#757 - James Sexton - A Divorce Lawyer’s Perspective On Love & Marriage
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Hello everybody, welcome back to the show. My guess today is James sexy. He's divorced ony and author known for his expertise in family law. There are speakers, leaders and coaches that offer guidance on living in maintaining happy relationships. However, it's rare to find someone who advocates for the opposite perspective.

Is there ever a time where a different approach of divorce, or avoiding marriage entirely, is actually the right decision? Expect to learn why so many marriages are fAiling today, whether preuss actually work, if its men or women whose struggled after a divorce, what the most common disagreements are during divorce proceedings, whether marriage is still a useful institution, the best predictions of a declining relationship and much more. James has been on the front lines.

He's the the vanguard of broken marriages and relationships that are in crisis. And it's scary and insightful to learn from someone who is observed this unfold in some of them thousands and thousands of times. A I don't know how to kind of fold this in obviously had an episode a couple of weeks ago with blood wilcox, who spoke about the fantastic life outcomes for people who do get married.

I wonder how much of is a selection effect from James? You know, if you're in a divorce, to turn in his office obviously is already too late. So there is a huge selection bias, but he's also got some other testing insights.

Either way, I think that more information can be a bad thing. And James definitely has a unique perspective. This very indecisive view of the end of relationships is not one that you often get access to.

So yeah, get ready for this one. This episode is brought you by net sweet. What does the future hold for business? Ask nine experts and you'll get ten answers. Rates will rise or for inflation, up or down. I'm still waiting on elon a basis to successfully invent a Christal ball.

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And if you do not like IT, after twenty nine days, they will give you your money back. Had to join dot woop dot com slash modern wisdom that's join dot woop dotcom flash modern wisdom. This episode is brought you by waking up.

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Why are so many marriages fAiling today?

The billion dollar question, I think you know and and I think I think there's a simple answer and then I think there's a complicated answer. I think the simple answer is people disconnect and and I think that's the simple answer. But drilling down into that, why do they disconnect? That's the bigger thing people say to me all the time, you know, like how we slighting up because he's sleeping with a secretary.

We're splitting up because he spends all my money and she's, you know, impossible and she's dishonest with me about things and really, you know, that's the marriage killer, right? That final nail in the confine. But when you sit down with people and you talk to know about how did they get to that point, you know, we're sleeping with your secretary.

Was anything but a remote fought that might cross your mind, you know, when you start by the copy? Or you know when when being dishonest about the finances in the family was just something that, oh, I would never do that. Like when did we get there that that suddenly that was on the table? That's the more interesting question.

And in my experience of twenty three years of of being on the end of IT, you know being in the people are in my office, it's done now the thing is dead. You know, it's like i'm the guy bearing when when you talk to those people, you hear about a lot of small disconnections that let them to the final disconnections. So I think the answer is disconnection. And the question of how do people disconnect is very slowly and then all at once.

It's interesting to think how important communication is that if that begins to break down and if you start to have small secrets. And if I say this two issues, just going to chew my off A I don't wanna have a fight tonight, which causes you you to hold things back, which causes is her to feel disconnected, which causes her to hold things back, which the, the, the.

so so many of your past guests, if you distal what they have to say about how to live your life to, like the, the, the key concept. It's actually the same as what I would say, which is the hard thing to do. And the right thing to do are almost always the same thing, almost always.

So David gargan will tell you, you know, yeah, the hard thing to do is to go out and run a bunch and do a million pushes or jaco will tell you, you know, the hard thing to do is to just get up and get after IT. But it's the right thing to do, you know, trading what you want now for what you want most. Look, none of us wants to have an uncomfortable conversation with our romantic partner.

When, with our romantic partner, we want to have fun, we want to have sex. We want to have closest and warmth and all the good stuff, right? But look, you know, you you can have chocolate cake all the time.

You know, like it's what makes chocolate cake so special is that you have an on special occasions. So you really have to to treat your relationship with the kind of respected deserves. And the respected deserves is is the respect to not always do what feels good in the relationship, but sometimes do what's necessary in the relationship.

You you wouldn't parent your children or or if you did parent your children irresponsibly. You know, Jordan Peterson would pumble you if you said, well, any time my child's unhappy with something, I stop doing the thing. Okay, well, in your terrible parent. So realistically, what you have to do is say, okay, no, we don't want to do this right now, but we got to do this right now.

And sometimes having those chAllenging conversations with your partner early on, you know early on in the problem when it's just still a little smoke, not a fire, that's really, I think when we have to have the first sight and the strategy and the thoughtfulness to do IT and look at something that you know in in traditional gender roles, you know, a man is a hero because he takes on the task that other people don't want to do. He's self less. You know, he's heroic.

He stepped up. He's scared, but he does IT anyway. You know, it's if if you're not scared, it's not brave. It's only brave if you're scared. Yeah, I don't want to ruin this lovely day I would like to have with my romantic partner, but you know what? I want a long term, strong, happy relationship with this person.

So I have to have the strength to say no, with the strength to say, yeah, what you did was not okay and we have to talk about why that's not okay and how we're not going to do IT again. And i'd like to think that our romantic partners will be intelligent enough to say our desired to walk into conflict of that kind as a sign, how seriously we take the relationship. And maybe we need to remind our partner of that, know, maybe we need to remind the woman in our life that he, listen, I love you enough to disagree with you. I love you enough to tell you the truth. You know, i'd rather have an uncomfortable truth and uncomfortable lie, and I think most women would do in their romantic relationship what's .

a costly signal of truth and investment, right? To go and do something like that, you have to pay a Price. Or why are paying the Price will presumably because I think that the thing that's on the other side of IT is worth IT.

right? right? What you want most, you know, what you want most is to make, look, it's it's a whole lot easier to stay happy, then to grow miserable and find your way back to happiness by the time. That's why my my book was called, if you're in my office, it's already too late like if you're in a divorce lawyers off as something has gone horribly wrong. So so you really want to try when this is just a small thing, that's when you want to to take those steps.

Now again, I understand nobody wants to do that like it's not you'll look train brazilian Judith for you fifteen years and the first few years you're trained, you get so you're just you're not the hammer in the nail, you know, you're just get beat up. But you realized, listen, I have to get beat up. I have to be uncomfortable, I have to be and and we all know the guys that you just so who just have like three solid moves.

They ve got a good guard, they ve got a good past, they got a good submission, and they do m over and over over again, if tremendous in their game. You know, what you have to try to do is you have to try to train your weaknesses over and over, compete your strength, train your weaknesses. I think it's exact same thing in relationships.

I think in relationships you've gotten be prepared to work on the things that need work and and that's again, it's not always the fun thing to do. Look, we don't have a lot of free time with our spouse support and we don't have you know, saturday comes around the last thing you want to do have a lot of heartfelt discussions and a deep talk. I have said her rather than, you know, have her field in the mood to be romantic with you. But you know what, man, long term happiness is is more important than that when .

people do arrive in your office, even if it's not disconnection because that's not front of mind. That was what happened previously, not what has happened now. One of the most common reasons for divorce that you're finding.

you know, infidelity is huge infidelities, a giant sign that that the relationship is really over, that you're no longer finding the connection that you once had or that you want with a romantic partner, with your primary romantic partner. So that's a huge.

huge piece of IT. I, who's the most common a infidelity partner, who people cheating .

with co workers well, let me say it's changed in twenty three years. So so twenty three years ago, when I started doing this job, facebook was really like IT hadn't even started. I don't think really so.

And there's a chapter in my book called, if we were going to invent in infidelity generating machine IT would be called facebook. I would change that now to say that would be called instagram but it's still a medical company. So sorry mark. Um the reality is work. Congratulations mark.

And not sure which um the truth is we now have conversations with people we have absolutely no business having conversations with you know and we have entry points that are entirely beneath you know that we have the permission of our own conscience to do know like when you use that, like go to a bar and pick up a woman, you know if you want to cheat on your life for you had to like you at the office, you had to risk the H R. Complaint that came with that's different but now now iran instagram, you know nobody, he's looking at their phone in a high moment of their life, you know always like around the toilet, around the couch, whatever. So you're not at your highest point.

You're kind of living your gag real. And you're look at everyone else is greatest hits. And what do you see? You see the soccer mom on your son's team and a bike I oh, she's in a ruba. You know, do do you send a message in our dms and say, hey, you look hot in a vicini? No, you say, wow, how was the ruber looks like a great time where you guys say, now totally beni entry point.

Nothing wrong with that, you know but what happens IT starts a conversation and that conversation suddenly year you're around another person that you're having some intimacy with, you know some secrets with, some laugh with and it's not a long jump from that to infidelity to actual infidelity. So fundamental, I think we're cheating with the the just massive number of people were interacting with. Now I mean, online, you know these devices, we all have a supercomputer in our pocket.

Guys like, come on, you think our biology was designed to have that many mating choices out there. You talked about this million times of the show. You know, if the truth is, is that we have created such simple conditions for infidelity.

IT used to take some effort. You know, there was a home phone bill you couldn't call from a home. You have to use a payphone, you know, listen you, anna, get to laugh. Listen A T V wander song part time lover sometime IT was a song about a guy talking to was lover and he was like, you know, call up, bring once hanging up the phone to let me know you made at home like all the weird hopes people had to jump through a cheat now you would be like, yes, it's x when you get in so I know you got in safely like you could be sitting across from your spouse.

Cheating, you know, and what you do, and I look at at that restaurant we're going to this week, and I want see what on the menu, you can come up with million simple excuses that are no way gonna create red flag. So I think fundamentally, we we're cheating with the people around us like we always did, except the number of people around us has exponentially grown. So that makes IT, you know far more appealing and far more chAllenging. Took to infidelity proof your marriage yeah .

although scrutinised the coal workers first i'll have them work somewhere with lots of ugly people.

Maybe it's entirely pot. Why I do I do say in in one of my chapters that um a lot of people are slept with the nani. And I say if you think hiring unattractive nanny is gone to solve that problem, I would point you or shorts and neck situation because you know his his then wife and the person who he was sleeping with. If you look at the two of them in terms of rankings of of attractiveness, there's a disparity there.

Yeah yeah. Why I suppose getting an unattractive nani, if none is a ground zero for cheating doesn't necessarily protect you from cheating and just damages yourself a steam when .

you find out that this happened but and I only anything one hundred percent protects you from cheating and and I don't think that's a bad thing. I think that it's always good to have a little bit of that sort of demonic s hanging over your head and keeps on your toes I mean, you know I i've said before, like you know you're a little kid and they tell you cross on the Green and not in between and you look both ways for across the street, don't smoke cigarettes, try to exercise, don't need too much sugar.

Don't fuck in any .

yeah don't fuck in any and you think, okay, i've got some control over things and then at some point they tell you about annyways. Ms, you know, we're like, what is IT? Well, you're just there and then you're dead.

But what like? Well, i'll see IT coming. No, no, you'll just die.

okay. Well, what can I do to prevent IT? Nothing, absolutely nothing.

You know. Well, is there anything I can do? Yeah no, not really. You know it's just see any mini money mo like that's IT and so you can respond that by saying, well, if there's nothing I can do to a hundred percent prevent myself from just spontaneous ously dying, then I met as i'll just smoke them if you got you know get out there and just do whatever that how you want but I think we all know that that's that's not that's not the way to do IT.

There is something to be said for the benefit that comes with being viBrantly healthy, even if it's not a guarantee that you're not going to be you perfectly healthy your entire life. And then death is still inevitable. Look, all relationships, all marriages end. All of them, they end in death or divorce, but theyll end.

So the question is, is one of the only things in the world that is say, I really hope this sends in death, you know but but it's true like you really hope your marriages in death, but fifty six percent of them and currently end in divorce and that's not accounting for the percent of them that don't end in divorce but end in misery, that end in staying together with someone who are very unhappy with who doesn't love you or make you feel like the best version of yourself and you don't make them feel particularly good. But you just staying together for the kids because you don't want to give half your shit away. And I don't know that that you know I don't know that's a when, but even if that's ten percent, I think i'm being generous, ten percent.

Now you got a technology fails sixty six percent of the time. That's insane. That's insane.

What is your position around kids? I've had brad wilcox on from the institute for family family studies recently. His new book, get married might be the antithesis to a lot of the insights that we get today, but one of his key inside symptoms from a licari as well in a her book to two parent advantage or two parent privilege, is that kids who grow up with loving mom and dad or two parents in the household, ideally biological ones. Because if you've got a fifty times increase in childhood mortality, infant mortality risk, if you ve got a non biological parent in the house and seta seat seta, what do you think stay together for the kids? What do you believe that?

I I don't believe that um because I believe you know having read you know the unexpected legacy of divorce and some of the other books out there to talk about the impact of divorce in a long term way on children because there's a lot of data out there about outcomes for children of divorce and what what IT basically distils down to is that parental conflict is bad for kids never happens to be a fairly strong correlation between parental conflict and divorce.

But IT does not have to be you know, people can effectively compared and have a mother and a father who are devoted to their care, who are CoOperative co parents who are good with other, communicate with each other, their work in a unified manner for the best interest of the children, but don't reside in the same household. And so I I find IT um very hard to believe that two genuinely unhappy people residing in the same home are going to do a Better job raising children and modeling relationships to those children who then then a couple that has the insight to say, look, we're not meant we don't love each other in the very particular way that married people are supposed you that doesn't me. We don't love each other IT means we know there's a lot of people I love that wouldn't to be married to, you know.

So what we're saying and the way that I often tell my clients to explain their divorce to their children no matter what their age is to say we don't love each other in the way that married people are supposed to because I don't think it's healthy to tell children I love your mother because they love the mother. So why would you say that I don't love your mother the way married people we don't love, other way married people are supposed to, but we both love you and you're always going to one mom and one dad and we're always going to be a family. And that's the truth I told my clients from day one, whether it's a knockdown, drag out litigation or the friendly adivar ce in the world, they telling you're going to have grand kids together.

Few of kids, you know, divorce with children is a knife fight in the clause. And if you just start stab in because you think you're gona stab your rex, you're going to stab your kids. You going to hurt yourself, you to ruin everything in your life. So IT makes a lot of sense to just stand down, focus on the kids, get them out of the conflict as much as possible, and try to live the best life we can.

What does stabbing in the closet constitute when IT comes to kids in separation?

Well I think you know creating loyalty bines for children, you know alienation I mean it's a spectrum, right there's straight alienation right where you say to a child, you know it's not okay to love that he's a bad person, you know um that's a special kind of psycho. There's a lot of them. There's a lot of but it's more common that is a little more subber than that.

So IT takes a special kind of crazy person to say your dad's a bad person, but a lot will do this. Hello, here is your dad. okay? You just said, dads a bad person.

You roll your eyes when you hand the kid the phone. You just said, dads S A bad per same, same thing. Kid comes home from a visit with dead.

And you say, oh, you have a good time yet. Would you guys do all? We had so much fun.

We want to the park. Oh, that's great. I will. Global s and wash shop, we're going to have a dinner shortly or, oh, your back. I miss you so much.

Did you miss me too? Yeah, where did you go? You went to you to the park today.

Dad, it's so cold out. dad. Cooky the part that's, well, like, I guess maybe he wasn't thinking about IT. So boy, I missed you so much. I'm so glad your home, you must be so happy to be what are you doing? You're telling this kid it's not okay to be happy with dad.

You're telling this kid dad is something that i'm worried about you being with but you're not explicit saying if you ask that child, if a judge as that child does mom talk bad about dad? The truth full answer is no. He doesn't didn't say one bad word, but he sent the message home clearly it's just, listen, we all know what this is like I mean, you know, you say your girl end how you doing fine, okay, cool.

No, no, you're not. What was the matter? No, nothing.

nothing. fine. okay. So you you're getting IT across. You're getting your point across and that's what IT IT looks like to harm your children.

I'll take a step further, something that's really come in to sort of the judicial and legal eye ys right now is this idea of what's called negative gate keeping, which is a much more common form of alienation, which really is, you could have been helpful, but you were so much more, you know, like you, you had an opportunity to build up or bolster your co parent with the child, and you just let IT fall flat instead. Yeah, you could have been helpful. But you choose not.

What an example of great example is. Your partner, you know, you go, parent, gets into a new relationship. Now, look, none of us are going to be thrilled when our x gets involved with somebody knew.

But it's a reality of life. Eighty six percent of people are remarried within five years of their divorce. So the likelihood of people, mary, we're getting into serious intimate relationships after the divorce very, very high.

So why why you know, when the child comes home and says, oh, I met, you know, mommy s new friend tom, you can say, oh, that's great. Was he nice? Oh, that's great.

I'm so glad you liked him. That was that what you guys do all that's really good or even Better gold standard. The parents communicate with each other and say, hey, he's going to meet my new boyfriend, tom.

You know, tom's a mechanic, uh, and you know he he's really nice guy, you know, I thought maybe he even help fix our kids bike or whatever. And then when the kids is, oh, I met time. I got all that's great.

I heard you're get to me time. I heard you so nice I heard he knows that a fixed bikes that's awesome, you know, so you could be helpful. And instead I met, you know, mom's friend tom.

okay? Nothing, you know, just nothing helpful, nothing to tell this child how you because look, children look to us about how to feel about things. I mean, it's why it's like the classic joke.

When a little kid falls down, you know, they fall. If you go, oh my god, okay, they instantly tly start crying, whether if they fall down and you go, oh, oop c, you're okay, you're okay. They are gonna get, oh, I get some OK, you know, because they look to adults as how my feeling.

So it's really the same thing as a coherent look. You're supposed to love your kids more than hate ecx. So really what what I would sell people who you marry, I mean, if you ever print up, marry whoever they help you want, but if if you don't have print up who you marry, the worst they can really do is hurt you financially.

You have a kid with someone they could torture you for twenty plus years easily, you know, and in real ways, like really profound ways, because most people love their children more than themselves, you know, and and thankfully, most people love their children more than they hate the rex. But I will tell you, most of the people in my office who screw their kids up really badly in the divorce, they don't mean to, they don't mean to, you know, I don't believe that people are engaging evil behavior because they're evil. I think they mistake for happiness.

I think they have the permission of their own conscience. And I think as a culture, we really do gLori fy. You know that sense of like a screw you screw them their in india, you know, as opposed to looking at relationships like chapters in a long book, you know and that, yeah, look, you know what? We love each other for a time.

We love each other in the way we love each other. We did our best. Maybe wasn't the best we could do, but IT was the best we could do at the time. And you know, we left the relationship, hopefully Better people for having had the relationship. And now we move on, move forward to the next thing, and hopefully to more love or different love with someone whose well suited to us or Better suited to us.

What do you think about pinups? They actually protective.

Absolutely, absolutely. And tell you for certain, they are protective because they they cost the divorce lawyers a lot of money. They're not expensive to do. No, there is no divorce. More lawyer saying, man, i'm crushing IT on premiums financially like litigation, one day litigation, i'm going to make more money than I would in a month worth to doing print ups like pinups are a couple thousand dollars worth to work, even the most complicated ones.

So and if they're effective and and most of the time they're effective, I mean, they're very specific and limited grounds on which a person can set aside a print up. And any decent lawyer knows what those are and seized them coming and has a variety of ways to control for them. I mean, most good divorce lers were paid to be paranoid.

So we wear suspenders and the belt when IT comes to the print up, like I have know all the vulnerabilities to rest language problems. You know, we find in in the document itself five different ways to solve for that issue. And we follow what goes on in the appeal division, the court of appeals, the higher courts, so that we control over. We look at how did a print up get set aside and how could we bolster up that defense and shore up that whole that's created or that the higher court is telling us is a basis to set aside a print up. And I have to tell you, I mean, I have seen some pinups upheld that I think fairness would have dictated that they not be upheld like more often IT is much more likely if you ask a divorce slawson er that they have seen cases where the peanut should have been set aside in fairness and IT wasn't then cases where they've seen a premium set to cide there.

Where is this me on the internet coming from? The even a premier doesn't protect either person's s possessions and finances and all the rest of IT. If you marry him or you marry her, they're gonna take you wisdom for six months, and they gonna take half of everything for the rest of time. And you can be back cropped with the gluten intolerance living under a bridge.

Where does that come? I think IT comes from the same place that most extreme points of you come from. And that is a wildly defeat, a statute that doesn't want to actually read or look anything up, or or, or that creates, like, treats google the same as a law degree in twenty years of experience, you know and that's an unfortunately a widespread problem like I can't tell you how many people come in and say, well, I downloaded this off of the internet and that's what we did is a print up and you look at IT and go, yeah.

this isn't n't worth the paper.

It's been about GPT to write. Congratulations to save the couple of hundred dollars, and you've cost yourself hundreds of thousands of dollars of litigation now. So I I do not know where that comes from, except that I I do think that people are quick in all fields to say, uh, there is nothing you can do about anything.

Everything sucks no matter what you, oh yeah, you could quit a smoking but you know, you get a boss so okay, you're right. So just do whatever, right? So I just think it's a defeat, atul, and it's just easier.

It's easier to do. Nothing is easy not to get a print. By the way, IT takes some courage to get a print. A IT takes encourage. You have had a tough conversation.

How do you, how do you suggest that a person who wants to get to print up have that .

conversation? I think you can be my personal belief is that I can actually be, I think, a very romantic and connected conversation. I know that sounds crazy, but I genuinely think this is because I think what it's about is saying to your soon to be spouse that we're going to we're gonna have to have hard conversations.

I don't want to just be with you when it's fun. I want to be with you when it's hard to, and I want to not quit when it's hard. Like I want, I want, I want us to make each other a promise that we're with each other whatever life throws at us, and it's gona throw a lot of stuff at us.

But I think we both have the right to never feel afraid that we could weapon ze against each other at a level where one of us walks out of this marriage in the other one craws. And so I think it's about talking to your partner, about I want this to be forever. If I didn't, I wouldn't marry you.

But if it's not, what would we know each other? What do we need? What would you need? You know what what I need from you? Like what? What would be fair? What's our sense of what would be fair? And having the courage and and having the love for your partner to be able to look at them and say, hey, look, you know, like, let's look at the whatever you know, let's look at the and Better way we do this in relationships.

Come on, women love of this. So how many times you've been dating someone and they do the like, if I lost in ARM, would you still love me? If I had had to have a double mosto me because I had breast cancer, would you still find me attractive?

You know what you I mean and look, you know, men make jokes about that. You know, Daniel tosh has a great joke about, I like, you know, his grandfather said the one point, like, you know, if I lost the leg, would you still love me please? Like you break a nail amount here, like I let your whole leg.

Yeah, don't forget IT know. But the truth is what what a woman is saying when he says that to you, like, if I lost my ARM, you love me. If I had breast cancer and my breast for got you still find me, is how deep is your love for me and what would IT endure, you know?

Well, I I don't think it's an unreasonable or unromantic question to say, if we heard each other, we heard each other, right? Are we gonna nuclear on each other? Like, I never understood.

I never understood. I mean, you want to talk, you know, reality TV. You know, that's a great limits test for this.

Like when people around the bacheller love island, are those things right? And they go from what I really think I like him and he might be the one. And then when he goes, E M, sorry, I chose somebody.

Well, I never. He's a piece of garbage. And I wow because like a minute ago you were saying, if you proposed to you, you'd say yes.

Like, so what? How did you go from there and there? Like if that was true, your reaction would have been when my heart is broken because I really think you are the one and now you've me put, you know what, I love you and I want you to be happy and find joy and IT makes me terribly sad that it's not with me, but you know, I wish you well because when you love someone, you wish them well even if it's to your detriment, you know and so a print up is saying, listen, I don't want you to be here.

I want you to lay your ahead on the pillow next to me because you love me and you want to be here. Not because you're afraid you won't be able to survive financially without me, or because you're afraid I might web ize against you in a court of law like IT. Really, there's something wonderful about saying, like, know, if we split up, you'll get this you'll i'll get this, I get that will both be OK. But you know what? I won't be O, K.

I won't have you. What is the best way to construct print?

I think the simplest way is actually the best way. And that is because you don't have a Crystal ball. You don't know what the future holds. And if you want to make god laugh, telling your plans.

So I really think the way to structure a principe, you just have like trances have buckets and I call IT you yours mine hours, which is if it's in my name, it's mine, whether it's an asset reliability, it's in your name, it's yours, whether it's an asset liability, if it's in our joint names when to split fifty, fifty. So if it's an asset, we'd vide IT fifty, fifty or if it's a liability, will each be responsible for half of IT. And that gives you the ability both you throughout the marriage to have conversations, right? There's no pre up.

There's no contract that you can sign and set IT and forget that you never have to have a conversation about money or about anything tough in the marriage ever again. If there was, believe me, i'd i'd make a lot of money sell in that document. But the truth is, the best thing you can hope for is something that creates a structure that the two of you can then work together on and understand clearly. Does that then work?

Does that nothing creating another ground for A A reminder of the lack of unity potentially of the future impending potential? Uh, separation that if every time that the piece of money comes in, such as such as got to dividend for this year, well, is that going in? The personal is going join. He's working because she's to stay home, mom. And then there's this sort financial prisoner type .

nario way you know again, like momento, murray doesn't have to just exist us to the individual IT should exist as to the couple like remember you're going remember that love is not permanently gifted. It's loan. You know remember that that that look, I don't think there's anything bad about having to have ongoing conversations like if she's a stay at home mom and he's the breadwinner.

IT is worth having conversations along the way about the value of those two roles. You're not doing yourselves any favours pretending that dynamic doesn't exist or forgetting, like most couples do, that those dynamics exist and just being presented towards each other. Well, all SHE does stays home and does nothing.

I have to got to work every day. Well, he's never hear happy with anything with the house. He's always just down. He gets to be in the world interacting with people instead of a looking at, hey, look, we each bring something to this relationship, and we're each losing something for the bringing of that, something right, like the tragedy of our current dating and marriage situation.

And the chaos that's come from comes from the fact that there is no longer clarity as to what anybody is supposed to be, you know, if a man's a bread winner, but wire you home with your kids and taking more care of. And if a woman wants to stay home with kids, how dare you? Bela abzug g would be disgusted by glorious sign, would be disgusted by you.

Which, by the way, isn't true. You know, feminism was not born of the idea that, you know, women should all be capital cogs in the workforce. And the couples should both to vote all of their energies to the bottle line financially, rather than the devotion that they have to each other and to their children.

You know. But yeah, a print up is about having ongoing having original conversation than having ongoing conversations about why we're doing what we're doing financially. You know, when you got that big bonus at work, why did you put IT entirely in the account in your soul name? I'd like to have that conversation while we're still together, rather than in a divorce lawyer's office in the proceedings of the divorce. Why not know where you stand with each other?

Yeah, what is some of the ways that people go about divorce in terms of behavior or structure or announcement or whatever? Because everyone more financial or emotional laticia pain than is needed? Yeah.

I think I think you just tapped on IT, which is going going to litigation from minute one, is really a bad idea. I mean, I jokingly tell people that you know, if you you divide your assets with immediate or or with two lawyers negotiating on your behalf, you're doing IT with a scalpel. If you do IT in court.

you're doing IT with the chase w just explain to me what sure what?

So there's a lot of hats up the mountain of divorce, right? And and so the going from like the friendly est to the most extreme and known everything in between the friendly est is two people sit down at their kitchen table, and they mapped out on a piece of paper, here's what I need, here's what you need, here's which will keep, here's what all keep. And they go to one lawyer and say, can you write this up for us? They both sign off on IT. It's an uncontested divorce. That's the simplest we .

can you do that with kids as well.

of course. Yeah, of course, course court system is not going to get in the way of what two people agree upon. You know if if what they agree upon is not uncontainable, meaning IT is so patly unfair that no rational person would accept IT and no rational person would offer IT who was acting in good faith.

So as long as I know it's unique to your situation, it's totally find courts. One kind of second best things. The next stage from that, more likely because lot of things, people don't know what questions to ask.

They don't know like what issues. So they go to immediate a mediator is either an attorney and accountant therapies. Someone is trained in conflict resolution who doesn't represent either person individually, but instead represents the transaction.

And they sit with the couple, either in together as a group, or they do shuttle diplomacy, you know, where they kind of canvas back and forth between the two. And they try to reach resolution. They try to identify all the issues that have to be resolved, and then they try to resolve them, and then they can write that up and make IT binding.

That's a lovely thing. When people can do IT, I try to send people who come into my office who could potentially immediate. I try tried to send them out to immediate, even though let's send him money right out the door, but my attitude is, if you can go to immediate, or go to immediate or promise.

Is mediation somewhat self selecting? Most people can't advocate for themselves. They don't feel comfortable having that discussion directly with their spouse, even with the media in the room.

So more commonly, the majority of cases resolved the next step in the kind of continuum. And that is where you have two people who each hire or their own individual attorneys. Attorneys educate their individual clients to their rights and obligations.

They are upside reward. They're downside risk. You know, here's what you might get in court, because really comes down to what do you need, what do you want?

What do you entitled to? What you need. You gna get what you need.

You need food, shelter to see your children. What you want there could be no limit to what people might want. So what you want is informed by what you're entitled to.

A lot of what a lawyer does is explains to someone Better than google could. What IT is that they are entitled to. And then the two lawyers work with their respective clients and with each other to try to reach a mutual acceptable resolution, or one that everybody equally unsatisfied with.

The next stage in the continuum is, if there's something we can agree on, who's the time breaker? The judge, right? So one of us has to fy, one of the lawyers files what's called an R J.

I. Request for judicial intervention. A judge gets a sign of the case, and then that judge weigh in a little bit and says, well, here's what I would do with this issue. Or with these facts presented, here's what I might be lined to order if we had a hearing.

And nine times at at ten, you know, actually ninety eight percent of the time is the last statistic I heard on this of divorce cases resolved before the entry of a final judgment. Now that's a little misleading because IT gives people the mistaken impression that like people don't litigate divorces, they do. It's just what happens is you litigate for a little while and then everybody kind of gets the answers they wanted from the judge, and now you know what the judge might do. So sometimes you get to do three, four days of testimony and trial, and then you resolve the case because the judge kind of waves everybody, often society.

Look here, what i'm probably you going to do um and then of course, the furthest extreme is knocked down, drag out litigation, which again is kind of what I specialize in and it's what I do for a living is i'm i'm something of a weapon you know you point me at the spouse and my job is to just go after them and sort of you know take no prisoners, cross examine people and that's not you know if if you're in that position, it's unfortunate. It's unfortunate in your all circumstances either if you're on the receiving end of IT and you need me to be the person defending you or if you're the person who needs to web ize against another person even lost already a summer degree because you're spending hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, depending on the scope of the issues presented. I mean, i've had cases where the legal fees go into the two and three millions.

which do you prefer to do, defend or prosecute? I like both the .

same with kind of the exact same skills set. It's like asking someone who does you get to the like, you know top game, bottom games, like kind of an just different pads up the same thing. And the goal ultimately is to get to roughly the same place to get to the submission.

So it's really the the same kind of thing. I personally, I I kind of been like a legal version of Steve I fountain like I I think you set th Epace, you control the race. So I like to be a front runner, like i'd like to be. The one is making everybody work real hard.

But you know, preventing didn't win the olympics for a reason, which is you actually, if you're smart and scientific, you let people, you know, drag and you let people create, you know that from a physical standpoint it's not the best way to do things. But I I I like litigating cases. I am a trial lawyer, work hard like a cross examining people.

I enjoy the sort of full contact story telling that is a trial um and and it's it's a very exciting type of thing, is a very exciting line or it's an intellectual, it's a chess match in the same way that chess or Judith u is. It's it's really about fans. It's about you know uh, taking risk.

It's about every time you give something, you give something up at the same time. So it's it's a very, very exciting career. But again, I I never want people to have to get to that place.

I do everything I can prevent IT. And I think that you know is is the nature of violence, for example, you know, like a cops Carry gun so they don't have to use them. You know someone's are really good fighter. You're going to be less likely to take a swing at them.

So people hire trial lawyers because, you know it's Better to be a trial, have a trial lawyer or not need them to need a trial lawyer and not have them and instead you have somebody who's not a litigator at heart. It's Better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war. So being a trial lawyer, it's a lot of fun. You don't always get to use that skills set um but sometimes you take a take place in korea where I am where people hire you because they have a complicated case somebody calls me up and have a very simple case. I'll say, listen, there's Better choices than me for for that type case because i'm more expensive because i'm a more um i'm i'm more of a weapon.

What are some of the more complex or, uh, outrageous cases that you've had to go through?

You know I i've seen every variety of of human chaos and misery. I I think in twenty three years of doing this, I mean, i've seen people just imitate themselves, you know and and it's everything from that, the humorously absurd, you know.

a fb j go.

something like that, yeah, I mean, I want, saw a multi million dollar settlement break down over a toaster oven, a toaster evan, was that like a thirty two dollar toaster oven? And I remember saying to my client like I will log on amazon right now and buy you three of that toaster oven if you just settle the case like what are you guys doing you're arguing over a toaster oven and they just you know, it's IT was just the hill they both wanted to die on and he broke the whole settlement down and they ended up litigating all the way through. But I mean, i've seen all manner of chaos.

I've I talk about the book, I tell story about a trial that I once did where um this person had had clearly married my clients solely for their Green card and as soon as they got married he vanished and my client who had married in good faith um was devastated by this SHE wanted to and all the marriage and he refused to grant the element and he was pretending that they had been married um and that the marriage was a legitimate marriage and SHE shared with me that they had not consumed the marriage that they not had sex and I said, what you can't prove that you guys didn't have sex you know that's not you know, there's no way to prove that and SHE said, well, I am a virgin so I said, well, you know, you're also a thirty something your old woman, like the chances of your hand being attacked are minimal. Like if you ride a horse, if you fall at least million things like after certain age that that can happen. So SHE went to her geneology st.

And and came back about a week later in my secretary said SHE hearts in the conference room and I went in and SHE was like, we b and I said, look, you know, IT was unlikely that and he said, no, no, it's it's intact you know she's like, i'm just crying because it's like shocking to me that it's tact and that so we went to trial and and the guy got on the witness stand and and I cross exam them and I said, and you know, you had sex with my client that your test morning he said yes and I said, now so how how large is your penis course I had had objected and I said, you on, i'm going somewhere with this, I promise and he said, i'll give you a little little way is just sexy, but not much this is not going to turn into pen house forum and he said, it's Normal sizes I said, you know, i'm fuzzy on what Normal sizes means sorry. You mean it's five inches, six inches? Seven inches have big roughly this as well.

It's about six or seven inches went erect as pain. When you say you add sex with my client, you you had regular sex, you had say, or vaginal intercourse, yes, and you had no problems at all, inserting your piece again, posing council objects. The judge says, instruction where you going with us and I said, just give me a little little way, you're honor and he insisted that, yes, they had sex.

So ended the cross examination, called her O B G Y into the stand. And they testified to the fact that he would have to have a microfilm, meaning openness of less than one inch, in order for him to have not penetrated her hyman. So then he got back on the stand and suddenly he misremembered and his penis is much smaller than he had testified to.

Its actually quite small and before I could say you're on or I won an independent medical examination of this man's penis, the judge wave this both off and said, I hang on and he took us off the two layers in the back and he said, you're settling this case give her the annoyed or all i'm going to sanction this guy I might didn't put him in jail for perjury and sure enough we got her the animal but that was one of the crazy cases that I mean to have a man get on the stand and and suddenly testified of the fact under oath that he had been lying about the size of his penis and IT was actually only about an inch um I D never thought that the you know I did did not go to law school with that in mind um but yeah I mean i've had so many bizarre cases and and and you know summer tragic summer here you see things in this line of work that you can't unsay um you know the way people treat children, the way people treat each other. I had a case recently where I had a represented a woman who her husband was a perpetrator of domestic violence for many years, but he was incredibly charming and incredibly handsome, and he just no one would have believed that this guy was violent or abusive. I I kind of didn't believe her.

I'll be kind and I mean, my job is to advocate for her and I advocated very well for her. But I I remember meeting this guy and seeing this guy in court and sort dealing with them and thinking like, no, I just can't picture IT you know, like IT, he seems so lovely, seem so nice, you know and think out they had a ring door bell because IT captured on the notes to him. I'm him beating the shit out of a six months labor go A A black lab puppy that they had.

And just like kicking IT throw wagon IT against the wall, which i'm a dog lover, so having to watch that and listen to IT was nauseating to me. You know, nausea. I was horrifying to me. But that was the piece of evidence that we royd this guy with, because we know he got up there and he presented so well and then you see this video of him just rutty beating and and a helpless, defenseless animal and you realized, okay, this guy is like capable of atrocity so you know I I my job is never boring, which is a wonderful thing.

Um but IT is sometimes I I bump into the absolute worst parts of humanity and the absolutely people at their absolute you know, when love goes south IT IT brings out something really, really vicious in people um and the way we treat each other is shocking to me. Sometimes I I, I i'm very blessed, like I every x i've ever had, every x girlfriend, my x wife like i've tremendous love in my heart for them. They are all friends still to this day, like I still stay in touch with them, you know um I wish them are very happiness.

I know they they would wish me happiness as well. Even when we hurt each other, even when we weren't right for each other, even when we failed by our own weakness and our own of foolishness as humans, like we still we still cared about each other, you know and and I I don't understand the level of brutality that people on leach on each other and themselves when their hearts are broken. I mean, I get IT. It's it's very human, but it's it's shocking to me how people can lose their minds when they get their heart broken.

Have you struggled to protect your personal view of romance given the daily exposure that you deal with a new professional life?

You know, there's a great line in a Joseph. One of my favorite poems, Joseph brodsky has a poem called the song. He read IT when his wife died.

And the the palm e's very pretty. It's worth looking up. But the refrain of the poem, as I wish you were here, dear, I wish you were here.

I wish we SAT in the car and you SAT near. It's about missing someone and longing for someone. And one of the lines in the poems, I wish you were here there.

I wish you were here. I wish I knew, know astronomy when the stars appear. And I was loved that line because I I wish I knew, know astronomy when the stars appear. Like, when you don't know astronomy, the stars are so beautiful. There are these little pinpoint lights in the sky, you know.

And you can understand how all these ancient cultures, like, believed IT to be that heaven was there, and that this was holes in the blanket that covered heaven, or that the stars were the gods. In some way. All the myriad of things we came up with explain IT.

And when you know astronomy, you know that this is a ball of gas. You know what this is? So to me, you know, I, I wish I knew, know astronomy sometimes when stars appear, I think I wish I, I wish I had known.

I shouted, I wish i'd know. I wish I could look at, I love going to weddings. I love weddings like, I still get Carried weddings. I'm still cheering for these people. When I go to a wedding, but I kind of wish I didn't see what I see if I can help but beat some of the romantic out of you doing this work. But IT IT doesn't take away, you know, the beauty of IT.

I had a conversation with the guy n ecologist friend once and I said to him his very happily, mary guy and I said to him, like common man, seriously, between you and media, do you like get home at night and like, sad, your wife, like babe, if I see one more, i'm just, I can't, you know and he said, yeah, it's not the same thing he said, it's not the same thing. He's like, it's like it's a totally but you know, your brain just doesn't even process those the same way, you know and I think it's the same thing. I, I I definitely learned a lot of lessons about what not to do.

Um I think the divorce rate among divorce lawyers, I don't know anyone's ever study, but I imagine it's lower even though the profession is a demanding profession and therefore it's a harsh mistress. I I think displayed are very acutely aware of of you know just how hard IT is and and all the mistakes that people make unintentionally. So I know I don't like ignorance.

I like I would prefer an uncomfortable truth to a comfortable lie. So I like. Going in knowing that you know yeah we might we might crawl out of this thing.

We might hurt each other. But you know what like it's it's worth trying. You know it's worth to and that like it's you know there's nothing great ever achieved without some endorsing and without some risks.

So now I think love is one of those things you just keep try and and you just keep going after IT. And you know maybe you never find IT and that's what's meant to be and that you just have a lot of really good scars to show for IT. Like there's a school.

I thought that would say that you know that only unfulfilled love can be truly romantic. You know that I love, I mean, i'd listen. I i've been madness in love and i've had my heart broken. And I think both were beautiful, you know, both were some of the greatest poetries. Some of the greatest art came from heartbreaks, some of the greatest insight, even life came from heartbreak, you know, like from loot, from loss, from pain, you know.

And when I SAT down with lex treatment a couple months ago, lex and I were talking about dogs, you know, we were talking about, we both have had and lost dogs, so we loved very much. And I said, like, you know, but like I I don't know it's a pain worth having, you know, like because the alternative is the pain of never having experienced the joy and the closeness of that. Like, and I I don't know, I don't want to die with that without these scars.

Like, I don't want to tip toe through life and arrive safely at death. Like, I want to, I want to know, give I give you my all and if I succeed or I fail, like I felt big, you know. So I think it's good to not be wildly reckless with your own heart or anybody else's heart. But I don't think that you know that I think love is worth the risk. I believe that what about .

I always wanted you to ask someone that stands up and just cross examinations or spends time working for people because they are the clients, not because they have elected them as some paragua a virtue whatever. Yeah, how morally conflicted do you get when you need to defend or work on behalf of somebody that you have doubts about the that character, about how virtuous they are? You maybe don't even particularly like the more respective a person or a human being or if you destroy or annoyed somebody in cross examination, like through the, is there difficulty doing up?

well? So there are two different questions. So the first one I would say is, what is IT like to represent an assault or someone you don't believe in, right? Or the weapon ze against a nice person. So when you represent someone you know is guilty or you know is a shirt, or you know probably doesn't deserve the relief, like somebody just putting the kids right the middle to gain tactical advantage, financial advantage.

You know, I was once described and I think the person meant that as a compliment but they wrote in a review of me and it's stuck that I was the sociopathy want on your side that's what someone described me as and I don't think about you, pat but um I I will tell you I believe in our system, I believe in democracy, I believe in our legal system. It's not perfect but just like democracy, our version of democracy you know it's it's awful except for all the other ones you know um I think it's a good example of how to do things, right? It's not perfect, but he does things right a lot of the time.

Absolute key to IT is vigorous ous advocacy. You know that everyone is entitled to vigorous advocacy, whether it's if it's criminal, proceeding the state as the burden of proof and and you have the right to vigorous representation to confront witnesses, to illicit testimony, to to a vigorous defense. So I believe in that.

And I I lean on that when i'm representing someone who I I you know, I look at them and I go, yes, is not a nice person or a good person. I will tell you, the truth has a way of coming out sometimes, despite my best efforts. The truth has a way of coming out, like I can throw up a lot of smoking mirrors.

I can do a lot of real great show. I can put on a show. And you know, people buy the sisal as much as they buy the stake, but at the end of the day, the stake, you know, and you can taste if it's garbage, you can taste if it's rated. And so the truth has a way of coming out. The truth fears no trial in my experience.

Now the the other question is an interesting question I think i've been asked before, is what is IT like to web nize against a person who you know is probably a nice person and to eviscerate them on the stand? And and that's I will say it's not it's not pleasant to do from a interpersonal standpoint, but you get very in my line of work. You get very interested in like the technique of arguments.

So you're really thinking more about how you're doing, what you're doing then, the morality of what you're doing, you know and again, you know I feel sort of like there's there's in a gross point blank the john kuzaks film about an iza you know he's breaks in the guys who would tell him to assassinated and he's like over him with his bed, he's got the gun and the guy wakes up and he looks like me, says, please, whatever IT is like, i'm sorry, whatever IT is, don't do this and he says, i'm not the one who wants a problem with a pile and then he shoots the guy. You know and it's it's kind of the truth like i'm not the one I didn't tell you get in the ring, you know like I I wouldn't told you don't but but you have partly get very caught up in the technique of IT. You know I love trial work.

It's just like I said, it's it's an intellectual kind of combat. It's like debate with higher stakes in some ways and it's with it's real time, like it's it's it's really it's a really um it's an art form. I mean, it's it's a blast to do, you know. So I I I really get caught more in the technique of IT than the morality of IT.

But I have a chapter in the book where I talk about a case that I should have lost and I won, and that I felt quite badly about, because the reason I won was that the lawyer I was against was very inexperience and not very talented and they couldn't get a piece of evidence in and I won as a result of that and really I shouldn't have and my client who was A A vicious human being who had brutally beaten ten this woman up um he walked out free you know and he he actually padded me on the back as we were walking out of court and he said, you know one good lawyer er is Better than twenty stick up men and I remember I can't felt dirty at the end of that case. And curiously enough, like I I wrote about IT in the book about one of ten years later, maybe more. And when I read my audio, you when you're recording an audio book, you know, you sit the booth and you have to read your book and and you you've never read your book out loud, like, who they have read your book out, you know, I wrote IT, but I never read IT out loud.

And you read the whole book out loud to yourself. And like, I got about halfway through that chapter and I got choked up, and I D like, take a break and remember thinking, that's weird, you know, like that I did not see that coming. Like I wrote that chapter, I didn't feel that way. I've read that chapter, I can feel that way. But something about reading that chapter out loud made IT feel real to me that, like, I had been part of some of justice not being done, and that felt ugly.

yeah. What's the reality of the american divorce law in your opinion? Just how good or bad is IT? Because again, if you were to take the internet or youtube comment section or edit threads perspective, IT would be completely bias. That would be totally on gender blind. IT would be very swayed in one .

direction or another. That's not entirely inaccurate. I mean, it's it's terribly floated a number of ways. I mean, one, it's flawed in in a general way, the same way that a lot of other things in our society are flawed.

And that is that you get as much justice as you can afford a lot of the time like it's it's not a fair fight if someone can afford me or one of my colleagues who's experienced, knowledgeable and the other person can only afford, you know a person who is like a real estate lawyer and also does divorce from time to time and a charge of fifteen hundred box to do your divorce, it's not going to be a fair fight you know um and so that's not good. There needs to be some ways to control for that Better. And yeah, it's definitely not gender blind because our society is not gender blind.

I mean, IT is not you know our clients who called the police when their spouse says violated to court order. And if it's a meal and the police come, they'll say, wo sounds like a family court matter and if it's a woman in the police, come nine times at a ten, they do something about IT. They call a guy and they say, after return the child they are, hey, if you don't, you know, could leave this room, we're going to have you arrested.

Like it's so he isn't gender blending, think it's bias against men. And in fairly significant ways, anyone was not being naive would admit that. But but they know people don't want to say that.

I mean, it's you know I hate to say that that you know had rosek ual males, particularly White heterosexual males, are not exactly protected category anymore and the system is is very much designed against them to some degree because you know, the financial promises that a man makes during a marriage of he's the breadwinner, which still the majority of bread winners in households are my men. And in a family, whether is a bread winner and a care provider for the family, for the children, it's typically a man by a fairly significant majority. And those promises are enforceable at law.

So if if I marry a woman in which what I bring to the table is i'll provide for you, i'll give you food, shelter and and funds with which to care for the things that you need, and what you'll provide me as affection and love, that the law can enforce my under that bargain, and they can't enforce your under that bar. They can't force you to be nicer, they can't force you to love me or sleep with me, but they can't force me to pay you. And so that creates A A bias that creates a problem when only one side of a contract is enforceable by force of law.

That's a problem. So I don't um I don't think the system I think it's a very easy thing for people to say, oh, I didn't get custody to my kid because the system is biased. Okay, I don't think that's true.

That's like a person who says, well, the reason i'm overweight is because I have a slow metabolic. okay? Well, that's easier than saying i'm lazy and I don't actually like to work out and I don't want to work out more because I have to work out more because I have a slow metabolite.

I have to watch what I eat more because I have a slow metabolite are all it's just a way to go yeah, what's not my fault? I don't believe that's true, but I do still think it's tilted in a different direction. And there's things that people have to do to control for that.

I think that you know you have to as a father, as a parent, you have to, you know, make sure that you participate, make sure that you go to the parent teacher conference is you go to the doctor's appointments. I know that's not easy necessarily. You're working and all those things to take time for those things.

But remember, if you end up in litigation, those are IT doesn't matter what you know, IT matters what you can prove. And people don't live their lives that way. People don't conduct their marriages and their family life that way.

They don't look at IT and go, how am I gonna prove i'm a good father, you know? And that's a very scary thing to have to do. But look where you know we talk about downstream effects all the time.

You know all the people that are talking about institutional racism and reparations and concepts like that. Well, what they're saying is, is that appreciate that now we're running the race fair, but you gave this group a head start. You gave White, heterosexual, mana gigging tic heads start. So the rest of us are trying to catch up. And although maybe the rules are fair or now for everybody and maybe it's okay, but they still GTA catch up OK.

So if you believe in that concept, in this idea of institutional racism or institutional sexism, patriarchy, all those kinds of concepts, up until the mid nineteen seventies, we had what was called the maternal presumption in divorce, which is that children would go to the mother automatically, unless you could prove the mother was an unfit mother. We had something called the tender years doctrine, which meant that a mother would automatically get custody if the child was under seven, unless you could prove that the mother was like a insane, suffered from serious mental ones, are had serious drug addiction issues. So that wasn't that long ago in one thousand nine hundred and seventy.

I was born in the nineteen thousand seventies. So to suggest that we're now forty years, fifty years out from that and it's gone. No dow stream effects, there's IT hasn't affected the judiciary at all. That isn't affected the body of law. That's naive.

And for the same people who would argue that patriarchy and sexism and institutional sexism in the fact that harvard didn't let women in until a certain time and yelled let IT all of that, you can acknowledge that. But you can't acknowledge that a system that until almost nineteen and eighty said others were automatically second class citizens, you can acknowledge that I might take a little while to get that out of the system. That's dishonest.

It's intellectual dishonest. I have a problem with that, but again, we always in this culture we teach treat danger fifty capitation. You know, we have the tendency to just say, well, let's either the system is screwed and managers screwed and don't bother or there's nothing wrong with the system. It's totally gender blind and both of those are just totally naive and totally false.

yet very interesting. I guess it's weird to think that the dramatized versions of some of the things that we see in some of the metal means actually like playing out in a courtroom that you are you if you've got this unbelievably ludar ous toaster of a scenario, or people using private investigators, or people hiding money from their spouse by sending IT to a grandmother in switzerland, whatever.

selling their for ready to their brother for twenty dollars transfering money too. I mean, there's so many things you say, and what what's interesting to crisis you you I started out my career representing, you know, typical people for lack of a Better term, you know, a cop and a teacher. They ve got two kids, four one k and a little bit equity in their house, in some credit card deck.

And now I represent ultra high net t orth clients, some of the, so I have clients with literally billions of dollars on the line, hundreds of millions of dollars, you know, because new york is the home to finance. And that you know this in the finance L A, you know my colleague Laura walser and L A phenomenal literacy and SHE represent a huge number of people in in in hollywood, know in celebrities. And so a lot of people know law as named, you know because she's like represented brad pet representing you know she's represented some of the most made of Kevin cause most recently, scripts know half a hollywood her father as well as represent a huge amount of hollywood start in new york.

We represent people that could buy those people ten times over and you've never heard their name, you know and they are they're happy that you've never heard their name. They don't want you to have heard their name, you know um because that's still that they become that high batter grasp gets chopped. But when they divorce, IT is a really real when you have a client whose portfolio fluctuates in the tens of millions every day, like what day things get divided becomes really important.

You know, a difference of three percent or four percent is a giant difference when you're talking about a seven billion dollar marital states. So you know it's it's a very what you come to learn is that people have like all the same problems I get. What's amazing to me, you know, I didn't set out to do all this media stuff.

You know, I I am a divorce layer. I love being a divorce lawyer. I'd heard a podcast years ago, like twenty seventeen, with Stephen king, where they said, you know, how does that do you write like two books a year or three books a year and he said, well, if you wrote one page every day in a year, you have a book.

And I thought, I let me test that theory. I get up early. I I get up before I am. So every day I wrote page, and within a year, I had a book, and then I sold the book. And then I started doing some of this media stuff is like a part time thing, you know, just for fun, just to use a different muscle after twenty years to do the same job.

And i'm still sort of astounded how interesting people think IT is, but i'm also astounded by the people i've common contact with because I i've interacted with some of the, you know, incredible celebrities, people who i've admired, intellectual people whose where? I mean, you're an exactly, I enjoy your work. I've watched IT for ages, you know.

And I mean, when I SAT down with legs, I was like a little surreal because I ve listened to. So I was actually on the subway listening to his conversation with Andrew huberman on my way to a courthouse in queens. I got off the subway, checked my email and had a message from him saying, hi, i'm likely when I have a podcast and I be interested in having you on and I thought, yeah, I know you are.

I was just listening to you for an hour on my subway ride. Like this is surreal, but but the truth is like this is something that, you know nobody's particularly graded IT just because they're created. Other things like, you know I don't know him personally, but like look at all on muk like he had a number of relationships as children with a number of people, but he's not unnecessarily settled into one person and you know that maybe a maybe be totally by choice or IT maybe that he's found chAllenging.

You know, this thing, there's a person who can do such a, is the depth of that man's mind, you know, the things he can understand that I couldn't even try to understand. And yet this is something he struck. S, I represent quante people in finance who can turn ten million dollars into five hundred million dollars in a couple of years with they're trading algorithms.

M, that they came up with themselves and they just suck at marriage or relationship and and they're stepping on the exact same land mines as like the guy who digs ditches, you know. And to me, there's something so amazing and kind of beautiful about that that that those are the things that we all struggle with, and that we all wanted know more about or get some edge on, and yet, and yet we have to, like, pretend we don't need help with IT. Like, like my book, the audio book outsold the books book by, like, fifty to one.

And I said in my publisher, you know why? Why do you think that is? And they said, nobody wants to see your book on their coffee table. yeah. And I thought about IT.

And the truth is, if you came to my home and you saw the seven habits of highly effective people, or you saw the power of habit by daring, you'd go look at jim man, he successfully at the top of his game. But he still wants to sharp in the point of the sore this guy, look at him, know, never, never satisfied. If you walked in and you saw how to make love last, you'd be like in paradise with the Better half there.

What's going on? I don't know why. Like why is this a skill that there is any shame and talking about?

Like why even among like sort of the man is there in the red pill? Like they're very good problem. I identifiers not good problems solves, great problem identifies. okay.

So listen, guys, where you want to go fuck at each other like that, your option now, like if you've decided women are retrieved ly awful, you know, and that the system is rigged ed against us. And okay, cool. Then either starts sleeper with each other or o't sleeps with anybody.

But we pp l the the whole perspective of make right the only way to win the game, stop playing that, that's the world view.

But really like what a defeated way of viewing this.

I know, like for me, i've railed against this ism on the internet and drill down and railed specifically against cynical m in dating advice on the internet, because I think you I think you're right。 I don't understand how men are supposed to be both. Hero can able to overcome anything but bow out, because a girl at age and nineteen broke the heart. And right, how men are supposed to be disciplined, enable to to overcome difficult things and go and do their brazilian judge zu and lift their hard weight. But that discipline completely stops when IT begins at the base of their peanuts.

sure. It's like a well and I will i'll tell you, is one of the things I like about judge, who is that you have to suck IT IT for a long period of time and even when you're graded IT, they're still gonna be somebody who's Better at all times maybe unless gordon ryan, so like everybody is gonna be find somebody Better than them and way gori jump, I had thirty years. There's going to be a old to I out because it's going to age.

This happens to all you know. So the truth is, like I I have to believe that the solution to this starts with us being able to talk about IT like we do anything else like we talk about how we exercise, we talk about what we eat, we talk about, you know, how do we get further in the workplace. But we don't have honest conversations among men, among men in with women, among women, in conversation with each other, about what's going on, our relationships.

And we all know this, any single man in the dating world nose how many women on their instagram or hashtag, girl boss hashtag, I don't need a man. And then when you get them alone, they want you to be a dominant man, they want you to be someone. And we'll tell you, oh yeah, I would actually really love to like me home and have kids about and by the way, all the guys that on their way through of their part is nails.

They are tough as nails that women in their lives will tell you behind closed doors, they cry IT things. They they are sad, they're vulnerable. But we created this game or like we all have to play these roles with each other.

And we're never going to get Better at IT. We're never gonna get Better at IT if we don't. And i'm again, i'm not saying we have to walk around like an open wound sharing our feelings of like, come on, it's OK to just say, look, this is a scale.

This is a scale you can take. Point is, like my book was designed to say, here are some practical things you can do to stay connected to your partner. Here are some little things you can do, actually do that have value.

Because when the all of these platt tudes people give a where you need to really like pay attention to your, what do you mean? Pay attah? What does that mean? Pay attention.

You need to show them that their love. What does that mean? Do you want me to take them to the beach? Do you want to buy them flowers? Like what am I supposed to do practically? Like if you tell me i'm great, like to tell me what to lift and how often the lifted, and you'll do IT tell me what to eat and what not to eat, and i'll do that, you know. But with love, none of them, no one is allowed to give any rules.

All anyone does when someone tries to offer a practical suggestion is shit on IT and tell them how, oh, it's never doesn't matter and because the game is rigged and forget IT, the only way, and you're right, the mitel people absolutely best way to not create your heart broken is to never give IT to anybody else. Never expose IT to anybody else. That's great, man.

And you know what ships in the port? Nothing bad ever happens to him. They never get lost.

They never get stuck. They never sink. But that's not what ships are for, you know.

And this is not what we're forest, how what our lives are for our lives are for viBrant enjoyment of life. And and that requires connection with another person. IT does we know? IT does James, sexy?

Ladies and gentleman, James, I really appreciate you. I love your energy. I love the work that you've done. Why should people go? They wants to keep up to date with the .

stuff that are doing. And I see the vorce lawyer on instagram. I don't put much up on there. You go to my firm's website and I see divorces.

And if you're in new york, attended to do a lot of speaking immediate stuff in new york but other than that, um my books out there you can pick IT up or listening me on what table for eight and half hours if you feel like IT um and uh H I have some other things in the works coming up. So just stay tuned if you go to the website. You know, i'll tell about that.

But thanks to me, Chris, i've been a fan a long time. I love your point of view. I I really think you have a unique voice that that lands in this middle ground that the world needs right now. So I I really appreciate you and I appreciate the chance to us at you. Thank you.

I appreciate you too much. take.