Contracts of Love & Money That Make or Break Relationships | James Sexton

Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for every day. I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is James Sexton. James Sexton is a renowned attorney with over 25 years of experience in family law, specializing in prenuptial agreements and divorces.

He is known as what many call the voice of reason between love and legal. Today, we discuss something that might seem counterintuitive, which is how the legal frameworks and contracts surrounding relationships, particularly prenuptial agreements, can actually deepen emotional connection and build trust between partners.

As James points out, intimacy and trust are fundamentally about the ability to be your true self with your partner and them with you. It's about allowing ourselves to be vulnerable. It's also about having a same team spirit, of course, respect for one another and admiration for each other's unique qualities.

Today, we explore how prenuptial agreements, which most often are viewed as being unromantic or pessimistic, can actually serve as ways to establish a sense of safety for both people and prevent many common conflicts and misunderstandings. As James puts it, everyone has a prenup. You either have one that was created by the state legislature or you can tailor one to you and your partner's unique needs.

He also points out something that many people will find surprising, which is that the vast majority of people who do prenups stay married, and yet most people opt not to do them. We also discussed love itself and the key questions that we all need to ask to find the right partner, and if you have one, to build the strongest possible bonds with them. The information in today's episode is going to be extremely important for anyone looking for or currently in a relationship.

Whether you're single, dating, engaged, or married, Understanding how the legal and emotional frameworks that support lasting relationships intersect can help you navigate one of life's most rewarding but challenging journeys with much greater awareness and intention and probability of success. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford.

It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, this episode does include sponsors. And now for my discussion with James Sexton. Jim Sexton, welcome. Thank you. It's good to be here.

And wanting to do this for a while. I know, it's a long time in the making, yeah. I think if two guys sit down, one of them a lawyer, who's known as a divorce lawyer, and they're talking about divorce and love and money and contracts and the ending of things. I think there's a understandable default mindset where the female half of our audience are probably going to think, like, hear a couple guys talking about relationships and divorce through the lens of their Y chromosomes. Which, of course.

It's impossible to avoid completely because I haven't done the karyotyping, but you have a Y chromosome and I do as well. I would like to know, in your experience working with male clients and female clients, is there something unique to the female experience of divorce? Or the female experience of realizing, wow, this contract that I thought was for life. may not or is it not for life. that sort of drives a kind of female-specific...

set of psychological responses. Here, I'm basically asking for a generalization. And I want to be clear, I'm not asking this for politically correct reasons. I'm asking this because... Like I said, two guys sitting down to talk about relationships, love and divorce. Yeah. It's kind of where the mind goes. Yeah. And I mean, before I would get. Before I would get canceled in the comments for being misandrist or misogynist, I always try to say that the things I'm observing...

are a function of having divorced thousands of people, you know, men and women. Like for 25 years, I've done nothing but divorce law on a full-time basis. And I mean it on a truly full-time basis. I wake up in the morning thinking about this stuff. I go to bed thinking about this stuff. I work six, seven days a week. That's why I'm divorced. I really, really love the work.

And so all the things I'm saying are really just my observations. So, you know, in response to that question, I think the world... relates to divorced men and divorced women differently. And I think people's self-conception, right, is very different. So I often tell my male clients when we're dealing with, you know, a custody case.

which is arguments over when a child is going to live with whom and when they're going to spend time with whom. And there was this concept called the maternal presumption, which was around legally for years, or something called the tender years doctrine. It's called different things in different states. But it was around until probably the 1980s. And that was that a child was assumed to stay in the custody of the mother unless you could prove she was an unfit mother.

So men were automatically second class when it came to being. So it was automatic. It was the default. Now, of course, in the 80s, there was a different makeup of the workforce. There was a different gender roles, obviously, in terms of assignment of child care responsibilities. It was a different world.

But that was eradicated in the 1980s. And the bench, even, the judges have changed dramatically. When I started practicing 25 years ago, 90% of the judges I appeared in front of were old white men, period. Like, that was it. It was old white. And so I got in the habit of like have a short haircut, hide the tattoos, like look like you're coming out of the set of Inherit the Wind. Like look like you are what, you know, because you got a conservative old man as your judge.

That is not the makeup of the bench anymore. The bench now is as diverse as the people that it serves. So one of the things, though, that I tell my male clients is even though that maternal presumption is gone. Women fight harder for custody. Really? I'd love to say to you that it's because the maternal instinct and bond is so strong that women just care about their kids and they want custody. I don't really believe it's that. I think it's the following.

just met normal life right like we're just out at a bar And I sit up and you say, so Jim, tell me about yourself. And I say, well, I'm divorced. My kids live with their mom. I see them every other weekend and once a week for dinner. He would go, okay, cool. Jim's a divorced guy. You know, he's working. He does his thing. And I say, I have two kids. They live with their father. I see them every other weekend. You go, what is wrong with this one? Is she?

substance use issues, mental health issues. Like, why does he have custody of the kids? Why doesn't she have custody of her kids? So there is an element. Motherhood is perceived as an identity, even for a working woman, that it's like if you don't have your kids on a full-time or close to full-time basis. There's this perception. So that infuses, that changes the way that women are in custody litigation. That's a huge piece.

You know, the gender stuff in divorce and in breakups is really interesting and complicated in the sense that, for example, if a man cheats on his wife, he's a piece of shit. Can't keep it in his pants. He's a child. Why couldn't he be honest? A woman cheats on her husband.

She was driven into the arms of another man. He wasn't meeting her needs. This was her journey of self-discovery. Like, see it in popular media. Like, watch any film, any TV show. When the man sheets, it's like he's a lecherous guy. The woman cheats. It's like, oh, this poor woman. Like, she needed to find herself. She needed, like, her eat, pray, love moment. And so that's, again, like the way the world interacts with people in breakups and in the clay that builds to the breakup.

is very different. So how people react to it is very different. Men, in my experience as clients, that, you know, manifests in very honest ways, like very blunt ways, like very, you know, because men are, you know, Bill Burr recently in one of his recent specials, this thing about men are allowed to be two things, angry or fine.

That's it. Like angry or fine. And that's, and I used to always say that growing up, you know, I'm 52. Like growing up, I had two choices. You're either Clint Eastwood or Richard Simmons. Those were your two choices as a man. You were either like. Stoic, you know, stony, no emotion, or gay. That was it. Those were like your two choices.

Of course, it's totally dishonest. Of course, the reality is, is men have a different, you know, we have an emotional vocabulary. It just expresses in different ways. But anger is something men are allowed to have. So when men are sad, they seem angry. When men are angry, they seem angry. My experience of women in divorce is they're much more forgiving in unhappy marriages. They're much more willing to stay in relatively unhappy marriages and sort of torture their partner.

And then when they've decided, okay, I'm out. There is a level of like, yeah, whatever we got to do, we got to do. Like that. sometimes to me as someone who does this for a living is like, oh, oh, okay. Like you're. You're just willing to go there. Like mercenary. Yeah. And you look at the history of the marriage and you go, wow, when they were together.

There's nothing she wouldn't do for him. And now it's ending, and man, there's nothing she won't do to him. Like, she is just weaponized on him. And it's kind of – it used to be surprising to me. It's not really surprising to me anymore. I think – I have a friend who was a criminal lawyer for many years, criminal defense attorney, really good one in the city.

And we used to laugh because he used to say as a criminal lawyer, he sees bad people at their best. And as a divorce lawyer, I see good people at their worst. And it's always astounding to me because... i've reached a level in my career thankfully where i represent elite athletes i represent you know people in the financial markets who literally move markets with their trade People in entertainment industry. And they are as bad at this as.

Like they're as bad at relationships. They're as bad at heartbreak as anybody. So, you know, there were differences in the gender piece. There are differences in the socioeconomic piece. But at the end of the day, it's like it's hurt people hurting people. And it kind of looks roughly the same. It's very interesting. And there's a lot in there. I want to return to this sort of divergent response to men cheating versus women cheating a little bit later.

Super interesting area for exploration. I feel like I have a PhD in infidelity because it's just, it's part of like 90 plus percent. Is that true? In some form, yeah. Really? Well, it's why people, I think... You know, mistake correlation for causation. I mean, people all the time are like, you know, why are you getting divorced? Because he's sleeping with his secretary. And it's like, oh, that's a pretty good reason to get divorced.

scratched the surface you're like okay but why is he sleeping with his secretary And there's almost always this very deep backstory of like, well, we stopped sleeping together. Why do we stop sleeping? Well, because he's unkind to me. Well, why is he unkind to you? Well, because you're totally indifferent to me.

And you start to go, OK, the truth's at the bottom of a bottomless pit and we're never going to get there. Like, and all of those facts come with a point of view. So when you do what I do for a living, which is, you know, full contact storytelling. in a courtroom against someone who's trying to tell the opposite story. You find a lot of what you're doing is just figuring out how to present the most persuasive version of this person's subjective experience of their own.

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I'm fascinated by contracts. In the world of business, my business partner and I that started this podcast, I insisted that... We take an even split. That was important to me. It's absolutely critical because this podcast wouldn't be what it is without him and his incredible expertise. He is the genius behind it all.

Our initial contract... was on a piece of paper in a little coffee shop in manhattan where i said how about this how about this and we discussed it people like you give lawyers like we get hives like you say that i instantly start like you know six months later

uh, or so a lawyer told us we had to get a real contract and we did it. Um, and I have to say it was fine and I'm glad we have contracts, but to me, all contracts, whether or not it's a scribble on a piece of paper or it's a formal contract. Contracts make me feel safe. they made me feel good i like rules and guidelines um i like knowing what's going to happen

For a scientist, this doesn't really exist. You like to think you can control outcomes, but you can't, and you acknowledge that, and you go into the unknown. So contracts are very reassuring to me. I want to talk about the contract of marriage first. Yeah. And what you think is going through people's mind when they.

There's a lot of love. Hopefully there's a lot of love. Hopefully there's a lot of dopamine. That's a wonderful thing. Presumably there's a lot of pheromones. There's a lot of emotional and biological stuff happening. Sure. There's the recognition from others. There's the party. There's the bachelor party, the bachelorette party, the shower, the wedding. I mean, there's so many things reinforcing this bond. And every one of the things you just named are off.

They're great. Like those are all positive things. Like from the cake to the bachelor party, bachelorette party, to the dress. to the way we're going to have photos taken to commemorate the moment and sort of have this snapshot in time of who we were and who our families were.

All of that, how could you not cheer for that? Like, it's phenomenal. All of that sounds great. It's like, you know, like, oh, I like this ice cream. What's not to like? It's ice cream. Of course you like ice cream. Yeah, to me, it's celebration of life. Yeah. You know, it's very different than the birth of a child, but it's this. Each one of those is a celebration of...

the life spirit. Yeah, and your place in the timeline and the history and the merging of families, the merging of clans, like the, and sort of this, we're going to merge now and maybe new life comes of that. And then that life merges with more life and we become part of this chain. Like, this is gorgeous stuff. And this is the fundamental building blocks of human civilization.

It is perfectly understandable that we get absolutely intoxicated by the thought of it and that we get so hopped up. But here's what people don't think about. The term contract never gets into that discussion. I'm telling you right now, right now someone's getting married somewhere and they've never, the word contracts never come out of there. They don't view marriage as a contract. The two things that I as a divorce lawyer I'm constantly thinking about is

and marriage as a contract. And those are two. The minute you say that, people assume you don't believe in or experience emotionally any of those other beautiful things you just said. And I think 90% of the appeal of my media work in this chapter of my life has been that people go, oh, a divorce lawyer, this is just going to be a guy talking about how marriage is the worst thing ever. And in reality, I think what I'm saying is...

Look, this is amazing. This is wonderful. Why wouldn't you fall in love? Why wouldn't you have pair bonds? Why wouldn't you consider locking in with another person and say, but. My God, be honest with yourself about the risks involved. Be honest with yourself about the ways you can hedge that risk. And be honest with yourself about the contract and the economy. Because those are two things that I do not think.

that there is anything unromantic. I don't think it takes away from the romance or the beauty of a thing. You know, I often... Say, you know, my favorite poem is a poem by Joseph Brodsky called A Song. And he wrote it when his wife passed away. And it's a beautiful poem about love and loss.

And the sort of refrain of the poem is, I wish you were here, dear. Like, I wish you were here, dear. I wish you were here. I wish we sat in the car and you sat near. It's this beautiful poem. And one of the lines is, I wish you were here, dear. I wish you were here. I wish I knew no astronomy when stars appear. And I remember the first time I read that line thinking like, oh, that's so beautiful. Because once you know astronomy, like...

There's something less magical about the stars. Is there? I mean— Well, I don't know. See, I don't believe it has to be that way. Yeah, I don't either. The great Richard Feynman, Nobel Prize-winning physicist of Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman fame. said that understanding things at a reductionist level added to his...

a sense of beauty with the physical world. And I think it can. I mean, that's my sense of biology and physiology and what I know of psychology. Understanding the deeper layers adds to my sense of wonder. But I acknowledge and agree with you completely that for most people... When we think about all those things around marriage, the engagement, the wedding, the party.

They all imply a ton of trust. I believe in you. I have faith in you. I'm going to merge lives with you. The word contract implies somewhere in there. a lack of trust. I gave this little anecdote about something very different than marriage, right? A business contract with my business partner, where when they said, oh, you need to have a formal contract. There is something about that that implies that things could go wrong or that there will be unforeseen circumstances that.

Our verbal contract can't anticipate and won't allow us to navigate as business partners. And there's, again, far and away different, arguably lesser example than a marriage contract, which is a much bigger life milestone. But I think what you're... a point you're making that I think I would slightly reframe is the following.

There is a contract that binds you and your business partner. It was written by the legislature of the state So do you want your relationship with this person governed by a contract you didn't write, you had no input in, and the government can change without your consent or knowledge?

And by the way, once they've changed it, you can't say, oh, I don't like the new rules, so I don't want those to apply. Yeah, too late. Too late. So I tell everyone, you have a prenup. Every married person has a prenup. It was either written by the government or written by the two people who allegedly love each other more than the other 8 billion other options in the world. Now, if you ask me, who is going to write a better contract?

Unnamed politicians who are subject to being elected and unelected. Or two people who have an abundance of optimism towards each other. Like, there's a rule set. There's a rule set. And if you're signing up for a rule set you wrote or co-authored with your partner. I think you're in a better place than saying, let's trust it to the government. I have to tell you, I've been to the DMV. I've never walked into the DMV and thought,

These people should be in charge of everything. This is great. They have got it down. Like this is, they should be in charge of my marriage. They should be in charge of everything, my business dealings. They should be the ones who make the rules because they're clearly so together in their thinking. I don't feel that way. I feel like there is tremendous value in the level of trust.

and optimism that two people at the beginning of a venture, whether that venture is a marriage or whether that venture is a business venture. While we're in this heavy space of optimism, excitement, trust in each other, that's the time to say, hey, we're going to disagree about something. It happens. It may be my fault. I say dumb shit. I say dumb shit all the time. So I'll probably say something that's going to upset you. So why would you learn how to fight while you're in a fight?

Like learn how to fight before you get in a fight. Learn the rules. Have a discussion about, hey, if we disagree, what's the best way? Do you need a minute? Do you need some time to yourself to like kind of cool off? Or are you the kind of person that's like, no, we got to sort this out right now. I can't go to bed angry. I'll fester. So that to me. The right mindset is not faith and trust or contract.

I think that's the totally wrong way to frame it. I think the right way to frame it is there's a contract. Whether you want to call it a contract or not, just like there's an economy. An economy is an exchange of value. You know, this many bananas is worth this many coconuts. Because if it was, how many bananas will you trade me for bananas? That's not an economy. Like, we're not bringing the same thing to the table.

So it's the same thing. Why is it a dirty word to say, hey, I'm marrying you. Why? What do I bring to your life? What do I mean to you? What value do I present to you? And what value do you present to me so I know what to protect and preserve? You know, so I know like when that slips. to start talking to you about it. And by the way, you can tell me and remind me when, hey,

This thing I loved about you has changed. So like you talked about all these good things about your business partner, like, oh, he has this vision or he has this. patience or he has this organizational skill and he makes up for some things that I don't have. Like if you just said, oh yeah, he has the exact same characteristics as me. It's like, well, what do you need?

You know, it's many hands like work, maybe. But ideally, you have the Steve Jobs and the Steve Wozniak, you know, either of whom without the other would have been kind of, eh. But together, it's like lightning in a bottle. I just genuinely think framing this slightly differently and saying there's going to be a rule set. So we are the best people to write that. That's the way to look at it. Yeah. The way you were framing the contract of marriage and prenup.

because you're putting a positive emotional lens on it, right? Sure. Two people who love each other, therefore let's discuss the contract of love and marriage. Yeah. Two people that are committed to creating perhaps children together and a whole life together, creating together lineages. Let's get a contract to really solidify this. What do we owe each other? You know, what do we owe each other? That's a huge

for me. It's like, why are we doing this? What is the problem we seek to solve? Or what is the value we add to each other's lives? That's such a beautiful question. And by the way, it's an invitation to such an intimate discussion. These are the things that you make me feel. These are the things you do that make me feel that way. You make me feel love. When you remember that tea that I like.

and you make sure that it's here, you know, or, oh, when you, you know, remembered it was my sister's birthday and sent her a text and then sent me a screenshot. Like, these are these dumb little things that make us feel so loved and seen. So why wouldn't we? embrace an opportunity to say to this person, by the way, like, do you know what I love about you? Do you know what you do that makes me feel so loved and makes me feel so in love with you? Because that's a worthy conversation.

The way you're framing this, I think, is entirely different than how most people would envision a discussion about a prenup. I think that's true. Which I really appreciate, and I know the audience appreciates too, because you're putting a different lens on things. I'm going to just put on my hat as a neuroscientist and biologist for a moment. I think there are certain words that people, for whatever reason,

Consider kind of a buzzkill. Like we're talking about pheromones and love and children and romance and sex and vacations and honeymoons and parties. And then someone says contract. Yeah. And somebody says. You know, finances, which, you know, maybe that turns certain people on. I guess people in the finance world probably turns them on.

But do you get where I'm coming from? I do, yeah. I have to assume it's a different brain circuit. I think it probably is. What you're doing is you're coming at this from a different perspective, which is part of the reason why you're here, is that you're saying this discussion. around a prenup contract. can potentially shed more light into the nature of the bond and maybe even deepen the connection. Of course. And I will tell you, I've been doing prenuptial agreements for 25 years.

And I usually end up having a very good relationship with the person I do a prenup. up with because you're talking a lot about their fears, their hopes. Is it one person or both? I wanted to ask this. One at a time. So each of you has your own lawyer. Each of you has your own attorney. You cannot, as a lawyer, represent both people because they have what's called potentially adverse interests. And what if one person has?

substantially more income to hire a better lawyer, assuming that more money gets you a better lawyer, I have to assume on average it does, than the other. Yeah, it's unfortunate. It's an unfortunate thing. I mean, one of the... Projects I've been involved in in the last couple of months is a website, trustedprenup.com. I worked with a couple of tech people to put together something that's going to democratize prenups. Because up until now, prenups have been something that...

Yeah, you spend $5,000, $10,000, $15,000 for a traditional lawyer to draft for you, and then your fiancé brings it. to an attorney to review and then they want to make revisions. And it sort of walks into this adversarial process as opposed to sort of democratizing prenups. So what we are trying to do is sort of leverage technological innovation, AI.

hundreds of prenups I've drafted, we sort of fed into this to create the ability for you to go online and to create a prenup for like in the realm of $600, $700. That would be a game changer. It's really an opportunity, but the purpose of it... As far as I'm concerned is not just to democratize prenups, which I think we have to do, but to really reframe the way we look at it. Because people come in all the time and they're like, well, I don't know if I need a prenup because I'm not wealthy.

And you say, well, you're still going to have a rule set applied to your marriage. And actually, if you're super wealthy, like most of my clients. they can afford to buy six more houses. Like, you keep the house, I'll buy another house down the street, and then we'll buy another house for the kids, and then we'll visit with them in that house. Like, that's actually called nesting. That's a thing.

That's nesting? When I was coming up, nesting meant something very different. Nesting now is when you each have your own home and then one home is just where the kids live. And instead of doing a custodial rotation where the kids go back and forth between homes. The kids have a home, and the parent who has parenting access during that time is in the nest with the kids. When I was in college, nesting was when you got a table.

Yeah, it's a very, it's a very, you know, the rich divorce in different ways than the normal general popular. And so that's why we're trying to say, look, bring this, democratize this, bring this to be, let people develop a rule set. Because especially, too, when you have scarcity.

Like most people can't afford to give away one half of everything they have and still have enough to function. Most people are going paycheck to paycheck. Most people are a couple of paychecks off from being in bankruptcy if things don't go the right way. So when they divorce, and now we have two electric bills and two internet bills and two...

That's something most people can't do. So all the more reason for people to have a rule set that the two of them created, again, when they were feeling positive and benevolent and optimistic towards each other, and they were trying to protect you. To me, personally, I don't know how you can feel loved if you don't feel safe. Like, I think you have to feel safe, emotionally safe, physically safe. Like, if you're afraid of your partner, emotionally, physically, how can you really feel loved?

So to me, the prenup is an invitation to, A, can we talk about hard things? Because I'll tell you right now, when somebody says to me, well, I would do a prenup, I know it would be good. But, you know, that's just going to be a hard conversation. Don't get married.

If you can't have hard conversations with a person, you have absolutely no business marrying them. I mean, it's good for me as a future income stream, but I'm telling you, I don't think it's a good idea. Like you're going to have to talk about hard things. And you're going to have to have uncomfortable truths instead of comfortable lies to this person.

You know, so I'm a big fan of early on in the process, having those conversations. And again, it doesn't all have to be like, you know, the conversation, like when you talk about your will.

That's a hard conversation. Like there's no upside to being dead, you know, like other than being off social media. Like there's no upside to it. So I understand why people are like, it's really hard to think about like if I die and if both of us die, what do we do with the kids? Like that's a hard conversation.

But look, if we break up, what would you need to feel safe? Like, would you, you know, there's a line from a Prince song, If I Was Your Girlfriend, and it is, would you run to me if somebody hurt you, even if that somebody was me? And I think there's something really sweet about saying to someone like, hey, if I hurt you, like how can I still have you feel safe? Like how can I have you still feel loved? Like I don't think that.

You know, when I meet someone and their exes are like, they just have painted them as a villain, like with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. And that's frequent. You know, it's frequent. And to me, that says a lot about, like, the core values of both of these people. You know, I think there's real value in saying to someone early on, like, hey, if I heard...

What are you going to need from me? Like, what do we need to be made whole? How can we both feel safe in this relationship? That's what those discussions are about. Like throwing the words contracts, throwing the words economy in there. I understand. Like, I think you're totally right. There's something about those words. But I think reality can be beautiful. I don't think like.

I don't think you have to CGI everything for it to be perfect. I think it's perfect. I think it's already perfect. There's something very... perfect about how imperfect and flawed and frightened we are. And I think there's something really beautiful about finding someone that you can be that with. And I don't think I can learn everything I need to know about myself from myself. Like, I think I need someone there, ideally someone who really loves me and is cheering for me and sees my blind spot.

And I think the conversation about a prenup, that's what that conversation should be. It's fantastic. I love the way you lean into life in all its light and shadows and say, okay, let's accept all of that right off the bat. and figure out what's going to give this the highest probability of working. Well, it's reality. I've never thought about prenups as a way to bolster. the probability of the marriage working. Well, I'm telling you, and I got sidetracked as I tend to do, but...

I've done probably hundreds, if not thousands, of prenups over 25 years. I think there may be five people that I did their divorce after they had a prenup. Really? Yeah. I think people need to hear that again. I think that, yeah. So I've done... hundreds, if not at least a thousand prenups in 25 years. I probably do two or three prenups a week. So I do a lot of prenups. Most of my colleagues do a lot.

And I've never asked my colleagues this, but, you know, usually when you do a prenup, you have a good relationship with the person by the time it's finished. It's a transaction people feel good about. It's a divorce. Sometimes you finish a divorce and the person's like, oh my God, I never want to see you again because you remind me of this really dark chapter. But prenups, it's usually a very friendly transaction. It's positive.

This is surprising to me. So people who prenup tend not to break up. Yes, that rhyme. Yes. I think many people will be very surprised to hear that. I think it's self-selecting. I think the kind of people who can have a conversation. that you need to have in order to discuss and negotiate. And again, there's another term. I don't think it's the right term, negotiate a prenup. Negotiate gives the impression it's like you're buying a car, you know?

The kind of people who can have the conversations you need to have in order to have a prenuptial agreement, I think are the kind of people that are going to be successfully married, period. Like there's something about that, that. I'm not going to talk about a prenup because I don't want to talk about the possibility that anything could ever go wrong with this thing. It's perfect. It's wonderful. It's cake. It's roses. It's nothing but romance and sex and it's wonderful. Okay.

You got no, listen, falling feels like flying for a little while, you know, and then you hit the ground and it is waiting for you. And if the first time. You ever think about what legal rights and obligations do I have is when you're in my office? Like, you're already screwed. You're already screwed. You did nothing to prepare emotionally, financially, you know, nothing. So there's something about...

The imagination, right? That people, if you're just the kind of person who's like, I don't even want to talk. I actually met, I had a, they'll remain nameless, but it was a neighbor. And I tried to, every once in a while, I get it in my head that I'm going to like try to be a more social person. So I'm like, oh, I should like invite the neighbor over for a drink, you know, a couple. And they don't live near me anymore, so I can get away with it now. But I invited these people over for a drink.

and they came over lovely people but at some point she said oh you know i don't know how you do what you do like we don't we don't allow the d word And I was like, what do you mean? She's like, no, no, you're not allowed to say the word divorce in our house. And she said it like divorce like she was saying Voldemort. You know, she was like, we don't say the D.

And I thought to myself, if only it was that easy. You know, by the way, got divorced like three years later. Really? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. 100%. And like knock down, drag out. brutal. Both of them tried to call me and hire me, you know, and I will not represent people that I know in any capacity. And I just remember thinking, like, that is such a, what a delusion. Like, that I'm never going to say the word. Like, what are you, my great-grandmother?

like a speaking volume, suddenly like tumors will develop. Like, are you that superstitious? Like, do you believe, you know, do you believe in Chewbacca too? Like, that's crazy. I mean, superstition is a form of paranoia. Yeah. It's a mild form of paranoia, but it's a form of paranoia. Of course. Yeah. But I think it's, you know, I say all the time that I think most of our attitudes about marriage. have been just handed down like it's just it's this is something that like marriage

You could be the most like modern Bella Abzug feminist person. And a lot of women are like, oh yeah, I still want my dad to walk me down the aisle and give me away. Give you away? Like seriously? Like you're a C-suite executive at a software company and he's going to trade you for what, goat?

Like this is going to be because you are your father's property and now you will be the property and he will give you away to your husband and you'll now be his property. That's where that tradition comes from, gang. What do you think? The psychological underpinnings of. some sort of internal validation of worth, external validation of worth. I mean, none of it computes for me when I look at, you know, like you said, like, let's say these are extreme examples, but C-suite female executive.

Let's make her a founder also. These exist. I'm from the Bay Area. There are plenty of them. I represent a few of them. Yeah. Soon to be husband's last name. Interesting. Not always. 100%. That's far more common than men taking their wives. Oh, yeah. Actually, I can't even think of a single instance. I've had a few that hyphenate. That's a new thing. Oh, evolutionary biologists do that. It used to be all the evolutionary biologists do that. Most give the kids the husband's name.

Most give the kids the husband's name. And again, I don't know if that's a male thing that like men are like, that's my kid. They're going to have my name. I really don't know. But yeah, there's a lot of the feminism gets thrown out the window. Another one is that in divorces, I've observed this, I don't have statistics on this, but. their ex-husband's last name because What I was told is they want to have the same last name as their kids. That's pretty common.

which is understandable. Yeah, yeah. But of course, the kids could switch last names. It eliminates a certain level of confusion because at school, like to say, you know, like this is my name, the kid's name is different. So that piece I get, I absolutely get. I also, and by the way, I have clients, because you don't have to change your name back, but you have the right to. And I have male clients who like want their name back.

Like I want her to no longer be allowed to use that name. And I have to explain to them. That's the kind of funny. You can't force. her to not have your name. He's like, well, that's my name. And I'm like, you understand, I can change my, as long as you're not doing it for the intent of defrauding creditors, anyone can change, I can change my name to Andrew Huberman tomorrow.

If I want to, as long as I'm not doing it to defraud my creditors. You'll get a lot more problems than it's worth. I'd be Mrs. Huberman. That's very fun. It's very fun. Oh my goodness. No, you'd be Andrew Huberman, and that comes with a certain number of live. Yeah, that sounds exhausting. I don't think I can handle it. It's full-time fun. I can't do that. I can't bench that much either. Full-time fun. No, just kidding. In all seriousness.

Wow. People have asked for their name back. Yeah. They want her prohibited from having her name. And even though the kids have that name. But again, that's that anger thing. Like that's just a pure expression of anger. And I get it. You know, a lot of what I do is sort of. helping people get to the core of, like, what are they really upset about? And that's a lot of what my job is. Like, my undergraduate degree was in psychology, my master's.

and specifically in the study of death and dying. And then my law degree, I wanted to be a divorce lawyer as soon as I started law school. And I think I use the psych degree as much as I use the law degree because it's so much of what I do is just dealing with people when they're in this very heightened emotional state. Like, I'm a fan of faith.

but just not blind faith. Like, I'm a fan of fairy tales. If the fairy tales inspire something in you, that's incredible. Like, if you say to me, you know, Jim, I love Star Wars. Like the struggle of the Jedi against the Empire, like it inspires me to want to be a disciplined person and to fight for good and to, you know, not be afraid of evil and to know.

That's a beautiful story. If you try to tell me Wookiees are real, though, like, we've got a problem, man. You got to get checked out. Like, that's not okay. That's not true. The divorce rate's 56%. So 56% of the time, this technology failed. 56. 56. Yeah, it changes every year, but 56 is the divorce rate currently, okay? So 56% of marriages end in divorce.

Is that true, excuse me, in Europe as well? And South America as well? And Australia as well? Every country, the statistics are different. The United States does not have, you can actually look this up online. There's a great, there's like a running tally that's kept. But the highest divorce rates are in, I believe Italy is currently winning that rate.

Ireland was at the bottom because basically divorce was not possible in Ireland for an extended period of time. Countries that have a very strong underlying religious narrative like Sharia law and things like that. Obviously have a very low divorce rate, but it varies in terms of – but countries that are – i don't want to say you know like very modern you know where there's been a proliferation of social media where there is a open

information environment so people can compare themselves to other people constantly? Not North Korea. Not North Korea. Great example. Yes. That there is a sense of – because actually even North Korea like has an underlying religious narrative. It's just that they've decided that they're – or they've been told their leader is a god. You know, so I think when you don't have a core foundational religious narrative that prohibits divorce as part of its structure.

then you're left to people's desires to some degree and the cultural foundations of it and tradition, right? And tradition, for many, many years, tradition was you stay married even if you're unhappy. And then tradition in the 1970s and 1980s started turning into your happiness is more important.

than the institution of marriage. So if you're unhappy, you might need to leave your marriage and get divorced. And that's when the divorce rate started to spike, right? So, and I think there's some value to that. You know, tradition is in some ways like the wisdom of the people before us and they saw things we might not see. And to some degree, tradition is peer pressure exerted by dead people. So I think our fascination with marriage as this.

I found my soulmate, and now we're not even going to think about the possibility of us ending, even though fully 56% of the time the thing's going to end. That's the part I can't wrap my head around. And again, look at the numbers there. Like, let's assume conservative... that another 10% stay together for the kids. Because the 56 is just the ones who actually said, this is so bad, we're getting lawyers and we're ending this thing.

Like, how many people stay together for the kids or religious reasons or because they don't want to give away half their shit? Like, that's got to be a big number. I mean, conservative 10%. I think it's more than that. 20%? Definitely more. And these are first marriages? First marriages. The statistics for each subsequent marriage, the divorce rate gets much higher.

So like by the time— Really? Second marriage is higher than first marriage. Third marriage is much higher. Interesting. And then once you get past three, it's like you're— All the divorced people in my family remarried and have been in those second marriages very long periods of time. I know a lot of very happy second married people. And still together, very happy. Yes, and I think there's value to that because I do think as a divorced person.

you learn a lot about yourself through the process of divorce. You learn a lot about what you don't want to do again in a relationship and what didn't work for you. I don't do anything perfectly the first time I do it. So I think that there's value in sort of giving something a try. Like you don't learn how to swim by reading books about swimming. You learn how to swim in the pool.

So that's why I'm a fan of marriage, even though the divorce rate is very high. It's clearly a very risky technology. One could argue it's a reckless thing to do. I mean the legal definition of negligence is a failure to perceive a substantial and unjustifiable risk of serious harm, okay? Recklessness, legally, is a conscious disregard for a substantial and unjustifiable risk of serious harm, okay?

So if you know something ends in heartbreak and division of assets and fighting that requires attorneys, 56% of the time. And you don't make any plan for that in advance. You're consciously disregarding a substantial risk of harm, period. Yeah, and if there's kids, it brings them into the bomb blast. Kind of, yeah, an even higher level, yeah. Do you happen to know the numbers or the rough numbers on percentage of first marriages with kids?

Whether or not they're happy or not. I don't. I don't know that delineation. I mean, I know that these statistics are fairly closely tracked. So you can find them out online pretty easily because they're tracked by the government. Every time we do a divorce. we have to file what's called a Certificate of the Solution of Marriage. And that certificate includes the grade level.

the highest grade level each person completed, whether there are children, how many children, the ages of the children. And the whole purpose of that document is to compile demographic information. So the government for many, many years has been monitoring this and looking at, you know, okay, what are those numbers? Those numbers are not well publicized.

I think partly because the wedding industrial complex does not want people getting involved in that conversation. Like, you don't want people to really... look at the truth of things because it takes away from the fantasy of things. But see, again, I think that's a framing issue because to me, I think, you know, the stars are still beautiful even if you know astronomy. Like, I think... If anything, I actually think, and maybe this is just the way that I look at things.

The fact that love is lone. makes it more beautiful. Like the fact that I'm going to die. for sure, makes my life more beautiful. There's a finite number of sunsets I'm going to see. There's a number. I don't know it yet. It might be five. It might be 500. But there's a number, right? And so when you're with someone, that marriage is going to end. Every marriage ends. It ends in death.

or in divorce. It's one of the only things in the world that you go, I hope this ends in death. Like if you said to someone at their wedding, like, man, I really hope your marriage ends in death. They would be like, what is wrong with that guy? But it's the truth because all marriages end, they end in death or divorce. I hope that yours ends in death.

I don't think that makes it less beautiful. I think it makes it more beautiful that every day this person wakes up and decides to continue to be your spouse and to continue to be your partner and ideally your cheerleader and your fan. The fact that you don't own this person, that they have free will, they have autonomy and agency, and they choose you, not just on one day where you put on nice clothes and played good music and everybody got drunk.

which is there's value in that and the memory of that and the photos of that and a reminder. But like the fact that they every day get up and continue to choose to be with you like that. And if you said to me that the reason why they stay with you is they don't want to get divorced. Like, that's a terrible reason, you know? I was a smoker many, many years ago.

You know, people used to say like, oh, you got to quit smoking. You know, it's going to take 10 years off your life. And I'm like, right, like the last 10. Like the adult diaper-wearing years, I don't want them anyway. Like, you've met a 90-year-old? Like, I don't want to be 90. It's fine. Like, you're taking them off the tail. Once I made the connection between I feel better, I taste food better, I can run further and faster.

Then it made sense to me because now there's something real and tangible in the present. There's something that has value. So it's the same. I think it's the same thing with marriage. It's the same thing with prenups, which is let's not talk about what is this going to give us on the back end.

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I'm beginning to adopt a mindset around contracts that they are a tool to embrace reality. both potential negatives, but also to enrich the positives. And imagination. I think imagination too. I think that... Marriage is about an imagined future, right? Like it's about we're going to build this thing. What's it look like? Like when you and your business partner sat down together, you had an imagination together. Like you weren't just like, okay, what are we going to do today?

What do we want it to be, you know? And by the way, it never ends up being what you thought it would be. It turns into something completely different. There was no premonition. I mean, that's a very different scenario. But I don't think it's really even that different. I think that... You know, if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. Like, I think the best thing is this vague idea of like, what do we want to do? I don't know. We want to do something exciting together.

I don't know exactly what it's going to look like. I think this is the loose structure, but I don't know exactly what it is. Like, you know, you and I are friends. Like, we didn't talk about what we're going to talk about today. You know, we talked a dozen times, but we didn't go, well, so what should we talk about? Why? Because I think if we did, it wouldn't be authentic. Like, there's something so...

much better about like, yeah, we want to have a good conversation, something of value, something we'll both enjoy. And then maybe the people watching would enjoy, you know, so that's so much better. And I think that. What you're doing with a prenup or with a marriage is you're imagining a future together. Okay, what does it look like? Tell me. So it's not just about the rule out.

Like I think about, you know, certain guidelines, like in the octagon, it's, you know, no groin shots, you know, no thumbing eyes. So there's all the... This is not going to happen type stuff. And there's reasons for each of those. No matter what X, Y, and Z are off the table. Right. That makes people feel safe. Right. Because you want to know that certain very dangerous things are off the table. Right. But what you're talking about are a number of.

opt-ins through contracts and prenups. Sure. And also markers, like markers of Look, you spend so much time. One of the reasons I consume so much of what you put out there is. I like to know the markers before I have the problem. Like, I like to know, like, what are the things, what are the, you know, measure what matters, right? Like, I want to look at what has changed and then what can I do to adjust at that point?

And I think relationships, it's the same thing. Like by the time you're in my office, it's too late. Like it is so much harder to take a broken relationship and try to make it good again. than it is to take a good relationship and keep it good. Like it's so much harder to gain a bunch of weight and then try to lose all of it than it is to maintain a healthy body mass. Like it's just easier. So I think the same concept applies, which is be honest with yourself.

about what it is we're moving towards and what it is we're building and how do we stay at this place. I don't like to just have, it's not just about the opt out. Like, OK, if we're split up, we're not going to have to hire lawyers and we're not going to have to go through the court system. We're going to know what the rules are. There's value to that.

But there's also tremendous value to the conversation about what do we owe each other? What are we bringing to this? Because that's where the economy piece of it comes in, which is. You know, and this is the part, it's so laden with gender stuff and it's laden that no one wants to talk about it or it doesn't feel safe to talk about.

or to talk about it honestly. Hence 56%. Yeah, I think so. I think we are poorer for that dishonesty because I think, I understand it's an uncomfortable truth. I understand that it's difficult to say. Like, yeah, I don't know. There's something in me that wants it this way. Like, I don't know what it is. I don't know if it's biology. I don't know if it's hormones. I don't know.

Like, this is important to me. Like, yeah, I want to have a fulfilling sexual relationship with you, but we want different things sexually. Like, I want frequency. You want... You know, you want intensity, like whatever it might be, like the male sex drive, the female sex drive, like they're not the same. Hormonally, they're not the same. So is it okay? to have a conversation about, hey, if we're marrying each other, we have a sexual relationship.

And so where it's at right now is good, I'd imagine. So how do we know when we're slipping off baseline? And by the way, how do we know where when we slip off baseline, it's not a sign of disaster, right? Like if I'm eight years old and my eyesight starts to get really bad, it's probably more alarming. than if I'm 52 and now I need reading glasses. Like, these are more normal things, right?

I'm not saying the amount of sex we're having when we're dating or engaged is the baseline. And if we ever slip off of that, it means that the relationship's in trouble. That's insane. Insane statement. So do prenups include discussions or agreements about sex, money, etc.? They can. Well, money for sure. Sex, they can. I think the overall conversation that should surround prenups and the reason why I think people who get prenups, in my observation, are less likely to get divorced.

is at the front of this thing you are having conversations about. What do we owe each other? What do we expect from each other? What is meaningful to us about each other? What value do you bring to my life? Like, why can we do that in any other relationship? Like, if right now, you as my friend. Someone said, why do you like Andrew Huberman as a friend? I could run off a list of things. Super interesting. He's super interested. He knows a lot of cool workout stuff.

He's a lot of fun to hang out with. He eats the same way that I do, like kind of boring. He doesn't drink just like me so we can hang out. I don't feel weird because I'm not drinking because he's not either. Like, there's a whole list of stuff I could say. I'd say the exact same things about you. There you go. Except you know a bunch of stuff I don't know in addition to that. But, you know, we're interested. We're interesting. Our friendship makes sense, right?

Why? And by the way, isn't it lovely to hear what someone likes about you? Like, I think it's one of the nicest things in the world when somebody says, you know what I like about you, Jim? I'm all ears. Tell me, you know? Or if someone who I love and trust and know, like, I know you're my friend.

Can I give you some constructive feedback? Like something I think you're doing that's getting in your own way? Dude, I would be all ears. I would be all ears. I would want to hear that. You might have made that call. You've made that call to me a couple of times. Yeah, it's attorney-client privilege. I can't bring it up. But yeah, I mean, I think. There's something, that's an event in a couple's life, right? So why in this romantic context?

would you squander the opportunity to have that conversation? Here's what you bring to my life. Here's how you make me feel. Here's when I feel the most loved. Here's when I feel not as loved by you. I think it's because... When people hear the word prenup, they're thinking ending. It's about the ending. It's the contract.

that is going to divide the resources so we don't have to give a certain amount to the lawyers. Everyone's going to feel safe. You don't have to worry that you're going to end up with whatever, less than or more than this amount. I mean, there is value to that. Those are valuable things. I don't think, I could be wrong, but I don't think most people...

associate the word prenup with anything about the success of the marriage, which is probably why so few people get them. Is there any idea roughly what percentage? No, because what's amazing about a prenup is a prenup is not filed. It's just you have one in your safe. The lawyer has one in their safe. It's a contract. And is it as binding as?

as anything else? Oh, yeah. Because we know nowadays things like NDAs are kind of fluid. No, NDAs are fluid because NDAs are a relatively new construct and they haven't really been tested. Just like non-competes, there was a period of time.

where non-competes were like, they were overly broad and they weren't worth the paper they were printed on. And then people tried to tailor them. And now... you know, non-competes that are specific as to geography and duration, like, you know, the court system, the living law.

figures out, okay, here's how we have to tweak it. Prenups, the same thing happened. There was a lot of prenups back in the day used to get tossed out. But for the 25 years I've been practicing, Trust me, I've had a couple of prenups I've tried to set aside and I've been unsuccessful and I'm a good lawyer, but it's very hard to set aside a properly drafted prenup, you know, and I think that that's a good thing because again.

The framing needs to change, which is everyone has a prenup. It's either written by the government and subject to change by the government without notice to you, and then you can't opt out of the new rule set, or it's one that you and your partner draft together. I want to return to prenups and unfortunately to divorce, but I'd like to talk about love and the contract.

both emotional and practical around love a bit more. Sure. Do you think people are completely honest with themselves and with the other person when they decide to... get married or simply to become quote-unquote life partners or to just become partners. I mean, do you think that part of the allure of the dopamine, oxytocin, pheromone, social...

crowd, excuse me, and all that goes with it. I mean, what's more fun than... leaving the bedroom with someone you're totally crazy about, showering up and heading out and going to see friends. Yeah. And you're happy, they're happy. Yeah. And then going back home again, repeat. Yeah. Like there are very few things that are as from the other side of the fence too.

to see a couple that's really happy and in love. And you don't need to know or care about what they do in private. You just, you can feel how much they adore one another. You feel the vibe off of them. Yeah, I mean, I think there's a pheromone effect of that. I mean, there's really serious. primate biology that supports all that, that we don't even have to discuss. We can just kind of like put that one on the shelf and everyone knows what we're talking about.

You know, underneath there is, like you said, our need. needs that in the future somebody might not feel are being met. And that's where it's hard to anticipate one's need, too, especially if it's a first relationship or a third relationship. You need some experience. And sometimes, you know, you meet the right person at 18. And that's a beautiful thing. Oh, yeah. So to what extent do you think people...

understand how to understand their own needs and let alone express them. Yeah. I think I've always said that the most dangerous lives are the lies we tell ourselves. And I say in my book that... that all marriage problems stem from two underlying problems. We don't know what we want. And we don't know how to express what we want, even if we know what we want. We don't know how to express it to our partner. And I think those are two really different but deeply correlated problems.

I think one of the great... Mistakes we make. I think we fall in love very fast in what we call love, right? I'm fuzzy on the whole love concept because a lot of what's described as love is like something that, you know, was designed in the 1950s to sell shampoo. This idea of like you meet this one person and then that person you're going to be your soulmate. Like whoever created the term soulmate, I owe them a tremendous amount of money.

Well, in some religions, there's actually a word for the God-designated choice. Yeah, like my beshirt, my fate, right? The God-given choice, a singular person. that is going to meet that need. But even if you were to say, okay, this person's been selected by an omnipotent creator deity, that's at least more reasonable than saying, I've met this one person and they are now going to be.

The best friend, best co-parent, best roommate, best travel partner, best sexual partner, best confidant, best financial partner. Wait, all of those? They're going to check all of those? And they happen to live three miles from you? Like, and go to the same coffee shop in a world of 8 billion people? Like, what are the odds? Like, I would definitely believe in God if that's the reality.

But the truth is, I don't think it's like that. I think it's a combination of pheromones and it's a combination of dopamine. And look, I get it. Like, I get it. I get it. But why do we have to look at it like... Those early days of a relationship. Where you, look, we've both been in love. We've both been in a romantic relationship.

where just the person brushes up next to you or the scent of them hits you, and it's like an electric shock through you. It's magic. It's just the greatest drug in the world. But if that stays... Forever. You would never get anything done. Like, civilization would perish. Because we would all just want to sit there smelling someone's hair all day. Like, we would just want to be around each other all day. And by the way, not just how...

We feel about them, how they make us feel about ourselves. Like, why do you think affairs are so intoxicated? Because you've been in this relationship with this person and they don't even see you anymore and you don't even see them anymore. And then you meet this other person and they're like, you're fascinated. You're brilliant. You're handsome. And all of a sudden, you start to feel brilliant and handsome again. Why? Because you observe.

Right. Like you're seeing yourself through the lens of this person's gaze. Esther Perel, when she was sitting in the same seat you're sitting in now, said that 90 percent of affairs people describe as. they did them they had those affairs because they made them feel quote unquote alive yeah there was an aliveness that was in stark contrast to the

or lack of aliveness in the relationship. And it's not a justification. We were discussing the, you know, so what is the underlying thing that they're seeking? Is it sex? Is it adventure? And in some cases, it might be. Well, her book, Redefining Infidelity, like all of her writing, she and I were on a panel together some years ago. And I mean, I think she's a brilliant, brilliant mind. has an insight into the nature of infidelity and human relationships, romantic relationships.

But again, she's saying the quiet part out loud. And again, I don't think she's not a romantic. I don't think that she doesn't believe in love. Like when someone says to me, well, do you believe in love? It's like. It's like, do you believe in oxygen? Like it's all around me. Like love's all around me. It's everywhere. I guess the question is, do you believe in the potential permanence of romance and love? Yeah.

Yes, because- With the same person. Yes, because I've seen it just like you have. It's just, it's a rare and special thing. You know, one of the things I've said before, and I get pilloried for it every time I say it because people want to misinterpret it intentionally, is that marriage is like the lottery. You are probably not going to win. But if you win, what you win is so good that you might as well buy a ticket. Like, give it a try. Like, give it a shot.

Again, with a prenup, then your downside is controlled to some degree. But I am offended. Now, people take that quote and go, Oh, well, so you're saying that it's random? Like, you can't do anything to increase your chances of winning the lottery other than buying more tickets. Like, marriage is a practice. It's work. And when people say to me, like, well, marriage is hard work. Marriage is hard. Like, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know that love has to be hard work.

Like there's so much that we put on love that romantic love that just doesn't make sense. as far as I'm concerned, by observable experience. If you watch people who are happily married, they're cheering for each other. They enjoy each other's company. But again, are they...

Dealing with those early days intoxication to the point where if the other person starts speaking, they lose their train of thought. No, because they're building a life and a family and an ecosystem in the home together. And, you know, they have to divide responsibilities. Those two things do not have to be incompatible with each other. But you cannot throw into that equation ignorance and willful blindness.

to the reality of the impermanence of love and the fragility of love. Like, my career is about the fragility of love. Why can't we talk about this fragile thing and treat it like you treat a fragile thing? Like, why not? Treat love like what it is. It's something that's so amazing, powerful, and beautiful that it sucks the reason right out of our heads.

And all you want to do is be with this person and talk in and just what do you want to do tonight? Do you want to go to the greatest concert in the greatest venue and sit in the front row or just sit with this person and like watch something on Netflix and eat some popcorn? Yep, I'll take that. I'll take that because it's the best thing. Well, the friendship piece is something that...

I've heard you talk about before and, you know, you know, with all the discussion that we're having here about, you know, pheromone clouds and dopamine and romance and sex, I think that, you know, I'll put in a strong vote for saying all that's wonderful, but the mellow times. just hanging out on the couch are different you know starkly different, but are as bonding in many ways, especially on a backdrop of a world that... you know, chaotic, uncertain.

To many people, even if you're successful in the world, like the world, the world's a lot. It's pretty overwhelming now. There's a lot coming at us all the time through devices and through things. You know, there's a lot of uncertainty about our whole species at some level. And criticism. I mean, there's so much.

Criticism from the outside world, so much self-criticism and comparison that there's something about having someone who sees the beauty in you and is cheering for you. And that when you fall down. Their responses, okay, you fell down. People fall down. It's okay. Come on, get up. You got it. You got this. Something about that to me. is that's the best thing. Like that's when I see successful married couples. Like, all the tropes now of, like...

You know, like women just being like, oh, yeah, he's just such an idiot. Like, you know, that it's like cute somehow to like talk. crap about your husband or your wife men as children men as children and women as the most loathsome harpies ever to castrate a man you know like oh yeah well please you know and she's this one you know there's nothing we're not like I don't find that cute. I don't find it charming. That's sort of an American theme. You know, I've noticed like...

Half of my family is in South America. Completely different picture. No one could argue their problems with the picture there. Yeah. And I'm sure they exist. But. It's not the same, you know, men are children, women are. women are cutthroat. Yeah. And I guess for me, especially in this increasingly performative and curated age that we live in where...

You know, we're watching on, you know, Instagram and all these other social media. We're watching everyone's greatest hits while we live our gag reel. And we're sort of comparing ourselves to like this curated version of other people's relationships and lives. And so a lot of the time, we're just not feeling good about what we're doing or where we're at.

Our bodies, you know, like our minds, our success, our accomplishments. Like we're looking at everybody else's curated greatest hits. And I think there's something really valuable about having another human being. next to you who's not criticizing you. Like, even constructive criticism is criticizing. Like there's some something about having another person. I'm not saying, by the way, that part of being in a good relationship is not criticism, you know, or the ability to like.

give feedback to a person. But it's like I said earlier about our friendship. If you know it's coming from a place of love, of like, hey man, I know you're great. And I feel like this is dampening your greatness or this is shining light in the wrong place. I think there's so much value in that. But again, it requires these two people to have a conversation early on, I think, about...

What do we expect? What do we feel towards each other? And again, you know, to look at that as a, I mean, marriage is a contract. Divorce is a different contract. A prenup is a contract. Like, we're living in this world of contracts whether we want to admit it or not. So why not admit it? Say it out loud. I promise it is not going to take away the beauty and the romance of this thing. Like, I've been a divorce lawyer 25 years. I still get misty-eyed at weddings.

love stories. Like I watch Love on the Spectrum. I literally cry every episode. I haven't seen it. If you ever want to just feel the most affirmed you'll ever feel in your life. Because these are people who are struggling with tremendous difficulties and challenges in life, challenges you and I don't have. And all they want is connection with another person. Beautiful. And there's something about like...

how they both are like, oh my God, I want this like a, oh, do you like ice cream? Oh, I like ice cream too. Like, and it's just, oh, okay, okay, good. Like we found a thing. We found a connection point.

And you're just watching it on the edge of your seat going, oh, my God. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good, good. Okay, good. You're doing so good. You're doing so good. Okay, they ran out of things to talk about. Okay, it's okay. Just, you know, and I watch it like I imagine some people watch the Super Bowl. like just on the edge of my seat. Like you'd think I had money on what happens to Tanner, you know, like I'm watching it. And because there's something so pure about...

I just want to find love. Like I just want to find another person. that I'm going to feel loved by and safe with and who likes me and who the way they look at me makes me look at myself in a more positive way. There's something so beautiful about that. And maybe you have to strip away a lot of this intellectual crap. to be able to really see that that's what this comes down to and to make it its purest distilled version. But again, I think that's something that's easiest and best to do.

when you're at the beginning of that journey, not midway through, definitely not where it's gone off the rails. I'm thinking about standards of expectation. And obviously, social media plays an important role in that. You mentioned people showing their best lives, best selves, best everything. I have a friend who is very high up in one of the social media platforms.

let's just say in the original 10, who told me social media is 99% about women and... female biology and psychology communicating to one another and to men and getting men to communicate to the world things that support kind of an ideal. some people are going to hear that and get upset and then i'm going to tell you that the person that told me that is a woman which kind of Bends people's brains around it. Men will show their workouts. Men will compete with other men. Men will, you know.

you know, just show their, uh, their half court shot prowess, et cetera. Is that for women? Maybe. Is it for men? More likely. In some cases, both. All of it. But the argument is that this idea of ideals being presented as something to keep striving toward is very much... modern version of the Disney movie, the wedding at the end, right? The bride and groom and everything's perfect, that there's a subconscious text there. We're all kind of aiming for and hoping for. And so we see the top.

veneer i mean let me put this way i don't think i've seen a movie or an instagram account for that matter of a couple resolving a really hard um challenge yeah that wasn't like cancer or something like like a psycho like a A discussion, a hard discussion, a real one in real time. I've seen some staged ones that are just ridiculous where somebody listens. I hear you. I hear you. Okay. But that doesn't get to the underlying emotions at all. And so I think what's happening is.

people are getting more and more entranced by this ideal. And losing track of what you just described, which may be the real ideal. This one from the show, Love on the Spectrum, right? That you're trying to find connection along the lines of simple, everyday things that you can bask in over and over without the fear of them disappearing.

Yeah. Because they're not that hard to attain and they're not dependent on some transient dopamine wave that you just can't get back. But I think what you're saying is spot on. So I've always interpreted social media as a form of advertising. It's really what it is. It's advertising. And there's two things about advertising that I think should be set out. One is that advertising is the dream life of it. Like, it's the ideal. It's the dream life. It's this idea of...

Like, this is what a Bud Light drinker looks like. You know, they're having a good time. They're with their friends. This is what a guy who drinks this beer looks like. Like, and which guy are you? This is what a BMW driver looks like versus this is what a Hyundai or a Subaru or Jeep driver looks like.

Like, so it's the dream life of a culture. And I think there's tremendous value to that. Tremendous value to, like, what do we imagine ourselves to be? Like, because whenever I'm talking to someone in a negotiation, as someone who negotiates for a living and litigates for a living, like... I'm not just interested in who you are. I'm interested in who you want me to think you are and who you think you are and who you want to be, right?

So advertising, social media, it's the dream life of a culture. But here's the thing we don't like to talk about. Advertising at its core is the opposite of therapy. is to create a sense of wellness and wholeness in a person, okay? Advertising is the opposite. You're not okay. You're not okay. You could be. You could be. You could. If you had...

But you would have, then you would be better. You're good. True. You're good now. It is true. It's actually delicious. But if it, you know, the purpose of advertising is essentially to say you're not okay. You're not okay. You could be. Redemption is available to you. That's the subtext. You're not okay.

And if you did X, Y, or Z, or got X. Then maybe you'll be better. You'll be much better. So social media is the same thing. You're not okay. Maybe if you did contrast therapy, sauna, cold plunge, you'd be better. You know, maybe if you took more creatine, you'd be better. Like you're good now, but you could be better. And so that constant barrage. of our dream life, our imagination. I mean, again, it's inspiring. It's really good for people in some ways.

But to be inundated on a daily basis with you're not okay, you're not over and over again, this is not a normal condition for humans to be in. And that is why I think to some degree. we find that like romantic relationship. so appealing because you're closing the door and this person, you're okay. You're good. You're good. You're, I have you. That's what I need. Yeah. Well, I have you. That's what I need. Yeah. And what a warm, wonderful place to be.

Particularly, like, it's really nice to be in a warm house when it's cold outside. It's really nice to be in a dry house when it's raining outside. Well, when you're living in an ecosystem where information has become a form of garbage that comes at you from every possible angle all the time, devoid of context.

And everything is an advertisement telling you there's something wrong with you. Why wouldn't you want to slam the door, close the windows and be with someone and ideally a couple of dogs where you guys can just be warm and happy and love each other? And by the way. It's right there. It's so accessible. You don't have to buy much of anything. You don't have to, like, you don't need that much.

If you have love and you have each other, you don't need it. But that's why I think our society, I think capitalism... likes love in so far as it sells hyundais and it'll get people to buy like the wedding industrial complex like it'll get you to go out and do all the stuff you do But like the idea that, hey, if we just find another person, that we might realize that this is all the matrix. Like that I don't need all of that to be loved and I don't need all of that to feel loved.

Like the fullness you feel when you love someone and are loved by them. Like, again, don't even have to be a human. You're a dog. Why do people are always like, man, we don't deserve dogs. Yeah. Because your dog doesn't give a shit what car you drive or what you do or how if you got six-pack abs. Like, they don't care. Like, they just love you. And you love them in a way.

that is, like, mind-blowing in that, again, do you ever look at, like, people are always like, oh, well, you know, this person I'm in a romantic relationship with, like, they're aging, their body's not as jacked as it was, or they're not as, do you ever look at your dog and go, like,

Like this dog's like, you know, it's just more and more appreciation. It's just deeper and deeper. It's like the pair of jeans that you're like, oh my God, it gets more comfortable every year. Like, and like love, that's how love can be and should be. But again, it requires to some degree that that noise of that ecosystem, that constant, you're not okay, you're not okay, that we can figure out a way to turn the volume down on that and turn up the volume on.

what are we feeding here together? Again, it may not sell as many cars. It may not sell as much beer. It may not, you know, but that's okay. Like that's the wholeness, that sense of wholeness, like that depth of connection. To me, like that makes all the sense in the world. What you're describing is very alluring. And when you said, you know, two people together in the cocoon, maybe some dogs as well.

a smartphone in there. Completely different picture. Totally changes the ecosystem. You know, and I'm not trying to be a buzzkill here, but what you describe is so beautiful. And, you know, if I look back on the best moments in romantic relations... It was, well, in recent years, driving a segment of the California coast where there was no... Like the kind of peace that comes from that. You know, it's always moments of simplicity. Yeah. Always.

Almost anybody, if you ask them, you know, genuinely ask them, like, what was a moment where you felt the most love? like, their answer will surprise you. Like, it rarely costs anything. It rarely, you know, I was on, you and I both done Diary of the CEO, you know, Steve Bartlett, and we both have a friendship with Steve. And one of the questions he asked me was, when did you feel in your life the most love?

And I instantly knew the answer. And it was the silliest answer and yet the most honest. And I told the story about how when I was a kid, we used to get pizza every once in a while. And, you know, pizza's cut in a certain number of slices. I remember my friend Tommy and I were having pizza and my dad, like there was an odd number of slices.

And my dad had one slice and we, like two young boys, just devoured, you know, like three, four slices a piece. So there's only one more slice left. And of course, he and I are both looking at it, even though we'd had like three or four slices of pizza and my dad had only had one. And my dad went like, yeah, you got it. And we split that last piece, my friend and I. And a couple of weeks later, I was at his house and ordered pizza. And his father just like ate.

The last slice of pizza. He ate like more slices than we did. And I remember looking at him and thinking, my dad would never do that. And I remember thinking, oh, he loves me. Like I just felt it to my core that like. He loves me so much. Like, I know he wanted that other piece of pizza, but the joy he felt in watching me eat another piece of pizza was bigger than the hunger he had for another piece of pizza. That is the purest expression of love. And like most people...

If you say to them, like, what was a moment in your romantic relationship where you felt... or you just felt joy inside yourself like they like god i'd rather be here than anywhere in the world The answer is not going to be we were at the most expensive restaurant or we were having the most mind-blowing sex. Listen, you'll have fond memories of all those things.

of just connection or just the feeling of like holding this person's hand or like the way that the light hit them at the particular sunset when you were sitting outside together. And to me, like... modern consumer culture doesn't shove that down your throat because you don't need anything you don't need to buy anything to experience that you don't need to do anything to experience that other than

Find another person and love them, you know, and let them love you. And that's not, doesn't require a lot of purchase. I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge one of our sponsors Function. Last year I became a Function member after searching for the most comprehensive approach to lab testing. Function provides over 100 advanced lab tests that give you a key snapshot of your entire bodily health.

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They're offering early access to Huberman podcast listeners. Again, that's functionhealth.com slash Huberman to get early access to function. You've got my mind going to a number of... pleasant memories and examples but i love your your pizza example i'll just quickly give one i uh i was in a long relationship with somebody we're still on very good terms and we still laugh um and delight in this one moment there's there's a

a diner here in Los Angeles that we had come to that, uh, it's closed now, but it's still there. Every time I drive past it, I think about this. Yeah. I think about this. And you think about her. I think about her and we were on a, it was early, early days of dating. Yeah. And, um, I remember she asked for cream for her coffee and put like... a little bit more cream than one would normally put in the coffee. And I was like...

A little cream with your coffee. She's like, well, actually, I want to put the whole thing in here, but I'm trying to be polite. And I said, put the whole thing in. And without hesitating, she just went and put the entire beaker of cream in there. And we still laugh about that. And I remember that moment being so freeing.

for me because it was this moment where i knew she was relaxed enough to do it it was hilarious for reasons that were only clear to us um and people are probably bewildered about why it would be so meaningful now and i don't think they will be and to me it was a moment where i was like I don't want to reveal who this person is. People in my life will know, but...

She has such a lust for life, like full blast, all gas pedal on everything. And it was like, I love cream. I want the entire beaker of cream. And it was this permission that she gave herself. So I still delight in that. So these little things, right? And I think as you were describing the pizza example or my example, what's clear to me is that...

The memory of, say, like the incredible early stage of a relationship or some big vacation or event, which is wonderful, that stuff can set a kind of yearning as much as an appreciation. Sure. Like you want it again. Whereas the. Probably silly sounding thing about the creamer, the cream in the coffee. or the pizza thing, you still have that. Like, it's not like you want it again. You've got that. It's yours. It's never going away. And I think.

There's something very deeply biological and psychological about those kinds of things because I think they drive really deep pillars into our memory. It's like we still have them. I mean, look at the way you describe it or the way that... Well, first of all, there's nothing silly about that example. Just the fact that you say, like, well, that silly example I gave, like, there's absolutely nothing silly about that. Like, there's, I completely got it.

I completely was smiling while you were telling that story because it's lovely. Because what is it? It's intimacy. Like the definition of intimacy has nothing to do with sex. Intimacy is defined as the ability to be completely yourself with another person. And what was she doing there? She was doing what we all do on a date. Those first few days, those early days, we have Spanx on our personnel. You know, everything is like, okay, I'm going to, and again, is it lying? No, is makeup lying?

No, it accentuates the positive, dissentuates the negative. It's not a lie. If someone was wearing makeup and then they take their makeup off, I don't go, you're a liar. Your eyelashes don't look like that. You're a liar. No, look, you're trying to impress me. I get it. Like you're trying to be this. But eventually you're going to see this person without me.

Like eventually you're going to find out she puts an insane amount of cream into her coffee. But these are the things we love about people. It's what makes them human. She puts so much cream in her coffee. It's so weird to me. It's ridiculous. But let me tell you something. You still think of her when you drive. You think of that moment. That was an investment.

that paid dividends forever. You'll remember that forever. And by the way, it's not a betrayal to future relationships that you fondly recall this moment of intimacy where this person felt loved enough and comfortable enough with you. to go, yeah, I'm going to take that mask off.

I'm going to show you I like an insane amount of cream. I have no idea why I like that much cream, but I just do. Like, does that make me weird? Is that okay? And then you going like, yeah, go to town. Like, whatever, man. Like, I don't even use cream, but like, go to town. Like, be you. That's the feeling we all want.

Is that feeling of like, yeah, you're not crazy. You make sense to me. You make sense. You're not just like me. We're very different, but you make sense to me. You know, I feel understood. And that to me, like that, that's the whole thing. And so if you say, well, this is where we were in early days and that's the baseline. And if we don't continue to feel that intoxicated by each other.

Okay, then you've set an impossible standard. That's like saying, I'm not in the shape I was in when I was 25, so I must be doing something wrong. No, like the organism doesn't change. It doesn't evolve that way. Like, this is the nature of things, is that it's supposed to be what it is. Like, it's supposed to merge or evolve into something different. But again...

having conversations about what that is and what it looks like, that's the best possible way to preserve what's best in it. And I think starting a marriage... We're not going to talk about any of that. We're not going to look at any of it. We're just in love. That's all that matters. We're just in love. That's all that matters. Let's talk about any of this other stuff. Like, that's not...

That, to me, you're doing yourself a disservice. Start early by creating the pattern of, we're just going to say. We're just going to say it. We're just going to say what we're doing right, what we're doing that hit the wrong way. Like, because here's the thing, like, you and I are friends. If you hurt my feelings, if we had a conversation and you said something and it just hurt my feelings.

I know you didn't mean to. We're friends. I know you don't want to hurt me. I don't want to hurt you. You're my friend. Like, I get it. But I'm going to probably say something sometime that hurts you, and I didn't mean to, you know?

What do you do? Carry that around? Just don't say it out loud because it's uncomfortable to say that to Jimmy. He's going to feel badly that he said that to me and that it upset me. So I'm just going to carry it around. That's how, if you've been in a long-term romantic relationship, which we both have in our lives. That's how you're having some very banal... sort of argument about like, what's the best way to get from here to Calabasas or whatever.

Five minutes later, it's like, you know, I never liked your mother. And like, you never respected me. And you're like, how did we get there? Like, how long have you had that in the chamber? Like, how long have you been holding on to that? And the answer is since the day it happened. So why not create a framework early?

something blips the wrong way. Like, I'm not saying dwell on it. I'm not saying put a person in a defensive situation by immediately calling it out. But like, if you, if I said, I'm telling you right now as my friend, if I say something to you at some point. that hurts you. I know I didn't mean to. I know I didn't mean to. So I'll tell you in advance, I'm sorry. I'm sorry because I know I didn't mean to hurt you. Doesn't mean what I said isn't true.

It might be true. It might be fair criticism. But I know I didn't mean to hurt you. I know because I love you. And so if you're my friend and I love you, I didn't mean to hurt you. I know that for sure. So why can't we? From the beginning. And that's why I like prenups. Because from the beginning. Let's talk about this. What do we mean to each other? What do we owe to each other? What are the benchmarks of this economy? Like what are the exchanges of value between us? And as we grow and change.

How will we hold on to the part that's most meaningful to both of us? Can you give some examples of what a prenup, kind of the scaffold of a prenup might look like? barring the extremes of like billionaires and, you know, and they have 19 chihuahuas or whatever it is. Good Lord, who has 19 Chihuahuas? Actually, one of my Jiu-Jitsu teachers, Paul Schreiner, he's got a remarkable number of Chihuahuas. He rescues Chihuahuas. I admire it tremendously. I think Stephen Kotler, who...

It's involved in a lot of the literature and popular writing around flow. Yeah. has a lot of Chihuahuas, and he told me that in some country other than the United States where they translate books. Yeah. someone played a joke or something where on the title of the book, it translates as Chihuahua Man. Love that. Or something like that. Well, I mean, if you think about chihuahuas, it's fair because if you glued like 20 of them together, it's still not a great dance.

You know what I mean? Size-wise. Just mass in terms of volume of it. I like all dogs. I like all dogs, too. I like all dogs. For the record, I'm not being politically correct. I'm partial to hounds, but I like all dogs. Well, you and I are friends for a reason. Some of the basic scaffold of a prenup. Because, like, I can imagine that if we break up, you'll get X amount of blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, it can be a lot of that. Yeah, maybe list off some, like, core tenets. Yeah, so to do that.

You know, what you're doing is we're going to do a consultation for a prenuptial agreement right here. I do them all the time. Great. So the first thing that, yeah, you're getting it for free. I mean, that's pretty good. It's usually $8.50. So what I'll say is the following. To understand what a contract does, the first thing you have to understand is what are your rights in the absence of that contract, right? Most contracts, that's pretty easy. Like, I'm going to lease a car.

I know in the absence of that car lease, they have the car and I have the money. So that's a really easy contract because whatever the contract is, We both want the same thing. They want my money and I want their car. So now we're just trying to figure out what are the terms and how do we codify them? And then we'll come up with what are some things that could go wrong? What if I stop making the payments? What if I drive the car off the lot and the wheels fall off?

Like, OK, now we have to start using some imagination about what do we do in these contingencies. But at its core, simple contract, which is I want the car. You got a car. You want money. I've got money. Let's figure this out. And if we can. Somebody else will get the car and somebody else will take my money. We'll be all right. We'll be okay. Scheme of things. Right. So this is the same thing. Okay. It's the same thing. So if we don't marry.

We both know that's easy, right? We both know we're in love. We're happy. We're together. We're enjoying each other's company. Now we're not going to get married. What happens? So you suddenly, love goes out the window, the whole thing falls apart? I don't think so. That's kind of weird, right? So again, first order of business is, why are we getting married?

Why? Like, what is the problem to which marriage is a solution? Like, why is it so strange to say to another human being, if I said to you, Andrew, great news, I'm getting married. If you said, really, why?

Like, why would that be like, what kind of jerk is Andrew today? Like, it's why? Well, my parents, it's really important to them that I get married. And, you know, we're having a great time, she and I, but like, you know, her parents are very religious. And so that's a good reason. It's a good reason to get married.

We do things to make our parents happy or our partner's parents happy. That's okay. That makes sense to me. I genuinely think that there's a valid thing there, which is this is the reason why we're getting married. Or I want the tax break.

That comes with getting married. There's a tax break. There's a significant tax break. Yeah, yeah, on federal and state. You get your different dependency exemptions. You get different schedules of how much you have to make to pay at a different time. Oh, yeah, there's a whole bunch of purely financial reasons.

to get married. Again, with a prenup, you can take away the risk but still have all those benefits. You can file married joint returns. You have all kinds of inheritance rights if you want them. There's all kinds of... potential perks to getting married, right? There's also certain cultural legitimacy. Like, again, another good reason for people to say they're getting married is, hey. We'll return to that one. I want to make sure we flag that because.

things are changing, but I, I agree. There's always the, have they ever been married? Why aren't they married? There's this, we'll get back to that. If you say this is my girlfriend, that could mean a week. We've been together a week. Or it could mean we've been together 10 years and we have kids together. It implies transience. Or if you say my wife. Now, that's a fallacy. That's insane, right? Just because we went and did, like, 20 bucks, Elvis will marry you in Vegas.

And you're telling me that that gives more legitimacy than someone who's got two children with someone and has lived with them for 10 years but just didn't get the government involved? Like, that doesn't make any sense to me. But we've decided, it's like, presto change-o, you're married, that means now you're a totally legitimate relationship. A family member told me that...

Years ago, I won't tell you what the course of their relationship was, said the reason to get married is because it's an additional buffer against walking out when things get tough. Yeah. See, I want to hear that a lot. And, you know, what if we... What if we closed emergency rooms from 10 p.m. until like 5 a.m.? Do you think people would do less risky shit? Do you think people would go like, hey, you know what? If I break my leg.

If the ER is closed, I won't be like, that's insane to think that people in this dopamine state, you know, intoxicated by pheromones, that they're going to say like, oh, you know, like. We are legally married. I might have to guess. The numbers don't bear it out. With the divorce rate, what it is, it doesn't work. You want to create barriers, create barriers to entry.

Like, how bad do you want it? Like, how bad do you want to get married? You have to, there's a waiting period or you have to take a test. Or you have to, whatever, something, some barrier to entry. You have to pay some amount of money to get, man. I don't know. If you believe in the barrier concept, barriers to exit makes no sense. Barriers to entry might make sense. Again, still don't think it would make that much sense. But to tie it back to the prenup question, so the first question is.

Why are you getting married? Okay, what's the purpose? What is the problem to which marriage is a solution? The next question is, okay, if we marry without a prenup, What will govern our relationship in the event that it doesn't end in death? Okay, so if it ends by some other reason. Either I divorce you, you divorce me. We come to the joint decision that this isn't working. Some intervening circumstance occurs.

that changes the dynamic between us in a way that we couldn't possibly have anticipated, whatever that might be, a medical issue, something with a child. Like, I've had cases where... And these are tragic cases. But I've had maybe in a 25-year career, I've maybe had a dozen cases where people lost it. by usually some kind of tragic accident. So kid falls in the pool, drowns, and they cannot be together. Like they are a reminder to the other person of this immeasurable loss.

that they can't wrap their brains around. And so they lose each other. You know, and it's not anyone's fault. Like, it's not either of their fault that this horrible tragedy occurred, but it's just too painful. Like, they just remind each other of this law. They can't ever extricate that from their feelings. I don't look at that person and go, you should never. Divorce? Dude, who am I to say to that person? No, no. Continue to feel that torturous pain.

Or, oh, go to therapy and that'll get rid of that. Like, it's not that simple. So if that person has been through that exquisite... unique kind of torture, that person says, yeah, we just can't do that. Like, we love each other, but we just can't. Like, we have to start over and reboot our lives separately so that we have no memory of that anymore or as few reminders as possible.

I have nothing I can say to that except that's not a choice I could tell you is wrong. I don't have the right to tell you that. So there are circumstances that can end a marriage that were not anticipated by or caused by either person's malfeasance, right? So, okay, now what, right? So if we know in the absence of... a rule set in the absence of a prenup.

What happens if we divorce? Well, most people never even get to that step. Like most people never, when they get married, they never sit down with anyone and go, what's legally going to happen to me right now? Like what just changed? You know, like what, like you buy a house.

You get a HUD one that tells you the nature of the loan and how much you're paying in interest so that nobody can, like, claim they didn't know that. You get a lead paint disclosure. You get all kinds of things. You get married, you can get a pamphlet. You just did the most legally significant thing you're ever going to do other than dying. And no one told you anything about what just happened. So you've opted out of the title system.

So, like, right now, if you and I buy a house together, right, title controls, whose name is it in? If it's in your name, it's yours. If it's in my name, it's mine. If it's in our joint names, we own it 50-50 unless there's a contract that says otherwise. Right. So there are defaults in the absence of a contract. There are legal defaults. Again, lawyers make a ton of money.

over people's aversion to contracts like it's great like the worst thing when i got involved in trusted prenup and i told people oh i'm doing this thing i want to democratize prenups all my colleagues were like are you not Like, A, prenups are the easiest thing we do. And we make pure profit on them. We can charge $5,000, $10,000 for basically a document that you go into Word and change the names, and it's the same one for a lot of people, okay?

Or we've done so many of them that we just go, this is just like that one. And you just change the name. And here it is. And I can charge you $5,000, $10,000 for it. And if it's successful, I'm taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in counsel fees out of my pocket because now you're not going to have a litigated divorce. It's not going to be a knockdown drag out with whatever the government.

current way of handling things happens to be, which, by the way, is going to be different five years from now than it was. Five years ago, I know that because I've been doing this 25 years and the law is completely different than it was 25 years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago. It changes constantly because politicians change constantly. So fundamentally.

What happens with a prenup is simple. We're creating a rule set together, whatever that might be. And it can be as detailed as you want it to be. So I've seen ones that have very specific things about how often we're going to have sex. And if we split up, what will happen with... Literally requirements? Well, what they are is either aspirational guidelines or it is...

tied in some way to some incentive or disincentive, like some penalty. Oh, yeah. You're kidding me. I'm not kidding you. I don't advocate for that. I don't think it's a good idea. But I mean, this story I tell pretty frequently is I did a... where I didn't write the prenup, so don't blame me, but I defended the prenup successfully, where for every 10 pounds the bride gained, she would lose $10,000 a month in alimony when they split up. You're kidding. Yeah, and a court upheld.

The court upheld it. The court in its decision actually said, this is boorish. This is disgusting. I don't know why you married this person who insisted on this being in the contract, but it's a contract. You signed it. He signed it. You're adults. You were both represented by counsel, and it's enforced. Whoa. Yeah. Did the marriage last? No, no, they divorced. Yeah, they divorced. And she lost.

She lost $20,000 a month in alimony. She gained around 20 pounds during marriage. Do you think that was the factor? Well, he was rich and she was gorgeous. I mean, you know, and he got richer and she got less gorgeous. But there are a lot of rich, gorgeous matchups. Yeah, that's pretty common. And by the way, it's gender blind too. Like the C-suite executive founder that you're talking about, like female founder.

They very often don't marry. I know like some people in the red pill community want to say like hypergamy and stuff like that, that like C-suite women only marry like even more successful men than that. I have a lot of female clients who I have to tell them they owe alimony. And they're like, wait, why do I have to pay? I'm a woman. He's a man. He's got a strong back. Why do I have to pay alimony? I'm like, because You are a C-suite executive who makes millions.

And you married the like super hot, unsuccessful musician who has the like, oops, I didn't know I was sexy stubble. Because he looks really good. Like, and that's, you married the equivalent of me marrying like the hot yoga teacher. Like, I get it. Like, but, you know, you did the thing.

Gender has nothing to do with it. If you marry someone who earns significantly less money than you do and they have a diminished lifetime earning capacity, then you owe them alimony most likely. Is it always 50-50? Generally, yeah. There's a presumption that equitable distribution, equitable meaning fair, is really the law.

Equitable is presumed to mean equal. There are some reasons and some circumstances where equitable does not mean equal. There can be things called wasteful dissipation of marital assets where a person... has squandered money that should have stayed in the marital estate, gambling, having a paramour, a girlfriend or a boyfriend. So there's – but again, like to tie it back to prenups, what you're doing with a prenup. as a fundamental is just saying, okay.

There's yours, there's mine, and there's ours. Right? Like in terms of assets and liabilities. Which, by the way, I think is an excellent analog to the nature of relationships themselves. Right? There's you, there's me, and there's we. Right? And a healthy relationship. And then there's this Venn diagram of we, right? And of course, you don't want you and me to be subsumed by the we because I fell in love with you. You fell in love with me. Why would we want those to go away completely?

But of course the we is like, you know, it's intoxicating and you want to become the we more. But there's value in staying you and me and having a healthy we, having a healthy, you know, intersection. So why not in your structure of the marriage have, okay, yours, mine, and ours? So at a fundamental level, if you're going to have a basic prenuptial... It's just going to say, hey, we're staying in that system. You, me, we.

Right? Yours, mine, ours. If it's yours, you keep it. Asset or liability. If it's in mine, I keep it. Asset or liability. If it's ours, we divide it 50-50. Fair enough? And now we're going into this relationship with knowing the rule set. So I get a big bonus at work. Okay. If I put it in my account and my sole name.

I've protected it. We also need to have a conversation. Hey, babe, you just got that big bonus of work and you didn't put any of it in the joint account? Like, what's that about? Something going on that we need to talk about? Like, and again, I understand people don't want to have uncomfortable conversations. Well, you can have like a series of mildly uncomfortable conversations throughout the course of a relationship, or you can duck that.

and then have some really difficult conversations in divorce court. And to me, that's pretty easy, like which of those two things I'd choose. At its core, a prenuptial agreement can cover as many, like people put in infidelity clause. where there are financial penalties if someone cheats. Again, I discourage it. Financial penalties? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Liquidated damages, whether it's a lump sum or a waiver of alimony if you're caught cheating. I mean, it used to be the law of the land.

That if you could prove adultery, a person at that point, typically women, because the workforce was predominantly male at that time. If you could catch, that's why like the picture of a divorce lawyer with a private investigator with a telephoto lens taking pictures of someone coming out of the hotel. It's like in everyone's mind forever because, and by the way, people still come in to my office and they're like, I've got it.

i've got photos of him coming out of this hotel with his girlfriend i'm like okay like You know there's no like good spouse bonus and bad spouse penalty, right? Like you don't get like extra stuff. because you were a super good spouse who never cheated. And you don't lose stuff because you cheated. Like other than maybe the marriage, you don't lose, like you don't get anything less. It's not like you don't get, it used to be if you could prove adultery.

You waived alimony. So if this person cheated, they weren't allowed to ask for alimony. That was abolished in the 1970s by statutes. No fault divorce is the law of the land. Assets are split according to the prenup or according to the law. Again, according to the law as it. stands, which has changed dramatically over 25 years and varies state to state. Whereas with a prenuptial agreement, you're agreeing on a rule set. And again, if people want to agree to weird clauses,

Like infidelity penalties and things like that. You can do that. And lawyers, we can draft stuff like that. No problem. Who gets the dog? Listen, pet clauses? The level of, it was very funny because when the team at Trusted Prenup, you know, I was the legal advisor piece of it, obviously. And so I was really feeding them so they could feed to this AI kind of all of these prenups I had done. And Ben, who's our tech guy, lives in Australia.

uh he he called me up and he was like you do know like the pet clauses are actually the most complicated and diverse out of all of the things. I believe it. And I said, yeah, do you have pets? I said, because I'll tell you right now. Because there are people that go so hard in the paint on...

pet stuff, like that it's like they have custody rotation schedules for the pets. They have clauses about what to do if there's a conflict about veterinary decisions. And unlike children, you are most likely going to outlive your pet.

And so you have to have clauses in for if this pet has to be euthanized, can we both be there? What do we do with the cremated remains of this pet? You know, if we can't agree on a park or whatever that it's going to be sprinkled at, should we each get half and then we can do what we want with it? These are things that, again, have that conversation. Because here's the thing. If we have that conversation.

When we are now angry at each other and breaking up, right? When hell hath no fury like a woman or a man scorn. Do you think the answer is going to be a compassionate and thoughtful one that honors the relationship we both had with this companion animal? No. It's going to be, I'm keeping the ashes wide, because fuck you, that's why. Like, that's the answer. Like, I've had people explicitly say, I had a case a couple weeks ago.

where we went in and had like, it was supposed to be a four-way discussion, but I was doing like shuttle stuff. So I'm talking to the wife and her counsel, and I've got my client in another conference room. And these people own like 12 properties, like really high net worth K. And I said, look, which of these properties do you want to keep? And she was like, well, which ones does he want?

And I said, well, why does that matter? Why don't you tell me? And she's like, well, because I want to know which ones he wants. And I said, right, but why? And she's like, because whichever one he wants, I want those. That feels like you're just trying to be contrarian. And she goes, well, no, like he's actually a pretty shrewd investor. So whichever ones he wants are probably the best ones. So that's actually why I want them. Now, look, whether that's true, which seems like a fair logic.

Or whether it was because fuck you, that's why. Like, the time to have that conversation was not that moment where we're at odds and we both lawyered up. The conversation should have been had back in the day. You know, back when there was still an abundance of optimism and affection between these people. And so pet clauses, great example. Like, I think there's tremendous value in putting that stuff in there because let me tell you something. Heartbreak is hard enough.

Breaking up cohabitation with someone. Like, I don't care if you're married or not. You live with someone and now you're not cohabitating anymore? It sucks. We've all been there. It sucks, man. Like who keeps what? And like, even if I keep a thing, like I don't want that anymore. Like it just reminds me of you. Like we got that on that trip. I don't want to look at it. You know, like, and I don't want to throw it out.

Because it's like it was special, but I also want to look at it. So I'm going to print a box somewhere and hope that someday I'm going to open that box and smile. And no one else opens that box. And no one else opens that box and goes, oh, where'd you get? Oh, nothing. You know what I mean? Like in that. You know, like this is the challenge of this. But that's why having that conversation earlier, that's the way it is. So for me, what prenups combine.

It is a long list of things you can buy with prenups. What's important is what's the prenup that's right for this couple? What issues are important to you? The simplest one, yours, mine, ours. 50-50 divide on the hours. Yours and mine, we each keep our own, whether that's the stuff we had before the marriage. Because even like states like California that have community property.

Okay. Community property, just to give you like a cliff notes on it. And there's a couple of community property states. California is not the only one. So when you marry, what you own at the time of marriage is your separate property, okay? And then everything you acquire from the date of marriage forward is presumed to be marital property. You're one person in the eyes of the law. So if you buy your wife a Rolex watch, you bought yourself one half of a Rolex watch.

Okay. It doesn't matter. Title is irrelevant. If you win the lottery, she won half the lottery. Okay. So that's how it works in the absence of a prenup. Community property is after a certain period of time, and that period of time varies from state to state.

Once you hit that benchmark, all the separate property is now marital property. You're considered like fully married. You're one person in the eyes of the law. All the mine becomes ours. All the mine becomes ours. So the you and the me both becomes part of the we. The legislative intent, okay, was...

Yeah, after a certain number of years, you're like the tree that's grown in the way that now it's inextricably, there's no more you and me, there's just we, right? Love that idea. Love that idea. Cool. Like very romantic concept, right? In reality, do you know what it did? It spiked the divorce rate at six and a half years. Because why? Because six and a half years, honeymoon's over. Like that intoxication's passed. You know, that early days intoxication's passed.

The creamer is no longer like, look at which creamer she uses. It's like, Jesus. Christ, you need that much creamer. Like, I got to go buy more creamer now. I don't destroy my story, man. I'm not trying to. Divorce. I'm the skunk in the picture. She'll listen to this. She'll be like, wait a second.

I'm kidding. No, you were still speaking of it fondly. So I'm the divorce lawyer. I'm just joking. If I don't bring a little black cloud to the conversation. There's nothing you can do to puncture that memory for me. I love that. And by the way. All the more reason why it's not silly or stupid. It's incredible. That's an incredible thing, you know? And we all have those things, if we're being honest, in every relationship we've ever had.

In every single one. Nina, my girlfriend in high school, loved Skid Row. She loved the band Skid Row. She was madly in love with Sebastian Bach from Skid Row. And I was so jealous because I looked absolutely nothing like him. And I just remember that about her, that she had a poster of Skid Row on her wall. How many years ago that was? Like she's a mother of two. Like she's a, you know. But I still remember very fondly like sort of like being so insecure about Sebastian Bach from Skid Row.

And her like kind of reassuring me like, oh, that's okay. I think you're much more handsome than him. And me being like, that is so not true. He's so good looking. But like we all have those memories of every single, no matter how short the relationship was, we have a memory. And many of them, it's been eclipsed by the shit that happened at the end, the negative stuff that happened at the end. And by the way, that's another good reason.

to control that downside. Because you can destroy 20 years of amazing, beautiful memory. with six months of litigation. All you're going to remember is that last six months. Like, that's it. Like, whoever said that money can't buy love, you know, they didn't know it's like a restaurant. The check comes at the end. Like, that's when you got to pay the bill is at the end.

Right? If you do it the old-fashioned way, which is we're just going to submit ourselves to a game that we don't know the rule set of, and then when it's ending, we're going to let lawyers just go at each other. Or we're going to rely on the hope. That we won't use the adversarial system and we'll be able to sit across each other from a table with a mediator and hold hands and sing kumbaya. What you're saying is really important. Forgive me for interrupting, but because I think that nowadays.

There's kind of a growing, I hear more often, like, yeah, we were. These are colleagues of mine typically like, oh, yeah, you know, we were married, we got divorced, but. You know, we had 15 really great years. We raised our daughter. And they're still friends or at least friendly. And they look on those years or at least speak about them. I believe them.

with a ton of fondness and without the major injury of what you're talking about, which is this rough litigation at the end. So that's another reason to have a prenup. Another great reason to have a prenup, because look. I have an ex-wife. I've been divorced for 20 years. She's been remarried for 15. She's a wonderful person. She's a friend. I care deeply about her. There's a lot of people I love I wouldn't want to be married to.

And she would describe me that way. She'd be like, I love Jim. He's a great guy. He's a great ex-husband. I'm a much better ex-husband than I am husband. Totally different skill set. Totally different resume. I'm an excellent ex-husband. I do not have the patience to be a good husband, but I have the patience to be a good ex-husband. I can be a great co-parent too. I'm a really good father.

You know, you don't have to be a great husband to be a great father. It's a different skill set. Like, just because you cook doesn't mean you can farm. You know, like, those are two different things. Yes, they both deal with food, but they're two totally different skill sets. So fundamentally, I think how things end...

very often impacts your perception and memory of the entire thing. And you as the brain scientist would be able to tell me why that works in terms of what actually imprints on us. But I believe, and I'm sure there's some chemical reason for it. Pain. We remember pain more than pleasure. Well, you know all this stuff about 28 days to form a habit or adult neuroplasticity.

There's something called one trial learning and it comes fast and it sticks around forever unless you do something to reverse it. And that's the basis of trauma. Yeah. Bad, hard, painful stuff. Yeah. etched into our nervous system in one trial. Yeah. Sadly, in some cases. And it shapes you. Yeah. And it changes your memory of everything that precedes it. The truth is divorce. of the ugly kind. Period. Like, I am involved in a tremendous amount of trauma.

Trauma for each of the parties, trauma for their children. Like, it's a tremendous trauma. And it does not have to be. Like, but here's the problem. No one comes into my office. and sits down in front of me and says, I want this to be complicated. Expensive and awful. I want it to last a really long time. I want to put your kids through college instead of mine. And I want it to just be just miserable. I want it to be a shit. everybody comes in and says the same thing. I want to be fair.

I just want this over with quickly, and I want to be fair. Problem is their definition of fair and their spouse's definition of fair are completely different. Completely different. And what they think they owe each other is completely different. And now you both got guns on each other. You both hired a lawyer.

And I've argued both sides of every single issue you could argue in a divorce. I have argued both sides, probably in front of the same judges. I've had days where in front of the same judge, I argue complete opposite positions on different cases. Because that's the nature of our job, right? And a weapon in the hands of a virtuous person protects.

And a weapon in the hands of the villain causes tremendous harm. But the weapon is neutral. Like, like, and I'm the weapon. Like, and there's plenty of me out there. And we get paid by the hour and we get paid whether we win or lose. Like personal injury lawyers, everything is no fee unless we recover for you. Not divorce lawyers. Yeah, your 56% statistic reminded me of like Marines.

Sometimes you'll see them with the tattoo, like killing is my business. And on the other arm, it's, and business is good. You're going to say divorce is at 56% and business is good. Business is good. Business is really good. And the truth is like, I don't need. to make it rain just because I sell umbrellas. Like I'm not at a bar saying to people like, hey man, you could do better.

Like, I don't need to, like, people are doing a fine job of fucking their relationships up all by themselves. No, you're the love guy. Yeah. Oh, well, I happen to be. But even my colleagues, like, we're not cheering for divorce any more than an oncologist is cheering for cancer. And like when people say to me, oh, you make your, how could you, this guy, he makes his living in people's ruined lives and heartbreak. It's like, okay, like.

My mom had cancer. Like, I didn't look at the oncologist and go, well, I bet you feel good about yourselves making money on my mom's cancer. Like, no, I understand what they're not. They're there because this exists. and they're there to try to do what they can to help and by the way like There were so many people that divorced the way that you described your friends' divorce and the way that I described them. You just don't hear about it. You know why? It's the least interesting thing.

Like, do you think that's interesting? Like, if you invited me to a party and somebody said, oh, what do you do for a living? I said, I'm a divorce lawyer. And they said, oh, my God, you must have some stories. And I went, oh, my God, I've got this one. So there's this couple and they fell in love with each other and they were quite young when it happened. And then gradually, like they just wanted different things. They matured into different people and they sort of lost the plot.

of what they were together. And the Venn diagram of their overlapping interests and joys kind of got smaller and smaller. So they decided amicably that, you know, they should end the relationship, but they wanted to continue to co-parent really well. Dude, you'd be like, that is the worst story. Whereas if I go like, and then he took a chainsaw and he cut the car in half and he was like, pick which half you want, bitch.

Like that's one that you're going to be like, oh my God, Jim, you got to tell the story to this guy. Like you want to hear that story. It's so much more interesting. And by the way. People who have an ugly divorce that it becomes part of who they are. It becomes a lens. that they see the whole world through. It damages their trust so much, and they're so wounded by it.

And it's the fight. Yeah, and they almost don't know what to do with themselves when it's over. And the impact on the kids and the pets. Yeah, and by the way, like most human beings, you and I both know. When they tell you the story of their life, they're the hero of the story. Or the victim. Or the victim, right? Like one of the things I like about our friendship is that...

Like you and I are very aware of our own flaws and cognitive biases. And so when we talk to each other, you know, like all of the people I like best are people that like reality. you know, and that see themselves with a certain level of reality, you know. And so I don't have to be afraid to like talk to them candidly and blunt. And I think that in marriage, like in divorce,

If you tell the story and you're like, yeah, I could have done better. Like I really screwed that up. But, you know, I did get this right. And, you know, she's being unfair when it comes to this.

Like, when you tell the story and you're not the hero of the story, it's much more credible as far as I'm concerned. And I say that as someone who tells stories for a living, you know, in a courtroom, to try to be as persuasive as possible. I always tell my clients, I'm like, if you make yourself the hero.

and you make the other person the villain, like you lose credibility tremendously. Everybody has to be like a flawed hero, a villain that has some traits of positive to them. Like it's a much more believable real story. The cookie cut. That's why little kids. tv shows there's like the villain and the music gets dark when the villain comes on and the hero is all good and all

But as adults, that's not what we want. We want Breaking Bad. We want antiheroes. We want complicated heroes. We want villains that we kind of feel a little bad for, like the Joker. We get it, you know? Because we can relate. Right, because we know that's what we actually are. And by the way, that's what our partners are. So this idea that let's just put a tux on him and a white dress on her and then everybody's heroes, like. That's kind of silly, you know, and that's where I think.

That anger that becomes toxic and definitional to a person. It doesn't have to be that way if early in the discourse about love... We just normalize this idea of you're a human being. I'm a human being. We're flawed. We have hopes. We have fears. We have things we got right, things we get wrong. We're going to change. We're going to change in good and bad ways if you want to parse it that way. So how do we water the plants?

Like, how do we keep this thing healthy and vibrant? How do we check in with each other? You have a job. You have performance reviews, right? You have some system whereby there's feedback about what you're doing right and doing wrong, or there's a bonus structure so that there's skin in the game. Like, why does it make it less romantic to look at our relationship?

to say like, hey, it's important to check in on this stuff. It's important to have like routine preventative maintenance on this thing. Like, if you said to me, like, oh, I'm taking my car for an oil change, I'd be like, what, you don't have faith in your car? Like, no. What, you have a cheap car? Like, no. Like, of course, preventative maintenance makes sense. It's a whole lot better than waiting for there to be a problem than trying to fix the problem. Well, I think it's this.

business of egos, right? There's something in the quote-unquote traditional courtship dance that is about sort of... Before people are critiquing one another, before people are commenting on the things that aren't working, where... You know, it's a false reality, right? That you're only seeing the good. They're only seeing the good. And it feels good. Well, sure. What wouldn't feel good about only seeing the good? Like the previews is the best part of the movie.

And you go, oh my God, that preview was good. Haven't you ever seen a preview and gone, oh my God, I can't wait to see that movie. And then you see the movie and you're like, that sucked. Like the only good scenes were the things that were in the preview in that two minute preview. Like, okay, well, what do you think courtship is? Courtship's the preview. By the way, if the preview sucks, the movie's really gonna suck. Yeah, relationships are more like the deer hunt.

So it's really, they're long and they're complicated. And there's moments in it that you kind of go like, I don't know what the point of this is, but I'm in for the ride. So let's do it. Right. Hats off to anyone that got through the deer hunter. It's great movie, but it's really long. But yeah, it takes some time to get through it. Let's talk about movies and as a serious thing. Sure.

A couple of years ago, I saw you on a podcast and you were talking about the movie True Romance. Oh, sure. Sure. I love that movie. Anyone that was a teen or in their 20s in the 90s will remember that movie. Everyone should see that movie.

old enough and mature enough to see it. I get so excited when anybody knows that movie. It's just such an awesome movie and the cast is amazing. Gary Oldman, Brad Pitt. Gary Oldman, greatest scene in history. Michael Rappaport's hilarious in that movie. Brad Pitt is in it. He has a little scene in it.

I think Quentin Tarantino makes a cameo. Quentin Tarantino might make a cameo. He wrote it. He makes a cameo. Anyway, incredible movie. And Patricia Arquette, who's just awesome. And Christian Slater at his coolest. Yeah. Very, very cool movie. And you made the excellent point. which doesn't give away the plot, so no spoiler alert necessary, which is that the essence of the movie is really about someone seeing...

something or a collection of things in somebody and just thinking that they're awesome. I don't want to give away any more than that. And just that kind of... appreciation for quirkiness and uniqueness. The two protagonists of the film, without giving anything away, are deeply flawed. Like they're deeply flawed by any traditional definition. Yeah.

They are not something that you would go, oh, this is the perfect romantic partner. It's actually quite the opposite. Yeah, their histories alone are a reason to walk away. On paper, there's a lot of reasons to just walk away from this person and they meet. And there is this instant true romance. There is this sense of, like, I see you. And all that negative stuff on paper, that means nothing because that's not who you are. I see who you are, and I'm cheering for you. And you are so cool.

Like, that's the reality. And that, to me... the movie still stands up for that reason, because it's this sense of being seen. with all your warts and all, and just being, I see you, and you see me, and it's you and me. It's you and me. Let's do this. Like, you know, let's hold hands and walk this thing together. And it's a game you cannot win. And we're going to play it to the up.

Like, let's just play this thing through. And it doesn't get better than that. Yeah, you nailed it. You nailed the description. I feel that in contrast to how you described, I think very aptly, social media as an advertisement of a life to aspire to, even if it's not possible to have. I felt for a long while that movies and television and books and music were... advertisements for exactly what you just described.

The uniqueness and the quirkiness of relationships that are not typical. There's nothing generic about them, even if the decision to the bond, the legal bond, the marriage, you know. Marriage is marriage is marriage is marriage. I mean, there's some subtleties depending on state and conditions. But each one of those is unique. The right people found one another. So there's something really quite beautiful and special about that.

picture, right? True romance, right? As seeing the quirkiness, the everyday things, and as you said, a teammate perspective, right? One plus one equals three. There's tremendous value to that. Tremendous value. That's in very stark contrast. to what I think many people experience now, where they have their relationship, but then they also have visual and movie access to all these other relationships in the form of social media. They're always...

being presented with other options of at least how things exist for other people. And so I believe, again, the biologist in me thinks this sets a kind of a yearning for something that one doesn't. Because ultimately, all the good stuff we've talked about, whether or not it's dogs or a person or the pizza story, the creamer story, whatever, is about basking in the completeness of what one already has. Yeah. As opposed to needing more or wanting more. So would you say that social media...

Not to – I mean I teach on social media. You're on social media. But let's be honest that it in some way may be poisonous to things like appreciation, fidelity. Not just because you can meet people there but because of the yearning that it creates. Look, you know, you – While you were saying that, all I could reflect on was a prior conversation you had on a podcast about pornography.

And the effect that it has on us and our perception of sex, our dopamine, all these other things. Yeah, because young guys are writing to me about this all the time. Rom-coms are porn. That's all rom-coms. Listen, I'm not saying that there's not a purpose in having an ideal, a romanticized ideal. But most romantic comedies are not true romance.

A story about two flawed characters who, you know, like— Most rom-coms are like an ideal, right? They're a romanticized ideal that, by the way, ends before reality can kick in. So like if you think Jack, I forget what her character, Kate Winslet's character was on Titanic. But like, if you think he'd lived at the end of Titanic.

That a few years later, she wouldn't be like, all right, enough painting the French girls. Like, you got to get a job, buddy. Like, you're telling me, like, most of these movies. You know, these rom-coms, they end at like the high, I love you, I've always loved you, I love you too, and then it ends. They don't ever have to live together.

Like the actual reality of them at Trader Joe's waiting on the line, like arguing over what to, you know, like he doesn't find someone else. He doesn't find somebody else. He's not on sitting on the couch scrolling when she's trying to talk to him. expired the age limit. Right, absolutely. It's like Menudo. You turn 20, you're out. I'm going to get in trouble for that one. I think it's not public knowledge.

So I think at the end of the day, what's really core here is, look, I'm not saying let's get rid of pornography. Like, I have two sons. They're adults now. But when they were young, they got to a certain age. They had phones. They had iPads. We had the internet. because it's coming at him in a way that it did not come at me when I was that age. Like as I was that age, you had to like trade like a bunch of things you had to get someone's dad's porn magazine.

for like a day so that you could look at it. You couldn't just log on to any device and be inundated with any kind of kink you wanted to see. Yeah, it's inconceivable. It's not even... It's fathomable, and I don't know what effect. I mean, you know better than I do, and you've spoken eloquently about it, about the effect that has on the organism. But here's what I will tell you. It definitely creates in people a – if sex – if your sex education is pornography.

you're going to have a really hard time navigating an actual sexual relationship. And by the way, like, I've seen pornography and I've had sex. Sex is not like it is in pornography, but it's great. Like, it's still so fun. It's like the most fun thing. I don't know why like anybody was like, oh, we got to make it better. Like sex is great. Like it's great. Sex sells sex.

You don't need to put all that on it. Like, I understand why. Yes, of course. It's just like what they do to french fries at a fast food restaurant. They figure out ways to make them more addictive. You know, I get it. But same thing with rom-com. Like, rom-coms is an idealized, stylized version of the best part. Just like porn. So like if you make your relationship, like your sexual relationship based on pornography or what looks good in movies, you're setting yourself up for heartbreak.

So same thing with rom-coms. Same thing with, like, I've met my soulmate, and that's my soulmate, and then it's perfect, and it stays perfect. And if it's not perfect, then they mustn't have been my soulmate. Like, all that is is pornography. All that is is taking the dream life, the stylized perfect parts, showing just that.

And then convincing people that's what it's supposed to look like. And if it doesn't look like that, you're not having a satisfying time. Like the reality is, is that people are flawed, but we want the same thing. We want, I don't believe. That the path of like, I'm going to own 50, like you and I both know men who own every car you could ever want and could sleep with any number of gorgeous women, three, four at a time if they want to.

And they're unhappy. They're desperately unhappy. Like, I represent people who have a net worth of you and I combined times 100. And they're miserable. They don't have this basic connection with another person. They don't have... the sense of who they are as an object of someone's love and the worth that comes from them, which, by the way, is foundational. Like, look at a baby.

Like look at a baby and look at how they look at their mother. Like mom is the name of God on the lips of children. Like there's something about like this thing loves me and wants what's best for me. Like we come out half form. And there's this person that just loves us, right? And so, of course, we're always looking to find that again, that kind of love and that kind of connection. And there are people that find it.

But the way they find it is not through fairy tales. It's not through the romanticized version of pornography. It's through realism. I think one of the reasons why, you know, I hear from so many young men about their challenges with pornography, which tells me that they've defaulted to pornography or that there are elements of it that have gotten them, quote unquote, addicted or at least in a compulsive way with it.

And I also, frankly, hear from a lot of women that are frustrated with men dating apps and this kind of thing is that, uh, I think in large part because of what you're describing with social media and other forms of media, but also just by virtue of the way that everything is shared so much now that people are afraid to reveal any kind of... flaws or authenticity in themselves unless it's the kind that they can leverage to make themselves seem more attractive or something because

You know, if they go out on a date or let's say they share a first kiss or something that if they're not a great kisser that, you know, she's going to tell all her friends at work. Or worse, put it on an app or something where his name is named. Or he's going to sleep with her and then might even share photos of it with people covertly. I mean, things that are illegal. That's real. Just breaches of trust, like the contract of trust that is –

It's purely, I don't know, for lack of a better word, it's kind of a spiritual contract where you say, hey, listen, like, I don't know if this is going to work. You don't know if this is going to work. I'm willing to wager in a healthy way some of my own safety by revealing some things that aren't like. super great about myself. Yeah. And maybe you'll do the same or maybe you won't and I'll just feel okay just with the way it lands. That seems more rare nowadays. Sure. Because it's brave.

Like, I grew up, I wanted to be brave. Like, I aspired to being brave. Like, my heroes growing up. were from Last of the Mohicans, right? La Lone Carabine. You know, like they were samurai, like in the films, like the Moshashi films, you know, all those kinds of films. And so if you're not scared, it's not brave. Like, it's only brave if you're scared and you do it anyway.

Like, that's the thing that makes it brave. Like, and that's the thing where we're not teaching young men anymore is it's like, yeah, it's scary. It's so much easier. To just be like, yeah, women don't mean anything. Women just, they're disposable. They're like iPhones. I'll get a new one. It'll have different features. It'll be great. Like, you think Andrew Tate's brave? Like, Andrew Nade's brave because he fights Muay Thai. That's brave.

That's brave. Like even ground with another man, bare hands, let's do this thing. Yeah, that's brave. But having a bunch of women and sort of not committing to any of them, not having being vulnerable to any of them, this is what's brave about. There's nothing brave about. Like what's brave is I'm going to give you the ammo to hurt me. Like I'm going to give you the ability to hurt.

Like, and I'm going to do it anyway. Like, and I'm scared, but I'm going to do it anyway. And that's what makes it brave. And I think that that's the thing we've just lost in this culture. And that's where I think it's so backwards. We go, well, a prenup, a prenup, like it goes to the opposite direction. Like, because a prenup is you're saying, well, I don't believe in this thing. It only works if you, that's insane.

That's insane to say that, you know, if you don't, if you take Any precautions at all or give any or, by the way, more accurately. that if you don't trust it to the legislature of your state that you're not being brave. Like, that's insane. It's brave to merge your destiny with that of another person. It's brave to let someone see what you're afraid of. what you hope for and aspire to. Those are all like divorce is intimacy weaponized.

And I say it as someone who's been in the room with thousands of people going through it. And I mean, the pain and terror. Of this person who, in hushed tones, you whispered to them all the things you're most afraid of. when you trusted them more than anyone, and now they're going to use that against you in a public forum, in a courtroom. Like, my God, man. Thank God I have no idea what that feels like. to have done to me. Like, it must be horrible. But again, like, is it worth it?

To try? Is it worth it? Yes, but I think having conversations from the beginning. about, listen, we've got to figure out, like, is this the kind of person who's going to hurt? Are you going to hurt? If you're mad at me, if I tell you something you don't want to hear. Are you going to throw at me these intimate things I shared with you? Because if you are, pull the ripcord now and get out.

Like, get out. Like, if you tell, I've had guys come to me, successful people come to me and say, yeah, I told her I want a prenup. And she was like, you know, well, if we have a prenup, I'm leaving. That's it. I'm like, okay, then let her leave.

Like, because if, if that's all, if you're saying, I love you, I love you more than anyone in the world and I'll love you forever. Great. Could you, we sign this contract? Absolutely not. But then that's it. I don't even want to see you again. Wow. That changed fast. Because like a minute ago, you loved me more than anything in the world.

And you would never let me go under any circumstances and you never hurt me. And now I just told you that there's a financial concern I have about letting the legislature make decisions about our future. And you've now decided you don't even like me anymore and we're out? That's a hell of a jump. Yeah, good data there. Yeah, but I mean, how do you reconcile that?

Like, if they say, wow, why do you want that? Do you not have faith in our relationship? Now let's have a conversation. No, of course, of course I have faith in our relationship. Why would I want to marry you otherwise? Like, what is it you're afraid of? Are you afraid that the contract will be lopsided? Because here's the thing. I want it to not be.

Like, I want to know what your, like, you know, I was having a conversation with the trusted prenup guys and we were talking about marketing prenups. Like, how do you market prenups? You know, like, yeah, when you talk about it, it deepens the relationship and connection. Okay, that's a very feminine aspiration. Like, that's a good way to sell prenups to women, right, is to say the conversations are going to deepen the connection and there's going to be this.

sense of like, hey, we're talking about what we expect of each other, what we're afraid of. And I was saying, well, for me, I think a great entry point for men in heterosexual relationships is to say... Hey, you want your woman to feel safe, right?

You know, her heart is safe. Her body is safe. Like, you're going to keep her safe. Yeah, provider protector. Yeah, provider protector, right? So one of the best things about being a man, right, is the feeling of, like, I love that. Like, you don't test that theory? Say to any man, I can't open this jar. Look at that. Here you go. We're thrilled for that opportunity. We all want to provide and protect.

So, okay, why do we not turn the conversation about prenups into how can she feel loved if she doesn't feel safe? So, okay, in that situation where he has more resources than her. And she says, you know, I'd like to be a mom someday. Or there's a good chance I'd be a mom someday. So if I'm going to be the primary caretaker of our children and your career is going to stay your focus so you can provide, right, then you're going to get way ahead of me in the race in terms of economics.

So we need to figure out like how we would deal with that imbalance. Who would say that's not a fair conversation? Who would say? Now, look, if you bring it up when we've decided we hate each other and the relationship is over and I've been sleeping with my secretary. OK, yeah. Now I get why you don't want to have a fair conversation about that. But at the beginning. When we're still abundance of optimism, we're still feeling positive about this.

Would any man say, well, you're being greedy, you're being a gold tigger? No, you'd say, hey, listen, of course, like you're going to make certain sacrifices and focus on certain things. And, you know, I rarely have ever met a couple, a happy couple. that they go, we brought the exact same things to the relationship.

She's a great provider and I'm a great provider. No, complementarity is what it's about. Of course, right? And so say that out loud to each other. Maybe you don't want to announce it to everybody and put it on your social media, but you can talk to each other privately about, hey.

What do we owe each other? What do we expect of each other? If we split up, what should it look like? What would you need? What would I need? And you can talk about that in very practical ways. And I don't think that that, I think that's actually quite romantic because what you're saying is I want you to feel safe. I want you to feel safe that even if, because I don't, I'll tell you, for me, even just selfishly.

I don't want you here because you don't know what you're going to do economically if we split up. It's not a good reason to stay with me. I want you to want me next to you because you like me. You like having me around. Your life is better for my presence in it on a day-to-day basis. Not that, well, who's going to pay my rent? You know, I'll pay your rent. You can have your rent paid. Are you still here? Because if someone says, if I say, hey, if I paid you, like.

Somebody said to me the other day, if somebody gave you $100 million, would you still do your job? Would you still be a lawyer? And I was like, absolutely. Absolutely. Would I do it at the level I'm doing it currently? Would I be as stressed about it as I currently am? Probably not. But I would still do the job because I love the job.

You know, and the answer is, if you had a hundred million dollars tomorrow, would you still do the podcast? If the answer is no, stop. I've said this before. It's still true. I check in with myself now and again. If you offered me a billion dollars to quit the podcast, no effing way. I just love it. I love my team. I love learning. I love teaching. End of story. Right. And by the way, let's take that further, right?

You get tremendous value out of it and the people who are participating in it, audience and the co-producers of it. all get something out of it too. This is a totally wonderful economy. Advertisers are getting something out of it. Everyone's getting something out of it. It's like win-win-win for everybody involved, right? OK, so in the relationship between a man and a woman or a man and a man and a woman and a woman because of marriage equality in a romantic relationship, in a marriage.

If you said to your partner, I'll give you $10 million to give up this person, if the answer is see ya, then that's not the person to be with. Definitely not. Okay, so I would rather have that conversation. early on. Like, if you want to talk about barriers to exit, by the way, you can put anything you want in a prenup. So you can put in financial terms in a prenup that will give this person a financial windfall. I had a client who was a young man in his 30s. He was a Goldman. I can say that.

And he was worth like 30, 40 million bucks at the age of 30. So he was in the beginning of his career. I mean, he was going to do well in life. That's a lot of money. And he was marrying... a yoga teacher who made like no money at all stunningly beautiful funny, brilliant, like just insightful, spiritual. He was very quant, very analytical, and she just lightened him up.

and was adventurous and fun. It was very barefoot in the park. It was very like, he kind of reeled her in a little, and she pulled him out of his comfort zone, and it was like a really nice coupling. And they did this prenup. And of course, they both lawyered up with good lawyers, right? So he hired me and she hired a colleague of mine at a great firm in the city who I have a lot of cases with.

And the lawyers went at our thing, you know. And so I put in a waiver of any alimony, spousal support. And the other side came back and said, no, no, if they're married this many years, it's this percent. And if it's this many years, it's that percent.

So I go to my client because this is kind of a negotiation, but it's with a person who he's been going home to every night because they're cohabitating already, you know. And I say to him, like, listen, they want this structure and this amount for it. And he goes, yeah, just like put like five million bucks. I was like, wait, what? And he goes, yeah, like if we get divorced, she gets 5 million bucks. I was like, wait, if you get divorced in a month?

Because she's sleeping with her tennis instructor? She gets five million bucks? And he's like, Yeah, you know what? If we get divorced, they got bigger problems. Like just, you know, like, yeah, just like, you know. I'll know that if she's staying, I'll know she likes me more than five million bucks. So that's good. Good for him. And I thought, you know what? Like, that is gangster in a good way. Like, I loved that. And they're still married. Like, and that was probably 10 years ago.

You know, and they're tragic. They got a couple of kids now. Like, and I went in that moment. I remember thinking, yeah, they're going to be fine. Probably these two, you know, it never hurts. I mean, sometimes generosity, people will look back on their generosity and actually, no, I can't think of a single instance where, you know, I was. I've even pushed myself to be a bit more generous than I might.

impulse at the time would have had me be and and didn't think like in retrospect that was the right thing to do yeah i mean i i've uh you know haven't dealt with circumstances of a having that much money or b uh doing a prenup Well, if you have that much money, it doesn't really mean anything anymore. I have a couple of billionaire clients. One of my clients is worth $8 billion.

You know, it's like Stalin said, the death of one is a tragedy, the death of a million is a statistic. Like, I think if I said to you, Andrew, great news, you've won $150 million. I'm sorry, $130 million. You wouldn't go, ah. The numbers on a page are numbers on a page. It starts to feel like a drop in the ocean. There's just no...

You couldn't possibly spend that amount of money. The amount of money that money makes on an annual basis just in interest alone is insane. Well, the joy in being generous is the opportunity. at least in this instance, or something parallel to it. is the opportunity to do something that for someone else would be quite meaningful. Yeah. And for you, just feels good to do. Yeah. You know, one would hope that he didn't say give her five because five didn't feel like anything.

No, I think he felt that was not his reason. This is not a man who did not take money seriously. He made his bones in it. But I think what he was saying is... Well, there's no way that $5 million isn't enough for her to be okay. And I want her to be okay. I want her to be safe. It was an act of care. Right. And he was saying, you know, because look.

When you marry someone the right way or even cohabitate with someone or even get in a relationship with someone, you're kind of handing them a dagger and saying, okay, here you go. Here you go. Like you can, if you want to, it's yours. Like if you want to stab me with that, you got, here it is. Here's my soft spots. I'm going to show you where they all are.

Like, and I'm giving you that. And again, I think that's the bravest thing in the world. And I think it's the coolest thing in the world. Oh, man. I've done it a number of times. Sometimes it ends well. Sometimes it doesn't end well. But I'll tell you. And by the way, with enough time.

There's something really beautiful about them. I mean, look, I've been reflecting on this a lot lately, and I don't want to pivot to my unique circumstances, but since I was, probably since I was an embryo, but since I was old enough to remember. I'm interested and on the adventure of life. Yeah. And you're a romantic at heart. I mean, that's a function of our, like our friendship is born of the fact that I think you're a romantic at heart. And I think you're.

I think the people who have had their ass kicked by love. And still go, yeah, I'm going to do it again. Let's do it. Put me back in. I love that. Yeah, put me back in. I love that. And by the way, that's the statistic that everybody forgets. Which is 56% of marriages end in divorce and 85% of people who get divorced are remarried within five years. That's an incredible statistic. It's an incredible statistic. And I usually do their prenup.

I tell all of my clients, by the way, that if I did your litigated divorce, I will do any prenup for you for any subsequent marriage for free. And I've only had three clients take me up on it. So people are braver than one might think? I think so. I think, look, I think... discretion is the better part of all valor. So I think... But I'm also a pragmatic human being, and I think there is value in saying, okay.

Let's dive into this thing. Let's do it brave. Let's do it. But see, again, I think bravery on the front end, which is bravely having a conversation about What does this look like if we hurt each other? What if we end up like the majority of people?

What do we do? Like, what do we do? You know, and there's, there's value in that conversation. Come on. Any heterosexual man is going to tell you they've been in a conversation with the woman in their life where she goes, if I was missing a leg, would you still love me? And you're like, what? Where did that come from? Because what's the person saying? They're saying, hey, if I wasn't exactly who I am, what parts of me would you have to lose? for me to do not love me anymore.

Like, I understand that question for what it is. I mean, to some degree, it's a thought exercise. It's anecdotal. It's funny. You know, and my response to it is always like a whole leg. Forget it. Like you break a nail amount. You know my response? Yeah. I'd love you more.

Yeah. And then they go, wait, what are you into? Yeah. Yeah. You'd be like, well, we play hopscotch. I don't know. No, I just, the idea is, I mean, I think the question is such a beautiful one because it's a question of vulnerability. Right. It's saying if I were because generally people aren't asking, hey, if I, you know, gained 50 pounds. Yeah. Would you still. Yeah. You know, a missing leg is more dramatic, but at the same time, it...

So it preserves certain things while it removes a certain thing. It's very well defined. But I also think that there's another way to look at it. You know, there was a... So I grew up watching L.A. Law. I think it's part of the reason why I became a lawyer, is I loved that show. I tried watching it recently. It's up on one of the streaming services, and it didn't age well.

But I grew up watching. Because of a lack of political correctness by today's standards. Yeah, and also like some of the plots, like there's gender stuff in there that you're like, oh my God, you know.

it's also as a lawyer it's very hard as a lawyer to watch lawyer shows because you're like that would never happen objection leading like you find yourself going like none of my friends that were in a special operations can watch a movie yeah exactly they just you can't it's too painful painful to do it

Too painful. But I grew up watching it, and I wanted to be – Jimmy Smits played this really cool criminal defense attorney called Victor Cifuentes, and he had an earring. And I was like, I'm going to be him. Instead, I ended up becoming Arnie Becker, which was the divorce lawyer on the show that, you know, like Corbin Bernson played him.

And I'd never imagined that's who I would grow up to be. But it definitely created in me this love of the law. But there was a character on the show named Benny, and he was developmentally disabled, and he worked in, like, the copy room. and he has a crush on this secretary. And she says something to him about, well, I'm trying, like she's eating a salad. And he says, why are you eating that for lunch? Like, you know, that doesn't look very good. And she says, well, I want to be skinnier.

And he says, why do you want to be skinnier? And she says, well, because if I lost 20 pounds, I'd be prettier. And he says, no, you'd just be smaller. And there's a simplicity to that that's completely honest. Like, no, there'd just be less of you. You know, like when someone says, if I gained 50 pounds, would you still love me?

I hear that as both A, a thought experiment, B, you're looking for me to reassure you how much I love you. But also what you're saying is if something changed, like what about me can change and what about me can't? Like, what would be the things about me that could change? Because by the way, sometimes things change totally beyond our control. You know, the tumor is what made you gain weight. It wasn't that you liked Big Mac.

So if you gained weight because you were irresponsible in your eating habits versus you gained weight because of the tumor, these are two very different circumstances. But if what the person is saying is, what do you love about me? And what about me could change? And I would lose your love potentially. Again, what is that conversation but the prenup?

It's what do we mean to each other? What do we owe to each other? Where do we store value in this relationship? And when it changes, not if, when it changes. What changes can we communicate? How can we communicate about what those changes feel like? Because here's the thing. If we're having less sex 10 years into the relationship, I don't think that's abnormal. Like, when you're first dating...

The amount of sex you're having and the amount of sex you're having 10 years later with two kids is probably going to be different and probably less. Does that mean something's wrong in your relationship? Not necessarily. Like, you're also aging. That might change. Her testosterone levels change. Maybe her body changes when you had kids. Who knows? By the way, if you're having more sex, does it mean your relationship's healthy? Not necessarily.

Right. So the question becomes is when things change. How will we check in about it? Because I don't think, let's just pretend everything's exactly the same and it's fine. It's fine. It's fine. I don't think that's the answer. I think that's what gets us a 56% divorce. Men marry women thinking that they're not going to change. Women...

merry men thinking they will change. And therein lies the challenge. It's just a saying, but... Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of good axioms. The one I've heard before that I think is similar is that... Women marry the man they want to spend the rest of their life with, and men marry the woman they don't want to imagine the rest of their life without. That's a more romantic version. Women are parsing it in the imagined future with this person, and men are thinking about the imagined future law.

I've spent a lot of time in the room with people who have recently been caught or caught their spouse cheating. And the most common question the man wants to know is, did you fuck him? And the most common question the women want to know is, do you love... And that says something about value for those students.

For the man, it's like, did you betray me physically, right? And for the woman, it's like, do I have no value to you anymore? Do you not love me? Do you want this person more than you want me? It's more about... the value than the sex necessarily, right? And again, I'm not saying all men, I'm not saying all women, but I think there is a sense in men.

A lot of them, and I say this even in my personal relationships with male friends, that they're like, yeah, like once they find someone that they're like, yeah, I just can't imagine like her not being here. And they marry because they're like, I got to marry her or else I'm going to lose her. You know, like I've never met a guy who was like, I can't wait for my wedding day. And I've imagined my tux and I just can't wait. Like, it's not.

It's just not something men, I don't know a lot of men that could dreaming of their wedding day. Whereas I know a lot of women, again, some of that's cultural that we've been shoving weddings down women's throats and you get to be a princess for a day and wear the dress and everyone's paying attention to you because the bride's the star of the show. You know, I get it. But there is also something about the idea that life...

You know, most of the men I know, they're like, yeah, we got married because it's like, you know, like that's what you do. Like you make an honest woman of her, you know, like that's her parents would have killed me if we didn't get married. Her friends were all getting married.

So it was like, you know, all of her friends, she's been a bridesmaid eight times. Like I was like, it's about time, you know, whereas women very often it's like, where is this going? Where is this going? Are we moving? And again, there's probably a myriad of reasons. evolutionary, biological, having to do with procreation. There's lots of cultural, religious, there's all kinds of, but at the end, we are where we are in that equation. And I think...

Marriage is something most men are like, okay, if that's the price, like if I got to buy that ticket to take the ride, I like the ride. I don't want to lose the ride. I don't want to lose this person. Oh man, I'm just, I'm not, I'm not. I'm not necessarily agreeing with you, but I can just hear the voices in people's heads about the, really, is that passive for men? It sounds almost like a passive response. Like, yeah, I guess there's really no other.

path here right i've had a lot let me tell you something people lie to their therapist they don't lie to their Like I have had 25 years of conversations with men. or starting a marriage and getting a prenup, or thinking about getting a prenup, but they're too afraid to say anything to her about it. I've had those same things with women. I've represented roughly half, half men, half women.

And I'm telling you, like, you don't have to like the truth. The truth is the truth. Like, you don't have to like, like, I get it, man. Like, don't shoot the messenger. Like, that's how it is, you know? And every time I speak about these things, because they're so tied in with gender stuff, and they're so— I know I'm putting a huge target and everyone's like, oh, this guy. I don't care because here's the thing.

Sit in my office for a week. Well, you're an equal opportunity assassin when it comes to these conversations. I mean, sure, what you just said kind of puts a target on men in the sense that it makes them sound like, well, they kind of went into it because there really wasn't another like. trail on the mountain. Sure. On the other hand, there's something kind of both romantic and actually very honorable about... There might be other options, but this is the one I like.

she really wanted this and I wanted her. And so that's the contract. I mean, there's something pretty nice to that. How is that passive? That's love. It's love and it's logical. That's the economy of love. What, you like going to antique shows? I don't. But you know what? If she wants to go to, if that's something she enjoys, you think she enjoys Brazilian jujitsu tournament?

Like, trust me, that's not, but you know what? I love it, and she's excited to see me be so excited. I've never been to one, but I can imagine. Oh, trust me, you can smell it from here. It's unbelievable. The funk is like you'd never believe in your whole life. The only other thing is like equestrian is maybe the only other habit that could smell as bad as that. But the truth is, part of love is, you know, you want that slice of pizza more.

Like part of it is like the, okay, like this is important to you. Yeah, the pleasure and sacrifice. Right, because listen, if it's important to me and it's important to you, am I doing it for you or am I doing it for me? Or both of us? Like what's beautiful is when you're not sacrificing to give. You know, when there's this feeling of like, if this is important to you, it just became important to me.

Like, and that, but that's at the core of any healthy relationship. You know, if you say to me as my friend, like, Jim, this upsets me. Okay. Or I'm scared of this. If I go, well, I'm not scared of that. Thanks. That didn't do anything for me. Yeah, it sort of ceases to be a friendship at that point. Right. When you say to someone like, hey, I get that, man. You know what? Honestly.

Like, I understand that. Like, I don't, I'm not afraid of that. And here's how I think about it, which is why I'm not afraid of it. Like, and I hope that maybe helps, you know, like. And that's what, or just hearing the person and going like, yeah, I get that, man. Hey, that's fair. Like, people are afraid. I got some stuff I'm afraid of that you're probably not afraid of. Like, that's okay.

So why is it – I don't think there's something passive about a man saying, yeah, marriage was not that important to me, but it was important to her. And what's important to her becomes important to me because she's important to me.

Like, that's beautiful. Yeah, I didn't want to imply it was passive. I want to be very clear. I think that some people might be surprised to learn that many men, because I agree with you, by the way, will agree to do things not out of... the sheer joy and delight of the thing, but the deeper... delight of making the person that they care about happy. I feel like that's love. Like that's a big piece of love. And so...

I think marriage can be one of those things where just, look, whether you wanted it or the other person wanted it, like, there's something wonderful about you're excited about this. Okay, let's do it. But get a prenup. Of course get a prenup. Why would you not get a prenup? Listen, man, I love you. And I trust you're a good driver. We get in the car, I'm putting on a seatbelt.

Putting on a seatbelt. Why wouldn't I? Because there are other drivers out there. There's other drivers on the road. You're damn right. There's other drivers on the road. And by the way, like, again, this is a situation where there are rules in place. whether you accept it or not. Like, that's the thing about the truth, right? Like, my beliefs don't require you to believe them.

Like, this is that you don't have to believe the truth. If it's the truth, it's the truth. Like, there is a rule set governing every single matter. It was written by the state legislature, period. I want to discuss...

relationships that start earlier in life versus later in life. When I was an undergraduate, I took a course, several courses actually from a professor who... was just phenomenal learned neuroanatomy from him developmental neurobiology gave me the only b plus after my freshman year that's not to boast about my other grades but that's the course that i learned the most

I still remember the questions I got wrong. I still remember him explaining exactly why I got it wrong. It was the best learning, right? Yeah, it was amazing. Years later, I went back to visit him just for social reasons. And he had kids now. He was married. He had a new baby. And he said to me something. I don't know why he felt compelled to tell me.

stuff about his personal life and giving me advice, but he did because he was known for being a pretty rigid guy. Sure. Very particular, which is part of what made him such an excellent neuroanatomist. Sure. And he said to me, You know, I don't know what your personal life is like, but you should get married as young as possible within reason. And I said, oh yeah, why? And he said, because there's this thing that happens when you reach a certain age.

that you need to have the toothpaste on the right-hand side of the sink. And when the toothpaste isn't on the right-hand side of the sink, then it irritates you. But if you get married and... kind of merge lives with somebody early, you develop a flexibility and you go through a lot of developmental milestones with them. And I found it both amusing and interesting that he would share that.

I know examples of people who merged lives early and are still together. I know some that merged lives early and diverged later, got divorced. I know people that get married and have kids later in life. I'm almost 50 in September. So this question isn't about me, but certainly pertains to me in some sense. In your observation of successful versus unsuccessful marriage.

Is there a tendency for people who marry younger to, despite the fact that they, quote unquote, might not know themselves as well, et cetera, for those marriages to be more successful because they go through a lot of these life milestones together? setting aside here whether the toothpaste is on the right-hand side or the left-hand side of the sink so i've given this a lot of thought because the nature of my constitution is to look at patterns and look for patterns we're similar

And so I'm always looking at that. For 25 years, I've been looking at like same religion, different religion. Cohabitated before marriage, didn't cohabitate before marriage. Age gap, no age gap. Female age gap, like she's older, he's younger versus the other way. Like I try to find patterns. And I try to, the patterns that can't be tracked by the government in a certificate of dissolution of marriage, the patterns that can only be tracked by someone who's observing this, right?

And I've really tried to look at that from every angle, including the angle that you just said, which is people that connect. or enter a monogamous relationship, or make a romantic connection even if it doesn't stay monogamous throughout that whole journey. So like they met in high school, dated in high school, or dated and then went off to college, dated other people, and then they reconnect to each other.

After they played in the other fields and then they go, okay, now we're going to be together. I've looked at all of that. And what I will tell you is, in my experience, in my observation. But it also ignores the negative, which is also true. So, yes, there is a scenario where people meet. At a relatively young age, teens, 20s, whatever it might be.

They marry or they become monogamous with each other and then they eventually marry or stay in a romantic relationship together. And they grow in that like tree that the roots become intertwined and they... They just know what—and they build a history together that is just irreplaceable, you know, because— Like, you were there when my mom was still alive. You know, like you were there when I, you know, got into law school, you know, like not just when I passed the bar, not just when I built up.

Like you were here for this whole trajectory and there's this shared history. I mean, you have old friends. I have old friends. There's something about someone who was with you when there was just no. Like, no, I have some friends that it's like, dude, there was no reason to be friends with me other than like, I had nothing to offer you. I had no money. I had no status. I was a C student, like, and something about you still was like, nah, that's my buddy, you know? And I love that.

So there is a tremendous beauty in that, when it works. There is also that... People who have known each other since the beginning, as they grow and age and mature, and they reach the stage in life where they start to, as we can call it, a midlife crisis. which, by the way, is not reserved for men. Men and women both have a form of that. that they start to say, hey, like, have I really...

Felt everything there is to feel. I've only slept with this person for the last 15 years. There's so many other things out there. There's so many other experiences out there, and I haven't had them. So there's a sense—and by the way, there's also a— you know, mistaking correlation for causation in the sense of saying, you know, I'm dissatisfied with my life and you've been here for the whole thing, so it must be you.

that I'm unhappy with as opposed to the choices I've made and where they've led me or the person who I've become rather than who you, but it's much easier to point to the other person and say, oh, you're the reason why I'm so unhappy. I gave you my skinny years, you know, like. It's over now, you know? And so I think it ignores that. I have not found, and believe me, I'd be the first to say.

live together or don't live together. Or like, these are ways to prevent divorce is like, this is what you should be looking for in a partner. Same religious structure, same whatever. You were both raised in households with alcoholics or you were, neither of you is right, whatever. I don't see it. I don't see it. I think everything that's virtue can be vice. I think that there's lots of...

ways that being together from an early age can add depth and beauty to your relationship. And there are ways that it can cause people to not value each other the same way or view each other the same way. I think familiarity can breed contempt. And I think that, you know, no man is a hero to his butler.

Like, I think that when people have been together through a lot of those things, sometimes there is a familiarity that comes. Whereas, again... I think the opposite is true also, which is having had someone who's in your corner for an extended period of time solidifies and deepens that relationship. There is no simple answer to that. I think there are a lot of things people can do in the relationship. to heighten the bonds created by a long shared history and keep everyone's eye on that ball.

than to have them distracted by novelty. I also think realism becomes really important. Like looking at it and saying like, you know, if you've been with the same partner for 15, 20 years. That the fact your eye might wander to a shiny object, like not being afraid to admit that. and figure out ways to like, hey, I feel this. It's a human way to feel. That's okay. You know, like, how do we deal with that?

Like, what do we do with that? Is it an ethical non-monogamy, which is what a lot of like younger, I don't want to say younger, but like a modern generation is certainly there are people coming up with different permutations of relationship. where there's ethical non-monogamy, where there's a sense of, okay, we're going to have certain open things in our relationship. Like a lot of my gay male friends have been doing that for years, where they had...

You know, because again, a society, like a... A culture that has been ostracized and told that what you're doing is an aberration and you're not like, which is what it was when I was growing up, like the gay community was like had to hide to some degree because you could be literally killed for expressing your sexual orientation.

So what does that do? Well, there's a freedom that comes with that to some degree. If you're on the outskirts of society, you're like, all right, well, we just make up our own rules, I guess. They're like relationship outlaws. Yeah, they really are. They're like, listen, we're already told we're awful, terrible people for being who we are. so we might as well come up with our own ways of doing stuff. So I knew lots of gay men from the 80s on who...

You know, we're like, yeah, like we have certain rules in the relationship. Like we can hook up, but the other person has to be transparent about it. Or there's certain boundaries you can't cross in terms of, you know, how. sexually you interact with this person, or it's something that we'll only do together in the form of a threesome. Well, again, it's a permutation of relationship that is between those two people. It's up to them. That's the conversation the two of them can.

So I think there are things any couple can do. to feed what's good in the relationship and dampen the negative impact. of the things that are challenging in a relationship. I don't think there's anything, but again. The solution to that problem is not just pretend we don't have a problem. Just shut your mouth because if you say it out loud, it's going to make it real. It's real. Living in the delusion.

Yeah. Living in the illusion should really be called living in the delusion. Delusion, yeah. Because I think these are precious illusions that people have. And they cling to them. And I understand why. Like it's nice to pretend everything's fine, you know, but it's not on. And I think there's tremendous value in saying these things to your partner, sharing them, hearing them, which, by the way, that's a two-way transaction.

Like if you're going to be in a relationship where you're able to say things that might be hard for your partner to hear but are important for them to hear, you have to be prepared to let them do the same thing. So again, that's why it's brave.

Because there's this sense of, I would like an uncomfortable truth more than a comfortable lie. I realize you've examined every permutation of the... relationship structure and tried to correlate that with uh outcome whether or not the relationship survives happily or not you know divorce etc amicably or not There is one question that...

I do think might fall into a distinct category, which is the amount of time that people know one another before they decide to get engaged. We hear about, and it's been romanticized somewhat, you know, people. you know, met on vacation. I mean, you still see these in like, in traditional media. I don't look at traditional media too much anymore, but you'll see, you know, they met in Cabo for four days, went back, realized, and then there they are married or, but.

They might have been together 50 years, you know, or, you know, people were together a very long time. I mean, to me, nothing sadder. Here's the kind of like the Disney thing, right? When you hear about a couple like in there. late 70s having been married very long time grandchildren you know they decide to get divorced and we all just reflexively go oh yeah like they're because we have

And everyone romanticizes the couple sitting together is all over Instagram, right? The old couple, he still does this for her. She still adores him. He adores her. Yeah. So. amount of time that people have known one another prior to engagement, any correlation with outcome? Yeah. So what I'll say is a couple of things. Again, not a clear correlation.

Like, we all have anecdotal stories we can tell of people who were together for extended periods of time and then split up. And we all have a couple of stories of people who, like, I have a dear friend who got a woman pregnant on the first date. Like, first date. Like, they went to movie and dinner, and then they had sex, and she got pregnant. And she called him, like, a couple weeks later, and was like, I'm pregnant.

And he was like, I'm marrying her. And I was like, I'm sorry, is it 1950? Like, what? No. Like, you don't even know her. You went on one date with her. And he's like, nope, I'm going to do the right thing. Like, the right thing is to marry a stranger? Because you had sex with her and got her pregnant? Like, are you serious? You know? They've been married 28 years.

Yeah, 28 years, three kids. That's wonderful to hear. It's a warming story. Yeah, it's a warming story. It's an anecdotal, you know, it's not proof of anything. It's not a playbook. I'm not suggesting people go out and knock somebody up on the first date and then just take the chances. If you do, get a prenup. That's all I'm going to say. You know, I think that, again, it depends on what, like, if I said to you, I go to the gym for an hour every day, is that good for me?

If your answer is anything other than, I don't know, what do you do there? Because if what I do is I walk on the treadmill for three minutes and then I sit in the steam room for half an hour and then the rest of the time I'm on my phone, then I might as well have stayed home probably, right? Whereas if I say, oh, I never go to the gym, does that mean that's bad? No, maybe I do bodyweight workouts at home all the time and I never set foot in a gym. So I don't think it tells the story.

So the truth is, is a couple that's together for an extended period of time and has the kind of relationship where they're learning about each other through that process. Like practice doesn't make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect.

Look, time is good. Time is good in the sense that you're going to see some good things and some bad things. You're going to see this person at their best and at their worst. You're going to see them through some difficult times. They're going to see you in some difficult times. And hopefully... You'll know what you're like. If you got to drive a car for six months before you decided if you were going to buy it or not.

Like, you know, you know, you make a much more informed choice. Why do you think they don't let you drive a car for six months before you buy it? Like, there's a reason for that, because you'd see the whole thing. Like, that's – again, I think it's a great idea. Like, but you test drive any car. It's going to be fun. You know, I mean, maybe you'll see like, oh, this is boxy. I don't really like it. Look, I've seen, again, successful and unsuccessful brief pairings.

What I will say is when people have had a long courtship, I'll call it courtship period or premarital period. that they used to deepen their connection to each other and get to know the good and bad of each other and see each other in good circumstances and bad circumstances and with and without makeup. And when you're mad and got cut off in traffic and when you're happy and blissed out, yeah, they're making an informed choice.

Like they're buying something that they understand what it's like, you know? Like friends of mine say to me all the time, like I'm thinking about getting a dog. Like sorry to make this analogy for romance and dogs, but like somebody says they want to get a dog. Well, it's a beautiful day out, and I want to go running with the dog in the park. Who wouldn't?

But if you're not ready to have the dog when it ate something and now has diarrhea and it's raining outside and you've got to keep taking it outside and you've got to keep washing your, then don't get a dog, man. Because you know what? It's not playing in the park all day long. It's I've got to get home. Why? Because the dog's been alone for four and a half hours, and I don't want the dog to be alone for that long. Like, you've got to change your life for this thing. Again, is it worth it? 100%.

Hot 200%. Are you kidding me? Because one of those sunny days is worth everything. And by the way, if you love it enough. Even that stupid part with the, like, it's an act of love. It's like, I don't care. Like, I don't care. I'll clean up after this thing. I fucking love it. Dogs, the diarrhea, they have this.

They feel bad about it. They feel bad because they're out of, they're uncomfortable. And by the way, you love them so much that all you care about is like, it's okay, buddy. It's okay. You're all right. Yeah, yo, like my. My dog throws up at all. I'm like, it's okay. Get it out. It's okay. Get it out. Man, I'd give my entire left hand to have like one more week. One more week. With diarrhea. Yeah. Except that would suck for him. Yeah. One more week. And you know what? Like, I think.

that a romantic relationship, there is no reason why you can't use the courtship period. to sort of test all those permutations. And I don't think, by the way, that people would just stop buying cars if you had a six-month trial period on the vehicle. I think there's something really okay. Like you would still find, maybe you would, when you made a choice, you would really be picking one that you really liked. So what I will say in response to the question, I made a long answer, is.

I don't think that a long courtship period— For example, if the courtship period, the length of it is a function of one of them being super reluctant to commit to the other person, that might not be a good indicator. But if the purpose of that courtship period, that extended engagement or that extended dating period— is to really get a feel of each other in a variety of conditions. You know, like to know a thing, know its limits. When it's pushed beyond its tolerances, it's nature emerging.

So I think there's value in seeing, like, I don't want to just see you with makeup on. Like, because you're going to not be wearing makeup for a lot of this relationship. I want to see what you look like coming out of the shower, you know? And by the way, like, you should want that. You should want that too. You want me to look at you with no makeup on and go, oh, you're beautiful. You look great. Like, do I love it when you put on makeup? Of course.

But do I love it when you've got the flu and like I can take care of you? Yeah, I love that too. That's beautiful in a different way. So I think. that if you use the time the right way... There's tremendous value in that much better than just throwing a dart at the board. Like I find this person attractive. They find me attractive. Fuck it. Let's do this thing. Like, I don't think that that is a good recipe. I've seen a lot of divorces that come from a very brief courtship.

But is that the death? No, no. I think sometimes people just get it right. I mean, listen, you and I both know people. Take it out of the romantic context. who just get rich quick. Like they make one cool decision and it just pays off. They make one good bet and it pays off. And I know other people, man, they had to take the stare.

Like they had 15 versions of it and it went bankrupt three times and then one of the things hit. And that was the one. And then everybody goes, I always knew you were going to be successful. You know, I always knew that really because I didn't like it was a series of near misses until I hit. So I think it's the same thing. I think they're how you use the time is what really matters.

Last question. Oh boy. Some people listening to this are in relationships. Some are married, some are divorced, some are not in relationship. Is there such a thing as a post-nup for the people who have already been married? And what are the pros and cons of opening up that conversation and the contract itself? And for people who are still in the, you know, looking for partner, exploring a relationship. relationships, whatever their life structure happens to be.

What do you think are the questions that they might ask themselves and the other person that would give some insight into, um, into not necessarily like. should there be a prenup for the dating um period but

You know, a lot of the things you're talking about are in the circles of, like, close intimacy. Like, what are your real flaws? What are you afraid of? What are you afraid I'm going to do? That's not the kind of conversation maybe nowadays people do that typically people have on their, you know. fifth date or sixth date but at some point it makes sense to have real conversation with somebody to try and make sense of whether or not you go forward

So I just threw a lot at you. Yeah, those are a couple of different questions. A little bit of a scattershot. No, but those are all really important questions. For the committed and non-committed folks out there. Yeah. I mean, I'm paraphrasing Jung when I say that. the thing you seek most is in the place you least want to. You know, a friend of mine once said to me that the most important or really the only question that therapy is designed to answer is what is it that you're afraid to feel?

And so I think that there's tremendous value in sharing with a partner and learning about a partner what it is they're afraid to feel. And looking at the things about yourself that you're afraid to share. I think in my own experience and I think in that of most of my clients.

You know, I'm not religious. Like, I'm not religious anymore. I was raised religious. So I don't really believe in the devil. Like, I don't think that there's like this malevolent creature that's out there trying to convince people to be evil. But if there was a devil... I think the principal function of the devil would be to convince us that we're so bestial that God couldn't possibly. Like, I think the greatest mistakes of my life... I always made the most selfish, awful decisions I made.

I made because I convinced myself that I wasn't good. Like, I convinced myself that, what does it matter? Like, nothing means anything. Like, just do whatever. Who cares? No one's looking. Just do it. It doesn't matter. And when I look at... Whether you want to call it the presence of God in me, Buddha nature, call it anything you want to call it.

When I hold to the angels of my better nature, like the part of my heart that is good and loving and compassionate, and I let that be my compass, right? That's when the greatest victories, the greatest joys, like the best things happen. And I'm not suggesting being ignorant and being like, oh, the whole world's full of puppies and sunshine. Listen, I'm a divorce lawyer, man. I live in the world of misery.

But it has not robbed me of the belief in the good and the depth of the power of love, right? And how badly I want it and how bad we all want it. And so... I think the most valuable thing that people can do is when you're not in a relationship or whether you're in a relationship. is when do you feel the most love? And when do you feel the most loving, right? And then when you connect to another person. Find out the answer for them. Because it's probably different.

Like, it might be some things that are the same, but there might be some things that are completely different. You know, there's a good possibility that if you told the Creamer story... that she would be like, oh my God, I don't even remember that. Like, I don't even remember that happening. And yet for you, it was such a, so I think there's a lot of those things. Like sometimes when you ask somebody, what's your favorite memory of me?

Like the thing they'll tell you, you'll go, I don't even remember saying that. Like I've had people say to me like, oh my God, you said this thing on this podcast. And I'm like, what was it? And they say it. I'm like, I said that. I'm like, I mean, it sounds like I agree with it. Like, I have absolutely no recollection of saying that. I mean, partly I talk so much, it's hard to remember what's important. But I really think that...

There's tremendous value in being brave in the conversations we have with ourselves about love. lying to yourself. Because here's the thing. If you can be authentically yourself with another person, then you're going to feel their... Like that's what I mean about the devil is the idea that like if I just show my partner the best parts of myself and I don't admit to them or share with them the things I'm afraid of, the shit I need to work on, all that kind of stuff.

then I'm never going to feel their love. Because they don't love me. They love the character I'm playing. They love the persona that I've developed in this relationship. And I'll never feel their love. Whereas if I'm brave enough to share with this person... The parts of me that I don't understand, I'm afraid of, I'm unhappy with, I'm ashamed of.

And they love me anyway. Like, then I'm going to really feel that love. And that love can be a transformative kind of love. Like, that's a love worth having, you know? So I think anything that deepens your ability to know yourself. and deepens your ability to know your partner and let your partner know that you want to know.

Like, the whole thing. Like, I want to know what you need to work on. I want to be here to help. Like, I'm here for you. I'm here. It's just like friendship. Friendship's easier. You know, friendship's easier than romantic love. Like, it's super easy to say, like, hey, man, you know I'm cheering for you. You know I am. I wouldn't be here. I don't have to be here.

Like, I don't have to be. That's part of why I like prenups. Like, I don't want you here because you have to be here. I want you here because you want to be here because you're in, man. Like there was a time where we were in and we decided to do this thing. And that to me, like that's the whole thing. So I think that's the secret. In terms of if you're already in a relationship. And you go, okay, like post-nups, there's problems with post-nups because from a contractual legal standpoint.

Contracts fail for what's called want of consideration, meaning that in every contract there has to be an exchange of value. So they use the car thing again. I'm giving you money. You're giving me a car. We're each exchanging. We're each giving and receiving value. The consideration for a prenup

is we don't have to get married, but I'm willing to marry you if we amend the rule set in the following way. So that has a mutuality of consideration. There are some courts that have held that a post-nup, there is no consideration, and it fails as a contract. Because staying married is not consideration. It's assumed that you would stay married. So that's why post-nups can fail. Now, that being said, do I think the message that I have about...

connection and how to interact with your partner and the things I wrote in my book. Like, you know, my book, How to Stay in Love, Practical Wisdom from an Unlikely Source. The idea...

was not to just talk about people in troubled relationships or to approach people who were not yet in relationships and give them a rule set to start with. Like, I trained Brazilian jiu-jitsu for many years, and people will often... say because you know people are 30 40 50 and they want to get into brazilian jiu-jitsu

And, you know, there's an old joke. I don't know. It was one of the Gracies who first said it. I don't want to offend Hoyler. I think it was Hoyler, but I'm not sure. It might have been Hickson. Where someone said, what's the best age to start jiu-jitsu? And he said, five or now? And I think that's the answer. Like, so all these techniques, all these things we're talking about, what's the best time to implement them the day you meet this person? Or now?

Like, I don't care if you're married 10 years, 20 years, 30 years. You're telling me? That right now, there wouldn't be value in seeing your partner, allowing yourself to be seen by your partner. Like a lot of the practical wisdom, I think, that's so simple. of like, like in my book, there's a chapter where I just talk about, it's called leave a note. and it basically just says like leave your partner a note Like when you leave for the office in the morning, leave a note.

Hey, you know, so fun on the couch with you last night watching TV. I married the prettiest girl in the world. Can't wait to see you again. What does that take, 30 seconds? 30 seconds, right? Nothing. Such a minimal investment. Didn't cost you anything. That's why you won't see it on TV advertised, by the way, because it didn't cost anything. You don't have to buy anything. You don't need anything to do that thing.

But what does it say to your partner? I see you. You're important to me. I took the time in the middle of the things I'm doing to let you know you're important to me. Like, and who wouldn't want that? Who wouldn't want their partner, even after 20 years of marriage, especially after 20 years of marriage to say, God, you're handsome. Hey, like, I'm just, I don't know, something about you. Like, who wouldn't want to hear that?

Like, who wouldn't have their day brightened by that a little bit? And again, maybe at first your partner would go, are you all right? What are you doing? I had a buddy who actually did the note thing. And he said, he was like, yeah, for like the first week. She was like, what's going on? Are you having an affair? Like, are you dying? What's going on?

And he said, but after like, and I just said, no, I, you know, I just, I want to make more of a point of like being present, you know? And he said after like three weeks, four weeks, he was like, dude, I'm having like, we're like having the best chapter. Like we're having more sex. We're having more fun. Like he's like, and now she's like texting me in the middle of the day. Like, by the way, like, again, not to gender things.

But like leaving a note or sending a text in the middle of the day that just because I was just thinking of you. Like, I just wanted you to know I was thinking of you. It's the equivalent of sending a man nude. Like, because what does it say? It says, hey, like, I know the world's crazy and everything's kind of, but like, it's you and me.

It's you and me, and you're this special person that gets to hear these things from me or see these things of me that other people don't get to see because I'm yours and you're mine. What is better than that, and what is the downside? to trying, to giving. Because worst case, you spent 30 seconds of your life and you didn't get a return on your investment. Okay. You're no worse off than you were.

Even though you may not be able to avail yourself of the rule set concept that can happen when you haven't married yet and you have a prenup and you have that discussion. I think you can still have that core conversation. Again, not about if we split up, how do we divide our assets? This is what this is about. It's about what do we owe each other?

What do we bring to this economy, this relationship of the two of us, this exchange of value? I have a friend who's been married probably about 10 years, happily, really. And he was telling me how they call it a walk and talk, that once a week they just go for a walk, like a hike together. They live in Colorado. And they've made a practice. of telling each other two or three things that they did that week that were a big win. Two or three things that made them feel loved or whatever it might be.

And then they try to have at least one or two things that they could have done better or where they might have crossed wires. And they kind of do a praise sandwich, you know, like so they do the good and then a few of the bad and then back to the good again. a discernible impact and he's like it's like the best thing we do he's like because it

It really helps us course correct in real time. But the most valuable part is actually not the here's what you got wrong. It's the here's what you did right. Like here's the stuff that made me feel loved.

where it's like, well, I'm not happy. Why should they be happy? And like, well, I didn't get to go out with my friends. Why should she get to go out with her friends? You know, and why? I had a miserable day. Well, I had a miserable day too. Well, it's like, well, why is your miserable day more important than my miserable day? You know, like that death spiral, you can reverse that. It can work the other way, which is like, just keep meeting this with an abundance.

of love, affection, compassion, positive reinforcement. And again, not always. Believe me, I work in the clay of domestic violence, intimate partner abuse. I've seen it up close and personal. I know there are toxic, awful people. who are just not going to be able to have a functional relationship. But find that out sooner rather than later. And then cut your losses and get out.

Like, because I have to tell you something. You say how, you know, you see like a couple that's 70 or 80 and they're getting divorced and it's the saddest thing. It is, but it also begs the question, like, what would have happened if they were ill suited for each other? How long did they hold on? Because I got to tell you, man, I'm not impressed when somebody says, oh, we were married for 60 years.

We were miserable for 45 of them, but we did it. Like, oh, great. Like, great. Like, I don't, that's like that race they run in Death Valley where it's like I ran 150 miles in August. Okay. Like, what are you, that's great. That's insane. Like, but OK, like, congratulations, you did something that sounds horribly painful and in no way positive. Like, but if you feel good about it, cool. Like, that's not to me a successful marriage. Successful marriage to me is we made each other's lives better.

our own lives and each other's lives better for our coupling, for the fact that we were together. Maybe we created life and cultivated life together by birth or adoption, or maybe we just radiated joy to the people around us. Or maybe we had pets and we gave them a wonderful existence together. Or maybe some combination of all those wonderful things.

Do I think that the solution is like longevity? And say, no, because I don't think that the duration of something is the success or failure of it. Listen. If you make a six-hour shitty movie, I'm not going to be like, well, but it was six full hours. That is pretty good. Like, no. Whereas if you make a six-hour movie that holds my attention the entire six hours, that's a damn good move.

That's a movie worth making, you know? Like, I'll watch Casino or Goodfellas every time it's on. And it's like a full three hours almost, you know? And I don't care because it's that good. I think that longevity, like endings and how relationships end, the fact that something ends does not mean that it wasn't. Like, at all. I think that's a really crazy thing. Like, every movie I've ever enjoyed ended.

And if somebody said to me three quarters the way through it, you know, this is going to end, I wouldn't be like, well, what's the point? You know, no, I want to watch the whole thing. And knowing that it's going to end is part of what makes it beautiful. So I think that.

Protections are really important. Prenups are really important. It's ideal as early in a relationship as possible to have some of these conversations about the painful things that I have to help people wrestle with every single day. But I think the value received from that conversation is immeasurable. Jim. What I love about you so much is that you're willing to, and maybe you just reflexively look at things through every possible lens. So if it's something dark, like divorce.

you look at it through the lens of that but also does it always have to be dark You look at it through the lens of a lawyer's eyes. Well, I think that's part of lawyering is you have to argue both sides of everything. But I would also say that if ever—

You know, people had the stereotype in mind that all lawyers are heartless and cutthroat and it's all just about money. I mean, you clearly shatter that because, I mean, so much of what we talked about today wasn't about divorce. It was about contracts. It wasn't just about contracts. You know, really what I kept hearing over and over is that

By asking what at first are practical questions, you can really get to the emotional layers underneath those that really speak to what people need most in order to make things work. Even if the relationship doesn't last forever. And I think that's such an important lens on the kind of overwhelming thing that we call relationships and marriage and prenups and divorces.

I think it's enough to make anyone terrified. It's also enough, as you said, to make some people bitter. And I think we didn't talk about it too much because it's such a potent word. Didn't have to. This notion of bitterness is really the thing to avoid most, right? Yeah. Because it contaminates the thing that you embody so much, which is you just have such a huge forward center of mass, full tilt. arms around all of it, love of life and people and dogs. And it's, it just comes.

Through over and over in everything you do and in every way that you describe it. So I see you as a, yes, a lawyer. Sure. Not just a divorce lawyer, but a lawyer. You're certainly a psychologist. You're definitely on the adventure of life. There's no question about that. For sure. You're an anthropologist, which reflects some of your prior training. Sure. And you're just a really amazing human being in the way that you're willing to just...

launch yourself into all of it and consider all of this. And like you said, you see some really unfortunate things, but it's clear that you also see a lot of really wonderful and beautiful things. And I think some of the awful things are really beautiful. There's a line from Hemingway from A Farewell to Arm. versus the world breaks everyone and and some are stronger in the broken places

And I think divorce and heartbreak, like heartbreak is like that. Like heartbreak breaks everyone. And sometimes we're stronger in the broken places. Like I think I've learned so much through love and I've learned so much through law. And I don't want my love of love to make me forget that loss exists. And I don't want the pain of loss to make me forget that love exists. Well, I and everyone listening.

Really appreciate you taking the time to come here. Look, you make a living doing something else. You make a, you know, you don't need to do this. I love this, man. Well, I so appreciate it. I mean, I love talking to you in general, but we've never done it on mic, which is really funny. We've got some good conversations and you've been a wonderful.

and trusted friend to me. I also trust that if I'm going to make a dumb decision or if, or if I've made a dumb decision that you'll let me know. I'm there. I promise. I will in the future. Well, you have for me. I don't have your legal wisdom. We're right back. Well, I haven't yet.

You have plenty of wisdom. You're trusted and an amazing friend. And you just have so much wisdom to share. You know, my dad has this saying that, you know, some people when they speak, they just might as well have exhaled. He's Argentine. He's a little cynical. But he also says, but some people when they speak. wisdom falls out of them. And that's how I feel every time I'm in your presence. Or I hear you on a podcast or even a short clip. I prepared a lot for today's.

episode by just watching as much content of yours as i could possibly consume and i was like wow the density of value per unit time for your speech is unbelievably high. That was the most humorous description of me. I love it. The density of value within that. I love your... the scientific lens through which you even look at the unscientific, although I guess everything is scientific in some ways. But no, man, I'm really glad we had a chance to do this.

You know, I love all of our conversations. And I thought to myself, it's going to be interesting and odd to have one. But I sort of immediately forgot that the microphone's here or the camera's here. And that's really lovely. Like, that's the best thing, you know, is when... Like if you said to me, how long have we been talking? I would imagine it's like an hour, but I know it's way longer than that. I have no idea though. I've completely, and that's that flow state, you know, that happens when.

When we're wrestling with these ideas that are the most human ideas. And I love, I want to pay you a compliment. Before we were friends, I listened to your program in the earlier days of it. And I love how the journey of... becoming fully human and exploring the depth of our full humanity has become like because something that was always very science-based tools and it's very easy to sort of just keep yourself in that box.

you've really stepped out of your comfort zone, especially in recent years, and brought in these things that really are the totality of the human experience, all these relationship things, the pet thing I just listened to, I loved. And I think that we're coming to a time where we realize that like... You know, what's the old saying that we're not thinking machines that sometimes feel, we're feeling machines that sometimes think. You know, I think that you're really starting to...

Get deeply into the totality of our humanity, the physical state, the emotional, spiritual, all of those things. And I think that's what we need, that if there is a cure. To the ailment of our time, the partisan, hyper-partisan environment, the misery and anxiety that so many people are feeling and the yearning, the spiritual hunger that has people consuming. opinions and podcasts like deeply. I mean, who would have ever thought podcast?

would be what it is, right? Like long-form audio conversations. Like we would go back to the radio. Like when we have, when we can world build with AI now and make anything visual for us, that we would go back to finding wisdom in this. And the fact that, like, that hunger is being fed by people like you who are saying, hey, like, this isn't, science won't save us. Spirituality won't save us.

Love won't save us. Anger won't save us. All of it. We need all of it. And we need to try to wrestle with it and figure it out. And no one is necessarily better at this. Like you can – whatever car you drive, whatever profession, how much money you have in the bank, you may not be better or worse at this. So I think it's really beautiful that you're – the palette of things that you're discussing has become so broad.

But you have remained very much you and very able to, like, bring it to a lens that is authentically yourself. And I love that about the show. Like, I remain a friend, but I also remain a fan. Thank you. I'll take that in and right back at you. Thanks, man. And please come back again. Anytime. You have a very exciting project that we didn't get to today. So save that for a future episode. It's super cool. It's completely different than this. And like everything you touch.

it turns to platinum. So thanks. Thank you for joining me for today's discussion with James Sexton. To learn more about James's work and to find links to his book and other resources, please see the show note captions. If you're learning from and or enjoying this podcast, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. That's a terrific zero-cost way to support us.

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