I had a period of time after my divorce where I was really ambitious when it came to women but then that it felt like a job like it felt like a job after a while where I was like God it's like enough it's kind of enough you know like it's like it's like when you've eaten so much that you just feel like yeah I got that way with [ __ ] like it really was like I just had enough like it was fine I was like this is great but well when you're in your 20s or 30s maybe yeah yeah your libido is a strong meal it's actually insane yeah yeah I was not I definitely was we age we mellow yeah which I think is great although I have to tell you one of the most depressing divorces I ever did was a guy who was I think 92. oh geez and what made it depressing is that he had left his wife of I don't know 50 something 60 something years for a younger woman a woman in her 50s and I just remember what was sad about it to me was this guy is still being led around by his deck like I thought oh my God like I'm gonna be chained to an idiot forever like I'm gonna forever be led around by my dad and I remember thinking like no I really thought that at like 90 something I would just like a beautiful woman would walk by and I go oh there's a human being like there would be no appreciated without yeah there would just be no sense of like yeah you know there would just that would be gone from me and this guy's proof that 90 something years old and you're still thinking with your deck like I we're doomed that terrified me it really did it actually upset me because I thought man I thought at some point I'd get to experience what it's like to just be free if you live in New York where there's there's a financial industry there's oh yeah there's all kinds of Industries here oh yeah but to me sometimes I I wonder if female attractiveness isn't the mo the highest valued commodity 100 it is 100 it is yeah yeah of course because men are becoming rich and Powerful in order to get a woman of course the woman they want of course what a what an attractive woman and when I say attractive I don't just mean attractive I I mean even just sexually confident I mean what an unbelievably lucrative career that is like I do divorces for people that you know a woman walks out with two 300 million dollars he was an analyst at Goldman Sachs who built a hedge fund and then sold it and then used his trading algorithm to build it up to 500 million dollars she was hot and slept with him for a while and then stopped and started sleeping with other people and playing tennis and having Botox and she's going to get half like that's [ __ ] incredible like you know what he had to do to get that and what she had I'll [ __ ] that guy for 200 million dollars are you kidding me like that's insane that's incredible like and what and God bless I mean I'm not saying that this person this is the rules of the game you know but you can't argue that that's not easier than going to Harvard no for sure but then but then the payoff the trade-off for that is that when they hit a certain age the value right any stock if you hold it too long it's going to go down you know like so play play the stock the right way I mean and that's what I think if we were a little more honest about the nature of male female coupling I mean right now we can't even you know we can't even establish what is gender you know we can't establish any of that anymore so so divorce is becoming incredibly hilarious and fraught but to me what what is like sometimes you have to stand back and look at things to get the real perspective on what it is and sometimes you look back at marriage so when was it invented like 2000 BC roughly in the life expectancy of humans back then was 18 years old yeah and yeah marriage was created for um land ownership land ownership and things like that yeah and if you're going to die in your early 20s or whatever then then getting married at 16 18 makes sense well I think there's a distinction that has to be made between pair bonds and marriage right marriage is a is a is a government concept marriage is a contract marriage is a legal status pair bonds right two people go in it together you know saying hey there's 7.3 billion people in the world and the two of us we're gonna we're gonna lock up together and we're gonna try to hold hands and get through this thing until we're eight years old well until whatever you know I mean what's interesting is first of all marriages end they end in death are divorced but they all end like every marriage ends so it's one of the only things that you go wow I really hope this ends in US dying you know most things you you that's not the desired outcome but in marriage you hope marriage will end in death you hope that you will be together until one or both of you die you know but all marriages end so as a guy as a provider if you knew it was going to end and you were going to have to give away half your money you you might think twice about doing it well I think that's what makes being a divorce lawyer interesting is that it's it's a lot of what a court has to do is disregard what happened in the marriage because a the truth is at the bottom of a bottomless pet like you're never going to get there yeah well I was he's [ __ ] his secretary right because you were not sleeping with me anymore I have a client whose wife acknowledges she didn't sleep with him for six years what what did you think was going on if you didn't sleep with him for six years so yeah okay don't delegate you've delegated that responsibility if you don't want to have sex with him that's okay no one should force you to have sex with this person let him go have sex with someone else you don't want to do the laundry hire someone to do the laundry if you don't want to mow your own lawn hire someone to mow the lawn delegate that responsibility and this guy wasn't even sleeping around he was going to those hand job places you know where you get a massage you get like what the most pathetic thing in the world the most innocuous thing in the world he didn't have a girlfriend there was no love involved he was getting jacked off for fifty dollars like that's sad like I mean first of all hand jobs like that's an outdated technology that's like a betamax you know like who even does that anymore but he he was doing this and he just thought okay that's fine she had the indignation to say he is not a good he shouldn't be a custodial parent he's a terrible person because he's doing this and it was like wait how is that that much different than going to a strip club how is that much more different because we just you know he was like well should I deny it and I was like is it true and he's like well yeah I said no we should own it let's go in and say yeah you know what yeah it's pathetic it's really pathetic my wife didn't sleep with me for six years and I'm human and I wanted to have sex still I didn't want to blow up my life I didn't want to screw up my kids and have my kids have divorced parents so I thought all right she's clearly not interested in me and more I'm not going to have a girlfriend and get caught up in all the things where people could get hurt and there's feelings and Fatal Attraction and stuff I'm just gonna go it'll be transactional like going to a strip club or anything else and I'm yeah it's a little pathetic that I'm a guy who makes a million dollars a year in finance and I'm paying someone fifty dollars to jack me off yeah that's kind of pathetic but you know what I figured out but to suggest that that means I'm a bad parent that has nothing to do with my parenting at all period you know so and thankfully the judge agreed with me on that one but I I really do think that that the idea I don't think I mean if you break it down fundamentally 56 of marriages end in divorce but think about that's the ones that end in divorce so how many people what percentage stay together for the kids or because they don't want to give away half their [ __ ] another 10 that's conservative conservative but let's say let's say 20 then okay you now have a technology that fails 76 of the time that's insane that's insane that's more likely than not 76 if I tell you there's a 76 chance when you walk out the door today you're gonna get hit in the head with a bowling ball you would not go out or you'd wear a helmet for sure but people just continue to get married not only do they continue to get married there's a presumption that you should get married and if you don't get married there's something wrong with you so if you've got a girlfriend and you've been with her for five years and you say to someone we're getting married they go oh that's great you know they don't go why you're happy why would you get married like everything's going fine why would you put yourself through that why would you run that risk if you say to someone we've been together five years and we've decided we're not going to get married we're going to move in together but we're not going to get married ooh what's wrong yeah intimacy issues what's your problem meanwhile set 56 end in divorce it's it's literally fits the legal definition of negligence it's a negligent Behavior the way you Define negligence in law school is when what you lose by not doing something okay is lower than the risk of harm it's what's called a BPL analysis so the burden of not doing a thing is lower than the likelihood the probability of harm so BPL it's a burden probability and loss marriage is an inherently negligent activity it's like owning a lion like it's it's it you're the likelihood of someone getting hurt seriously is very very high no one ever says it to you because why because and I'm I would say something I've been doing this for over 20 years and I I still get misty-eyed at weddings like I still really there's something in me that goes like you know maybe it'll work out for these two sweet I absolutely believe in love I think love is wonderful the but love and marriage have very little to do with each other I don't think there's much of a correlation there I I think that's where we got off track like I believe in pair bonds I believe I don't think I can learn everything I need to know about myself from myself I think having someone around you sees my blind spots and that doesn't have to be a romantic partner that could be a friend that could be any number of things but there is something wonderful about romantic connection we know that I mean the other statistic is 56 percent of marriage is sent in divorce but 84 of people who get divorced are remarried within five years of their divorce really let's think about that so now you've now you've done it and failed and felt the pain of the loss and within five years 84 are remarried so when you fall in love and you're you're with a partner who's in love with you it's just it's like hard to put the brakes on and say you know what that's as far as I'm gonna go well I think we you know whoever discovered what or it wasn't a fish and I think when we're in a thing we don't see it and so I mean and this is true there must be some endorphins some some something's being released in our brains listen you want to test that theory the next time you're out with a couple who've been together for a while and it like seems like they maybe got in a fight or they're just like kind of being you know impatient with each other at the table you know when you go like a group thing just say to them so tell me about how you met tell me tell me the story of how you met and everything on them changes like they go back to that place and there's this like oh yeah and she was this because for that second you go back to that place like you can go someone with a horrible divorce if you could get them to go to that place and talk to you about that time like I I would say something when I was a kid you know like every kid you have the fantasy of like if you were invisible what would you do you didn't go to the girl's locker room you know whatever I I have this fantasy that if I could be invisible I I have about eight clients that I'd like to sneak into their house and find their wedding album like I know it's in the Attic somewhere or something because I would love to see what it looked like when these people loved each other because they are weaponized against each other now and we are trying to kill each other and we're taking every secret every intimacy everything at their ugliest at their ugliest at their worst and there's something in me that just the thought that like you guys at some point like at some point you were like they're 7.3 billion people in the world and you're the one like you're the one I just want to be with and smell and touch and like that that feeling we all know that feeling of like just the electricity of another person you know and and I I mean I you know I I think I'm romantic at hard in the sense that I really get it like I really get why we do this I I felt it I know it I understand it but tying that to the technology of marriage to me makes almost no sense whatsoever and I actually think it's almost antagonistic to that connection with another person because there's so much expectation that comes with marriage culturally we've created so much stuff around it like when you when you marry someone they're supposed to be at least in the modern Western model your best friend best roommate best co-parent best travel partner best uh roommate best everything best activity partner like how how would one person be all of those things that's insane like if if I if I was interviewing for a job and said I want you to be the best typist and I also want you to be best on the phone and I also want you to be great at it and I ran down a list of dissimilar things like or if I went to an amazing chef and I said I know you're a great chef but can you farm like well that has to do with food but they're not the same thing like what are you talking so I think why do we put on people this idea like whoever came up with the word soulmate really we should be paying like divorce lawyers should be paying that person dividends because we've convinced people that if this person isn't meeting every one of your needs checking all of these boxes they're not your soulmate your soul mate would know exactly what to do exactly what to say at exactly the right time I can get I can go off on this stuff yeah I tend to wait what do you think the secret is just keeping a marriage vital keeping it a lot you know I think I think people get unhappy in marriages the way that people go bankrupt which is very slowly and then all at once I think it's very slow and then it just goes off a cliff so everybody will say well we divorced because he was cheating or she was cheating or we divorced because he had an alcohol issue or drug issue which lately we're seeing more like alcohol and drugs is is a big big thing especially post pandemic there's a tremendous amount of substance abuse stuff that's causing a lot of issues in marriages and certainly like social media has increased the accessibility of adultery and connections to other people and reconnections with people from your past who remind you of a version of yourself that you felt more excited about because you were younger so it's you know it used to be if you like ran into the girl you banged in high school it was like once every 10 years a reunion you know or if you lived in the same town as you grew up in you know you might run into the person at the Walmart but now it's like on Facebook you have all these excuses to be able to chit chat with someone and all these benign entry points you know of like oh you know I saw your pictures from vacation where did you stay in Miami you know and and then it becomes oh yeah well you looked great I mean boy you look fantastic in a bikini and then all of a sudden We're Off to the Races and we're chatting with each other so I I you know if we were going to invent like an infidelity machine you couldn't do better than Facebook and Instagram I mean that's about as good as it gets but I I genuinely think that the secret to staying happy in a marriage is probably the the same secret to maintaining a healthy weight you know don't wait till you get super fat and then try to lose the weight don't wait until you get released like my sister is a dentist and she always says if you have a toothache there's nothing I can do really like I can pull the tooth I can give you a root canal but like I can prevent you from getting a toothache if you just come see me regularly and you just floss and you just brush your teeth you'll never get it to you by the time your tooth hurts something is already seriously wrong by the time you're in a divorce lawyer's office you're [ __ ] the whole thing's [ __ ] at that point like you'd be better off just you know figuring out the preventative maintenance right like change the oil in your car like so I what I try to if you reverse engineer divorce like most people the marriage killer you know the the cheating or the gambling or the whatever that's the symptom like the the the problem is these little disconnections you know one of the one of the one of the best stories I I have is my I had a client who I did her divorce and we'd spend a lot of time together because you do you know when your divorce lawyer you spend a lot of time with people and you get to know them very well I mean people lie to their therapists they won't lie to their divorce lawyer because hey there's no reason to and B they you know I need to know everything and it's all attorney-client privilege and this woman we were sitting outside the courtroom waiting on a break in testimony and she was a young woman in her in her probably like late 30s you know very attractive and we were just chit chatting and I said to her you know was there a moment when you realized the marriage is over you know like was there a moment and she said yeah yeah and I said when was it and she said I there was this granola that I like she said it I I they only sold it at like this particular grocery store and I like to put it in my yogurt and she said he used to always whenever I'd be running low on it I would just open the thing one day and a new bag would be there she's like and I I just she's like it made me feel so loved like he didn't I didn't have to ask he didn't want credit for it like he didn't go like oh did you see I got your granola that you wanted you know like he just would do this thing you know and she said it was just something that like I just it always made me smile she said every time the granola was running low and there was a new bag of granola I just felt very loved you know and she said one day the granola ran out and I thought oh that's weird you know maybe maybe he didn't see it she's like so I left the bag in there because I thought well at some point he'll notice and he didn't notice she goes so I took the bag out and I waited and he didn't get a new bag and I thought okay this thing's going down and I thought to myself wow that's like you know that's such a small thing like granola like you just but but these are the things like these are the little things that make us feel loved and that are gestures of love and I said to her was there anything like that for you with him and she said yeah blow jobs um and I almost spit out my coffee and she goes no she goes when we were first dating and even first married she's like I used to give [ __ ] a lot she's like you know she's like do it in the morning took two minutes and he was like super happy the rest of the day you know she's like the rest of the day he would like call me or text me and be like Oh I'm so good this morning you know I had such pep in my step now and she's like it was just like what did it really take out of my life to do that you know and it made him feel good she's like and then I got to a point where I was like well you know what no I'll wait and then tonight we can both have we can have sex and we'll both enjoy that like what do I owe him a [ __ ] like no you know like I don't owe him that you know and and and then she said I got to a point where I was like I look back and I'm like yeah I guess I I didn't do that as often hardly ever really you know which came first you know I said that to her and she said I I she said I couldn't tell you she said but I think it's the same thing it's the same thing and I do think it's the same thing and I'm not saying [ __ ] and granola is all you need to know but and I'm not by the way I'm not saying that that a [ __ ] is a small thing I don't think I have any right to I've never given one but it seems like a phenomenal feat and I I'm grateful for everyone I've ever received but I don't I I don't think it's a massive investment right just like buying someone's granola is not a mess she's like when you love somebody you love doing things for them right their pleasure their Joy pleases you like their their you know their happiness makes you happy exactly and somewhere along the line and it happens a lot in marriage it becomes well I'm not happy why should you be happy you know and then that creates a spiral and I really believe that you can that spiral could go in the other direction like if he did the granola I think the [ __ ] would have come you know and if like I and if the [ __ ] were there I bet he'd have bought the granola like I I can't prove that there's no control group you know I can't run that research but it feels to me like those little things like like leaving a note you know I've said to some of my my friends you know when they say to me like you know as a divorce lawyer you see all this misery like what's how do I stay out of your office and I'll often say I'm like it's dumb little things man I'm like just leave her a note I'm like leave her a note in the morning just leave a little note says hey beautiful you know so it was so fun watching that movie with you last night so glad we got to have a date I'll be thinking to you today love you like what is that tank that takes like a minute not even like and look what it can do like look at look at how that makes this person feel and even if right away it doesn't work on that moment it doesn't work okay do it enough times like and and then you're either gonna figure out that this person's gone and then just [ __ ] bail you're done because if you try for long enough and you you give like that but if you're not giving like that and then you're not getting back either well I'm not surprised you know that's how you end up in my office is this death spiral of everyone like well I'm not giving behind the granola she's not giving me [ __ ] well I'm not giving him [ __ ] he's mean to me okay well everybody's just gonna has an equal right to be [ __ ] miserable then I think if you're happy with yourself be truly happy with who you are at that point in your life or whatever the situation is I think it's easier for you to be happy with your partner yeah but I would argue that as long as you're not happy with yourself having someone happy with you is certainly not gonna hurt your feeling of who you are right like I don't I I I don't need someone to tell me I'm handsome for me to have a nice day but I can't think of anybody telling me I was handsome that it ruined my day you know most of the time and you're like oh that's nice you know I got that going for me like it so yeah I think self-love of course is the most important love and to be secure in who you are and to not allow your self-definition to be easily swayed or pulled like if you believe the good reviews you got to believe the bad ones too I get that but I just don't think kindness like it's just such an easy especially if it's easy like it's easy stuff like just telling someone that they're beautiful or handsome or that you're cheering for like it just to me with marriage or pair bonds I shouldn't even say marriage like the world is trying to kill you all the time you know like people are criticizing you all the time you feel like a failure a lot of the time if you compare yourself to other people you'll constantly be you know comparisons the thief of Joy so why not have like one person who's just cheering for you you know like constructive criticism is criticism it's still just criticism so if your spouse is just sitting around criticizing you and telling you all the things you could do to improve yourself instead of just being a fan and just saying you know what I I I know who you are and you're beautiful I know who you are and your your heart is good and betting on the best parts of a person I I think that there's no there's very little downside to that you know I think it'd put guys like me out of this Business If people really leverage that the right way I asked you earlier if you believe in love but you said you do do you believe in marriage I mean I believe people believe in marriage yeah do I believe in marriage I don't I don't think it's a useful technology I I understand culturally why people do it but I don't think people should need it I I know I certainly don't need marriage I don't think marriage I was married um I I was married before I really ever thought about what does that mean you know I married my college sweetheart you know I I hadn't I got married because that's what you do you get married you know um but I hadn't thought about it as a technology and why it's there I didn't I didn't understand it the way I do now you know there's a line from a Joseph Brodsky poem that he wrote when his wife died where he says I wish I knew no astronomy when stars appear and I feel that way as a divorce lawyer like I wish I knew no astronomy when stars appear I wish I I wish I didn't know what the end of so many marriages looks like because I think I would have a more optimistic and unrealistic view of it I would yeah but you'd be divorced and giving away half years I'd be foolish yeah I'd be fool I'd be as foolish but I don't know that I don't know that it's always good to know right sometimes there's tremendous joy to be had and like falling feels like flying for a little while you know so you hit the ground it feels really good but as I said earlier you know now that the life expectancy of man is around the 80s or something yeah then it's like so you're going to do this from your 20s or 30s until yeah well marriage is a technology that was designed for when women died in childbirth and when men died in their 40s if they were lucky you know 50s if they were super lucky like if you were in your 50s or 60s you were an elder you know that was pretty amazing and women most women died in childbirth like childbirth is traumatic it's a traumatic thing and before modern medicine and before we understood antibiotics so marriages is um I don't think anyone ever planned that that it was going to be okay we're gonna do this forever you know we're going to do this till we're in our you know till we're a hundred I mean but I think that's part of a bigger problem you know I I don't remember who said it but I remember someone saying I can't remember who it was but we are we are prehistoric creatures right like we are we are biological creatures living in medieval institutions like education work really with god-like technology how do you think that ends like you you think that ends in happily ever after like that's insane like marriage was not design I mean think about even the early days of marriage think about every Rogers and Hammerstein musical you know think about Oklahoma you know where you'd have like there's like the three people in town that aren't married you know and and you sort of pick which of the three you know you were gonna go be with and now you you have access to just an endless supply of the opposite sex or or I shouldn't even say the opposite sex you have an endless supply of romantic Partners in in a device in your hand how how does that possibly stand up how does marriage the idea of monogamy forced monogamy or enforced monogamy how does that ever survive in in that environment I I don't think it can I don't think it's realistic um and and I'm I the statistics prove me right you know the statistics are absolutely in my favor now again get married as many times as you want if you have a prenup if you have a prenup go get married get married it's a blast being married is difficult you know someone once said that that it's great to be married sometimes the problem is you're married all the time so you're a fan of prenups I'm a huge fan of prenups I mean I shouldn't be because a prenup for a couple of thousand dollars will save you hundreds of thousands of dollars potentially in legal fees if not Millions so there are clients I have that have spent over a million dollars just in their legal fees that if they had spent two thousand dollars on a prenup we would none of that they'd still have that money in their pocket and that's incredible to me like I have two sons who are adults that they are absolutely gonna have prenups like they have to have prenups they'd be fools to not have prenups it's like jumping out of a plane with no parachute why would you do that you know it's just it's stupid prenups are enforceable they make sense I actually think there's something very romantic about prenups because they're forcing you to have a conversation about this relationship like we I genuinely believe that we are the most aware of our health just after we got sick right like when we if you wake up and you have a toothache all you can think about is the fact your tooth hurts and then your toothache goes away and for like a week you're taking care of your teeth you go oh my God at least I don't have a toothache you know but then a month goes by and you don't wake up and go at least I don't have a toothache you know it's the furthest thing from your mind but theoretically you could wake up today and go I don't have a toothache I don't have a backache I don't have a head cold like this is a great day it was a typical prenup look like typical the easiest prenup in the world easiest yours mine ours that's it yours mine ours if in your name it's yours if it's in my name if it's mine in a divorce everything all the assets are split 50 50. well no what you say in a prenuptial agreement is if it's an asset or a liability if it's in my name it's mine if it's in your name it's yours if it's in our joint names we'll divide it 50 50. that's it yours mine ours and then you have to have ongoing conversations throughout the marriage about you know hey I got this bonus at work do I put it in my account do I put it in the joining if the husband owns a house that's worth whatever two million dollars and he marries a woman the house is his still well they have to have a conversation do I owe you a house that's an awkward conversation do okay you know what's a more awkward conversation a conversation 10 years later with a lawyer about the fact that you have to give half of this house away to someone isn't it better to have that conversation when you still like why why would you learn how to fight in a fight but won't that undermine the love that each person feels like why you're gonna die does that undermine your life or does it make you conscious of the fact that this is finite and that you should be out there like I think having a conversation with your partner about look I love you you love me we want to do this thing together but the numbers are against us and the world is antagonistic to it and I hope we'll be together forever but if we split up what do we owe each other what do you expect from me because I have to tell you something I'm a fair person I'm a fair person if you say to me you know Jim I I if I'm not going to work as hard because you make a good living so if we split up I'm gonna need help for a couple of years because I'm not gonna pay attention to my career okay does that is that unreasonable that's totally reasonable you know if I say Hey listen I have this house and I bought it you know but I'm buying it with money that I made really before we were together so if we split up I don't really think you deserve half of it I think that if we bought things for it together that okay those things you can half of but the house itself like that's money I had before I met you and why can't you have that conversation why not you instead I mean you buy a house you do a HUD one a lead paint disclosure you gotta sign all these things that's this is how much the interest is going to be and this is what you get married and get a [ __ ] pamphlet you don't get anything you just did the most legally significant thing you're ever gonna do other than die and no one has explained any of it to you people come into my office and they go well my retirement account that's in my name and I'm like yeah it doesn't matter it's in your name okay was it acquired during the marriage okay she's got half of it well I have this bank account but it's in my sole name it's money that I inherited from my mom I'm like okay and it's in your name yeah but you inherited that money during the marriage and did you put money that you earned during the marriage in that account also yeah okay that's co-mingled and transmuted that's now marital property so they don't know that why because no one tells them that when they're getting married all they did you spend more time talking about the cake than you do talking about the fact that you just opted out of the title system that's gigantic you can't legally change the beneficiary of your life insurance even to your children if you're married without your spouse signing a consent to that no one tells you that when you get you can get married Elvis can marry you for twenty dollars at a drive through Cathedral and you it's a legal status a massive legal you buy your spouse a Rolex you bought yourself one half of a Rolex you buy someone a birthday present who you're married to you bought them you bought yourself one half of that birthday present nobody know people don't know that they learn that for the first time in my office or in a courtroom that's insane what what other thing in the world like anything else any other contract you would say well wait a minute no one explained that to me no one explained that when I leased this car no one explained to me that there's wear and tear doesn't say it anywhere in the contract right okay marriage contract doesn't say that it doesn't say you know oh and by the way you're opting out of the title system and your retirement assets and all these other things and if there's any debts and you could have enhanced earning capacity or celebrity Goodwill that has to be valued by forensic accountants that'll cost you a hundred thousand dollars you don't no contract that says that it just says yep we're getting married it's two witnesses we're good like what other contract what other contract in the United States or anywhere has that lack of disclosure and is that binding none zero none so why a prenup yes that's an awkward conversation I guess I don't know that it has to be and I have to tell you the more Awkward of a conversation it is the more you should think twice about getting married because if you can't have a conversation with this person about the possibility that someday one or both of you might hurt each other like how many people while they're still happy and in love say something like you know babe I love you but we're going to disagree about something at some point and when we do how how do you like to fight like do you need a minute like do you need like to be alone for a minute so you can kind of calm down or are you the like hey we gotta figure this out we can't go to bed angry like because let's talk about that now while we're not in the fight like let's talk about it now while we well we still get along and we're happy and we're trying to figure out how to navigate each other it's hard enough to navigate yourself I want to navigate another human being why don't we have that conversation now but no we don't we learn on the job we learn how to fight in a fight which is insane you know but but again why because it's you know it's awkward it'd be awkward to have that conversation more Awkward than getting in a fight where you don't know the rules of engagement where you don't know how your partner does better or would feel better like and you're not going to ask them that In the Heat of battle you know so why wouldn't you have that awkward conversation while you have this abundance of affection for each other I mean when I negotiate prenups it's the easiest thing in the world in a sense because these two people really like each other you know they're about to get married so they're clearly not trying to kill each other at that point they clearly like each other so you just say Hey listen go home talk to your fiance about X Y and Z and see what they you know see what they think and see tell them what your concern is and and very often people will come back and say to me I mean I have to tell you I've been doing this now you know over 20 years I do a lot of prenups I do maybe five six prenups a month sometimes during like pre-wedding season which is the fall and before the summer I'll do 10 15 a month the people who say to me oh well I I don't want to have that conversation you know I think that they they get the prenup and within three four years they're divorced sometimes five years and then seven years but they're the ones who get divorced they they have no business getting married like the ones who have the discussion and figure out the well I'm worried because if you keep the place yeah you're right okay so what if I give you this amount of money and it's this much for each year okay yeah that's cool let's do it that way those people they'll probably never gonna put the prenup in a safe someplace you'll never look at it probably good communication ah because they're able to talk to each other and they're able to talk about hard things how are you going to be married to someone have children with someone and you can't talk about hard things you know like how how are you going to navigate life and not be able to talk about hard things like that's silly so if you can't talk about hard things don't get [ __ ] married it's okay you don't have to you can stay together but but people love I had a client no joke I was in his 70s he was married who's married four times I did his third and fourth divorces and he was getting married for a fifth time and I said to him I was like you because I actually thought he's older so I thought like does he know you don't have to marry them anymore like this maybe he doesn't know yeah maybe someone didn't tell him like maybe someone didn't tell him like you can [ __ ] them you don't have to marry them anymore you can just do that he's dividing his asset multiple times well it's I mean it's getting smaller and smaller every time but I said to him I was like why are you doing this again I was like you you don't have to get married like you're clearly not created it you know like and he was very funny he said um he said you know Jim he said you buy a car and you drive it for 200 000 miles and eventually the engine craps out so you go out and you buy a Ferrari or you buy some flashy sports car and you dry it for a couple months you realize this is not the car for me so you get rid of it then you get another car and you know you think this one's going to be the one for you but you know after you drive it for like a year you realize yeah this is not the car for me you can lease them instead of buying them you're gonna walk everywhere for the rest of your life yeah well that was my answer you could lease them you could lease them or you could you could have some other alternative I mean here's the thing about marriage is is it's a technology so we made it up so we can change it you think marriage will change in the next 20 years no no I think it'll I actually think it's going to have I mean I think we're leaning I think the pendulum always swings hard in the other direction we have a we have a tendency as a culture to over correct so I think we're we're heading into a spiral of like traditional stuff really like I think you're gonna see like people getting like super religious again people are gonna get super dogmatic I think we're gonna see the Trad wife thing we're going to see the hyper masculinity we're gonna see like a very you know we've got to we've gone so far in the direction of post-modernism where nothing means anything and everything's just you know like there is no definite we become like sartra you know like we've become so post-modern that it's become almost a form of rugged individualism I think we're going to swing in the other direction now in traditional institutions it will be I mean you know from a marriage place it's going to be great because I think people are going to get married I mean people were slowing down on getting married for a while sure and they were getting married later and they're having kids later we're declining to have kids and I think as we I think as a culture we start re-solidifying into gender roles or gender tropes depending on how we're going to look at it I think you're going to see marriage resurge again but I think that it's still going to be as flawed of a technology As It Ever Was and I think we have so much out there now to compare ourselves to you know you used to compare yourself to the neighbors next door and what car they had in the driveway and what they were wearing when they left for church on Sunday now you're just looking at everyone's greatest hits while living your gag reel you know and you're never looking at any of that stuff when you're having like a peak experience you're on the toilet or you're bored and you're looking at everyone's hashtag blast and me while they're in my office like I can't tell you how many people do a consult with me and they're cheating and they haven't slept with their spouse in three years and they're miserable and you're looking at their Instagram and it's all like best life ever hashtag greatest hubby ever and you're like what is this it's performance art you know it's an advertisement of how happy you are but this is what people are comparing themselves to they're looking at that and going all my marriage isn't that good that marriage isn't that good trust me that marriage isn't that good that marriage is in my look at Celebrities you don't even look at the people you know look at Celebrities they're before they do they it is with great sadness that we advise that we're going to be moving in separate directions and consciously on coupling and like that right before that it's like oh no we're happy we're great we're phenomenal you know we're we're we're constantly advertising how wonderful our relationships are while they're on fire you know and then wondering why everyone's you know miserable in their relationship because they're comparing it to something fake it's like comparing your your body to a photoshopped body you know other than social media do you think there's something else in our society that made marriage more difficult to Stay Together now makes it important and just like your parents stayed married yeah my parents stayed married until my mother passed away same same with me um but they were they were mixed results I see I think that my parents were not as as caught up in their own happiness I think we're very caught up in our own happiness we're all very selfish yeah we're all very sort of I don't want to say narcissistic but we're very much like we are the sun around which everything what am I not getting yeah my father was a Vietnam veteran you know he got out of the Naval Academy in 66 and went to Vietnam for three years so he was alive so he was like [ __ ] I'm ahead I'm playing with the houses of money I'm alive everybody in their wedding party all the men in their wedding party died in Vietnam there's Five Guys in their wedding party they all died in Vietnam my parents never looked at their wedding album because every single man and it was dead they were all helicopter pilots in Vietnam who got killed in their 20s you know so they didn't really see marriages like it was a partnership it was like yeah we're gonna do this thing we're gonna have kids we're gonna raise the kids we're gonna you know we're gonna have a house you know we're gonna have a car like we'll be successful the lights are on my father was dirt poor he came from like Appalachian part of of of Virginia a small town called Shawsville didn't have indoor plumbing until they left for the Naval Academy and he just I think he saw marriages yeah it's what you do you know he met my mom on fleet week she was a nurse in the city and uh he was you know on fleet week and he had his uniform on and he was in a bar and he was drunk and he he went to her and and uh he said you're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen and I'm gonna marry you because he was drunk and she said um are you in the military because he was wearing a uniform and he said yep and she said what country and he said whatever country you're from and he invited her to visit him at the Naval Academy a couple of weeks later and she came but he'd invited three other women he just didn't know if any of them would come so he invited all of them so my mom got there and she saw these other women and she said either I'm leaving or they're all leaving and he was like I kind of like her so he made them all leave and they were yeah they were married 50 plus years but you know their marriage had challenges you know he was an alcoholic he's been in recovery for maybe seven eight years since she passed but um and and he's remarried but he remarried within a year of my mom dying like he was the kind of he's of a generation of men that he needed someone to take care of him you know my mom died he didn't even know how to scramble an egg like it was you know like after she passed I had him come to stay with me and my sons and I was trying to like teach him like okay dad here's how you make like a batch of chili and then you can eat it all week you know and and I was like how's this guy gonna because they had this very you know but that's what I met another older woman and her husband had died she needed someone to take care of he needed someone to take care of him but that generation didn't have it as easy as we that's what I'm saying like they they were just reading your basic needs right they were grateful to be alive they were grateful to be alive because they'd either been through War we're not grateful unless we're driving a Mercedes or uh and even then we're not grateful because because the truth is as well okay Mercedes for Mercedes who cares you know when people have a Mercedes my secretary has a Mercedes she leases it you know I drive a Jeep so is she better than me is she more successful than me she works for me you know so I I don't I don't know that any of it's enough anymore like no matter what watch you have somebody's got another one or a better one or five of them and all this comparison that we see it's all and and so I just think that's the thing that makes it impossible right like if if if you're our parents generation was struggling to just make it through right to to meet your basic needs to keep a roof over your head to raise your children and now it's very much are you self-actualized are you happy do you have eight pack at like it would never have occurred to my father did he have an eight pack I would never have been something he thought of you know it's just not it just wasn't on his radar you know and I don't think my mother would have ever been like oh you know he he doesn't have an eight pack like that wouldn't because again though it's not constantly being advertised to him you know I think that how many women did he interact with in a day you know how many women do I interact with in a day visually or personally in some fashion or or you know in a curated mediated way and again those are curated women by the way so they're photoshopped they're airbrushed they're they've got filters on them so again you know I I how does marriage survive in that setting it had a hard enough time surviving without all of that I mean forget kids the divorce rate keeps increasing right yeah it keeps going up it keeps going up it's it's been hanging around 53 to 56 for a while we had a bump after covet what are other countries like um countries that have a significant religious narrative have the lowest divorce rates so the lowest divorce rates are in like you know Saudi Arabia yeah but they don't have a whole lot of choice right you're not allowed to divorce or you just have your wife killed you know so that that's you don't have to divorce um so the countries where there is this very strict religious prohibition against marriage or against divorce but I mean the United States is probably the highest divorce rate uh we're among the highest yeah yeah I don't think we're the hot we might we might be the highest now for a while Germany had a very high divorce rate France had a pretty high divorce rate what's interesting is is the divorce rate and the marriage satisfaction rates those are different because most people the goal is not can we stay married the goal is can we stay happily married you know because if somebody said to me like yeah I've been married 25 years and I've been [ __ ] miserable for 15 of them like I'm not going to envy you like great job really hung in there in that awful situation you know like that that's not impressive to me you know I have a cousin who got married and I was I was chatting with her she's a younger woman and I S her she her her husband uh just joined the police force and I said to him so I was trying to make small talk and I said so do you you know do you like it and he's from a family cops and he said not not really but you know I'm gonna do like the 20 years and then you know you get your pension I thought I'll just do my 20 that's 20 years you're 25 years old that's 25 to 45. those are [ __ ] incredible Years you'll never get those back and your approach to life is yeah I mean I don't like it but I'll just kind of do it you know like I've I want to tiptoe through life and arrive safely at death like that seems you know but I I get that that's what we're if that's what marriage is if it's an endurance event you know where no no you've got to stay married you know why I mean that's why I think religions have been very quick to I mean I always tell people I'm not religious I was raised very Catholic but the reality is that that you know I mean there's if if in fact God talked to humanity with Ten Commandments I think it's hilarious that the only thing he has to say twice is don't [ __ ] people you're not married to thou shall not kill once right honor the Sabbath once don't covet your neighbor's wife don't commit adultery it's it's the only thing it's the only thing that got two commandments so like basically don't kill honor the Sabbath don't [ __ ] people you're not married to seriously don't [ __ ] people you're not married to like there's no it didn't shall not steal one you know everything it's the only one that got double billing no religion's a big component and it's a huge component but why because how else are you going to control people how else are you going to get people to sign on for this thing and not sleep with each other I mean I'm not saying Freud was right but we we do want to sleep with people we do want to kill people that don't do what we want them to do like we have these animal instincts we have these impulses and what do we do with them well we have to live in a civilized society so civilization it's discontent we have to marry certain that marriage was outlawed or just abolished it would just be a free-for-all I don't know that that's true I mean I think that I think people would like us to believe that's true you know I I don't believe that like I don't believe if murder wasn't illegal that I would just go killing people like I like you know like I I rape and murder as many people as I want to which is none because I'm not a monster like I don't I rape as many people as I Want To None because I don't want to I wouldn't want to do that to another person I think I think society would be probably happier without marriage well I think we would have a lot less of the damage that comes right I think we'd have to find new narratives to structure to Define relationships right I mean I do think there is a part of us that wants to say because you know I I as a grown man who's divorced when you're when you're 20 and you say oh that's my girlfriend nobody thinks any of it when you're 50 and you say oh that's my girlfriend people go there's a story there like because you're either divorced or commitment phobic or why do you have a girlfriend when you're 50 why isn't that your wife so they know there's a story there so we'd have to and I get it I get it because if if someone says oh that's my boyfriend it's like all right well that could be for a week that could have been nothing they could be like yeah it's my boyfriend my husband it's like oh okay wait that's that's there that's her husband like she's got some Authority there so I get that there's this idea that we want to say like you know it's like when you're a little kid this is my friend but this is my best friend you know this is my best friend but like how many adults still need to say that like how many adults still need to say oh my friend Todd and I and my best friend Tom and I like okay like so the extra special friend like like what are they these are like do they get health insurance with that like what is the deal with that so I think that's kind of what marriage has become is it's like you know well the person I love no no but like the person I love like there's a lot of people I love I wouldn't want to be married to any of them but there's a lot of people I love you know and and I love my ex-wife I wouldn't want to be married to her I think she loves me she wouldn't want to be married to me I don't blame her I'm a great ex-husband I'm a terrible husband I'm a great ex-husband because the skill set for an ex-husband is totally different than skill set for a husband skill set for a father is completely different than that of a husband that's the the thing I have to tell people all the time all the time people say well he's a terrible husband so you shouldn't have custody of the kids I'm like what the [ __ ] where's the overlap between being a good husband and being a good father like being a good father is a whole different skill you can be a great husband and a [ __ ] father and you can be an amazing father and terrible husband like these there's very little overlap in those skill sets you know maybe good listening skills would be helpful in both or patience would be good in both but that's true of almost anything you know it's a doctor and a lawyer both be good if you had good listening skills it doesn't mean they're the same profession so is divorce harder on women or men that's a great question I think it's equally hard on both but I think that the world is more sympathetic to women when they get divorced I think when a woman gets cheated on the man's a piece of [ __ ] and when a woman cheats on a man she must have been forced into the arms of this other man or she had to explore herself or she was being neglected in some fashion and so if if a man cheats he's a piece of garbage and if a man's wife cheats he mustn't have been meeting her needs and she had ever right in the world like so the world is very unsympathetic to men when they get divorced that's that's been throughout Earth yeah that's been for I mean there was a maternal presumption a legal legal presumption what was called the The Tender Years Doctrine which was that if a child was under the age of seven they were automatically presumed that they would be in the custody of the mother um and men so men get really beat up still in court I mean the loss theoretically is gender blind right now but I I don't I don't actually see that because the law is people the law is judges and judges are human and they're they're all the same biases and and it's just not a moment right now where men are particularly sympathetic characters you know I think that you know even even young men I mean if you know if at a school dance they sing Beyonce's girls who runs the world like if there was a song called men who runs the world men and and it was a positive thing like you get pilloried for that so I think that men have a very hard time right now in divorce they see their children less they get hit harder financially um they are the bad guy no matter what if they cheat they're the bad guy if they get cheated on they were the bad guy because they probably neglected her there's a presumption that the man is to Blame A lot of the time now again you know marriage equality has been a thing for a while so there are you know tons of gay couples so you have two men two women divorcing each other um and that hasn't really shook out too much yet in terms of how that plays out um I don't know if it's that gay and lesbian couples are better at it than heterosexual couples or if it's still they're in the honeymoon period because you know marriage equality hasn't been around that long but I I think men find a less sympathetic world but In fairness divorced men have it a little easier I think divorced men meet a young woman and the woman's like instant family just add me that's great you know if he's got kids it's like oh he's got kids look at his nurturing he is and how lovely and women you know they get divorced they've got kids guys are like whoop it's got baggage I'm not going near that you know so I think I think they that men and women have different problems post-divorce and and the world could be better to both of them I think that I have some women who uh who you know I've done their divorce and whatever guy is with them is going to be very lucky because they're they're beautiful they're smart they're good moms but they're also you know vibrant exciting women now they're loaded and they've got money yeah yeah they've got money they don't have as much Financial insecurity although I have to tell you that you know let's last remaining feminist taboo I got a lot of women paying alimony these days I mean you know women can Women Marry the like handsome musician who's not successful or the artist you know like there's a lot of listen it hasn't been you know there's been a significant effort in in our culture in the last decade if anyone didn't notice to improve the situation of women if you have an equally qualified man an uniquely qualified woman the woman's diversity hire the man's not so I have a lot of women who get when they get told like oh yeah no you got to give him half your [ __ ] or oh no you got to pay alimony because he makes 50 Grand a year and you make 250. and they're like you know they could be the staunchest feminist in the world and when you tell them they got to pay alimony they're like whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa he's a man he's got a strong back he can get out there and work and and then suddenly the whole like gender is a construct and there's no such thing that goes right out the window and you got told you got to pay alimony that's like nope no no no I believe in strict gender roles men should pay alimony women even if you earn 10 times you should not have to pay alimony I've had I've had very very staunchly feminist clients who who changed their mind about how feminist they were when they got told that they were going to have to pay alimony interesting yeah and but I do have a lot of men who won't take alimony even though they're entitled to it because there's just some feeling of like yeah no I'm not doing that it's emasculating like if she tells people that we know that I took alimony from her like people think I'm less than a man so again it's all gender stuff it's still out there it's still still part of the Zeitgeist you know we're still trying to figure it all out how many how many marriages are genuinely happy you think how many married couples gosh because I see married couples that have been married it looks like they've been married a decade or two yeah and they're having dinner and they're having the same conversation they had yesterday the day before the day before that in the weeks and months before that yeah you know here's what I'll tell you I I have I know a lot of people and I I think I know one couple that has like a genuinely happy marriage what do you think the secret is ah they really like each other I don't know like they're really good to each other I have to tell you they make me very uncomfortable I I jokingly my my ex-wife and I jokingly say that they were the reason we got divorced because we we have we've known them since we were in college and we went to Disney with them with their kids and our kids when all the kids were little and we were gonna go on a ride with our kids and their kids and they they were gonna like you know oh like we'll take the kids on the ride and you guys can go and my friend was like oh good we're just gonna go walk and hold hands and they walked away and like holding hands and we looked at them and we didn't say anything to each other but like five years later when we got divorced I said you know I when I saw the two of them together I thought I don't feel like that about her like and she said oh my God I remember that exact moment I felt the same way so I think they make people uncomfortable like when you see someone who's got it right like this guy just loves her he loves her they've been married 25 years and dude he's like it's like he's talking about a girl he met yesterday and and she's the same way about him like she's a miracle when that happens yeah I just think it look you know man I tell people marriage is like the lottery you are probably not going to win you know but but but if you win what you win is so good like I don't know maybe you buy a ticket [ __ ] it like but buy it to get a prenup like do you do you take all your money and buy lottery tickets no but if you and I don't buy lottery tickets like I don't play the lottery you're not gonna [ __ ] win why you know set the money on fire it'll be more fun but if somebody said to me no man you know what once a week I buy twenty dollars worth of lottery tickets all right go for it you know Somebody's gotta win maybe it'll be you like same thing with marriage like somebody's got to win like yeah I've met hundreds if not thousands of couples and I know one one that is legitimately happy and like really seemed to just feed that happiness by that marriage that they have and and they both as individuals have become the best version of themselves by being you know what like if that's they won the lottery so buy the ticket I guess you know but I mean don't don't make that your retirement plan like don't go like well you know don't worry I'm not saving money for my kids college because you know I'm buying lottery tickets like that's you're an idiot if you're doing that excellent Jim thank you so much for sharing your story it's a pleasure your thoughts on marriage and love and divorce fascinating topic isn't it yeah it is and I suspect it will continue to be I I don't know that we're going to culturally get any better at it but uh the economy is good we're busy economy's bad we're busy like we're we're a recession-proof industry so you know it's it's uh even even kova didn't slow us down you know probably sped you up well people said for better for worse they didn't say for lunch you know and when you're locked in the house together it was that was not great for most marriages like there was no no uh it was not hey we should all spend more time together you know there was there was a lot of difficult conversations that came out of that Barbers and divorce lawyers when the pandemic ended we were the lines were out the door you know so whatever the next thing is you know we'll we'll still be here all right thank you so much you got it man