Hello, everyone, Thanks for tuning in to Cheeky's and Chill, your favorite podcast, and I just wanted to start off by saying, I know that there are a lot of other podcasts out there, so I really appreciate you guys choosing to listen to mine.
I love you guys very much. Okay, so today's episode is.
Going to be a really interesting one because we're going to be talking about marriage, divorce, and prenups, which I know are super controversial, and I'm bringing on a seasoned divorce attorney.
Her name is Christina Royce.
She's the Los Angeles co chair of the matrimonial and family practice at the law firm Blank Rome. She's also one of Hollywood's go to divorce lawyers, so you know she has seen it all. And just a REMINDERR, this is not legal advice and you should consult with a qualified professional if you have any questions related to this episode. So with that being said, Hi Christina, thank you so much for being here.
I'm so excited to speak to you. How are you.
I'm doing well? How are you?
I'm good, I'm happy, a good day.
I am so I have so many questions because I've been divorced before and I'm now remarried and thank goodness, happily married. But you just never know what can happen, you know. Okay, So what is the biggest misconception about divorce you think?
Well, I think, you know, for I think for a lot of people, it could feel like really scary, and it can feel overwhelming, and it can feel like daunting, and they feel like it's like the end of their life. And I think that a lot of people realize that sometimes that marriage is not the right situation, and then later on they signed a real true happiness being outside of a bad relationship. Like, look, you got remarried. You know, you've found a different love in your life. But it's scary.
It's a scary process to go through it. Right, there's a lot of unknowns relating to it.
Yeah, I mean I feel like divorce can bring out the worst in people.
That's definitely true.
Right.
I give a lot of people. I tell everybody, like put post its everywhere, like be your best self through this process. Be your best self through this process, because it's really hard. People get gas lit, they're nervous, they're financially scared. Right, it's really an overwhelming process.
It is.
I know my sister's going through it right now, and even when I want to give her advice, I don't even know what to say. I mean, because I feel like they have children together, so they should have the
peace amongst themselves. But things are just getting so out of hand, and all you can do as a big sister is just step back and say, okay, like hopefully let the attorneys that the professionals do you know, guide you because it's difficult, Like they say, you know, you've been with this person for so many years, but you don't really know who they are until you're getting divorced.
I mean, have you seen really that there could be a divorce that's like amicable, like really or does it always have a very like nasty ending to it.
I would say that the majority of my cases have a more amicable approach to their divorce.
Oh okay.
I think they realize that they have kids together and are going to be in each other's lives. A lot of them realize that the marriage may not be the right you know, it may not be their right union. But for the most part, and I maybe it's kind of the clients that I get or the kind of approach I take. We really try to take a more amicable approach to the to the situation and work more collaboratively, which I think it reduces fear. You know, there's not
a lot of surprises during the divorce case. We do things in an orderly fashion so everyone feels comfortable through the process. And I do think that that how we approach the divorce case really helps them launch later on as co parents.
I love that.
I love that and I appreciate that, and also I think it also saves the client money, right because it could get expensive, especially how expensive can a divorce be.
It can be expensive. I mean, it depends on the issue. Sometimes. You know, I'm really good at I'm a big believer in throwing money to a situation. If it gets certainty, if it gets peace of mind, if it makes the kids situation better, if it makes like getting rid of the lawyers, if it means moving on, I think there's value to that. And you know, obviously with degrees, but I think there's value to paying money to the other side as opposed to paying all this money to the
lawyers if you can get it done right. And there's some gray areas in the family law. So it's nice to just being able to like solve those differences by you know, with having some financial resources being paid.
Yeah.
So do you feel now that you you know, you said that you've been practicing for twenty plus years, do you feel that a divorce is on the rise.
I think that I'll say this. I think my business is definitely recession proof. It depends, you know, when I think certain things are difficult. I think that really shines in whether a marriage is the strong marriage or something that maybe needs to move on. I think it's been pretty consistent, you know. I think there's times where a lot of people get divorced after their kids launch and go to college, because maybe that's an easier time for
people to move on. I think there's times where people get married and are married only for short periods and it turned out it's not the right thing. Maybe they have different views about children or things like that. So I don't I can't tell you it's really on the rise or not.
You know.
I also look and here here's my situation, and we can talk about this that I've been married almost thirty years. I very much believe in the in the concept of marriage and the union of a marriage. I just look at it maybe a little differently. Look, I believe marriage really involves three different buckets, right. I think we need our sexual intimacy and need connect and sexually, I think we need to feel connected emotionally, right and have that
emotional connection. But I also think there needs to be what I call financial intimacy, or I feel like people need to feel like they can have these conversations about finances that are sometimes difficult to have, Like, you know, there's a lot of people come to me and they don't know anything about like I don't know how much we make, I don't know how much is in the bank. I don't know what kind of like support I would get.
I don't know what kind of circumstances we live. I know we live X, Y and Z, and we do all these things, and that's a really like that's a lack of partnership, right, And so I think having that financial intimacy means that we're we need to be more partners with one another as much as we need to have like the sexual intimacy and the emotional intimacy, but we need to have that connection financially.
I agree, And that's something that I learned this time around, that it's not seeing it as yours in mine, it's ours. We're a team, and it just changes everything again. Also, couple's therapy has helped quite a bit, you know, because it's two different people coming together and we have to understand we're not going to think the same, we're not going to have always the same opinion, and we have to be okay with that. But how can we work
through it? You know, especially that the financial part and aspect of marriage, it could be, like you said, very very uncomfortable sometimes conversation, but very necessary.
And look, there's a lot of people who I think I think there is a lot of people who get married later in life now, right, and they have already have established businesses or assets, and they may be coming into a marriage and not everything's going to be equal, right, and because they already built up there a lot of their net worth, and so they need to have those conversations that not everything that I own as of the
data marriage becomes ours. Like maybe there's things that do become ours, and there's things that are mine because I either inherited assets or I really worked hard before marriage to get that. But those are the things that people need to have these conversations of. So so there's an understanding,
right yeah. My husband gets mad at me because I say, your marriage is a lot like a business, right, Like you know, we wouldn't you and I wouldn't go into business together without saying, Okay, you know, what are you going to contribute to the business? What am I going to contribute to the business? How are we going to handle that? And like the same should be true with a marriage, like how are we going to handle all these finances? And I think there's a there's a business
aspect of it. My husband's like, you're always a unromantic Chris.
You know, it's so funny that you say that because I just watched I came across a video on social media last night about a man speaking about his marriage and he's he seems to be very successful man and he's been married for fifteen plus years and he said that his secret is approaching his marriage like his businesses, sitting down on a weekly basis and talking about Okay, what happened this weekend and what can you do?
What will I do?
And it's how would you go into a business meeting do that in your marriage, and I had never seen it like that, And now in this confirmation, now that you're saying it, I'm like, Okay, that makes sense.
Yeah, there's definitely some truth to that. Yeah, you know, like you just have to have those but those are some of its hard conversations and it's not easy, you know.
Yeah, And you have to be open and able and willing to have those uncomfortable conversations. And that's what I learned before. It was like, it should just be easy, it shouldn't be so hard. The thing is is communication is key. And I always tell you guys here on the pod communication, especially in your relationship, in any relationship, romantic business, et cetera. And Christina, do you have any tips or advice on how to reduce the chance of getting divorced?
Well, I think it goes back to something what we're talking about. I think that it is really important that we get better at communicating, that we understand that. I think people come in with different needs, Like I may be much more of a sensitive person. My husband may be more of a reactive person. Like I have to understand that he can be like that and I can be different, Like we're genetically made up differently, right, And so I think having those communications and talking about it
is important. I think it's really important not to be reactive to things and to be more responsive to things. I think therapy is a really helpful thing that if people need really help and guidance on how to communicate, I think that's helpful. I think sharing information, you know, even if someone comes and says, let's assume they came into the marriage with fifty million dollars, right, and they had all this money before marriage, it's sometimes important to
share with the other side. Look, look, I came into this marriage with these these assets. This is what I came into. Like, that doesn't mean it's all going to be ours, and I want us to understand that, right, Like, that doesn't mean we can't do things and enjoy certain things together. But as there's more transparency and accountability and conversation, I think it really helps marriages.
Yeah, I think you're right.
I mean, in which brings me to my next question, which is about prenups. Do you believe do you recommend highly recommend prenups?
So I hate the word prenup because I think everybody has such a bad connotation about it. I wish we'all called them partnership agreements because I think it as I stop, a softer way of like we're entering into a partnership with one another. Yeah. I think some are very necessary because there are some really gray areas when it comes
to family law. And I think some people approach a marriage like a business and they want to make sure that if this business didn't work or this marriage didn't work, that there's clear understanding of what's ours and what's going to be shared and what's not ours. Right. So like, for example, if I were to get married, if the listim I was not married, and I got married to right, I have built twenty eight years of building my law
practice right and building my reputation right. And then during the marriage, I don't want there to be messiness about whether the community got an interest in my law practice or not. You know, I've worked really hard to get to this point. Up to this point, So I may want an agreement that says, look, during the marriage or I may share all my income and all my income can be community, but I want to make sure my law practice will always be separate property and not and have clear rules on it.
Right.
Yeah, So there's people who feel that way, and I think an agreement can really be helpful that way. I can also see there's a lot of times where I will get people to come to me that are part of a family enterprise. Like you know, their family has built these big businesses for generations and they want to make sure that those businesses stay separate property right, And so there's these things in agreements that we can protect on that. You know, in family law, we have what's
called alimony. You know, if you get separated, there's alimony after a divorce. And California is very big on alimony. It's a high high state, Okay. And some people are like, look, I've been married before. I payin rat alimony to my ex wife. I don't want to have to be in a situation where I'm paying all this money again. And they may want limitations on that right, and they may want protections on that and those are things that are
common in agreements. Similarly, I have also done a number of agreements where we are building more community for the parties than there would be. So there can be a big benefit to having an agreement. And so like, for example, I'll give you an example, let's assim come someone comes in and they're worth one hundred million dollars and they're a big trust fund kid, right, and they're not working during the marriage. They're just worth one hundred million dollars. Right.
They a marriage. And we've done a lot of agreements where we've built some of that taken some of that money, and we've created more community or wealth from it. Right. And we've done more where we've can like build more partnerships during the marriage. And what we do is we call we transmute or we change the character of the money. So there's a lot of different things that we can do in the agreement. Some can be very beneficial to
the other spouse, some can be less beneficial. I don't really get involved in my colleagues, don't get involved in agreements that are like so incided that it would be a disaster and divorce. I mean, I just won't get involved in those kinds of things.
Yeah, I think I think just being fair and keeping that in mind, I think that is a huge thing. And I feel like I'm getting that sense from you, and I love that where you're just fair and you're like, hey, I want everything to just be peaceful.
There's no need to argue and.
Take away the gray area, like let's have it clean and simple. And you know, I'm not somebody if like, you know, you have to understand, if you're forty years old and you're marrying a sixty year old who's already established themselves and already gone through a divorce, they may want something really simple, easy and clean. They may not want another big, protracted divorce case. And you're forty years old.
That's something you have to understand with the person that you're marrying at that point, right, And that makes sense.
I agree, I completely agree, because I just feel the partnership agreements, you know, definitely bring a peace of mind. I mean, for me, I have one, and he had no issue. He said, that's totally fine. I get it, didn't give me any issues. I made sure he got his own attorney because obviously he had to. But I wanted him to understand everything. And we are building together
and we have that very clear. In my past, I did have, you know, someone that wasn't very happy about that and felt like, oh, you don't trust me, and why you know, what do you think I would take something from you? And it's like, no, it's not that it's just I learned from my mother, you know. She was one that said, you you want to go into a marriage with peace of mind and know that this person is with you for the right reasons. And I understood it right away, but there are some people that don't.
And also Christina, and if you could tell us a little bit more about postnups.
So, post ups are agreements done during the marriage where you're not getting divorced and you still want to stay married, but you want to change the law or change what your prenup is. Right. So there's times where people will enter into a prenup and then they're like, you know, over time, we've done this, or we've done this, or we want to change this, and they can enter into
post nuptial agreements to modify it. There are times where people enter in post nups because they sometimes don't like how the marriage is feeling and they want more certainty with respect to their finances. So I had a really interesting case one time where the wife wanted very conservative investments.
She was more conservative, she was more fear based, she was more scared, and a husband was like as risky investments as you can imagine, Like I want to invest in like coffees in Brazil, right, And so what we did was we created a post up because this they loved each other and they wanted to like stay married, but they had these like fights about their investment decisions, right, And so what we did was we created a pot of community, a pot of separate for him, a pot
of separate for her. She was going to keep hers in. You know, I don't want treasuries and you know, do something really easy. He could do whatever he wanted. We had our community that was still paying all the community bills in their community lifestyles. And it was a situation that we looked at the marriage both from me. They loved each other and wanted to stay married, and they had a you know, strong romantic relationship, but we looked
at it from a business standpoint. What made sense for them both financially, And it cut out all this fighting because now she's like, if everything goes to Helen and Hadden Basket for him, that's on him, right, I don't have to worry about that. And if something happened to me, I have my little pot of money and I'm going to be safe and I'm going to be secure with it. So it works for them.
Yeah.
Right, and again I go back to as mad as my husband can get it. If there's still a business aspect of.
This, definitely, no, not now I could.
I see it completely and like it makes so much sense, and I agree. I think that whatever's going to give the other person a peace of mind and in that way they'll be able. She's now, she's like, Okay, well he has X amount of money in his little pot and I'll do He could do as he pleases, and I'm still gonna be able to love him totally.
And she didn't have to be freaking out at night and roorring and.
Holding resentment r Yeah. Now, A cool question in regards to it to the post up? Do you have to have a prenup in order to have a post up or con For instance, you could be married for ten years and just say you know what, I want a post up? Now?
Can you do that?
Yeah? Now, it takes two people to agree to it, just like a pre nup, but you can absolutely do it.
Okay.
Is there anything else that you think that we should talk about that we did in touch.
That would be interesting for the listeners?
I mean I think, look, I'm a big believer that also even before marriage, I think people should be educated about what the law is in the state that you have right. So to me, again this goes into like a marriage has so many rights and obligations and so many responsibilities, and I think before people enter into marriage, it's really important for people to at least even talk to a family lawyer and just understand like what happens in a marriage. Right. We're not taught that in school. Right.
There's no books like what to expect when you're expecting, right, So, so you know, you don't have your like pediatrician that you're talking to like my baby's doing X, Y and Z, what does this mean?
Right?
And so so to me, I think it's really important that people get educated. Like so, for example, I met a client yesterday, a young, beautiful, amazing person who is marrying somebody who is you know, has far more superior means than she does. And the question is is she going to give up her marriage, give up her work because she's in the entertainment world, and is she going to give up her work? And he's going to pay
for everything? Right, And you know, we have these conversations like you know, if you're twenty six, twenty seven, twenty eight years old, twenty nine years old, and you give up your job, and let's assume even without an agreement, you're only married for ten years in California, Okay, you're only going to get support for one half the length of the marriage. So you're only gonnat alimony for five years.
So if I'm twenty nine years old, and I'm really like at the thrust, like the beginning is of my career, right, like when I'm really starting to get my feet wet and I'm moving and I'm getting like good connections and I'm making some money, and all of a sudden, you're now twenty nine years old and you're married for ten years, and you now give up your job during that period of time. So now you're thirty nine years old, you're going to get five years of right, that's it. That's
all you're going to get. In family law, you're going to get half of whatever's community whatever that is. That could be nothing, it could be a lot, right, depends on what the lifestyle is at that point. That person
has to make sure that she becomes self supporting. It's forty four years old, right, and that's really hard when you've given up your thirties and you've given up all of this time where you get to like build your career and work and really enhance your income, and now all of a sudden, you've given all of that up
and you get five years of support. That's scary, and it's really scary for clients who come to me and they're like, well, I didn't know I shouldn't give up my job, right, No one ever told me not to give up or a job, or no one ever told me like that I'm only going to get five years
of support. Maybe I should have come up with a post up or an agreement that says, you know, if we get divorced, I'm going to get support longer, because you want me to give up my job, right, you want me to travel the world with you, you want me to take care of the kids, whatever it is, right, And so I really believe that people should learn what the law is and whatever jurisdiction there is right and understand what it means for these type of big decisions,
whether it's like moving out of the state of California, whether it's you know, if you give up your job, or what happens if you inherit money, or what happens if you go un title to a house, like you know, I have people come to me like, oh, well, I'm on title to house. They own half the house. And I'm like, well, okay, when did you go on title to house and they're like last year. I'm like, no, no, no, no,
we don't own half the house. We only own half the appreciation from that time forward, right, so it's not owning half the house. So it's These are important things like before marriage, to understand what the rights and responsibilities are. You know, maybe with the example I told you about the woman who's twenty nine giving up her job, maybe she doesn't give up her job fully and she still stays in the workforce and maybe she works not as hard, but she still stays in the workforce and keeps her
connection and keeps her networking. So if God forbid, I'm knocking on wood, then anything happens, she can like resume back into the workforce, right, you know, and going back in there. Or maybe she comes up with an agreement that says, if you want me to give up my job, I'll do that, but you have to protect me on the financial side of this, right and maybe that's an agreement that we need to have a conversation about. But I think people really need to understand the rights and
obligations in a marriage before before doing it. Like I have clients who come to me and they're like, well, we lived in New York and he wanted to move to California and now I have two kids, but we said we were only going to live here for a few months, and now I want to move back. And they're like, you don't get to move back. You're here with like the kids are in California now, like California is their home state. You know, if you're here for
six months, boom, this is your home state. And they're like, wait, but he told me it was only temporary, and I'm like, oh my gosh. Yeah, so it's like, you know, these are things that are I know a lot of my clients will say to me like, I wish I knew this before I got married, right, I wish I had known this before I got married.
Yeah, No, I completely agree.
I always tell my listeners knowledge is power and totally just need to be completely educated and read on things and ask questions and if you're thinking about getting married any type of question is not a dumb question, and that's something that yeah, just ask an attorney and know what you're what you're getting yourself into.
In other words, you know.
But it has some big sacrifices, right, big consequences. So to me, it's really like you said, getting educated, and again I'm like giving you all this scary stuff. I really believe in a marriage. I really believe, like saying, yourriage is an amazing union, you know, I just believe in it that you have to understand what it means absolutely.
I yep, I couldn't agree more. And I me too.
I just thought it was important to have this conversation because I so many questions. Because also I want to see what I can do personally to avoid and what I can do better. And I feel like I'm on the right track. I think I learned from the first time around. Were you married for the first time? Oh my goodness, not even here. We started having issues maybe six months in. But you know what, I knew.
I knew it wasn't the right thing for me to do.
I just I thought maybe I can change him, you know, and and I take responsibility.
But it did hurt.
It was the most difficult thing I went through, but I learned from it, and like, I do believe in love and I believe in marriage, and I believe.
In in in change.
And I definitely am a different person now because of that situation and I'm able to be a good wife now because I learned from it.
You know.
So it is what it is, but I do I did tell myself that I'm like, I wish I would have known more, you know, And now I'm like, uh, I'm going to read into everything, research it all.
Yep. I think it's important, you know. And and it's so easy to talk to a lawyer, like I know, it's scary that you thought, like, oh, I'm calling a divorced lawyer, but if you think about it, like, you know, help me tell people call me and they're like, look, I'm getting married. Can you just walk me through quickly, like what happens and what I need to be thinking about and what can I can do and what it means. And I spend a little bit on the phone with them,
and it's it's easy. It's a privileged conversation. No one knows about it. It's private, and there's nothing to lose.
There's nothing to lose exactly.
I see a lot of people like, you don't need an agreement, like, if this is your goals in a marriage, here's what to do and here's how you protect yourself. Then there's other people I'm like, well, if this is your goal, then you do need an agreement to modify the law and you need to start thinking about having to have a conversation with your fiance about it. Right, But at least that person's informed now.
Yeah, And I have.
A question if a couple doesn't want to necessarily go through attorneys or something like that and create an agreement, can they do it like on a video and say, Hi, my name is blah blah blah, and I agree to this.
Does that is that valid in court?
No, you need to have like a written agreement. There's certain like rules.
Yeah.
I mean, look, there's a lot of times we can you know, people can work as a mediator too, helping people navigate prenups. But it's really important to have like your own representation, your own advice. Like it's an important contract. It's like really one of the biggest financial decisions people make. So I would definitely do it with independent lawyers, do it legally guys.
Okay, so my last question, it's a little bit of a nosy one, but I was very curious about this because and I'm just using them as an example, but I did hear in their prenup that, you know, jay Z and Beyonce.
I don't know if this is true, guys.
I got the information just like everyone else on social media, but that they had in their prenup that if he were to ever be in faithful that he would have to pay X amount of money or something like that. Is that Can you do that in a prenup? Okay, I'm like, there's no way. I mean, I'm like, I have to ask her because when I heard that, I'm like, that sounds kind of crazy.
No. I mean, look, in California. I can't tell you about every other jurisdiction, but in California we have been what's called a no FLT state policy, So people can get divorced and it makes no difference if you've had an affair or done you know, yeah, certain things, and so you can't do a prenup that says you have to pay more money if you're unfaithful or anything like that.
Okay, Okay, yeah, just wondering because I have a friend that is getting divorced and she was unfaithful, and he was going to try to use that. But I'm like, oh wait, you're in California, I heard. But then that's why I was like, let me ask Christina to see if that's valid.
Now, the only thing you can do is if let's assume you and I were married and I spent a significant amount of money on somebody else, right like hotel rooms, restaurants, gifts, vacations, you would have the right to ask me to reimburse the community for those expenses because it's a misappropriation of community money. But it doesn't other than a reimbursement to the community. There's no penalty in California for having an affair.
Okay, Okay, got it. Thank you for cleaning that up. I appreciate that. Okay, I mean, Christine, I've had an amazing conversation. I'm sure the listeners are going to learn a lot and very and enjoy the episode very much. I don't know if you have if you'd like to share your website where people can find you if they have any other questions.
I think it would just look at my name. I meant. You know, I'm a co chair of the matrimonial group at Blank Rome, so I think that would be the best. And it's like, I really, you know, it's I have to come off of this balance because I so believe in the concept of marriage. I think it's such an
amazing partnership. Yeah, but I also think people need to be a little scared and be knowledgeable about it, you know, like you sometimes when you kind of put a little fear in people, they're like, oh wait, maybe I need to think about that, right, and maybe I need to understand that. And to me, that may motivate them to learn, and the more learning they have, the better it is.
Yes, I completely agree, and there you guys, do you have it. If you're thinking about getting married, definitely ask questions. Do your research, speak to an attorney so that you know exactly what you're walking into, you know, Zachly, Yeah, you guys, thank you so much for listening. Thank you Christina again for your time and for your knowledge. I appreciate it. And I will catch you guys on the next episode of Cheeky's and Chill. I hope you guys
enjoyed this one. This is a production of iHeartRadio and the Micaeldura podcast Network. Follow us on Instagram at Michael Doura Podcasts and follow me Cheeky's That's c h i q u i s. For more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcast