More of a Divorce Attorney's Thoughts on Love and Marriage-James Sexton

you is the have sex with me like I really love it because sex is really awesome you know like we that's okay we know that gang it's like we can admit that whatever we're doing right now [ __ ] it'd be more fun we could acknowledge that just say it out loud it's okay you know so what are we doing we're going to trade that right so if we're going to be in a monogamous relationship what we're saying is listen I really like [ __ ] you and I also would really enjoy [ __ ]

lots of other people but I am willing to forego the opportunity to [ __ ] lots of other people in exchange for the opportunity to [ __ ] you regularly so is there can we agree that there's going to be some minimum level of [ __ ] that we're both going to maintain for the purpose and if the person said well yes but you know also one of the reasons why I [ __ ] you is that you show tremendous kindness and Grace towards me and your complimentary to me so could we in exchange for

those regular [ __ ] that are sufficient for you to forego all of the other potential [ __ ] that you're also going to show me a certain level of affection and attention that's going to make me feel good about myself for a period abs absolutely very fair this is a very fair transaction right so I know like okay everyone's listening to that and going like well this is why I would not [ __ ] a lawyer like I get it but isn't there something honest about that four hours late yeah well he's on you

know he's like on pimp time you know it's kind of like yeah it's a different world for that yeah yeah that's funny man you know I I've repres represented I've represented a number of people in sort of the underworld and it is it is a fascinating mob divorces are actually like the easiest divorces in what way so mob divorces there's like this doctrine of mutually assured destruction where like she knows where the bodies are buried and she also knows she could pretty easily be one of those bodies so you know usually like the mobster does

not want to [ __ ] with things too badly and the mob soon to be ex-wife you know like doesn't want to [ __ ] with the mobster too much like I I had one I I'll I'll tell you this is a great so I had you know nobody ever by the way if anybody ever comes in and says oh I'm in the mafia they're not in the mafia it's like it's like you know they don't say it yeah there's a lyric from uh uh a rap I forget whose it is where he says you

ain't never caught a body I know it because you talk about it and I think the truth is is like people who kill people don't talk about killing people the mob guys I've represented they just say they have a variety of business interests you know like that's it they just have a variety of business interests what do you do I'm an entrepreneur I have a variety of businesses I'm in importing you know or I'm in uh sewage or whatever it might be Recycling and I had one where it was mob family so I had the

daughter is my client and she comes in and Mom is with her her mom and Dad and Dad is clearly the guy who's mobed up and dad doesn't have a word to say he just sits in the chair like this he's just listening just this Italian heavys set older guy and his daughters telling the whole thing and I'm going through like the list of assets and I see that they own a restaurant she owns a restaurant and so I say um you know just a quick question I was like I noticed that the restaurant is

in your name the daughter's name and he goes oh yeah um I don't have anything to do at the restaurant though that's just it's just in my name and I'm like well I'm sorry you know I just I get paid to be paranoid why is it in your name and she says well it couldn't be in my father's name or my brother's name because we couldn't get a liquor license cuz they have felonies and I was like okay but you know it could create a problem because it's in your name it was acquired during the

marriage and you know I would have some concern that he might try to argue that is you know and the father for the first time in this like hour meeting goes yeah he's not going to do that so I went um okay well that's you know it's good to hear but I just want to make sure that you know like are we certain because you know this is something we might want to get ahead of and figure out and he goes yeah no he's not going to make a claim for the restaurant and I said

well you know I'm sorry like I get paid to be paranoid but you know how do we know for sure that he's not going to make a claim to the restaurant and the guy just Stone Face just goes because if he tries to do anything with that restaurant they're going to find him at the bottom of the Hudson River with a $5 bill in his mouth and I went okay so he's not going to make a claim for the restaurant and let's move on and that is it was emblematic of what mob divor Dives are

like because it really is like a you can't quite figure out what this person does for a living but they have an incredible lifestyle like I had a client a mobed up client whose COI Pond cost $100,000 a month to maintain like think about that you're spending over a million dollars a year to have oversized goldfish like that's incredible like that's a and you know what he what did he actually make or what did he actually do it was like a it was very amorphous it was never you never get a straight answer about that

but again very clean divorce very un you know uncompact because unlike the the other side doesn't want to mess with the family well it's like I said the doctrine of mutually destruction like he doesn't want to mess with her too much she's the mother of his kids there's a certain sense of okay you don't do that she's a civilian to some degree and also like she could Jam him up you know she knows what a little bit about where things are and what's going on and then meanwhile she doesn't want to really him up cuz

she knows that could be a very dangerous thing to do so it's a it's a very interesting Dynamic and and in New York I mean you know we we bump into those kinds of characters pretty it's very funny because in my profession to have like my 9:00 be a seite executive from a software company my 10:00 is like a Goldman Sachs broker and my you know 11:30 is like a mobbed up dude from Staten Island who has like you know giant marble Lions outside of his house and like knocked up his third stripper wife you

know so it's a very uh it's a it's a it's a long day and it's a really I almost get Whiplash from dealing with like and by the way they're all dealing with the same [ __ ] it sounds like it sounds like my life yeah that's exactly well you know it's we really both do get paid to talk to people who are in Desperate situations but who fundamentally have some of the exact same problems it's just like the symptoms of the exact same problem in a world where algorithms and financial incentives dictate the information

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for watching I think that you know because I've talked with psychologists I've talked with all kinds of people and I I was telling you this off camera I I think you're a National Treasure because you you I've called you that before that might be a first we talk off camera sometimes and uh I think because you're in the trenches you're up to your elbows in all the crap that we're all going through with relationships and love and marriage and all this yeah I'm kind of there with my nose in it all the time you have

a better feeling for what's really going on and what works and what doesn't and why it falls apart and why it survives yeah yeah and I think I I think part of my skill is pattern recognition and I think I see because again I I represent you know Quant people from hedge funds I represent you know Executives I represent doctors and I represent you know like the opposite of that you know you're more the highend and I yeah and I but I but I see that we're all fundamentally struggling with the same things and and

the way that I see it like the the inside line that I have to it is a very very honest view of it like I I think people still lie to their therapists I think because they're lying to themselves but most of the time people don't lie to their lawyer because my only job is to protect them everything we discuss is attorney client privilege and they know like you know lying to your doctor lying to your lawyer we're like the two people you shouldn't lie to so yeah I think I do get a very candid

view of it and I think most divorced lawyers see I think most of my colleagues think I'm insane for having these kinds of public conversations I mean I've had some of my most respected colleagues say to me like dude what are you doing like why why would you come out and talk about how the sausage is made why would you talk about what we do or the Insight that you get for like what what's the benefit of it you know it's certainly not from a marketing place I have more clients than I could ever possibly

F in a day I have to turn people down so it and it really is for me like this this doesn't feel at all like work like the the the work I do all day long where I'm putting myself in the head of someone or putting myself in the head of my adversary and trying to tactically make decisions on how to handle litigation like that that is exhausting by the end of the day but this like I could talk to you for three four hours no problem I sat down with Lex for like six hours

we edited it down to four hours and we I think we took two 15minute bathroom breaks and I I didn't afterwards feel like oh my God I'm exhausted I felt kind of invigorating because this shit's so interesting to me I I it's interesting to everybody yeah and I mean look you know it's like the old saying like I'm not I'm not like this because I'm in Van Halen I'm in Van Halen because I'm like this like I don't I don't think that I am like this because I'm a divorce lawyer I think I became a

divorce lawyer because I'm like this I find people [ __ ] fascinating it's the same reason why I liked your channel from before I was involved you know in it in any way like I was a fan for a really long time and a subscriber for for a long time actually I'm still a subscriber you're still hitting me for whatever it is 10 bucks it's worth it but I I I I still uh I still love watching the the unfiltered stuff because the same reason I enjoy my work it's it's it's just such an honest

thing like we're so full of [ __ ] all the time people are just walking around full of [ __ ] all the time it's the same reason why I love Brazilian jiu-jitsu because you can't be full of [ __ ] in Brazilian jiu-jitsu like you know if somebody pretends they're good at it they're going to get found out real fast like you can't fake your way through it you can't buy your way into it you can't get a a fake version of it like you could have f F Rolex or a fake Birkin bag

like you you're either good at it or you're not and that's it like there's no hiding there's no faking it and and in our increasingly performative Instagram Society there's something so like I think the feedback I got most from our first sit down was just people being like yeah this guy's real like you might not like what I have to say I don't really like what I have to say sometimes I mean I wish some of it wasn't true I wish that we were better at this I wish that you know my profession didn't require

what it does you know that that people didn't ever beat the [ __ ] out of each other like this or weaponize their intimacy with each other but you know I I I I find it fascinating still I still by Sunday afternoon can't wait to get to the office on Monday that's great yeah that's how I am I don't think most people are like that I think most people spend five days a week looking forward to two it's it's important to love your work I tell my kids this it's like just make sure you work

for yourself make sure you do something that you love to do cuz otherwise you're yeah you're you're swimming against the tide against under and part of that I mean look I've given that same advice to my kids but part of that I think you have to temper because when I when I say to people like oh you know do what you love like I don't the world couldn't sustain that many baseball players in ballerinas so I think when you give that advice to a kid you know what you want to say to them is look

like work on a lot of different things try a lot of different things see what you're good at because sometimes enjoyment comes from competency like if you're very good at something you're going to enjoy it more like and I I enjoy what I do in part cuz I'm very good at it and it feels good to be good at something you know but sometimes you don't develop that skill until you've sucked at it for a little while like I look back on my early career as a lawyer and I'm [ __ ] mortified at some

of the mistakes I made some of the just rookie [ __ ] that I did but the only way you learn is by just stepping on the rake you know and having to just whack you and and as a lawyer like that's that's a little intimidating because you're [ __ ] with people's lives you know now um but it's the only way to learn you know and that's why ideally you know you do like I did in my early career I I represented assigned Council people so I was their free lawyer so it's like you

know they're they're certainly getting their money's worth you know you're doing the best you can for them um but it's a very you know New York has a very tricky system when it comes to assign counsel because you're entitled to assign councel no matter how Preposterous your claims are sometimes so like you know I've been assigned to cases where this person is just fluidly psychotic like straight up should be in this chair being interviewed by you and they are you know they they they have been given an assigned attorney whose job is to go in

and advocate for the Preposterous psychotic position that they've taken like so you kind of look at it and go okay so I'm going to advocate for their delusion now you know but advocating for people's delusion is actually something I do pretty frequently most often for millionaires now so I guess I probably can't be that critical of it but I mean to to be successful in love I think we either need to be really rageous or very naive and foolish you know at least at the start yeah or a combination of the two yeah and then

and then to make love last you need to be very sensible and real have realistic expectations yeah I think for love to last you have to think about the value of what it is you're doing like I think there's a a of all the people I know that have successful relationships long-term relationships and it's a limited number I know a lot more people that have had a lot of unsuccessful ones and that's not just the function of my professional life I mean I'm mindful of the fact that like I don't meet people who have great

marriages or even solidly pretty good marriages like I meet people with you know terrible terrible situations but even in my personal life the people I meet that have successful long-term marriages they're they're just able to see the value in the thing they have there and they're willing to forgo other shiny objects in exchange for that or they're people that are very religious like they have a to par paraphrase n they they have a why so they can endure the how you know so I think if you genuinely are like okay I'm going to go to

hell if I don't stay in this marriage like that might be a power you know Eternal damnation might be a powerful motivator not to to [ __ ] around too much um but the truth is I I think the people that look at their marriage and go yeah like this adds long-term value to my life it's like the people that go to the gym in the morning it's like the people that eat healthy you know it's like yeah that might taste good right now now but like longterm I'm going to regret that I had that

and I I I want long-term Health more than I want the the bright shiny tasty thing you know it's like goggin says you know or jao says you know that that that trading what you want now for what you want most and I think marriage is kind of based on that but but see that's the the problem is I think it that's not what that's not how we have it set up we have it set up that it's all this intoxication and excitement in the beginning and then I think people start to align their expectations

with that like it's going to be this fairy tale it's going to be this wonderful time we just love each other and we just feel so much and we pass each other and just touch each other it's like the electric shock of it you know and we've all been there like we all know that can't possibly last like there's no way you're going to be able to have a functional Society if everybody is just Intoxicated by their partner you know and that they the sound of their partner's voice just runs that chill down their spine

that we've all felt like that has to pass at some point it's supposed to pass at some point but I think a lot of people when it passes they go oh well [ __ ] that mustn't have been my soulmate because like that never would have passed if that was my soulmate but it's like no of course that's going to pass like that's that's okay like you get a new car it's got the new car smell it's got that excitement and in a few months it's kind of just your car but it's still a great

[ __ ] car like it still has all those features and it's still like you just have you're just let go of this level of excitement that you had the newness of it you know and I think people just haven't because we put so much value that's the part that you know I think I said in my conversation with oryan like I I find so frustrating is that you know when I watch a group of women talk about men you know when they talk about the man they're dating or one of the friends in the

group just just started dating someone everything the guy does it's like oh yeah and then he text me oh my God he did like oh that's so and meanwhile it's like the the guys who they're just [ __ ] on now the guys who they're like oh him like that that was this guy six months ago and this guy now who they're all enamored with everything he does in eight months he's just going to be the [ __ ] guy the boyfriend or the husband or whatever so it really is like the new car analogy

you know I people just sort of lose touch with it and when that happens and that resentment builds up obviously you know like people like me you know doing what I do for a living people come in and they say like aren't I entitled to this and aren't I entitled to that and you know and there's an anger that they have and it feels like it's at their partner but really it's a reality like they're mad at reality they're mad at the fact that their partner is human and that their partner isn't going to stay

perfect forever and that they're not going to continue to feel per because really the truth I mean at least in my experience of romantic love is it's it's not even how much what you feel for the person it's what that person makes you feel about yourself like you look in the mirror when someone's like you know in love with you and passionate about you and like you know is So Into You you know you look at yourself differently like you look in the mirror and you're like yeah I am look at this [ __ ]

guy and you feel good you know and I I think that's why Affairs like are so appealing to people because they're with their partner and they're not impressive to their partner anymore because no man's a hero to his Butler you know it's our job as a as a romantic partner to build the other person's our partners s% 100% And I don't think it's that [ __ ] hard see that's the part that really blows my mind is that like preventative maintenance is so easy if you're not building your partner self worth every single day you're

you're you're dropping the ball and not not only do we not build our partner's selfworth we go the other way which is it's become totally acceptable to take the piss out of your part I would love it if you would repeat what you said in our last talk with Orion about uh gatekeeping the negative oh about negative gatekeep oh yeah yeah about the way people take each other down yeah yeah oh yeah yeah no I mean negative look the the Zeitgeist right now in the law is especially when it comes to like custody and parenting

stuff is the the you know alienation and negative gatekeeping is really the order of the the day right now cuz it's all over the place you know and and it's funny because people just insidiously like imagine that there's a a person sitting there with their kid going you know by the way your dad's an [ __ ] you know and the truth is like that's not what alienation looks like alienation looks like it's Insidious like negative gatekeeping is when you're not overtly saying things like oh your dad's an [ __ ] you do things like

here here's the difference ready hey how do you have a good time with d this weekend oh that's so great what' you guys do oh you went to the park that's nice did you guys have dinner oh good what' you have pizza oh yeah you like pizza all right well go upstairs brush your teeth you know we going to watch a little TV before bedtime versus hi you're home oh I missed you so much are you okay yeah how did you have a good time with that everything was okay it went okay okay I missed

you so much what' you guys do you went to the park today you went to the park so cold out why did Dad take you to well did you have your C you didn't even have your cold on oh my goodness I don't know why dad would do that what well did you have dinner what did you have pizza just pizza for dinner that's it no vegetables nothing like that we know how important it is to eat your vegetables right I always say that to you that's why I always make you you know I make

you stuff that you're going to it's good for you it's not just tastes good right you know what I'm going to do I'm going to make why don't you go upstairs and I'm going to make you a proper something to eat because you can't just have pizza for din I don't know why dad's so silly like that so now here's the thing I just told you your dad's an [ __ ] I just told you your dad's someone to be afraid of he doesn't know how to take care of you all those things but I

didn't see any of it and when that kid gets assigned an attorney okay which is what happens in really ugly contest you know contested custody proceedings they're they're going to ask that kid so does mom ever talk bad about Dad and the answer is no the answer is no dad didn't say mom said nothing about Dad overtly bad there but that's negative gatekeeping and that's that's what we do like that's what we do like people don't sit around and say to their partner you know I no longer love and respect you I find you unattractive

in fact I think you're the most loome harp you ever to castrate a man like no one ever says that it's just the sort of what yeah all right whatever fine yeah you know like and then you're back to your phone or just sitting there talking to the person huh yeah no that's cool what yeah no and all you're saying is you suck you have no value to me you're not interesting to me anymore you're not as compelling as whatever's going on in this [ __ ] box in my hand like and that's what it

is so when people say like oh my partner you know they they're they no longer you know they no longer inspire me they no longer excite me it's like it's like a real chicken in the egg canundrum there it's like well how how much of this was you ignoring your partner and not validating your partner not giving your partner any affection not giving your partner any attention of any kind and look we're all guilty of this when we first start dating someone we all start dating someone we're trying to close the deal and we spend

all this time like just trying to you know we see the best in them we we bring out the best in them like we're interested and we're interesting we bring our best self to the equation and everything they do we're just we find it fascinating we tell them how fascinating it is how wonderful they are and how beautiful they are and then I don't know how the [ __ ] that works that it's like in the job interview you're so gung-ho about getting this [ __ ] job and then you get the job the job

you were dying to get that there were other candidates for when the romantic thing 8 billion other candidates and you got the [ __ ] job and now yeah whatever I'll show up late I'll phone it in I won't get like and then you wonder why it didn't work out or you wonder why your partner doesn't feel inspired by you anymore it doesn't want to accommodate you anymore and again I said it the last time we talked like it doesn't have to be like that you can reverse that spiral it takes some effort but I

think you can reverse it by just [ __ ] going back to that place in your head and and and minor like how good does it feel for all of us when somebody just pays us the slightest compliment the slightest bit of attention shows us the slightest courtesy gives us a little bit of Grace it's so powerful it's so powerful and when you're first dating someone you're just overflowing with that abundance right like you're just anything they do like if they snort when they laugh you're like oh she snorts when she laughs I [ __

] love it whereas like you know a year into the relationship it's like oh my God her [ __ ] laugh they snorting like it I don't understand that I don't understand why that happen now again I get that it's a spiral I get that one of you at some point starts to let that slip and then there's the resentment spiral starts and starts and starts and it's a straight line right to my office from there you know but it it's a it's a pattern like I have a guy who's on his third supermodel right

now he's a big you know he's in private Equity worth billions and he's married his third supermodel like he's he just keeps marrying [ __ ] models and then he cheats on them with models like so I just find him like what what are you you you're doing the same thing like you're running the same program over and over and you think there's going to be a different result you know and every one of them by the way goes down the same path for like a couple of years they're super into him and then they

start being like annoyed and resentful of him and then they all start getting tons of cosmetic procedures and they start to look like that weird you know like Frank like that weird stretched out thing that all the housewives on on the on the on the shows have and then they wonder why he goes for like the fresh face you know younger version of cuz literally the only thing between them was he has money and she's hot like that's it there was no other Dynamic there like it's I mean you can make up some other stuff

like oh she's nice and she listens to me but like it's purely he's Rich she's hot that's it that's the equation you don't need to go dig deeper than that you know it's like like this dog's being nice to me right you're feeding it bacon of course it's going to be [ __ ] nice to you like it's like who doesn't like that Dynamic like you're rich she's hot this is this is going to work here's the problem he's going to get more Rich she's going to get less hot you didn't see that coming you

didn't see that coming when it started like you didn't know that that's where this equation was going to go like did you think and by the way it goes the other way too like I've had the guys especi the pandemic brought this one out where it was suddenly a different spiral see because for years the game was a little bit rigged in favor of men because like the guy would get richer and the woman would invariably age and get less hot so that changed with the pandemic because all of a sudden like people who had

really successful businesses were straight up out of business so you had people that were like one day owning an amazing restaurant that like everybody wanted to come to and all of a sudden it was shuttered and it had a burn rate so in like two months the thing closed down and all of a sudden the guy who was like super rich and there's no because you know listen the first million is the hardest like once you've made a million it's pretty easy to turn a million into 10 million you know whereas turning $100 into a

million dollars it could take a lifetime to accomplish that but once you got a $100 million going to be fine like you're going to you're going to turn that 100 million into 500 million pretty easily if you try so the truth is like these guys aren't used to spiraling in the other direction but it it went exactly that way like a bunch of people's businesses got shuttered and the hot women like I wish I could say like it would be wonderful if I could say like and this is proof that women are just better than

men because fundamentally like although these men you know they abandon this woman when she loses the beauty of her youth the women when the men when they lost their Financial Health the women St D [ __ ] ABS [ __ ] lutely not they were out they were out the door like they were out the door with half of whatever was left and they were out like it was a fire sale like they were like [ __ ] This ship's going down I'm out of here right now like it was 2020 we were filing actions

while the court was closed cuz women were like no no we got to get a snapshot right now of what the assets are because I want one half of the value right now because I think in six months this could all be gone you know so that was like a real for me a lesson in like oh okay so women are as awful as men when it comes to this like that's good it's good to know that there's you know equality of the Sexes do you do you see a difference in the I don't even

know what word to use but the the likelihood that that they'll be a good partner do you see us you see one sex as being better than the other at this o boy that's the question isn't it I mean it's really like there's the talk with Orion you guys spoke about the yeah the unspoken things in a relationship that are so important but we can't we're not allowed to speak about them yeah which is which is for the man it's the fact that I just love the way you look and your body and the curve

of your waist and ass and hips is just yeah we never I mean I guess guys do talk about that sometimes but in general that the fact that the woman's sexiness and attractiveness is you you'll put up with a [ __ ] woman you'll put up with a mean woman you'll put up with a pain in the ass your bipolar woman because she's so hot whereas a for a woman the the fact that she is attracted to a man because the fact that she that he is a good provider and protect her and she's going

to provide a lifestyle that she can't achieve on her own and and there are exceptions to this where the woman is the yeah provider and the caregiver yeah yeah increasingly so but we don't speak about these things we talk about how kind somebody is we have such a hard time accepting that there is a an aspect of romantic love and particularly marriage that is an economy like we don't want to call it that cuz an economy feels like it's like cheapening it and turning it into something that's Financial but what is an economy other than

we're exchanging value you know so my labor translates to Dollars those dollars translates to bananas so a certain amount of my labor is worth a certain amount of bananas you know and that's like how it works that's an economy and it's not a dirty word like no one ever walks around and says like I can't believe my pursuit of Justice on behalf of my clients is being compared to purchasing bananas like [ __ ] you you do your job for money I do my job for money yes I also enjoy what I do I see

value in it I think I provide value to people and to the world I believe in the system I think that we have a good legal system that requires vigorous advocacy but you know do I do my job Just For the Love of the Game like [ __ ] you like who does that like major league baseball players like they just play baseball for fun or musicians just play music for fun [ __ ] you you want to be famous you want to make money or else you just be playing in a cafe because it's

just the love of the music right like you you you monetize things I get it that's capitalism like don't get mad at at the at the game you know like that's the rule set but I mean to say that you know that's why socialism doesn't work well of course but but see look I What is marriage but an economy like marriage is look I'm going to bring certain value to this relationship you're going to bring certain value to this relationship the key problem I have with marriage as it is done currently here in the west

and in other places but certainly the the the clay in which I work is that there are certain promises the law can enforce and there are certain promises it can't so if we acknowledge the if we say the quiet part out loud that in the majority of heterosexual marriages the man brings protection and providing and the woman brings kindness warmth and care right and sex that's the economy that's the economy I didn't make that up don't get [ __ ] mad at me in the comments I didn't make it up it was here before me

it's going to be here after me I promise right so that's the game that's the economy his roles his obligations are enforcable by law so state power can be used to enforce his obligations not hers the court cannot order her to be nice to him or to [ __ ] him or to stay pretty or to stay sweet and friendly to him and kind to him or speak nicely of him or raise the children in a in a meaningful way that you know creates value to him instead of teaching them to disrespect him right but

his promises in that shelter food Financial Obligations Court can force you to do that and if you don't do it they can put you in jail or they can take away your driver's license your professional licenses so what is that when you have a contract where only one side is enforcable by law under penalty of law like that is a dangerous game to play if you're a man period is that unfair it's not not always the man because sometimes the woman is the yeah increasingly so but it's more often but is that whole contract of

marriage and divorce is that unfair to the wealthier person well I would argue that it's what's what's called an adhesion contract an adhesion contract in law school they teach you is a contract where where there is an imbalance of power between the parties entering into the contract so as that the contract itself is fundamentally unfair you know it's like like look I'm not saying that that it's wrong that we allow people to enter into this transaction similarly like if there's an unknown musician and a major record company says okay we're going to sign you and

make you famous and give you amazing producers and give you amazing people to work with but we're going to keep 75% of the revenue for the rest of your career like that's you know it's not a great Fair contract but the truth is is there's a lot of musicians out there and they can go on to the next one if they needed to you know so once you sign that deal like just know you're signing a deal that's kind of unfair you're signing a deal you don't have to sign it well when you get married

I've been married I've been divorced one time and I both both of us yeah and I think when you're getting married you never even consider the fact you might get divorced we we fall in love and we're just like and that's part of the reason I have to tell it's part of the reason why I always loved the idea of working in divorce because I was a Psychology major as an undergraduate I thought I wanted to be a therapist I thought be a psychiatrist and I remember thinking because it was like the one thing like

we're so full of [ __ ] we're so full of [ __ ] as a culture all the time about what we're doing and why we're doing it and I just love just be [ __ ] honest like just be honest and what was so beautiful to me about is you can't pretend you meant to get divorced you didn't I didn't like we're both divorced men when we got married I was 22 when I got married and I was we were going to stay together forever we were going to be old people sitting on the

front porch holding hands while the kids or grandkids ran around because I believed it I believed the whole thing because I had no idea I had no idea what was in store what would be expected of me expected of her how we would both feel how we would both change like because how could you how could you possibly know that at 22 years old or 24 years old or even 30 years old like I'm 51 man I look back at the [ __ ] I believed when I was 30 and I go how was I

that stupid how did I not see such obvious things about myself and about but that's the nature of blind spots is you can't see them that's why they're blind spots so I I think fundamentally we don't look at marriage honestly because we just we want to believe so badly in this fairy tale and why wouldn't we it's [ __ ] beautiful it's like a beautiful the idea that there's just this person out of 8 billion people and you're just going to somehow stumble into them and then the two of you are going to feel that

Rush that we all feel even in the worst of relationships at the beginning you know and you you just like we want to believe it's so true I I have to say you something I used to say you know when you're like a kid you have like the you have like the fantasy if you could be invisible you know like what would you do you know always when you're a teenage boy you're like I would be in like the girls locker room or something you know it would always be something involved seeing boobs but as

an adult I have to say if I had the power of invisibility right now I would break into a number of my clients homes and go to their attic and find their [ __ ] wedding album because I would love I would love in a way I Can't Describe to look at their [ __ ] wedding photos cu the only experience I've had of these people is her on one side of the courtroom and him on the other side of the courtroom and them just shooting daggers at each other across and like sniping at each

other however they could either directly or through their CS and like the thought of like looking at these same two people like looking at each other with such like oh you're my person I love you like that's amazing and by the way don't you think we should like take people who are about to get married and make them look at the [ __ ] wedding video of those people and then make them come to court and watch it and just go look this like why don't we do like Scared Straight you remember they used do

Scared Straight like they're like you want a gang bang kid well now we're going to bring you and show you what your Future's like and bring you to prison like why do we do that with like young marrieds you know people get engaged and it's like great before you can legally marry you have to come hang out in the matrimonial part of New York County Supreme Court and you just have to sit there and watch these two people who used to [ __ ] love each other just as much as the two of you think

you do and now they are tearing each other apart limb from limb like it's Blood Sport and they're spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees just for the pleasure of torturing each other and you you're I want you I'm telling you right now like anybody who sat through that I wish I could say they'd sit through it and they'd go okay you've opened my eyes to this they wouldn't they'd be like well that's them they didn't truly love each other the way that my fiance and I truly love each other and I'd say

I would have said the same thing at 22 or probably 24 you know but I I don't know when people sort of see the Matrix and go oh [ __ ] okay and sometimes I see it happen like in my conference room like sometimes I'll have a client and he's just sitting there and I'll start going through things and he'll go oh like oh [ __ ] this was like a professional hit you know and that's you know I I it's always humbling to be in the presence of that I don't know I I I

think women and men are are we suffer from the exact same delusion I think the system [ __ ] with people on both sides of that but I I think men really take the brunt of of the hit a lot of the time like and I don't want to you know I've been sort of you know criticized as being you know red pill or being very you know but look I'm I'm just calling it like I see it I think anybody who's rational and doesn't have an agenda would tell you that that men have a

hard time in divorce litigation harder time than women a lot of times I'm not suggesting that it's easy to be a divorced woman I think women have unique challenges when they're divorced I talked about that in our last conversation but I think the system itself is very very hard on men yeah as a guy who's been through it I would agree but use that setback as a motivation toh do better in the rest of well and ideally you do I mean you know the the fun part for me about what I do I mean there's

a lot that's fun about what I do in that it's intellectually very exciting and it's like always it's never boring I'd rather be dead than bored but one of the things that is really nice is you do see the Arc of someone's sort of recovery from the implosion of their life you know and I have clients who like they come in and they're just [ __ ] destroyed like I'm not laughing at them I'm just laughing at like the oh [ __ ] like there's something so humbling about watching someone who's just been leveled you

know like that they just can't even pretend that this went the way they wanted it to and they their spouse is cheating on them or you know whatever it is and they just found out in like a cruel awful way you know it's almost always some glitch with apple I have to tell you I think Steve Jobs from his grave is like responsible for more divorces than he could ever never possibly know how's that because Apple's integration among all of its devices causes your IM messages to pop up [ __ ] everywhere no like I

like I don't have a whole lot of Secrets going on in my life but if I did oh yeah and like on my desktop of my computer at my office and at home yeah these texts keep showing oh yeah messages pop up on your iPad they pop up and the kids playing with the iPad you leave your Apple watch laying somewhere and it has messages on it who the [ __ ] is blowing you kisses at 2 in the morning exactly right and by the way sometimes the answer is like a dude in Bangladesh trying

to steal my money it's not like a person but it creates this discussion of like oh my God what's going onology yeah yeah and what's happened is is there's so many people that find out very cruy you know these kinds of things because of course people just can't [ __ ] keep their [ __ ] together they just send text messages of like last night's sex was so wonderful you're like why why are you texting that why are you texting that to your married partner like that doesn't make lot of sense like that's going to

blow up in your face somehow like was the rush or the tingle you got from sending that message worth the chaos that's about to cause but it happens all the time and and I have these people come into my office and they're in this place of like shock and sadness and grief and like all the Elizabeth Kubler Ro stages of of death and dying they all go through it when it comes to the death of a relationship and they you know they I watched them over the course of 6 Months 8 months like go through

anger denial sadness bargaining all those things and then eventually like come out the other end and like three four years later I get invited to their next wedding you know and and by the way they invariably get remarried like I so and I by the way I have a standing offer that I've been making for 25 years that I've been doing this which is if I do your divorce I'll do your prup for free for your next marriage and everybody at the start of the divorce when I say that to them well next time you

get married I'm going to do your printup for free they go I'm never I am never getting married married again they're always fullish 86% people remarried within 5 years I said it last time and it's still true I I tell you I I've only had three people take me up on that but but you know how many people get remarried tons tons but they're like oh no this time is different this time it's different like last time you spent $800,000 in Council fees and a year of your life just in court constantly and no no

but this time it's different because this time we love each other got it I think you've single-handedly done more for the concept of pre prenups than anybody allow I have to tell you if there has been a side effect of my conversation with you my first conversation with you it has been an inflow of prenups I I have more people which by the way why couldn't I have found a way to publicize much more expensive things that I do prenups you don't make a lot of money on prenups like prenups are really easy to do

make a couple of grand doing a prenup but it takes you know certain amount of time to do it like I really should have come up with like some other thing I could monetize you know because I get more four calls from people saying oh I saw you softw underbelly I saw you here there and I'd like to you know you to do my prenup and I mean it's great I think it is great that there's a proliferation of people that have figured out like yeah we should get prenups and by the way I'm seeing

it on both sides now I'm seeing a lot of women now coming in and saying oh yeah let's have a prenup I have a lot of people who this happens a lot I've had a lot of people who saw my first interview and they go yeah my my girlfriend and I watched it in bed and I was like you guys should find better [ __ ] to do in bed than watching an interview with me you know for 3 hours but he they'll say oh yeah yeah I was I was we were watching in bed

and we both got a kick out it but we both were like oh we should do a prenup and so can you meet with both of us and I'm not really allow we're not allowed to do that because it's a potentially adverse situation like more for you is less for you and more for you is less for you but it's always very cool to me to think that like there are people sitting around a couple can't come into your office to to get a they're really not supposed to I mean because you're you're you can

only represent as an advocate you can only represent one person in you should get a figure out a way around that cuz if I was about marry somebody I would want us both to like yeah you know I always saw prenups as something that would destroy the purity of a of a truly loving relationship you know it kind of just like you know there there's an element of risk sure in a in a marriage and something like that and and the prenup kind of takes away that risk now you know what you have to lose

you know what you have to win and that's it and it's like that seems to taint the purity of the love see and I don't see it that way I genuinely don't think that the risk of Love is what makes love compelling I think that that there is an element of risk in love but if anything I think that element of risk actually like to me dampens the depth of love like there's something wonderful about it's proba genuinely trusting your partner and knowing that they're there because they want to be there yeah that's my mistake

because I think I'm an adrenaline junkie so I'll find these riskier Partners I think that's part of I I mistake that is love yeah and that's a pretty common mistake I think but but you know the the way you should be looking at it is the way I encourage people to look at it which is you have a prenom every marriage has a prenup it's either a prenup written by the legislature exactly or it's a prenup written by you and the person you're picking out of 8 billion other choices so to me that's a no

[ __ ] brainer like I don't trust Chuck Schumer more than I trust my romantic partner you know and and I think the reality is is not only can the legislature change but they can dramat ially Chang the law like in 2016 spousal support or alimony in New York state they changed it to a formula completely changed it then Trump came into office and got rid of the taxability of alimony the deductibility by the payer and the the taxability to the recipient so that completely changed the way alimony works so again those people have a

prup they just don't know it right it was written by the legislature and it can be amended by the legislature with like and by the way what's the legislature but a bunch of [ __ ] people that want a popularity contest like so it's not the best and brightest like no one's ever gone to the DMV and said like oh this is the best and most efficient people in the world no they're [ __ ] people that wanted a government job like judges like J with all due respect to the bench like judges are not

like the best brightest hardest working lawyers who are the most tenacious and thoughtful and knowledgeable like you occasionally have a judge who you go holy [ __ ] that one really is smart but most of the time it's people that were like yeah I kind of want a nine-to-five job and I'd like to have a pension and good health care and I'd like what people have to stand up when I enter a room you know and call me your honor like it's a sort of an ego thing more than anything else because they could make

5 10 15 times the money if they were in private practice so the truth is like a lot of times it's not the best and brightest so the politicians the same thing like you think they're going to solve the problem you think they know your relationship and what you need and your partner needs better than the two of you do i' much rather do with my partner than with the state of course and by the way just the conversation is valuable like why not have the conversation with your partner of like hey what do we

owe each other like what do we owe each other here like and and what does that origin come from and why like what am I giving versus what you're giving and what am I giving up in exchange for what you're giving up you know like what is this economy but see that that's the part again I I can't figure out if it's we don't want to talk about that economy because it's unfair and if we look at it we're going to go wait a minute you know like the true concept of a red pill like

we're going to swallow it and go oh no wait a minute this makes no sense and then we're just going to March onto Extinction or if it really is that like well we just you know I don't want to know any astronomy when the stars appear like there's something very magical about it and I don't want to look at it and like and and we' just created disincentives to look at it you know I I genuinely think anytime somebody tells me oh you don't need a lawyer you definitely need a [ __ ] lawyer you

know and anytime somebody says like listen I'm not going to lie to you you are definitely about to [ __ ] lie to me like so it's thing with this like whenever somebody's like oh how could you say that okay I'm hitting some nerve somewhere like six million people watch that first interview like that's it's hitting a nerve in somebody gang like people are watching that and going yeah I don't like that that's true but that is true you know and I think that's the reality like and nobody again nobody wants to call it out

like so we we create all these comfortable Illusions these precious illusions that we hold on to so tightly of like you know well well we both bring things to the relation ship you know he brings you know money and stability and security and I bring that I pick that couch okay like really because I could [ __ ] hire an interior designer and it would be a lot cheaper than a spouse so you got to bring more than you can pick a nice couch like you got to bring more than that well I do the

laundry okay I can pay someone to do the laundry like do you know how many of these things are easy to recreate so what is the econ like if it's if it's an economy if there's any aspect to love or marriage that is an economy like let's be honest with ourselves about what we're trading for what and it's okay like it doesn't have to be exactly the same value like I I I I don't believe that that fairness right or or you know requires that everyone brings the same exact things to the table or things

of the exact same value to the table it's just you know like when you look at Steve Jobs and Steve wnac like we wouldn't be using iPhones if we hadn't had both of those people and one of them was an engineer one of them was a math guy one of them was a guy with a solid workbench who knew how to make [ __ ] and the other guy was a Visionary who just could imagine things and then but he couldn't he'd had just been like a derelict who had an interesting imagination if it wasn't

for somebody who knew what the [ __ ] they were doing and if you just know how to do stuff but you have no vision or creativity you're useless but together you're Keith and Mick you know together you make the magic and that's why we have iPhones and iPads which can then [ __ ] up everybody else's marriages like we have all of this because people with disparate qualities and disparate gifts to give to the transaction went hey let's do this you know but but again like where does it break down well use them again

as an example it broke down when one of them says well you'd be nothing without me and the other one says well you'd be nothing without me and it starts to well why not have the conversation early and often about hey am I still giving like do you still feel like this is a good deal like do you still feel like cuz I I want my partner to always always feel like it's a good deal I want every single day for them to go like yeah all all in it's a good deal like yeah this

week I gave more than I got but you know what two weeks ago I got more than I gave like you know and so or when I was going through that thing when my mom was dying man I got a lot more than I gave and you stuck around like and there there's so much value to that and there's so much Beauty in that that's what makes a relationship really great is when there's a magic between these two people that came together course yeah and the nature of Love is is that I mean look I

look I have there are chapters of my son's lives where I wanted to [ __ ] kill them you know like Middle School I hated my sons they were impossible they rolled their eyes at me they were just miserable all the time again I understand why I was in Middle School I remember what it's like you're a [ __ ] walking gland everything's awful like it just the happiest person in middle school is [ __ ] miserable but the truth is like yeah I didn't really like my kids at that age you know now they're

pleasure now they're adults I love hanging out with them when they were little little absolutely love them you know Daddy Daddy Daddy they love you so much like I get it you know but the seasons of a relationship I I don't think there's anything wrong with like just calling it out and just saying yeah right now this is challenging or right now this is or right now we're missing each other aren't we instead of just letting all that resentment build and build and build and build like I I always tell people that you know discovery

which is the process of mandatory Financial exchange of information during a divorce proceeding a contested divorce proed sometimes it can be 6 months it can take [ __ ] I mean it take forever to exchange go through you know forensic accounting go through everybody's books especially in high net worth divorces this is a very lucrative aspect of a divorce is going through everybody's books and organizing and calling foul when somebody doesn't produce something and subpoenaing records and doing you know finding out where somebody took the mistress and here's the hotel receipt and here's the Tiffany's

receipt and you know it it's this process of like weaponizing against your partner and I remember once talking to my son when he was a teenager and he said oh you know it was just in the morning and he said like oh what you got at work today you're you in court and I said no I'm just doing a bunch of stuff for Discovery and he said oh what's Discovery and I said uh it's what you get when you leave the toilet seat up for 20 years because it's what it is like it's this resentment

builds and builds and builds and then you got this person it's now their fault that your life is [ __ ] up or that you're not happy in your life it's their fault the person who at the start of it you were madly in love with again the person who I want to see the wedding album like I just want to see I want to see the wedding video everybody has these wedding videos now that are just like so carefully produced and so amaz like I want to watch the wedding video of someone who spent

$3 million in counsil fees like trying to [ __ ] murder their spouse for the last four years like I I legit want to see that video like because I can't imagine that these people loved each other in that way and that intoxic ated public all consuming I just want to shout it from the mountain tops how in love with this person I am way but I think we've also created a tremendous I I I know for women in particular we've we've created a tremendous incentive to just get lost in the rush of the wedding

like the wedding is such a spectacle like it is such a spectacle I mean I still go to weddings and I'm like amazed at how I mean I went to a divorce lawyer's wedding recently and You' think like a divorc lawyer's wedding would be like somewhat sedate you know considering what we do for a living all the same [ __ ] all the same traditional you know wedding stuff and the cake thing and the whole all of it and I'm watching it I'm like we really we're gonna do this we're just G to all dive

like jump into this delusion with you you know and all this is the clay you work in and you're going to do the whole thing you're do the chicken dance and you're G to do the the DJ and introducing for the first time anywhere Jane and John Smith Mis and miss it like you're going to do that whole thing like you don't know where this goes you know and that to me it's F and I actually said cuz I'm the guy who says this [ __ ] I said I was like so pre up should

do a pre up she's like no we didn't really are you really like we're not we're susceptible to this illness too huh like we don't we're not immune we have no immunities we have not built any immunities to this so I don't know well I think what we want is that true unconditional love like similar to I know you're a dog lover it's similar to how a dog loves its owner yeah and the way we love our dogs you're so forgiving you're so understanding you you you'll tolerate bad behavior you come back and you know

your dog yeah I don't know how you make that that love in a romantic setting is so it's so interesting to me because I felt I've felt unconditional love for my every dog I've ever had and I felt it for my kids I don't know that I've ever felt unconditional love for a romantic partner like when I describe unconditional love what I mean is if this person vomited on you the only thing you can think is are they okay no but it's like if you had a God forbid a terrible accident you're disfigured you no

longer are tall and attractive or let's say you lost your business by some freak accident and you no longer were um you know successful and and smart your dog would still love you 100% course of course because they love something about you that so easy and that is that you love them too and that you keep them warm and you snuggle them and you feed them and like there's a Simplicity why can't we love each other like that I don't know you know I I know I remember the first time I really understood like the

depth of unconditional love was when my older he's now 27 but he was like four three or four at the time my son and he was sick and he woke up in the middle of night he had very high fever and I was like holding him and trying to like calm him down and he puked all over me and I remember all I could think was I don't want him to be scared like I don't want him to feel like I don't want him for a second and I remember I was like just going it's

okay it's okay oh it's okay it's okay and nothing in me thought oh [ __ ] gross like you know like like if you puked right now I'd be like whoa like I would step right back you know like the smell of it would probably make me but him nothing in me nothing in me would pulled away nothing in me all I I had such Clarity of purpose like I didn't there wasn't any part of me that felt anything other than make stay calm make sure he knows he's okay don't let him be scared like

cuz I love him that way like and I it just was like I was like it's okay oh it's okay yeah get it out it's okay get it out you know and I remember thinking like wow this is this is it like this is the thing like this is this is that kind of love I I don't I don't know I don't listen it would be amazing to have that with a romantic partner like there's something about just the purity of that love and there is something about Dominion I mean you have dominion over your

kid you have dominion over your animal and by Dominion I don't mean dominance I mean like loving stewardship like they wouldn't be okay without you they need you and and maybe that's one of the reasons why we're having such [ __ ] trouble in society right now with marriages is like you're not your wife's not allowed to need you anymore like if she needs you she's doing something wrong she's not a boss babe she's not a girl boss like and and there's something about like when someone needs you that it makes you feel like oh

no I'm going to do it I'm going to be heroic like I'm going to rise to the occasion like one of the things I love about being a man is like providing I love like I see that as a [ __ ] gift like I like like yeah I can do this I can go out into the world and bend it to my will and then I can bring that home and take care of the people I love and I'm [ __ ] proud of that it's part of being a man it's it's the best

part of being a man I embrace that I welcome it like I want to put the women and kids to bed and go out looking for dinner you know and bring it home like that's what I want to do and then I want you to prepare it and I want you to greet me with warmth and gratitude you know and like I think we've created a situation now where that's that's a dirty word like it's a dirty thing to say but but think about how we feel about our kids how we feel about our companion

animals like dogs and cats there's an element of need there this person needs me like our our love of animals is not in my opinion a function of that they have rights or that they have any like they don't they all are power powerless and trembling to our power and yet like we still will care for them you know because we we see that we have power over them we have dominion over them so if your partner and your spouse like think about like when when you're talking about like well why do I feel this

way about my dog why do I feel this way about my kids well they need you they need you they're dependent on you they trust you and there's something about that trust in me that brings out a desire to be worthy of it you know like I I I feel the way about my clients like I love what I do but part of it is like they've handed me the most important things in their lives and go Jim can you help with this and I just look at that and go well [ __ ] yeah

I'm going to do my best man like because you trusted me with this you handed me this thing but if they were like I'm giving you this but I'm not quite sure you're going to do a good job of it so I'm going to make sure that I have somebody else on standby be like well [ __ ] you like then don't just don't use me then don't have me be your guy you know so it's I I think it's kind of the same you know that that there needs to be a rebalancing of like

you know know can we depend on each other can we trust and I understand why particularly women you know are are skeptical of that it's like yeah there's there's a high cost to trusting somebody you know and if you trust the wrong person like yeah you can get royally screwed over for it but I I just don't know I just don't I think there's got to be something there like the way we care about our kids that unconditional love the way we care about our pets are I think that's an insight into the love we're

capable of and I I think there are ways to leverage some of that same sensation towards our romantic Partners there has to be yeah I I think back to what I said at the beginning of our talk where I think you're a National Treasure I think it's because you are realistic and pragmatic about the the dangers in marriages but you also still love the idea of this our our infinite capacity for love yeah I still love love I mean see I just don't believe in fairy tales like and I don't think you have to believe

in fairy tales to be a romantic I don't think you have to believe in fairy tales to to believe in the the redeeming power of love and to believe that love is the most important thing in the world like and and anybody like when somebody says like oh do you believe in love I'm like of course like I feel it I feel love I feel love I feel loved like I I love is everything but I don't believe in fairy tales and I don't think we do ourselves any favors by believing in fairy tales like

I think that we do better it's it's love to me like an honest love is the greatest thing in the world like I don't have to like think the I my dog might just like me because I feed it it it's not going to make me love it any less like it's not going to make it any less adorable to me like it's okay like we can say like it's okay to say to your partner yeah part of what I like about you is they have sex with me like I really love it because sex

is really awesome you know like we that's okay we know that okay it's like we can admit that whatever we're doing right now [ __ ] it'd be more fun we could acknowledge that just say it out loud it's okay you know so what are we doing we're going to trade that right so if we're going to be in a monogamous relationship what we're saying is listen I really like [ __ ] you and I also would really enjoy [ __ ] lots of other people but I am willing to forego the opportunity to [

__ ] lots of other people in exchange for the opportunity to [ __ ] you regularly so is there can we agree that there's going to be some minimum level of [ __ ] that we're both going to maintain for the purpose and if the person said well yes but you know also one of the reasons why I [ __ ] you is that you show tremendous kindness and Grace towards me and you're complimentary to me so could we in exchange for those regular [ __ ] that are sufficient for you to forego all of

the other potential [ __ ] that you're also going to show me a certain level of affection and attention that's going to make me feel good about myself for a period absolutely very fair this is a very fair transaction right so I know like okay everyone's listening to that and going like well this is why I would not [ __ ] a lawyer like I get it but isn't there something honest about that these are the unspoken things but so why does have to be spoken like would you would you like the [ __ ]

less you know if if it was part of if there had been a discussion about it like I'm not saying every there has to be like this ongoing discussion but can't you early in a relationship just say like yeah you know like this is the stuff I like about you but you're you're destroying the magic about it all why the fairy tale is why listen I've seen Star Wars I know there's no such thing as Wookies they're not real but I still like the movie it's okay like I know there were no actual dinosaurs in

Jurassic Park I still like the movie because why cuz it's cool it's exciting it's it moves fast and it's white you didn't know what was going to happen loves the same thing like really like you don't know come on you you're a billionaire and a model is marrying you and you don't know this has to do with your [ __ ] money and that's okay by the way like money is value beauty is value just say it just say the quiet part out loud just say yeah you're a billionaire you know what that's going to

be it's going to be amazing to be in the orbit of a billionaire you fly private the best of everything yeah you're not the best looking person I'd ever met my personal trainer is 50 times hotter than you but he makes 50 bucks an hour you're a billionaire you present me with Incredible opportunities and what I present to you I'm stunningly beautiful and I'm going to be the most great arm candidate this is very fair like why does this have to be a secret by the way everybody knows like everybody knows it's not like you

go to their wedding and go you know I think it's just that they both really feel an empathy towards each other or you know they both really they both love making a boat in a bottle you know that's that that was the hobby that bound them together they both like pickle ball like it's not that it's it's clear what this transaction is and that's okay we we love to we love to criticize it it seems it's it's the Envy but see we critic that's I think you're on to something I think we don't want to

say yeah she's in it for the money and he's in it for the beauty the women are saying I wish I could be her the men are definitely thinking they they wish they were him sure sure but but what you do is we say it like it's a bad but they know they'll never be as beautiful as she is and they'll know they'll never be as rich as she is so they dismiss it so they go like oh well she's only in it for the money and it's like yeah let's see what she looks like

in 10 years right but but again like and and if he lost all his money he'd be [ __ ] and if look I I know a lot of people I shouldn't say a lot of people I know a few people who are happily married for a long period of time who he was a great provider and she was stunningly beautiful and she has aged in the way that everyone does MH and they are still as crazy about each other that's great because because there are other things they bring to the table like there are

other things in that relationship there's empathy there's kindness there's trust there's support of each other like there's other things like yes beauty is you know the cheese in the rat trap or beauty is like the the the the curb appeal you know like like the yeah the the the the the mannequin in the window looks great and that gets you in the store but the quality of the items is the store is what gets you coming back it's not just the mannequin it's the window so I get that like beauty is an entry point even

money is an entry point gang like it just is like the difference in your life when you have a hundred million or $500 million is negligible it's negligible like there's only two amounts of money enough and not enough that's it do do you think some of that is because we are are reluctant to grow old or to accept that we're going to be old everyone seems to be so in love with the idea of being 24 years old well I think we want to be 24 I mean this is what my next book is about

I I I I think everything that happens in our society is a function of our fear of death yeah I think everything comes down to our fear of death we don't like aging because it reminds us we're going to die like everything in this Society is structured to prevent you from thinking about the fact you're going to die which is the only truth we really have like the only truth we really have the only thing we can be certain of is you're going to die and I'm going to die that's it there's everything else is

almost an endless Haze of possibilities but you're definitely going to die and I'm definitely going to die and and everything in society is designed to prevent you from thinking about that because if you think about the fact that you're definitely going to die and there is a definite number of Summers you're going to see and it's a finite number and you just don't know it yet it might be one it might be 10 it might be 30 it ain't going to be 50 right so you if you know that you are not going to care

about the [ __ ] that people want you to care about you are not going to care about you know how can I get this car or what watch do I have or you know my my shirts are clean but are they Clorox clean you know you're not going to give a [ __ ] about any of that if you go oh wow I'm going to die like in the I'm telling you right now the reason why I never looked at it the way other people look at it is I was a hospice volunteer for

a really long time and if I if I ever I would never run for political office ever but if I ever did I would be on one platform and that is that when people turn 18 they should have to spend a year as a hospice volunteer cuz if you spend a year with the terminally ill you will never look at life the same again for the rest of your life you will you will have death right here in your peripheral vision and you will never look at anything the same way again you will not waste

[ __ ] time you will not mince words you will not be afraid like cuz there's nothing to be afraid of because you're going to [ __ ] die like and none of this is really going to matter like so you you just I I think there's become this again this cultural push to care about [ __ ] to just be distracted by [ __ ] you know so that this game can just continue because if people really stopped and went wait a minute I have a finite number of days and I just I'm not

going to spend them being [ __ ] miserable being a cog and a machine thep purp of which is is is like not to serve me but to serve some great greater bigger thing enjoyed by the one% you know and I I think that's even marriage is a part of that marriage is a part of that marriage is about how do we tie people down into these small clusters and distract them right because you get married what do you need now we need a place to live we got a place to live what do we

need now we should have kids well we got kids we're going to need the wheel we need the the chair and we need this and we need the crib and we need that and it just puts people on this track and then you just the next thing you know you turn around and you're like holy [ __ ] I'm 70 years old I got high blood pressure I got 50 meds that I'm on now I I squandered my entire life chasing something and now okay I've got ideally Economic Security but I no longer have the

physical health to really enjoy it in any significant way and I no longer have really time you know like everybody I know who has time has no money and everybody I know as money has no time and everybody else by the way is jealous of everybody so like when like all the women I know who are like oh I'm dating a rich guy they're like yeah but he has no time and all the women I know they're dating a guy who has lots of time they're like yeah but he has no money you know so

everybody's just looking at so unless you're like a trust fund kid who just has lots of money but doesn't actually have to work but works because they enjoy their work how what percentage of the population is that it's got to be tiny right so I I just think we we've set the rules of the game up in such a way that we're just jumping for one foot to the other I I mean I call it job security I guess I should be happy about it no I see a big part of our problem now is

that we all have these distraction devices in our hands and if you go into like a doctor's office and there's eight people in the in the waiting room all eight of them are under their yeah it's surreal it's surreal it's like I just wonder what we were all doing I remember what I was doing I was dreaming about the future I was trying to figure out ways to achieve my dreams I was that's how my free time was spent see I used to read I don't know that people read anymore I I I always love

to read and reading requires like a certain imagination it requires you to sit still in one place like even audio books people just listen to the like my audio book out sells by like 10 to one the actual book book because book like reading a book requires that you sit someplace and you actually in your voice sorry is your audio book yeah yeah yeah it's eight and a half hours of me talking yeah great yeah that's like I I used to joke that that's like seven hours longer than my ex-wife actually ever listened to me

so yeah eight and a half hours a long that's a long time listen speaker yeah I was a long it's a long time to listen to we talk but yeah I mean the book did really well because I think that's the format people do it and but it's because they're doing something else while they're listening right so how engaged are you really in that thing that you're doing if you're listening to an audiobook while you're doing it like I get it like I listen to audio I used to run marathons and when I would do

like a 20 mile run I would listen to a book you know because you you know you burn through a bunch of hours but I have to tell you like yeah I think we're all distracted and the attention economy and the outrage economy is like definitely fueling some of this and again that war of the Sexes thing that is everywhere online that I've been pulled into as a public facing person who talks about relationships and gender stuff I get dragged constantly by people like oh another white heterosexual man telling us what to do and it's

like all right guys no problem like don't don't listen to me it's fine like I prefer you don't listen to me it's better for my bottom line if you don't listen to me you make more money cuz you're going to need me or someone just like me so don't listen to me it's fine like I'm trying to keep you out of my office I'm trying to have you actually see the delusion so that maybe you can do something about it or maybe you can get ahead of it like I'm Legit trying to help you but

that's okay like listen you you try to feed a starving dog I might try to bite you okay cool try to bite me like I'm I'm trying to help I'm not trying to [ __ ] on anybody I didn't make it this way like I wasn't responsible for gender roles in our society I wasn't the one who sat down and said like how do we form the patriarchy like it didn't happen so but it is the way that it is and and and most people are unhappy right now like most people like most of the

time what we're looking at on those devices is people talking about [ __ ] they're upset about like that's most of what we do all day is listen to people talk about [ __ ] they're upset about like this election that's happening right now is just here's the [ __ ] I'm upset about versus the [ __ ] that this person's upset about and I'm upset about what [ __ ] they're upset about and not upset about and back and forth that's it and and that's all that's online anymore like Twitter is a Cess pool

like I went on Twitter for like a month you know cuz I was like oh this will be good for engagement dude that you I was on it I was like oh my God all it is is just people like fighting with each other and talking [ __ ] about each other and criticizing building nothing creating nothing having no point of view other than a contrarian one against what somebody else said like doing the Cardinal mistake as a lawyer you never do which is structuring your entire argument based on the opposite of the other person's

argument and therefore giving them total control over your narrative because whatever you say I'm just going to say the opposite great so I've now given you total control over what it is that I have to say yeah I mean marriage relationships uh romance all that stuff is changing so much because of Technology because of just the way our world has changed should we even get married I mean there still seems to be this societal pressure to to oh you're getting married good for you well it's not only that there's societal pressure to get married there's

an assumption that you'll get married there's an assumption that if you don't get married there's something wrong with you which again I've always said I think is [ __ ] nuts because the perfectly sane response when someone says I'm getting married would be why why are you why would you ever do that like there's a more than 50% chance that's going to end in divorce why would you ever do that whereas it's like oh my gosh that's so great is it really like is that like that's our reflex thing it's like oh my God that's

so great like when somebody my kid got engaged oh my God that's so great no you don't know that that's so great it could be terrible it could be terrible like somebody says oh I'm starting my own business oh my God that's so great like what are you doing like I'm selling ice to Eskimos like okay that's not a good business like that's terrible it's a terrible idea like so really what you'd say if somebody says I'm getting married you say okay how long have you been together how well do you know this person what's

the dyam of your relationship but we don't we just go oh my God it's so great it's so great why because it's great it's a leap of faith it's a Triumph of Faith over reason so the question of should we get married like I I've said before I don't think marriage and love have very much to do with each other at all I think that that correlation is not causation and to suggest that like marriage somehow solidified people's love or it's emblematic of the depth of their love or anything [ __ ] [ __ ]

all evidence to the contrary you're wrong I'm right period like look at the math of this gang like this is a technology that fails 56% of the [ __ ] time you cannot tell me that like well you're just jaded no I'm not blind probably more than 5 56% because there's plenty of people state divorce rate how many people do you know that are unhappily married I know more Unhappily Married people than divorced people so realistically if you ask me and I cannot prove this I would say it's probably another 30% that are miserably married

or don't want to give away half their [ __ ] now you got to Tech that 86% of the time it fails are you K and by the way that about tracks for me cuz I know like what 50 couples and I know like three that are happy maybe maybe what what's what's the secret in those three they they're really I don't know they know who they are they like each other the answer is they like each other like they they they treat each other like they like each other they don't talk [ __ ]

about each other like they're they're a unit they're a thing you know like they're I don't know man I I got this buddy Chris and he's so in love with his wife Amy and I knew Amy in college it's like you need to like the other person even if they were married to your best friend I have to tell you I this couple's always been emblematic for me and and they fell in love for the reasons anybody falls in love she was stunningly beautiful and College I knew her I was her good friend and he

thought she was super hot and she liked him cuz he was like a musclebound good-look dude he was also very charming and dominant and they've been married like 28 years something like that two kids like she had a struggle with breast cancer like I mean they they went through some [ __ ] and they are crazy about each other that's great like nuts about each other to the point where you hang out with him and you talk to him when she's not around and he'll he refers to her as my girl he's like oh well

my girl and I were going to go do this I'm like dude you've been marrying this one for 28 years like is she's still your girl like I'm you're my idol like that's so cool man that you still feel that way but you know why he feels that way cuz she's talks about she calls him my boyfriend she's like well my boyfriend's coming home from his business trip on Tuesday and they're married and they're married for 28 years two kids breast cancer loss of jobs moving all these they went through the bombs dropping and they're

crazy about each other because they're just [ __ ] nice to each other like he treats her with so much respect he's still like oh my God she's the most beautiful woman in the world that's great she's and you know what she's still very beautiful right I knew her when she was 20 you know and she's now in her 40s or whatever maybe 50s she still stunning for her age right she's not one of these people that injects a bunch of she's just like a naturally but to him he just still sees that 20-year-old he

still sees that girl he fell in love and I can tell she looks at him and she's like he's my hero he's the greatest guy in the world he's like that and you know like when I see that they I go they won the lottery and I don't mean like oh it's chance I don't think it's chance they they just give a [ __ ] they just pay attention like I've never heard them say a bad word about each other like they're they're honest about like well yeah he's this way you know or yeah she's

like that she gets so worried about this or that but like it's never with a sense of like oh like it's always with a sense of like yeah you know he's very he's got his way he likes to do things that's it you know and like there's this but there's just tremendous again they both bring tremendous value to the table and I think that that that beauty thing to me because I do think there is a tremendous in heterosexual marriages there's a tremendous amount and probably in homosexual ones as well but it the feeling of

like okay the man has this woman and she's beautiful and that's what she leverages is she brings Beauty to the equation but I think after a period of time like you kind of stop seeing the per you know like I don't know with you like I see a picture of myself from 20 years ago and I go oh my God like I don't realize how much I changed in 20 years you know cuz you see yourself every day like whoever discovered water it wasn't a fish you know so you're in the thing you don't see

it so I think when you're with a partner and you're with each other for that long you maybe don't see each other age you know that much like you the way you envision each other is the way you envision so that's great like just leverage that because you know if you if you have enough affection for this person and you you know there are there are couples that like you look at them they've been together forever and you look at them and they go they still [ __ ] I bet like they got that Vibe

about them like the two of them are still into each other you know and I I love that like I think that's really like that's the secret but I mean here's the thing what if it's that simple like what if it's just pay attention be nice to your partner [ __ ] them and compliment them tell them you know just build them up just build them up man like like 99% of like personal and professional interactions are about just building up other people like that's really all it is just bolstering other people and you know

trying to see the good in them even when they're not hitting it out of the park some people are just they're just wired to be negative and other people are well we're feeding the negativity right now like negativity is very very valuable right now like people tune in to watch [ __ ] get [ __ ] up you know people people pay and want to see fails like like I can see in my life I'm a very positive person I'm always thinking about the other my partner's self worth mental health happiness all that and it's

like because of that my relationships just flow so beautifully yeah because I think you're see I think the so easy the you know just like Gandhi said that the perfect society would be an ordered Anarchy so people would do the right thing and do the orderly thing because they want to do it it's the right thing to do not because they were imposed to under power of law now again I think that's very polyana in terms of the approach but I think in relationships there's something to that like ideally in a romantic relationship I'm trying

to build you up you're trying to build me up and so we're both getting built up and and that symbiosis really works you know but like any symbiosis it's a very delicate ecosystem so if you put like a new fungus into the ecosystem all of a sudden it [ __ ] the whole thing up because it changes what this one eats which changes how this one gets eaten which changes how this one you know digests which changes how this one decomposes which changes the Moss like everything affects everything else and I think a marriage or

a relationship is exactly like that it's an ecosystem and so you throw new technology in you throw you know unanticipated changes into the relationship and yeah it can [ __ ] up the ecosystem that's why I think there's value in talking about something other than just criticisms of relationship or of relationships in general talking about what why when we felt good about each other what was it that felt so good like I've said this before that you know you ever want to see people soften when they're talking about their partner ask them about when they

met Everything Changes in a person when you say like tell me how you met like they they do the like oh well I was this and then he was this and and like you just see the softness come over them because it was this moment of like possibility you know and and we're just so drunk on like the imagin because we live in imagination I mean I think we're the only species that really lives in imagination the way we remember the past is to some degree in imagination and certainly our perception of the future is

Imagination so so much of our time is spent in our own imagination and at that moment you're when you meet someone some future romantic partner you're imagining what they're going to be to you and what you're going to be as a function of that relationship like where it's going to all the places will go you know and so why not like in your daytoday still put value in Imagining the possibilities of the two of you or talking about like when when did we last feel really connected you know like it's a question that our again

our society is never going to want you to ask the question of like when's the last time you felt really good when's the last time you felt really happy what were you doing you know and the answer might be surprising like it it's very funny there's a there's a line in Glen Gary Glenn Ross I think it is where he's talking about sex and he says like when I remember lovers of my past I don't remember the orgasm that's not what I remember I remember the way the light hit her body when she got out

of the bed I remember the curve of her back I remember the look of her face like with the little hair hanging down with a little sweat like that's what I remember like I don't remember the moment of of ejaculation like I remember some like glimpse some photograph in my mind of that and it's emblematic for what that felt like right so if we know that then why wouldn't relationships be about like creating those moments like curating those moments like reminding ourselves as what were the conditions under which that moment was felt and how do

we how do we go back to that how do we not get away from that so far away from the shore of that that we could never swim back yeah because that's that's the direct path to me we don't remember those those moments we don't imagine ourselves as the other person as because they're getting older you know for a female romantic partner you you envision yourself as okay when she was 25 and beautiful she looked a certain way felt a certain way to be around her but now she's 55 MH and she's dealing with things

that every woman has to deal with at but see men get a lot of [ __ ] for this because a lot of men there's this perception that like men just like and again I don't know maybe it's just pushed by popular media but there's this perception which I don't know if it's an accurate one I don't think it is in my experience professionally and personally that like men just like find a beautiful woman and then they kind of grow tired of her and she gets older inevitably and it's not her fault and then they

just find a younger model and that's it I'm sure there are examples of that of course but I don't think that's how it works I I I really think the toxic thing people don't talk about is is that lack of appreciation for what a person brings to your life like there's a period of time like you a lot of what men do it's not that sexy like I pay the electric bill that's not that sexy like I can't remember the last time somebody said to me like oh my God it's so great that the lights

work like it's so great that we have Internet you know like they don't do that it's like no it's just there but a great partner a great female partner understands that that what is it cost to just say yeah you know it occurs to me that I'm so [ __ ] lucky yeah like and how good does that feel man that like it is oh my God that's a drug I chase that dragon all day long that is what men want more than want more than anything oh my god when somebody say I eat my

employees and so many of these entitled women don't understand they don't understand that it's so easy so easy to just say like you know I'm so lucky like I'm so you do such a good job man you try so hard you do such a good job like I just appreciate what you do and like by the way look at it I mean it's one of the reasons why I've always liked your channel is that you know you can complain about your [ __ ] life man but then you watch like you know somebody was sexually

abused as a child and now has substance abuse issues and mental health issues that they're dealing with and you look at it and you go I am so ungrateful I am so I should be ashamed of myself like that my biggest problem today is like oh I'm very busy I mean i' have time for lunch like really like oh my [ __ ] people it's like being a Hospital volunteer you know it's like it's like that that you look at what real people are dealing with and you know I I think it's very easy for

someone to say yeah you know like I was thinking about the fact that like if it wasn't for you like my life would look so different right now you know like I would it's Tuesday afternoon and I'm at home you know I'm at home with you know a safe comfortable home and the electricity is on like and I'm so lucky for that you know and like what does it take to say that to your partner a humble partner female partner who's not acting entitled who just is appreciative yeah and by the way here's the cheat

code when you have a humble female partner in a heterosexual relationship who's like oh my God I'm so grateful for like the fact that you want to get her the heres bag oh yeah because she's not an ungrateful [ __ ] [ __ ] you're going to give her cuz you just are like look at this you know here look what else I can do I me you can have you could be a CEO or a garbage man you could be 20 or you could be 80 any heterosexual male if you go I can't open

this jar can you help me we all go yes I certainly can and open the jar and we feel like a like a million bucks you know why because we love that we can do that so I don't know why anybody didn't figure that cheat code out like the more entitled you act the more you act like well I helped you build this this is our money the more you do that [ __ ] the tighter we get the more that I'm like you know what take your [ __ ] hat see you I'll make

more but but if you just if some I'm telling you somebody's figured this out out there where someone should there are women that have figured this out I think there are yeah I think there are I think there are so so explain it for the women that are still like trying to grasp this I think the idea is just you know how you feel when your guy says man I've married the prettiest girl in the whole world you know like I'm so lucky to have you like you're so great you know that feeling you have

inside of like a you know like okay it's the same exact thing when you when you say to a guy you know like I'm so lucky to have you you know I was talking to my my girlfriend the other day he was going through something and the guy she's with just can't get a [ __ ] together and like just the fact that like you do such a good job of like making sure that you know we're safe and we have the things we need like every guy that's like asking us to open the pickle

jar like we just feel like yeah thanks you know cuz listen Like It's a Grind Like It's a Grind doing what we do and and and all we really want at the end of it is some little bit of sweet most of us gratitude makes a guy want to do all the things that women want them to do I have to tell you something I've spent hours and hours with divorcing men of all income levels from billionaires to millionaires to you know the very working class earlier in my career and they all tell me the

same story and that story is some variant of that she just she's not grateful at all anymore like there was a time where I was her hero and now I'm not and that's what the girlfriend is like don't [ __ ] kid yourself the girlfriend half the time is nowhere near as hot as the wife but you know what she is she's grateful she's grateful she's grateful she's effusive in her gratitude she makes him feel like a hero she squeals with delight at his jokes at his sex at his whatever she's just delighted as opposed

to irritated short tempered talking about all the things she doesn't have like you ever want to just wreck a guy's day tell him that like oh yeah you know like Karen got this you know and so not and you're like and he's like well you said you wanted that so I didn't I got you this instead like and it's such a you listen to it and you're just like why would you do that why would you do that to that guy like he wouldn't come I mean ideally he wouldn't come home and go like I

saw Steve's wife wow she is looking good you know like you would because how would that make you feel it would make you feel small it would make you feel awful like why wouldn't you just lead with gratitude and by the way it's like any relationship like if if there's work that needs to be done there's a way to do it like you could start make a praise sandwich you know the oh I'm so grateful for the you know it would be cool if we could do X Y and Z but you know I'm so

happy that we have like just just pack it but no that right there is probably some of the best advice ever yeah but here's the thing like I I don't know that people everybody feels like very it's like advertising it's a multi-billion dollar industry that everyone feels their examp exempt from like if you ask people are you affected by advertising they're like absolutely not absolutely not I drink Coke cuz I like Coca-Cola it's got nothing to do with the Billboards really really because they spent a lot of money on those Billboards it mustn't be for

no reason like I I genuinely don't think we're impervious to this [ __ ] like we're just primates that's all like your dog likes you cuz you give it bacon like your partner likes you cuz you give them value of some kind it's an economy and that's okay like again it whether you like it or not this is how it is so you can pretend it's not like that it's just like death you're going to die you can pretend you're not going to die if you think that's going to make your life better to pretend

you're not going to die to keep it out of your view not think about it until the last possible minute maybe that's a way to live your life I don't [ __ ] know but personally I think for me I'm not doing that I want to keep it in my line of sight same thing with relationships I want to keep it in line of sight here's what I bring to the table here's what I'm willing to here's my offer okay do you if you accept it what's your offer tell me what it is you're going

to bring to this I'll tell you what it is I'm going to bring to this and I'll be consistent you can set your [ __ ] watch by me if I say I'm going to do something I do it like I'm a man of will I'm a person of focus I'm disciplined like if I say to you I'm going to do this it's going to get done you don't have to even check up on it it's going to get done so why wouldn't you do that in your relationship but I I understand why because the

culture is always trying to pull you off of it everybody around you but also talking about these things is almost like the kiss of death like all right so the fact that we're even talking about this means we're falling AP I never see I never thought that and I I always thought and this is one of the things women I think do better than men is like they talk so much about their relationships to each other and I just feel like why can't we just do that with our partner like why can't we just say

to our partner like like what is it we're both feeling right now and how is it going and like it doesn't I'm not saying listen nobody wants your relationship turn into like a therapy session all the time and that you have to overly think it like sometimes overthinking something takes the magic of it away you know but I think there's genuinely room for you know just I don't know remembering like how we felt someone's love and when we felt someone's love and why wouldn't you want to hear that like I I'm I'm very maybe I'm

predictable and maybe I'm very male but like I would never not want to hear my romantic partner tell me like you know when I loved you so much you know what you did that made me just feel so good about I'm like oh I want to hear this like I want to hear this you know like anything even in bed like oh you know that what you do that I love oh my God let me get some I want to take notes yes tell me watch please you know and and by the way if you

said to me like you know what would you like like I'm I'm GNA tell you like I never understood like I I understand why women fake orgasm but I always felt like oh don't why would you like I want to know I want to earn it I want to know I got it right like I don't want to think I got it right and I got it wrong cuz I'm going to keep doing the thing I thought was the thing that did it right so you're just you're [ __ ] yourself up right now because

I'm going to think that that hit the button and it didn't you know so why not just be again not that's not it but something like you know like oh you know what you did it was so great and I've always thought like that's not that [ __ ] hard like there's so many I guess it's because I argue for a living but I just feel like there's so many entry points to a conversation I got pillared pillar online for daring to suggest that there was a safe way to talk to your romantic partner about

something you want to try sexually like because no one likes talking about sex right like it feels too clinical or it's like if you have to ask for you know oryan said in our our joint interview like the [ __ ] you asked to ask for isn't a [ __ ] it's felatio like so what you want is it's not that you want a [ __ ] you want your partner to want to give you a [ __ ] like that's you that's part of the appeal of the [ __ ] exactly okay but sometimes

it is okay to like reality check with your partner about like where your where your passions intersect or where your sex intersects so I've always said to people like I got killed for this online where I said you know rather than saying to your partner hey I'd really like to try anal or like hey I'd really like to try you know a threes sum or oh you know i' really like toes you know like I I don't know those are three things that were not appealing to me but I thought you know like give an

example those three things like there's a way to do that that's ham handed like that and then there's a way to do it that's like really really palatable and likely to find some success like oh my God I had such a dream about you last night it was like so dirty wait what really what what was it about you know no I don't even want to say it it's like I don't know what the maybe it's like I ate Dairy before bed or something I [ __ ] me up though we know what was it

we were like you know and then we ended up like doing like anal and really yeah and if your partner goes oh I would never want to do that you can be like yeah no I know me neither that's just so crazy or if they go oh really is that something you'd like you be like I I don't know like maybe I didn't think I did but maybe like subconsciously I do and now we're having a conversation and now this is a very safe conversation and then it's fun right because then your partner's like well

you know maybe we give that a shot or what so how [ __ ] hard is that you turn you just turned something that could be really awkward into into something really comfortable and so but my point is is that yes I'm being manipulative yes like that's the nature of human interaction is we're going to be manipulative of each other like you can call it out or you can just do it and pretends you're not doing it but you're manipulating your partner like you are you're you're manipulating everybody like I always say like my job

is I manipulate people's emotional state for a living that's what I do I make the judge feel good about my client bad about the other side I make the other side feel scared I make the client feel safe I'm manipulating everyone in that room's emotional state that's my job so I'm trying to use my powers for good and in a relationship by the way you're using your powers for good why are you why are you doing that manipulation that little oh I had a dream last night lie why cuz I want to deepen my sexual

connection with my partner so I'm happily monogamous with that person who's not going to be into that if you said to your spouse the day before babe I'd really like us to have really successful monogamy where we both feel really excited about the sexual relationship she'd be like ABS [ __ ] lutely that's a great unified goal okay so just serve the goal don't even have to like talk out in advance that that's the agenda I assume that's the agenda so what's wrong what's wrong with doing that like well it's dishonest [ __ ] you

I think it's way more honest to call out the manipulation and to say yeah of course I'm manipulating my partner for the greater good of our relationship and by the way they're manipulating me all day long like that's the nature of human relationship as we're manipulating each other in some way and that's okay as long as the goal we're serving is a unified goal it's a goal that we both the same intention of serving yeah it's it's I mean back to the dog thing that we talked about earlier the way a dog comes running to

you and jumping and just is excited to see you every single time you come from and that's that's that's a huge piece of the appeal it's a huge part of the yeah it's a huge part of the appeal there's something about but even with your kids it's the same thing like when they're little little it's like they're just they light up I remember my my the first time he was 6 months old my my older son when he was in the crib and I walked in and he just got this grin and I thought oh

my God he knows I'm his dad like and he's psyched to see me like I'm that guy I'm that guy who bounces him around does the on his belly thing you know like and I thought [ __ ] man this is great you know and by the way like that's what we want our romantic partner to feel like don't you I don't know didn't you ever like you know didn't you ever like meet your romantic partner at the airport you know and you're just standing there and everybody's getting off the thing looking and you're looking

and then all of a sudden you see and you're like a that one's mine you know and they see you and there's this moment of like that one's mine like and and like God that's so [ __ ] great like it's so great magical and what it's about is like excitement it's about excitement about see I understand like in the day-to-day of life like how do you sustain excitement with another person but it never happens with your dog like you never find yourself going like this [ __ ] dog I've had this dog forever I

got to get a puppy they're cuter like you don't feel that way you get deeper and deeper in love with it cuz why CU it's still just as happy to see you you know and even though it can't like jump up like it used to you know cuz it's older it's like who cares like it's it loves me that much you know and I think I think because dogs we know that we're losing them for minute one like their lifespan is so short compared to ours that that's that impermanence stays right in our line of

sight but the gratitude that they show constantly is a huge part of it too yeah and it stay it stays the same it never it never Fades yeah it never Fades whereas with humans like the Gratitude you showed in the first 6 months of the relationship is very different than you showed six but I guess I I have to ask the question of why because I've never suffered from that like I I'm weird you know i' I've had the same smoothie for breakfast for like six years and even when I'm like away and traveling I

find some way to approximate that smoothie yeah I'm like you yeah I'm I am a creature of habit but I'm still I still love it like every day I'm so like M this is good but I I in my relationships I I realized the gr like people would say never goes away with my wife I was married for 17 years and people would after 12 years of marriage people say like you guys are newly ways right yeah like no yeah I've always in relationship tried to maintain that level of gratitude and tried to always remember

how much this person is giving to me and that they didn't have to give it to me they could have given it to someone else and that I'm lucky to have it but i' I've rarely seen someone who could sustain that I I think it's it's a hard thing for a lot of people to do and I don't know why I I I it's the thing that mo more than anything baffles me about humans like I I see it in my employees even like why why are you not like seeing how great this is like

why do I have to fire you to figure out that you have a great job that you just lost like why can't you have like I still have every day tremendous gratitude for the ability to do this job like there was a time 27 years ago where I was in law school and I was like oh my God I want to be a divorce lawyer so bad and I still every day get up and go I am so [ __ ] lucky I get to do this job like I'm so L and I'm smart enough

to know like put things in your line of sight like I have interns every summer and there's something about having interns around that is really really good for you professionally because when you have interns around they they want to be you someday and it reminds you how [ __ ] lucky you are to be you that you are what someone aspires to be like and when you look at that and you have that around you you walk a little taller you're like oh yeah like I'm I'm something like I'm a [ __ ] lawyer like

I'm a successful divorce like this person is going to walk through coals for the next eight years to try to be me like and that's so cool like and by the way I I want to help facilitate that because I had mentors who helped facilitate me becoming what I am but I got to tell you like why can't you in relationship the same thing like just have that gratitude have that sense of like man like there was a time where you looked at this person and thought Oh my God if I could just have that

person next to me like if I could just catch their eye or if I could just if I if they call me back like I hope they call me back or I hope they text me back or I hope we see each other again you know and like there was a time where you wanted that so bad and you got it you got it they're there now you know and I I don't think I don't know I was never wired like I'm still so grateful I'm still so grateful every single day I don't take any

of it for granted and maybe it's because I do try to keep impermanence in my line of sight all the time to realize that love is is not permanently gifted it's loan it's always loaned like you will and I've always said that like that's what makes love so brave is that you will lose every person you love to love anything is insane because you you have opened yourself to the pain of losing it inevitably like to love anything a dog a a romantic partner a child like you you will lose it like children you lose

them every day like children just grow and change every day and then one day they kind of walk out the door and they live their lives and that's what they're supposed to do but like you're not you know like you're not you know I'm not Daddy anymore I'm dad now you know like and there was a time like there was a time that they called me Daddy for the last time and and I wasn't aware of it when it happened and if I'd known would have started crying you know because I would have been like

wait that's it like I'm dad now forever like [ __ ] I was Daddy for a long time you know like but you get to a point where you you you know you again you you change into the thing you're supposed to be and things transform and they move towards this inevitable ending but I I think romantic love like if you could just keep focused on the fact like hang out in my office for a couple of weeks man and I think you'll you'll it won't Jade you towards love it'll make you realize how [

__ ] lucky you are to have it yeah that's that's what I see from what you're experiencing you're seeing the ends of things you know whether is working as a hospice volunteer or what you're doing now it's all about ending it's all about endings yeah and everything that also makes you appreciate what you have well because every senica said that every new beginning comes from some others Beginnings end like every beginning has to end so that the next beginning can begin and I think love like we we're alone you know we're alone like we're we're

born into ideally we're born into love right we're born into parents or a parent who loves us and shapes us we're born as these half formed things you know and and hopefully someone greets us on the other end who's you know kind enough to fill us in you know and take care of us and treat us with love and compassion and and then we're really just looking to find love and connection you know for the rest of our life I mean I don't think it's a I don't think it's a coincidence that like sex this

thing that we're constantly chasing is literally connection you're literally inserting yourself inside someone you are just connecting like I mean if that's not the best metaphor you know because that's what it is like we're trying to connect we're trying to merge with this person physically mentally emotionally like and like there a very Noble goal you know and it's not that [ __ ] hard I don't think it's that [ __ ] hard I think we make it much harder than it needs to be you know because we are an ungrateful species you know and and

I I genuinely blame our media saturated Society I blame advertising I think advertising is the opposite of therapy yep you know the purpose of therapy if the purpose of therapy is to create a sense of wholeness and wellness in someone then advertising is the opposite advertising is designed to make you feel Mal content like you don't have anything you're not okay you're not okay you'll never the one message you'll never hear in any advertisement is you're fine you're fine everything's fine you don't need to do anything just be who you are you'll never hear that

you know because it has to be there's something wrong but if you got this car or this watch or this towel or this whatever that you would then you'll be happy you know and then it just becomes a horizon that forever recedes and just keeps receding and then people wonder why they're so miserable why they make their partner miserable in their misery but the truth is like it it's not that [ __ ] hard like it's not that hard you're so lucky we're all so lucky man we're we're a day above ground it's a good

day you know that was the thing about hospice is is working as a hospice volunteer like I would walk out of a nursing home or someone's house where someone was imminently dying and I was like a Zen monk like a samurai like I could hear the rainfall you know and I would just stand there and be like I'm not dying like I'm not in that situation I don't have Progressive multifocal lucal and cyop I can talk like I can like I don't I'm not D like I'm dying but I'm not imminently dying like and what

a set of problems not to [ __ ] have you know and like we're real lucky in that regard you know and if you have a partner who like loves you and is grateful for you and is kind to you I don't know anybody that's like yeah she's grateful and kind and really nice to me and really wants but you know she's not as hot as she used to be I don't know anybody that says that I don't think there's anybody I think that's a fictional character like I don't think that exists out there you

know it's a boogeyman it's been created to like convince people that you know well you have to engage this economy in a particular way I don't think it's real like I think that when people treat each other I think a lot of times there's an unkindness there's a malcontent that comes with like I've met a lot of women that age and they get mad at the world for the fact that they're aging and they're becoming invisible you know they're becom they had Beauty and now that beauty is gone there's nothing more beautiful and attractive than

a woman who has gotten into her 50s and 60s and even 70s and 80s who still has a beauty about her well there is something more attractive than that it's a 19-year-old girl it's true but but but what you're saying I think is that there is something uniquely beautiful about a woman who's aging with Grace yes but that's like see I'm very honest about that though because I'm 51 and I'm doing better than some but like there's an 18-year-old swimmer right now who's got me beat like if looks is the thing he's got me beat

money's the thing there's a 5 foot4 dude working in Wall Street a couple blocks down from here got me beat like so you got to bring something else to the table now I think I have value you know but I'm not going to have it be that it's like well I'm going to stay as hot as an 18-year-old swimmer I'm not guarantee it you know or I'm going to be the wealthiest person I'm not guarantee it like in my line of work it's not possible to make the money that some of these people make so

what you have to attribute different value you know because I'm beat by the 18-year-old swimmer just like the 19-year-old girl who wakes up super hot but what is that 19y she's 19 when's the last time you talk to a 19-year-old trust me I I couldn't possibly date a 19-year-old under any circumstances we' have nothing to say to each other you know and there's only so much sex you can have before eventually have to talk to somebody and then you'd be like wow this is really something you know so I think there's tremendous value in every

chapter of life every stage of life and we all know too by the way you know a friend of mine said to me many years ago we were talking about we were talking about the difference between beautiful and hot and and he was like and I was like what do you you know what you're using those like synonyms and he said no no they're not synonyms he's like haven't you ever met a woman who was beautiful but she wasn't hot and I said yeah and he goes okay and haven't you ever met a woman who

was hot but she wasn't beautiful and I was like yeah I get it and he said yeah that that's a confidence thing like that's a confidence that's a how you carry yourself that's a and that's a tremendous thing I mean I think that has tremendous value I think a lot of a lot of value in men and women is a function of confidence I think a lot of what people see in me as a professional is my level of confidence you know and and and again that's that's something that we can generate internally it isn't

something that you can buy how many how many years have you been an attorney 25 25 you've seen some crazy [ __ ] I've seen a lot of crazy [ __ ] what's the what's the craziest let's cover some of the topic like what's the craziest prenup you've seen crazy PR stene has already gotten some traction and that was that it was it was the woman lost $10,000 a month in alimony for every 10 pounds she gained during the marriage which to me was a hilarious prenup not because of the boorishness of the provision but

the fact that as a lawyer all I could think about was how to game it cuz I was like okay so there has to be a baseline weight on the date of marriage so that day she should have like pennies in her pockets and heavy shoes and then on the day that there's a divorce there'd have to be a weigh in to see how much weight she gained and she could be like a wrestler the week before like wearing the sweatsuit like that and it just showed me something about humans but no pre I mean

listen prenups people put in Fidelity Clauses all the time even against my recommendation and then you have to Define like well what is sexual cuz because if you say well you will lose a certain amount of money if you engage in sexual behavior with another person well what is sexual behavior is it oral genital contact genital to genital contact is it digital to genital contact is it sexting if it's sexting what crosses the line between flirtation and sexual like so you you know lawyers what's funny about lawyers is how we have to [ __ ]

quantify things all the time like so people will say like you know um well I want a clause that says that he's not allowed to introduce the kids to a girlfriend until they're in a uh long-term relationship okay how do you define long-term relationship like you have to Define it in some way and most of the time when you try to Define it you're defining it with more vague subjective Concepts well a serious relationship okay you just said the same [ __ ] thing you know well like a relationship likely to lead to cohabitation or

marriage right said the same [ __ ] thing like we got to pin this down well uh that they've been together for at least six months all right so six months so if they're together four months and get married he can't the kids can't meet the person but if they're married if they're together 6 months and have no intention of getting married then it's a serious relationship and they can meet the kids like we think in generalities but as lawyers we have to do things in detail so to me like that's the stuff in prenups

that's hilarious is people try to uh mitigate by contract things that you really can't you know and and and so lawyers have to be put in the position of explaining to someone see like the the thing that makes my job so fascinating is is we are we are trying to apply contract rules and very like finite legal principles to people breaking up like there is nothing more human and visceral and emotional than a breakup and now we're applying the rules of evidence and like the the the structure of a courtroom to that trans that's insane

like that's an insane that's like saying there's a massive conflict let's throw guns in like it's like wait no don't throw guns and throw like pillows in may they hit each other with the pillows but by the way they'll hit each other for real with the pillows you know so like you got to say like well I don't know what you want to throw at them but don't make it anything that could be a weapon you know but the legal system like I have to tell people all the time like they'll come in and say

like oh my ex is you know um uh really like denigrating the children like denigrating me to the children and I'll say oh like what what's going on they' be like oh well he's just like you know letting them like you know use their phones whenever they want to and I'm like okay that's there's not a Judicial solution to that problem like your ex is an [ __ ] like your ex is an [ __ ] like a judge can't order him to stop being an [ __ ] it doesn't work that way there's no

order like you are ordered to stop being an [ __ ] like so it turns into like very specific kinds of behaviors that you you sometimes have to say to clients like look I can't you and by the way you married this person like you married this per this awful [ __ ] person you married them you know because why cuz you wanted to wear the white dress and do the whole thing for Instagram like what what was it you know like you thought they were a fixer uper you thought they wouldn't be like they

were this way like rarely rarely rarely does a person say oh my God they were the nicest best person and then in the marriage they just turn into this villain it's usually oh well ever since the day we got married they were controlling and nasty every ever since we got married they were this way okay so why did you marry them by the way and when you say well from the day one of the marriage they were this way great why' you have three kids with them then there was at least nine months between each

of those kids that you could have rethought whether you want to double down and have another kid with this person and yet you had three kids with this person and then you come in and say to me fix it fix it get a person in a black robe to order this person to be different than the way they've been for the entire time you've known them I'm not going to be able to solve that [ __ ] problem it's not going to happen there's not a judge who's gonna I'm not Batman I'm a lawyer like

I can ask judges for orders I can ask judges to enforce orders that's it that's my superpower guys like I don't have the ability to fix your terrible choices like you had kids with an [ __ ] I'm sorry you had kids with an [ __ ] you're stuck with that [ __ ] now you're going to be a grandparent with that [ __ ] now you better learn to live with it you got to figure out a way and again we can mitigate some of the damage I can get some Financial Awards put in

place I can get a schedule put into place there's lots I can do I bring tremendous value to this transaction but I can't fix it that's an unsolvable problem like you had three kids with an [ __ ] and and every once in a while cuz I'm human I'll have a long week and I'll get really tired and I'll just not be able to filter and I'll say that to a client cuz like a client be like I don't understand why we can't fix this and I'm like who the [ __ ] could fix this

like I can't fix this this thing was so broken when you got to my office I can't fix it I can mitigate some of the damage I can improve things but my God you want me to fix that problem there's no way maybe a Hitman could fix that problem but then you have whole second order effects of other problems what's the craziest Behavior you've seen between couples as they're separating I mean like oh I I mean i' people lose their minds when they're separating sometimes so I've seen you know I mean I've seen everything from

from you know the Ridiculousness of people clearing out bank accounts and you know taking and hiding things I mean cash is always a very funny thing like people sometimes have hundreds of thousands of dollars of cash in their house and all of a sudden it's just [ __ ] gone and there what are you GNA do like they can't go to the police and be like hey I have all this cash that I illegally put aside and didn't pay taxes on and I need to make a police report that it's missing now like you're not

going to do that and you get to see the real oh yeah nitty-gritty of what people's lives are really like right oh yeah oh yeah you know people can create a facade of what how oh no listen I have to say something I know how full of [ __ ] everybody is like I I I mean listen I I see it you know I see all the hashtag blessed on Instagram and then I know they were in my office you know like I I see with cele I've had celebrity clients who you know when they

were publicly talking about our marriage is very strong and any rumors about our marriage I mean well they're in our office like they're already killing each other like there there's so much dishonesty about relationships like people it's just like the wealthy people that they're wealthy until they're bankrupt you know like they walk around they're flying private and then they're you know they're they turns out they're $20 million in debt you know because they just did a great job it's just like credit you know it's like Consumer Credit like that's all like it just it just

borrowed excitement about their relationship it's not real like people's perception and again that's a social media thing because you're living your gag reel while everybody else shows you their greatest hits like and that's why I just it's the most toxic [ __ ] thing in the world like don't don't look at that like look at the opposite of that honestly that's what hospice is that's what your channel is look at the opposite of that yeah look at how [ __ ] bad it could be look at how bad it could be look at the problems

you could have today have have you seen like murders things like that oh yeah well not Mur than God not murders I've seen attempted murders I had one client who went to jail because he hired a Hitman to try to kill his wife and he got caught there was a date line about it and you see me in the back of the shot one and um I had a client whose husband stabbed her 17 times and ran her over three times to the car and he didn't kill her she was in intensive care for a

really long time how did he do that how did he like he just like set her up and yeah he told her he had to metet her at a parking lot uh was the Sheron Crossroads in MAA New Jersey and uh he said he had to drop something off related to the kids or whatever and she came by herself and uh he stabbed her a bunch of times and then he uh ran her over twice with the car oh wow she lived she lived she has some scars but she lived and he's in prison for

the rest of his life but I mean it just shows what a [ __ ] up the guy was he couldn't get that right like you stab somebody how many times and run them over twice and they're still alive like that's crazy what is it that make us makes us choose these partners that are clearly you know in that situation I think that he obviously had a screw loose but I think um she must have too though you know she was I mean she's my client so I don't really see her you know as plainly

I I don't see her as honestly maybe but um no she wasn't she wasn't crazy I think she um I think people have a tendency to sometimes Overlook particularly women there's a lot they'll forgive you know like there's a lot like I'm always shocked by Guy female clients will come in and be like oh yeah and he was cheating on me with this person I'm like oh and you didn't leave and they're like no you know I was like all right you know I think to myself I'm like wow I could get away with a

lot more [ __ ] than I give myself credit to women are very forgiving women think they'll change men maybe what's that saying women women go through a relationship hoping they can change men and men go into a relationship hoping Hing it'll never change that sounds like something Orion would say yeah I I agree with that I mean I certainly think that I think that um I see a lot of female clients who are willing to overlook the foolishness and stupidity of their partner in some way um the problem is is they roll their eyes

at it and the rolling of the eyes like you might as well divorce the guy like it's it would be more dignified because I think you're going to lose them no matter what you're just going to lose him in a worse way because there's there's nothing worse than being being lonely when you're with somebody you know if you're lonely and alone that's fine but lonely and you're sitting next to somebody that's [ __ ] bad I had a friend who once said to me that he knew when a relationship was over when in the middle

of sex he thought one of these days I've got to get laid o and I I understood what he meant which is that I I think there are times where we are in a relationship and feeling lonely and that's a real red flag you know because that means we're not really present or our partner's not present and and the tougher question to ask is why do we feel that way at that moment like what's going on is it me is it her is it us is it the dynamic like how do we get back to

where we saw each other still and we felt seen and we didn't feel lonely you know cuz it's really the opposite right like that that initial rush we were talking about before that's like the opposite of lonely you know and that's why I've said like New York City has its own unique brand of loneliness because there's something about when you feel alone and you're surrounded by people in this incredibly dense population and yet you feel completely alone because no one interacts with each other no one talks to each other there's nothing friendly going on you

know and and so I think that's a piece of it I think that that there's a I I've seen people for give insane things I've also seen one of the things that still fascinates me and this is a very female thing how women will in competition with other women fight for the love of a guy who's complete piece of [ __ ] like so like she's married to this guy he is no [ __ ] prize like not goodlooking not a lot of money whatever it might be just utterly [ __ ] useless like a

guy you look at and like yeah just [ __ ] good rid to bad rubbish go live your life there's a lot of other people go find another one and he's cheating and instead of he's cheating so I'm out it becomes all right well I'm I'm going to win this battle and then the girlfriend is like no I'm going to win this battle and they're both fighting over this [ __ ] dumpster fire of a man and you're looking at it going like this has nothing to do with this guy this has to do with

you want to win like you want to win over her you want to wi the beauty pageant or whatever pageant it is in your mind which to me these two women should both be like [ __ ] this guy and both split like but but there's something about like that woman versus woman competition for a mate that is like a whereas men I I just don't see that as often like if a man's woman is cheating on him he's not going to be like well I'm going to win her love back he's like [ __

] her and that's that he's out he's out and I've said it before that that's why we so different when a woman finds out a man's cheating or a man finds out a woman's cheating the man says did you [ __ ] him and the woman says do you love her because the value is different like in in in our minds that value is different and and I I think there's something fascinating about that but it also shows why like Shakespeare is saying of Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned like I have never

seen the level of vitriol that I've seen in some of my female clients or the spouses of some of my male clients like I I have seen people who do not let go of that brutal hatred that they have for their partner like that they just it it becomes a defining characteristic of who they are what a toxic way to go through your life very toxic way to go through life you know my my first interview with you I talked about the the hand job guy talked about case the handob guy yes and that that

case was still going on at the time oh it was and she saw it she saw she was pissed she was pissed her lawyer said to me like yeah she saw you talking about K I was like how do you know I was talking about this case I I could be I could have lots of hand job cases there could be tons of them you know like in fact there are you know like people are not as unique as they think they are you know but I remember thinking like you know it's how many years

later and there's still no Insight on her part there's no she doesn't calmed down at all she's as angry and bitter as she ever was like and all I could think is didn't you want more for your life than this like you're letting this person Define Your Existence like you're letting your hatred for this person who by the way you loved married had children with can still have children with and have to co-parent with like your defining characteristic is the depth of your hatred for this person which is in no way dissipating and in fact

is only it seems to be solidifying as years pass on like that's who you are like that's what a horrible thing to be like I can almost think of nothing worse than that like what what is your defining characteristic my hatred for another person like that's my defining characteristic like like what a what an unbelievable like why why would any man ever want to be with that woman like why would any woman want to be around that woman unless they were equally bitter and miserable as that person like why would children want toow grow up

in a home with someone who's that angry at someone those children love like wouldn't couldn't you just have the dignity and Grace to go yeah he's a [ __ ] idiot he's an idiot like this guy was so mature that he couldn't Express his needs and he had to like go and you know do dumb stuff at a massage parlor like he couldn't just express it or he didn't have the courage to say Hey you know I'm unhappy I think we should end this thing you know like in steady and again you know if you

talk to the guy like he had a good excuse he was like Hey listen I didn't want to the marriage like I just thought all right we don't have a sexual component anymore to our relationship and now we'll just be like you know people running a daycare center together and I'll get my sexual needs met in a way that's not going to threaten the the the health of this marriage it's so awkward to have these conversations then I mean like yeah but it's lot you know what's more Awkward than it three years of litigation right

right I mean so and millions of dollars in Council fees like how do you present the idea of a prenup to somebody you're about to get married with I think again I think what you say is there's a prenup no matter what it's just written by the legislature it's written by us I think you see it as an invitation to talk about the value we give and the value we receive I think there's something very romantic about that I don't think that has to be sterile I mean I was joking earlier about like the contractual

nature of it but like what is more loving than saying to your partner like when do you feel the most loved by me I want to know like I want to know because I want to make you feel that way as often as I can for as long as I can like and and and don't you want to know like when I feel your love like cuz if you if you do ask I'll tell you like I'll tell you and and what a fun conversation to have like what a fun thing to do like to

sit there and to say to each other like oh you know you know when I when you did that thing like because I tell you something you'll be shocked you'll be shocked like because we're we're from different species men and women sometimes like like I I I I'm always astounded when I hear women talking about a man and they're like I remember once listening to two women talking about a man and they were like oh yeah and he like does that thing like he has a he wears like a cross or something and you just

see it like sort of sticking out of his T-shirt just a little oh I love that I'm like wait what you love what what is that you love like that's [ __ ] whereas man like we'll say like oh you know how sometimes when they have their hair up and then that one little hair kind of oh that one little hair we love that one I don't know that women know that like maybe they do I don't know maybe that's why there's so many of them have that little hair I don't know but I don't

care it doesn't make me like it less like you know that little one little hair so like what if what if we could just in the prenup conversation like clearly I want this to work I'm marrying you like clearly I want this to work like we're getting married clearly I'm invested in this thing but I'm human so can't we just have a conversation about what is it you like so much about me and what is that I like so much about you and what will be our language if I'm failing you I want you to

tell me like Mark if you thought this interview's not going well I want you to stop me don't let me go for 3 hours and then go that was all right like stop and go you know Jim you're a little this you're a little that like [ __ ] tell me like I can give you what I can't give you what you want I don't hear what you don't say I can't give you what you want if I don't know what the [ __ ] you want you know and a lot of times I don't

know like nobody quite knows so why not say hey we're getting married we're doing this thing I want it to stay as good as it is now or even if possible get better I can't imagine how it could but what if it gets even better and how do we do that well we do that by you tell me what you like about me tell me 10 memories of me that make you feel the most close to me tell me three things I do that make you happy tell me three things I do that make you

want to [ __ ] me I'll do the same like and then what what's the downside of that what's the downside of that what's the cost doesn't even cost anything of course no one's trying to sell that to you online it doesn't [ __ ] cost anything you can't monetize that advice like there's nothing there's no there's no secret to that you know like when people are like well marriage is hard work if you consider paying attention hard work yeah I guess it's hard work like that's insane I remember someone a friend of mine getting

married and saying to me oh well we just moved in together and it's like you know it's kind of hard you know like it's hard when you first move in together and I was like no it's not it's like [ __ ] in putting Ikea furniture together it's amazing like you mean moving together is hard no it's not that's ridiculous like so I don't think that that's like I think that the prenup conversation can be really really it's actually should be the easiest conversation in the world because what are you saying like yeah you want

to frame it as like I'm concerned this marriage isn't going to work like that's not what it is it's listen marriages generally don't work more often than not they fail so how are we going to not let that happen cuz I don't want it to happen you don't want it to happen I don't want it to happen great and in 10 years you hope we're still like [ __ ] and we love each other and we're excited about each other right okay cool I feel the same way about that so how are we going to

do it how are we going to do it and if the other person goes well I don't know I don't want to talk about that I would be like all right well then how committed to it are you like what why can't you just say like yeah I don't know I don't know either but you know what we're the two people got to figure it out we're the only two people got to figure it out so again most people only talk about their relationship when they go to marriage counseling when the marriage is already the

wheels are coming off like I would actually say there's a there's a school of thought that would say from the beginning of marriage go to marriage counseling or before marriage go to marriage counseling start talking about this [ __ ] like my son just got engaged my older son just got engaged 27 years old got engaged I'm all for it I'm cheering for him but [ __ ] talk about it man like talk about it talk about what you're doing with each other talk about what you love about each other talk about when you feel

good and when you feel bad you know when your when your partner hurts you tell me communication is a s it's the whole thing but again man there's no way to monetize it so no one wants to talk about that you know everybody wants to talk about the complicated stuff everyone wants to talk about like oh go to this seminar buy this thing or take this you know it's not what it is like it really just is like just talk to your partner about you know what they want and again it doesn't have to be

if you're not verbal because I understand not everybody's like as as comfortable in this the world of extemporaneous speaking as I am that's fine like it's job security for me but write something to each other I don't know like something draw a [ __ ] picture I don't care you smoke signals like if it's it's either worth something or it's not you know and I I happen to believe it's worth it's your primary relationship like that's huge that's huge and if you give a [ __ ] about or just get divorced get divorced like civilized

human beings let just go well it didn't work like why does it have to be like it was a failure it was awful it was wasn't a failure we had some kids we had some time together we had some laughs okay didn't work out most marriages don't let's move on see if we can roll the dice again maybe we will you know with somebody else and figure it out and maybe we'll be better at it in some other permutation down the road maybe we we couldn't unlearn the habits that we learned together and we couldn't

undo it but maybe the next one will be better at it like why can't you just have that like yeah we'll always have Paris it was great kind of thing like I don't I don't have any hate in my heart for any ex I've ever had my whole adult life yeah that's great one great way to be not one most of them I have some tenuous contact with you know like we'll text each other now and then or we'll email each other and it's always with love I'm cheering for them I'm cheering for every [

__ ] one of them I really am because they all help make me the man I am they all deserve happiness you know maybe I wasn't the right one for them but you know what like somebody is I hope and and so many of them you know of of of my my ex-wife is very happily remarried to a great guy who's like great for her he's [ __ ] nothing like me we're totally different personalities great guy though perfect for her you know I have a lot of like ex-girlfriends who are remarried or who married

now to really like great guys who suit them very well most of whom are absolutely nothing like me which is a good sign because we didn't work out so hopefully something different will work out you know but again even even my son like I don't look at his coming marriage as like well it's forever and it's magic and it's like dude I don't believe in fairy tales like dude you know put in stay in touch connect do your thing try to stay connected if you don't okay it's not a failure you know but but like

try to maintain it if you care about something maintain it you know but if you don't maintain if you care about it and you don't maintain it and it falls apart don't [ __ ] whine take it like a man like don't don't sit there like don't not [ __ ] your husband for seven years and then you get mad that he's paying someone to jerk him off like that's [ __ ] stupid like you know if if you're sleeping with him regly and he never told you there was any deficiency in the relationship and

that he's off doing that you have every right to be angry no problem every right in the world but don't you dare ignore your partner's needs don't you dare not tell your wife or girlfriend how beautiful she is and how wonderful she is and then when some other dude tells her she's beautiful and that she's wonderful and she ends up flirting with or hooking up with that guy don't you dare be indignant about it I don't care you pay her [ __ ] bills I don't care that you bought her a Birkin bag how hard

hard is it to tell her she's pretty like and if you stop doing that that's on you man and I'm not saying the penalty for that like the wages of sin is death or the penalty for that is that someone has has cart blanched to cheat on you but how dare you be surprised or how dare you have that righteous indignation that all these divor I have all these divorcing people that are just like so indignant I can't believe you did that really you can't believe it really cuz I don't think that's true I think

you I think why you're really mad is that you absolutely believe it and you absolutely had the opportunity to probably move out of the [ __ ] way of that thing and you chose not to instead you chose to it's like somebody being like I can't believe I got fat really you ate Doritos all day long and never worked out you can't believe you got fat huh it's really shocking like I'd be if you were like oh I've been training for a marathon and all I do is eat lean proteins and somehow I got fat

okay go see a doctor now there's a problem but like most of the time of course you're getting fat like of course your relationship's falling apart you're not doing anything with it you're not paying attention to it you're not doing preventative maintenance on it and that's the thing if people did preventative maintenance on their relationships before and during the marriage I would be out of business period Jim you're amazing I'll say it again you're a National Treasure I'm so glad you think you know it's very funny to me because the first time you reached out

to me I remember thinking I don't really have anything to say that would be interesting to anybody and the fact that like I can't walk down the street now without people being like hey you're that divorce lawyer I and then tens of millions of people have seen this stuff is still shocking to me because I still don't I was actually on my way over to talk to you today and I thought to myself I don't really have anything to say like I don't really know what it is I would say like I don't really have

anything to say two hour two two hours 15 minutes has it really been too I have no idea feel if you told me it was a half an hour i' like yeah probably you go another two hours I probably could because I I but I see I still don't know why this is interesting like I I really am baffled it's what we all struggle with most what's funny to me is so I've had a number always respect people's privacy but I've had a number of very successful and well-known people reach out to me and say

oh I saw yourself on underbelly interview you have a lot of celebrities that like your your stuff and um and some of them even like reposted clips of it on their Tik Tok or whatever and uh and I think to myself oh my God you're so good at like acting or you're so good at business or you're so good at this and this is hard like the relationship and it really is it's like a great equalizer like we're all struggling with this and isn't there something really beautiful and great about that that like no matter

how much money you have whatever gender you know presentation you have whatever like we're all just kind of struggling with this and like isn't that beautiful and couldn't we just say like ah [ __ ] like I I really want to be good at this you know and I'm not like and and maybe if we said that to our partner like maybe they would be like yeah I'm really nervous that I'm not good at like I don't I don't get why you were interested in hearing what I have to say but you are like you're

interested in hearing what I have to say okay so then like I'm just going to trust that and lean into it be like okay cool like Mark sees Something in Me Maybe I don't see it in myself but he sees it in me and like there's something really beautiful about that and that's what love can be like love can be like I don't know why this person loves me but they do you know and and like you know I know why I love them I think you know and and okay and tell them like tell

them tell them all the things you love about love is all we all need that's it the older I get I have tell you you and I are both you know in the later end of middle age and uh yeah the older I get the more that I'm like yeah I hate to sound like John lenon but like love is all you need it's all you want it's the only thing we're we're here to try to cultivate and it's the thing that feels the best and it's the thing that feels the most rewarding and it's

defined differently by different people I think in terms of what what they love you know the love of a pet the love of a romantic partner the love of a child the love of whatever but yeah it's just love man I the two lessons that have been the hardest learned for me and the ones that I didn't figure out until I crossed the line of 50 was that really love is all we're looking for and that the hardest thing in the world to be is yourself like it's so hard to be yourself like the world

is constantly trying to turn you into something different and like if you can figure out a way to just be yourself that that that's really the hardest thing to be but it's the best thing to be and that's what other people want from you the most yeah yeah and it's the thing only you can do yeah you know it's the like like like you're the only one that can be you you know and and there's something really beautiful about that I think I didn't get to read the 30,000 comments on uh on on our first

interview um but the couple of them that I read the thing that had me always scratching my head was they were like this guy's so real this guy's so real I thought to myself I'm like well okay yeah that is true like I'm I'm real like I'm being very unfiltered you know but like isn't I mean shouldn't we all just have more room to just be real like to just be honest like with each other with our partner like isn't that just the core of what I'm saying is like just be real like just be

real with your partner be real with yourself like just be honest cuz maybe you don't see it like maybe don't see what you have to say or the value that you bring to the situation maybe you think what you bring to the relationship is your looks or maybe you think what you bring to the relationship is your money but actually maybe it's something totally different than that it's something intangible it could just be something magical like there's something magical about love you know there's something magical about our connection to each other so yeah I don't

know man I don't know it's always good to see you though likewise all right J till next time thanks thank you man [Music] I'm in the middle of the mountains that river running wild as peaceful as a shadow and carefree as a child sunlight singing to me a soft and gentle song singing soak it all in darling for you're right where you belong Right Where You Belong right where you B oh you been down in that Valley but came back before too long right away you belong [Music] You Been to Hell and Back Again nobody

knows your story at least not the full one cuz you've learned you can't trust just anyone life is dead some heav it blows some made you strong but you shouldn't have to work so hard to find where you belong fight where you belong find where you belong you been down in that Valley you've been down far too long just find where you belong [Music] mayy as maybe a state of mind it may be the furthest thing from what you think you find but listen to that voice inside it won't guide you wrong trust in time

my friend you want the Bri where you belong right where you belong right where you belong there will still be Valle but you won't stay to long but there's a place your heart can heal there's a place where you can [Music] feel you're right where you [Music] where you where [Music] you you [Music] [Applause] [Music] he