that's ridiculous.

It's as if people who have children don't do well. You know I couldn't love anything more than this other child, so I'm not going to have any more children because you know I couldn't love, it's like no, you have an infinite capacity to love, so if you have two children, you have five children. , like you love all the kids you have, you know? chapters you're saying I think you should look at relationships as chapters just because a relationship ends in something other than death, it ends in divorce, it ends in a breakup, whatever it is, doesn't mean it wasn't successful, right? you leave them a better person than the one you came in with did they do it did your partner do you learn from it you learn what you want or don't want you learn how you should behave or how you shouldn't behave Behave yourself, did you learn anything about how you want and need to be loved or how you fail in your attempts to convey love to another person?

Why not see it as what was good for me in this chapter may not be what sustains me? Who you find attractive and what you are attracted to at 20, 30, 40 and 50 will be different. You talk to a lot of twenty-somethings and tell them what car you want when you're in your Lambo. the cool lambo, you're going to put a Lambo car seat in if you get a car and that's the car you're going to drive for the rest of your life, okay, and you've never turned 50 so you don't know what What are you going to want when you're 50 now there's this idealized thing where everyone says it's okay, but you know you're going to grow together and then what you want, you're going to grow together and you're going to change, where are you?

BASED on that is that something is demonstrably true or is like your hope, like us, we hope to grow together and grow in a complementary way because, because of the proximity, because we are close to each other. Others of us are going to grow in complementary ways, so naive, I think I might be naive since I don't have any proof of that, God, a lot of the couples you see must be confused about whether this relationship is really broken. Or we're just not doing the job. I think a lot of my friends like to come to me and tell me that my relationship is having problems and the first thing you try to figure out is if this is something that can be fixed or is it that they are wrong and what do you do in that equation do you compare it? well, yes, you compare it and what you compare it with something false, yes, you compare it with something false, you compare it with the romantic comedy, yes, which is basically porn for women, yes, of course. it's, it's a stylized idealized version that you saw Titanic, you know why they had that perfect romance because he died before he could ruin it, you think 10 years later she would have been like still painting your French girls, no she wouldn't have.

She would have said: forget it, what are you doing? get a job you know there would have been problems in that relationship so it was just perfect because it ended it ended before they could ruin it you know they end the movie like the old thing I think it was Orson Wells who said you know if something is a comedy or a tragedy depends on when you end the story, you know, so it's relationships like if you ever want to try that theory in reverse, dating a partner that you're not happy with and then you say to them, tell me how you met. , they suddenly like to get really soft and start talking about who they were and who their partner was back in the day when everything was a possibility. and they chose each other, you know, so I think there's great value in a great example.

I always try to take examples from non-relationship elements, which is why one of my sons, when he was a teenager, was very critical of me. a father, he was very dismissive of me as a father, we were talking about something and he said something like, well, dad, you know you're not the perfect father and I was like, well, first of all, like I didn't know. How I was a perfect father, but how do you compare me to your idea of ​​a perfect father or a father you actually know and have seen? Because here's the thing: if you compare me to your perfect father in your imagination, I'm going to compare you to my perfect son in my imagination and guess what you suck because CU all suck compared to the ideal of our imagination and by the way I told him to learn this lesson now because if you compare a woman you are in a relationship with your imagined ideal of a woman.

I promise you that you will be dissatisfied for the rest of your life in your relationship and if she compares you to her idealized imagination of what the perfect man would be, she will be disappointed, we have to get started. compare relationships to real relationships, but how are we going to do that if we are so deeply committed to lying to each other about how good our relationship is? What's the fastest someone has gone from marriage to divorce that you've seen in terms of how long? the relationship lasted yes, 48 ​​hours, you're kidding, no, 48 hours, but that's usually an annulment, I mean, Las Vegas, honey, yes, it happens sometimes, that happens sometimes, when people just immediately regret it, You know, or they got married on a whim, I mean you.

Is there no waiting period to obtain a firearm? You know there is a waiting period for almost anything. Marriage, you go right now, get married, no problem, you just go, you just go to the Justice of the Peace, pay a $40 license fee and you're married. That's it, go to Vegas, you can get guy B. Nam, the guy dressed like Elvis will marry you for 50 bucks. You said there are two main reasons why people get divorced: the infidelity we've talked about and the other one we haven't talked about, which is. money I found this very interesting because, um, I can't imagine that money problems and it's not the money problems that we think of, it's not that someone is going bankrupt, yeah, it's not that in your book you talk about transparency trans, yes, so, I mean money.

It's power, right, money has a lot to do with power and I think there's a lot of things that you know, it's wrongly attributed to Oscar Wild, but it's not something he would have said, there's a saying that everything in the world is It's about sex, except sex, which is about power and I think money is about power, money is about control, money is about security of opportunity, it's about a lot of things, but really It's not about money, since money is just a right of currency that we exchange with, so I believe that money has a whole.

There's a lot of complicated stuff involved in this, that's why we can't in a polite conversation, like talk about what you paid, how much you let yourself know that it's considered a sensitive thing to do that because we've charged it. with all sorts of emotional stuff about worth and relative worth and so it's not uncommon for people to be dishonest with themselves and other people's money, it's also not uncommon for one of two dynamics to emerge in a relationship, either one person has a huge amount of economic disparity as leverage or they have economic power that they may or may not be able to leverage because of the marriage or both people have somewhat equal bargaining positions and then something changes so I see a huge amount of divorces when husband and women are working and their husband loses his job, a big precipitant for divorce because it sends men into a spiral of depression because they've lost this job, so a big part of how they define themselves in a sort of role of traditional male gender is that of provider and protector and now I failed at that through no fault of my own, they laid off the entire northeast region, it's not my fault, but I don't have a job anymore and then I have to go around and try to find what and redefine myself to myself and at the same time my spouse.

She has managed to keep her job and I have seen many women who, when their spouse loses their job and become the breadwinner, find it very unattractive that a man as a breadwinner attracts a man as an economic equal. appealing to the man because I have to take care of him financially and support him is very uncomfortable, so I see when a man loses his job. I would love for them to keep statistics on this type of thing, but I can tell you that in my practice I have seen many women lose their jobs. It has no impact on the marriage.

Men lose their jobs in a heterosexual marriage between men and women. The consequences are disastrous most of the time and I think that has a lot to do with it again. It's not about money. it's about what money symbolizes it's about providing it's about control of power respect for the ability to go out and make something out of the world as we said at the beginning of this conversation about this topic of money sometimes you give legal advice and sometimes you give advice humans when it comes to money. Should I tell my partner how much money I have because I imagine there are two different legal types?

There is a legal response and a human response. Yeah, I mean, they have a right to find out. Yes, part of part of well, in a divorce you have what's called mandatory discovery, which is I have the right to review all of your finances in that process, so we spend a lot of what I do all day and my team . people's books like we go through credit card receipts, we go through the entire economy to find out where the money is, where it went, you know, and that's how we find out what everyone spent on their girlfriend or boyfriend and all the receipts of credit cards.

When someone says I have the receipts like I don't, I have the receipts because I can. I can quote them, which means I can get them directly from the credit card company. I can get them directly from your employer. It's all about what it really was. given and it is very difficult to move money without leaving a trace nowadays, but a lot of people must be trying to hide money because I think I have heard of cases where there was a particular case of a footballer who apparently put everything in the name of his Mother, did you see that means yes? and the problem with that is that it's a big story, but in most jurisdictions there are protections against that because it's what's called a transfer in contemplation of divorce, so it's essentially a form.

It's like a fraudulent conveyance, it's designed to thwart someone's proper legal remedy, so if I know I'm being sued and this person has a valid claim, then I sell my Lamborghini for $5 to my brother, the court can void that transaction. , but what? If before that there was any suspicion of divorce or any problem, I put everything in my brother's or my mother's name, do it, as long as it hasn't been done, yes, in fact, I have seen it many times. I have seen that I represent a lot of people in finance and people in finance have a very different way of looking at money and I have seen people who over a 20 year period did things to take things out of the marital estate so that they were out of the reach of the court.

Let's be pretty surprising when you're the other couple and you assume your partner is super rich, you go for a divorce and find out they don't know anything, it's more common for people to not realize it. the debt structure that they live under because many people live under a tremendous debt structure. This happens a lot in celebrity divorces because a lot of it is the appearance of wealth, but it's not actual wealth, so you know they are. They're highly leveraged and so what does that mean to the average person who doesn't know what credit card debt, mainly credit card debt, is a big deal or that cars they don't own they rent, so you are actually owned by the bank, even your house, if you know that 70% of the equity in your house is the bank's mortgage, then you really don't have much, you don't own your house, the bank owns it. of your house, I think this something that people don't understand is that you get 50% of your partner's assets and you get 50% of their debts, of course, well, you get the assets net of the liabilities, yes, and a Most people like their net worth to be what they have net of liabilities, so there are a lot of people who make a very, very good living, but they don't actually have many assets because what they've done is they've They have leveraged themselves in a tremendous way, they have mortgages and debts. accumulating, they have leased cars, they have, you, jewelry, that they took a personal loan to secure, where they bought jewelry, knowing that its value will depreciate immediately, you know that the resale is much lower than the value they just paid.

It is then, it is an illusion in many ways. What about the opposite of that when someone was in a relationship and her partner thought he was broke or didn't have much money? Turns out they sound like a fortune, yeah, what is it really? The funniest thing is when someone, through no fault of his own, earns a huge amount of money, as if he had people. In fact, I had a client who won the lottery and went from nothing to minimum wage. They had a job and they lived a very modest life and they were unhappily married, but they said, well, you know, we can't really afford to live as a couple, we certainly can't afford to live apart, as if that were bad enough, we can not. pay our electric bill to have two electric bills, we would have a great time and he won the lottery, he used to play Power Ball and he won, as you know, an incredible amount, it was like, I don't know, 50million dollars so then after taxes it's like a 50% tax it was like $25 million and he was beyond excited until they told him yeah she gets half she gets exactly half and he was like Wait, why did I buy the ticket?

I'm like you are one person in the eyes of the law, if she won the lottery you would get half, you won the lottery she gets half. that's how it works if they stayed together no of course no she was like they were miserable with each other. I mean, at that moment he suddenly felt very motivated that maybe we should stay together, but she was like, wait a minute, I understand. You know, half 25 million and I don't have to deal with you anymore. See you and that was it. That's why he was in my office. She had served him with divorce papers.

What about LGBT couples? Yes, she does everything we do. I have said that they apply the same measure. Do they get divorced in the same way? Do you have the same problems when talking about sex? If you know? I don't believe it. I don't think many of the same things are true. impermanence, soulmates, all those kinds of problems, but I think because gay and lesbian couples were forced to remain on the outskirts of the culture, they were outsiders for so long for much of my life, even when I was a 51-year-old man, much of my life.

I saw my gay and lesbian friends ostracized, marginalized and put on the periphery, which when you're put on the periphery, it's as horrible as it is and as unfair as it is and how much it should rightly offend our sensitivities toward seeing marginalized people. and ostracized creates a certain freedom where okay, then we don't have to follow those rules, we can make up our own rules, yeah, we can do it however we want, because you know what. They think we suck They think we're the worst They think we're just, you know, okay, so we can, we can do it however we want because no matter what they're not going to accept us, so we could do it however we want. well, do it the way that makes sense to us instead of, you know, tradition is pure pressure from the dead, so if you're someone like my parents rejected me, sorry, tradition is peer pressure exercised by the dead, I mean, it's really what I'm not saying traditions aren't valuable, but at its core, tradition is peer pressure from dead people, like if your grandmother did it this way, so you should do it this way, okay, your grandmother lived in a completely different time, your grandmother didn't. to have all the human wisdom in your hand that you could push some buttons on, so to speak, oh yeah, like the same rules, the same institutions, the same ways of being, should be exactly the same, that's crazy, we didn't rules for non-heterosexual relationships, so they have to make their own rules and it turns out they did and they liked it.

I have many gay male friends. I live in Chelsea, which is a section of New York City that for many years was a section of primarily gay men to live in, so I have a lot of gay friends and it's really funny to me because when I talked to them even before marriage egalitarian and before the kind of widespread acceptance of gay and lesbian families. um and gay and lesbian lives and relationships are valid like it wasn't so long ago that Will and Grace like Will couldn't kiss their boyfriend on TV this was like the 90's so this isn't that long . ago G I have suits older than that, so what you know is they used to get my gay mail, my friends used to have these kind of unconventional permutations of relationships, they were like, yeah, you know, we can kiss other people, but like that we can't have sex with other people or we can do oral sex with other people, we can't, but we have to let them know that we are doing it because they said, Hey, this is the suburbs that we come to.

We kind of make up our own rules and there's something very funny to me about that is when marriage equality came about and I've been a consulting attorney for something called lamba Legal, which is a legal defense for gays and lesbians that You know, 20 years ago meant the right to exist, the right not to be fired from your job because you are gay. That seems like a basic human right to me. Now you know the idea. We have come quite far. In terms of now, there are some controversies that I kind of go, okay, wait, I'm not really sure, even as someone who identifies as a progressive liberal for much of my life.

I don't know if I can go too far on this bridge, but but. the basic fundamental right, like the right to get married, I always felt like you know what, if you want to be able to participate in this incredibly failed technology, you have every right in the world, like if you hate gay people, let them get married, why should everyone have them? ? the fun thing was letting them get married and I remember jokingly thinking that and when marriage equality was finally achieved in the United States I went to a good friend of mine who shall remain anonymous and told him I had been in for the long haul. relationship maybe like two years and I said it, man, did you get excited like you know you're getting married, he's like, no, I'm not excited, why would I be excited about this? and I said, what do you mean you can get married now?

He says, yeah, like, I never had to deal with it, I never had to have the conversation, it never had to be like, you know where this is going, you know, we're in a he's like something could say, oh, I'd marry you, but oh, the government they won. You won't let me, oh, I wish, I wish we could, but the government is out of my hands, he's like now, now I have to have this conversation, now I have to like it, where is this going, are we getting married? ?, what do you think and? if we should move and if we should even have children, if we had children like before we were banned from having children or adopting children, now we can adopt children, no problem, that's great, now I have to have that conversation, so again.

I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't have marriage equality, we shouldn't have the freedom to adopt and have children, but I think it's a bargain for everyone and that's why my experience with gay and lesbian couples today because I. I am currently doing a divorce series for lesbian couples and gay couples. I think you know the honeymoon period isn't over yet, like marriage equality has only been the law of the land for 10 years or so, so go ahead. At some point we will see maybe they are better at it maybe they are worse at it maybe they are as horrible as us What about open relationships?

Do they work more? You know, it's me. I am not qualified to answer that question for the following reason: I know many people who have tried various types of non-monogamous ethical polyamory, but what they all have in common is that they are in my office, yes, of course, so I see them all. that didn't work, yeah, so I was like, "Well, I've known a lot of couples where they tried polyamory or tried ethical non-monogamy and it didn't work and it led to divorce, it's like an oncologist said, dude, everyone has cancer I met about 10 people today who have cancer, right, you are an oncologist and of course you know a lot of people who have cancer, like a guy who is a taxi driver, you don't know as many people who have cancer as you might know one . or two, but he won't know them all, but you work against cancer, so you will meet people like I know people who get divorced, so I have met many people who gave it a chance and it didn't work out now it was again. that something like in case of emergency, let's break the glass, like let's try this, have you ever seen it work?

I've never seen non-monogamy be successful in any of my friendships in any of my personal relationships but I don't think so. that we're in a place as a culture where we're really honest about monogamy like Esther Perell. Some of her work I think is brilliant about the infidelity of monogamy because I don't think it's at all I believe it exists. There are many couples where there is no monogamy, but there is a kind of don't ask, don't tell policy, and there is a sense that you know if this is what you need to do to stay happily committed, because if you are honest, a marriage It's a lot of different relationships in a relationship, it's your roommate, it's your co-parent, it's your travel companion, it's your family partner, I mean, like they have to deal with your mother-in-law and your father-in-law. the law too and it's like it's a lot of relationships and it may be that men and women or a particular man and a particular woman in a relationship have a different sense of how important sex is and you know it's okay to delegate, It's okay to say you know, listen, I don't really like football, so go watch football with your friends.

Do you see that a lot of times the partner or the other partner that you are not dealing with has accepted, yes, the other partner cheats, well, they don't cheat, but they? I have allowed them to enter quietly. I've had a lot of people come up and tell me that he had a lot of affairs over the years and I just let it go like she had a lot of affairs over the years and it wasn't, she didn't make a big deal out of it. , yes, really, and I see the fact that you and it is understandable.

I'm not criticizing you, but the fact that you're going is really cool, why would that be as shocking as people fooling everyone? Since people get out of their relationship all the time people like a variety of sexual partners, okay, so here's the question: have you ever seen an affair in the presence of someone in love? I don't know if I'd be qualified to say that. whether someone was in love or not, this is what I will say because love is an emotion and love is a verb, so I have seen, I have certainly seen people who were having affairs and in every aspect of their outer life they seem to be deeply in love committed to their marriage, so they were fine, they were a financial provider, they were diligent parents, they were very attentive to their partner's emotional state, they still had an active sexual relationship with their partner, but it wasn't a uh, let's say a terribly prolific one such time um, so you can't cheat and be in love, right, I mean, just listen to the term cheat, you know, okay, so a cheat meal like you can follow a healthy diet and enjoy a cheat meal, you know?

There's something great about it because it's a cheap meal. It's like a little thing you do to treat yourself and then you go back to eating healthy and regular. Because look, there's something about the human desire for variety. There is something about passion. I mean you. I know I always say this, I'm not a religious person, but we're all familiar with the Ten Commandments, you know, and in theory, if that story is true, which again is neither provable nor disprovable, but God passed down to us 10 rules like those. to humanity and said here are 10 rules: don't kill the good, honor the Sabbath, the good, okay, don't cheat on your spouse, don't covet your neighbor's wife, he has two, he has two rules, as if he I didn't say you won't kill. seriously, don't kill, that's no, but don't sleep with other people, I have two out of 10 god rules, in theory, that's amazing, it should show you how long this has been, how human of a problem it is, issue or compulsion.

Is this desire the most human thing? Yes, we want you to know Freud's civilization and its intense disconnection. You know all these brilliant minds around the world for as long as they have struggled with monogamy. They have struggled with sex. I have struggled with the desire for sex. Wars are fought over sex. People rise and empires rise and fall. People rise and fall. I used to say that, I think 90% of what most men I do do to get laid, they do it, why? job card to be able to earn money to be able to get a nice car to be able to attract beautiful women like look look at the red pill space the manosphere this is all about making yourself attractive to women or making yourself attractive to potential sexual partners, whether it's just one or a whole diversity of them, okay, that's a different thing, but that's what it comes down to, so should we get married, should we get married?

I mean, from a place of job security, I hope people continue to get married because if not I won't be out of a job, but seriously, I don't think we'll keep getting married if I don't think we should all say yes I think we should pop the question. I think so. We shouldn't assume that we should get married, that's what I think. I think we should ask ourselves what problem is marriage is a solution to and do I have that problem and will it solve it because the fact that is a strange question. say when someone says I want to get married it would be strange for me to go why yes why it's strange like if you said I want to have a podcast why it's a perfectly reasonable question I want to go to Florida why I like the weather I have a friend there whatever I want to get married why what do people answer when when you normally ask that question what is the most common answer to why marriage technology was invented because I posted many years ago that I wassuspicious about marriage and I remember all the comments I got and different people discussing different things well, it's controversial, it's super controversial, people get very attached to it.

I remember one of them. I remember it was a case that it is the best environment to raise children when the parents are in that type of bond. I had another one, which means you stay and solve problems instead of running away, so marriage is really good in that sense, but you know the reasons people say. Marriage makes sense What are those key reasons why I think there are religious reasons, that's a big reason that I get all the time, like in the comments, there will be like a billion people who will get married, it's a covenant between God and and Like I haven't heard of this, you know.

I didn't go to a Catholic school my whole life like yeah, I get it, I get it, it's a belief that you have and that's okay, my beliefs don't require you to believe them, yours may require me to believe them and that's okay, like where 'You'll agree to disagree if the bottom line is that God spoke to you and told you something, whether in written or verbal form, I can't argue with that, you sound like you're a big fan of love and I'm not a big fan. admirer of marriage. I'm a big fan of marriage as it facilitates love, but I just don't see a link between those two things.

I don't think these two things have much to do with each other. and I think that to the extent that they have anything to do with each other, they probably could have existed without marriage. I think marriage is a symbol of something and I don't think you need the symbol to have something, it's confusing. a finger pointing at the Moon with the Moon as if it were confusing. It's supposed to be the S like marriage. I think it's a symbol and I love it for that. I love the idea of ​​two people who are so excited about how they do each other. others feel and how the effect they have on each other and the effect the other has on them, that they want to stand up in front of a group of people that they know and say, this is me.

I found them and it's me. I'm going to be with them through thick and thin and I'm going to see their blind spots and I'm not going to be a yes man. I will tell them when they are wrong, but with love and desire. May they do the same for me. I want you to encourage me and I want you to be on my side and I want you to disagree with me when I need to disagree with me so I don't make really stupid decisions. because I have a cheerleader all the time behind me like I have a cheerleader because I need one, the world sucks and everyone always criticizes me and I constantly criticize myself, but to have this person next to me that says, man, you can do this, Come on, get up. you can do it you know or I fell it's okay people fall you're great get up come on you can do it or who's going to tell me you know that's what I know you're doing this for this reason and I understand it but no, I don't think it'll make you feel the same. that you think it's going to make you feel, so maybe don't do it and I'm going to go, okay, they wouldn't say that if they were.

It's not for love, so I'm going to listen to that and I'm not going to be afraid of it and I want to stand up, we're going to say this to a group of people and then we're going to wear rings because it will be a reminder to us and to the world that I have a person, I have a person and that's my person, you know, man, how can you not cheer for that? It's amazing, it's great, but you can have it without the yes. Of course, without the contract, are you going to involve the government?

Well, you have to involve the government, really like you, that story that I just told, that's the story, that's the feeling, that's the interpersonal connection when you tell most people who say, "I'm leaving." get married and you say why they first of all look at you like you have lobsters coming out of your nose as if the question why had never occurred to them because you get married that's what you do that's crazy, but if you tell them why normally they say something that is a total non-response well I'm in love okay what does that mean you have to get married well because I want you to know I want to keep that connection okay wait how specifically will marriage maintain that connection and again? , if it's a public statement, okay, I think there's value in a public statement, if I want to, I don't smoke cigarettes, but if I wanted to, if I was smoking cigarettes, I want to stop smoking cigarettes.

It's worth it to stand up and say hey guys, stop. Let everyone know that I am going to quit smoking and if you love me, I want you to help me hold myself accountable, so if you see me smoking or if I ask you for a cigarette, don't do it. give me one because I really want to quit smoking you know there's value in that there's value in the tribe everything's going well man you know that's what you want let's do it we're going to be committed to it it's the same with marriage yes Mar yes the purpose of marriage I mean hey guys, it's really hard to be monogamous.

I don't know if anyone has noticed and I like that the world is really antagonistic to marriage, but I really want all the wonderful things that come from having a person who sees my blind spots and who supports me and I support them and the symbiosis, the beauty of that relationship and the connection of those two people, so I want you to hold me accountable. I love you, my friend, when I look at me looking at the other girl you go towards me hey hey brother forget about what you have at home come on man you have a good one you have a good one what are you doing?

You know how I want you to hold me accountable I want Women out there see that wedding ring and walk away, yeah, not him, not him, even if he talks to me, not him, he's married, let's leave that one, why? Because if he were mine, I wouldn't want him talking to another girl. so I'm not going to talk to him, you know, instead, that's not what we do, that's not what we do as a culture, do you ever want to get laid, put on a wedding ring and suddenly go out, you're Except, suddenly you have a guy they can talk to and he's not on the list because he's married, it's obvious he's using an external symbol of your relationship again, so it's crazy, it's crazy because we're just not being honest about it. than this really is, marriage is legal.

The state is a government intervention, it's everything else, it's just things we put on top of it and call it that, but you can have all those things without legally having Marit James status. We have a closing tradition on this podcast. where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest without knowing who they will leave it for, but I could have told them who they will leave it for and the question they left for you is brilliant because it is very related to the topic and sometimes When does this happen? When was the first time you experienced true love?

Oh boy, you made me cry again. It was the first time I experienced true love. Oh my gosh, that's a great question and just the fact that just the experience of being asked that question is running through my mind through the most beautiful slideshow ever. I felt loved and I felt a deep love, so how nice to ask every morning if I could like, that's a lovely question because just the fact that there is the The fact that there is a competition in my brain right now is what best in the world because all the things that go through my head and they are so diverse, I am kissing an incredible woman for the first time and feeling that there are my children, each of my children kissing me or hugging me, there is Cabba and Buster and the lady of pickles and Maggie, all the dogs I've ever had and there's a picture I can imagine of it, it's the first thing that came to mind, which is going to sound crazy, but maybe it's the stage of life where I find myself when I was a kid my my father my father wasn't a particularly loving guy he was a Vietnam veteran he was a bad alcoholic um he's been sober for eight years I'm very proud of him um and now he's 80 years old, but when he was kid was very cold with me and I remember I had this best friend, Tom, and we had pizza one night at my parents' house and, you know, the pizza is cut into like eight slices and Tommy and I were like, you know, kids growing up, we wanted to eat, you know, the CRA, we ate it very quickly, you know, we each ate our three slices and my dad would have had two left, you know, for him and uh, we ate so fast that our six slices were gone and only There were two left and I know my dad was very hungry, but he said, "If you want, you can have them, you can have them, and I remember you know we just ate them like a child would inadvertently like them." and a couple of weeks later I was at my friend's house, the same friend and his friend ordered pizza and there was like, you know, the same thing, eight slices and his dad ate like four slices and I remember thinking that my dad would never make that and I remember.

I felt so loved because I remember thinking this is a guy who never said he loved me like he always did, it just wasn't in his vocabulary, it wasn't who he was, but I remember thinking, oh, he loves me like that. It gave him more satisfaction to see me eating that extra piece of pizza than it would have given him to eat that piece of pizza and I remember thinking, "Oh, he loves me," so he told me that it was a very pure and true kind of love. When I had my kids, I remember thinking, "Oh, I get it, I get that they can eat the whole pizza, so to me, that's what you know, true love is when it's not even sacrificing to give, that the joy of the other person just gives you so much. so much joy and it fills you so much that it is the best James, thank you, thank you for all the work you do, you have given me so much interest, you know, I came into this conversation thinking that I would learn about divorce and relationships, but no I leave this conversation with a deep appreciation for love well, that's cool in a way that I don't think I've had before and also with that deep appreciation I think it makes you want to take a certain set of actions, I hope so.

He and I think about what you said about the impermanence of Love, you have made me want to hug Pablo because I know that I don't have many years left with him but there are also many people in my life who perhaps I do have many years left with No I know how many years I have with them, you don't and I have to tell you. I think I'm very grateful to hear you say that. I hope you do because I truly believe we are the best we can be. We are more aware of the joy of our good health when we are in the presence of illness.

We are most aware of the beauty of life when we are in the presence of death and impermanence and we can be most aware of the power, presence and beauty of romantic love when we remember that it is impermanent, it is not a permanent gift, it is a loan and we are lucky to have it for as long as we have it so if that's what someone stops talking to a divorce lawyer thinking about it then mission accomplished thanks for having me St we launched it the first time and it sold out we instantly released conversation cards again and they sold out instantly for the second time we updated the cards we put in all new questions and we have introduced a twist on the back of the conversation cards, now we have different levels of vulnerability, so at level one , these are more superficial questions and when you get to level three, the questions become a little bit more challenging, a little more vulnerable and that's really where the connection happens.

The updated conversation cards for the new version 2 are now available at Conversation Cards.com. Oh.