A Divorce Attorney's Guide to Staying Together... and Not Going Broke

Being around people who are in the wreckage of weaponized intimacy, like the breakdown of relationship has made me much more aware of how love isn't permanently gifted. It's longed. The truth is, with some very limited preventative maintenance, I think money and love are very similar in that way, that like the best advice isn't that sexy. They're little habits you can do every single day that are going to improve your situation and that are going to pay dividends over time. James Exton is America's divorce attorney. He is one of the most sought after experts on getting divorced and surprisingly staying together. We talked for so long and covered so much good ground that I'm actually splitting this conversation up into two episodes. So today you're going to hear his advice for people who are getting married. In a few weeks, you're going to hear his advice for people who are thinking about getting divorced. Divorce can be really expensive and he has incredible advice on how to separate equitably. But today we talk about what people should know before getting married. It's the only contract that you don't actually sign. You sign a marriage license, but it doesn't have the terms and conditions in it. Some little-known facts on what's actually enforceable in pre-nauble. One of the terms was for every 10 pounds that the bride gained from the date of marriage to the date of what was called an operative event. So separation or divorce, she would lose $10,000 a month in alimony. And which financial arguments he sees become the most toxic? It's dangerous to not know where the money is and to have some general sense of things, but I have to deal with people's willful blindness all the time. When it comes to custody, when it comes to finances, those are very dangerous financial habits because what you don't know can hurt you. I'm Nicole Lappin, the only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. It's time for some money rehab. James Hexton, welcome to Money Rehab. Thanks for having me. It's good to be here. Great to have you. We've been trying to do this for a while. I know. We've been like ships passing in the night, you know? So I'm really glad we finally made it happen. But I think we're both busy people, so that's a good sign. It's true. You know, I heard that you said you didn't get into divorce law for the money. Obviously we're money rehab. So if you want to know why then did you get into it? For what? You know, I was a psychology major as an undergraduate. My minor was in substance abuse counseling. So I wanted to go into a helping profession. I didn't have any aspiration of going into law. I wasn't really interested. I mean, you know, nobody ever says like, "Man, I went into social work and being a therapist for the money." So it really wasn't a money thing. My mom was like as far left-leaning as a human being could be. My dad was a Reagan conservative naval academy graduate. And my mom was like almost a Marxist. So I never think I had a choice but to be a lawyer because I had to see both sides of every issue because they disagreed on everything politically, but we're married for 50 plus years till my mom passed. So they made it work. But I remember my mom used to always say that money's only something in Eden case you don't die tomorrow. And my father didn't share that view of it. He was a Reagan conservative and he was very into like, you know, minimizing taxation and being successful in capitalism. And my mom was very progressive and left. So I saw kind of both sides of things. But I was really motivated to do something. I didn't want to be the kind of person who spent five days a week looking forward to two. I knew that. And I knew I didn't want to spend 50 weeks a year looking forward to two, you know. I just felt like there's something wrong with that. So I- We're Brit grind paradigm. Yeah, I mean, just anything that you're doing just for the money. Like, I didn't want the majority of my time to be spent doing something just for the money. I wanted it to be something that for lack of a better term like turn me on, like turned on my brain and made me feel excited. And at the time, I didn't know it was going to be divorce law. And then when I realized it was law, because I'd always enjoyed debate and extemporaneous speaking. And I have a performer streak. And I'm chatty if you haven't figured that out already. I wanted to be the strong silent type, but it never worked out. But I remember thinking, you know, if I could find a way to use sort of the core skill set of who I am, those very authentic aspects of self, and make a living at it and help people ideally in the process that that would be amazing. And somehow all of that converged into divorce law. And now after a 25 plus year career, like I'm still as excited to go do that job every day as I was the first day I did it. So that's a really wonderful thing. And I feel of all the things I'm grateful for and I'm grateful for a lot of things. I feel like that might be the biggest thing other than health. The fact that I love what I do for a living and I'm excited to do it. Like by Sunday afternoon, I'm kind of like, oh, I can't wait to get back to it. It's weird and wonderful. I love that. I feel that. Yeah. Yeah, it's real. Yeah. Said your parents were married for 50. Yeah, 50 plus years. Yeah. Has going into divorce law sourdue on the idea of romance? No. No. Actually, I think this had the opposite effect, which is I think when you're I was a hospice volunteer for many years. And I think we're most alive when they were with presence of death. Like when we think about the fact that life isn't permanent, we're most acutely grateful for it. I think when you have a bad cold for a couple of days, you're just like, oh my god, if I could just breathe, like I would just be so happy. If I could just breathe. And then you get over being sick. And for a few days, you're like, oh, I can breathe. It's so good. But like you didn't wake up today and go, oh, I can breathe. And I'm not coughing. But like what a blessing that is, you know? So I think if anything, like being around people who are in the wreckage of, you know, weaponized intimacy, you know, like the breakdown of relationship has made me much more aware of how love isn't permanently gifted. It's loaned and that we want it and we chase it so badly. And when we don't have it, we think about all the things we'd be willing to trade for it and all the sacrifices we would make if we could just have it. And then we get it and we kind of go like, all right, well, I got that now. I don't have to think about it anymore. But you know, the truth is with some very limited preventative maintenance, I think money and love are very similar in that way that like the the best advice isn't that sexy. Like the best advice is pay attention, you know, pay attention, take it seriously. There are little habits you can do every single day that are going to improve your situation and that are going to pay dividends over time. Like that's true about mine is true about love. So, yeah, it hasn't made me, it hasn't sourd me on romance at all. I think, you know, sometimes people say to me like, oh, do you still believe in love? You know, and it always strikes me as someone saying, like do you believe in gravity? Like, I don't have to believe in it. It's real. Like, it's all around me. Like if I denied it, I'd be a fool. Like I see it everywhere. I feel it all the time. I I think it's the deepest thing in all of us is the desire to love and to be worthy of love is like everything. Well, I think they're similar in so far as when you don't have both. You're more acutely aware of that. Yeah. And healthy people have many wishes, but sick people just have one. Yeah. And so I think they're similar in that sense. Yeah. And as you think through your profession, you got divorced for you, a divorce killer. I was. Yeah. No, I was. I married my college sweetheart. So we moved in together our junior year of college. We got married at 22 and had our first child at 24, which I didn't realize how young that was until I had 24 year olds. And, you know, now my sons are 26 and 29. And when I look at them, I kind of go, Oh my God, they trusted me with a kid, you know, at younger than that age. But we were sort of too young to know. Like I had long hair in a motorcycle and tattoos. And she was like blonde with big boobs. Like, what more could you want? Like, that's all you needed for life to be perfect, you know? And at the age of 19, that made sense. You know, but eventually we figured out like that was kind of all we had in common, you know? And she's my ex-wife is still one of my favorite people. She's been remarried for 15 years. We had to spend some time together at our oldest son got married a few months ago. And I loved spending time with her. I love spending time with her husband. There are a lot of people I love. I wouldn't want to be married to. Actually, all of them, all of them, you know, like there's there's love and marriage, you know, are two very different kinds of relationships necessarily. And I don't know that there's always a positive correlation between the two. But I certainly learned a bit from my own divorce about how even the friendliest divorce, and we had an incredibly friendly one. And we had a really friendly co-parenting relationship. I mean, our kids were five and seven when we got divorced and we co-parented really, really well through adulthood. But it still is painful. It still was hard. It's still a, it's a transition. You know, change is good, but transitions are hard. And it was a hard transition. But it definitely taught me a humility about what we think we know when we're in love. And that love is a feeling and a reflex, but it's also a verb. And that the way that you love someone, it may not be the way they need to be loved, you know, my, my ex-wife is now remarried for 15 years and her current husband is a wonderful guy, but we are almost nothing alike, you know, like he's the quiet type, he's a therapist, he's very chill, very patient. And I'm kind of none of those things. Are you dating now? Dating is not my priority. I joke that the law is like the harshest mistress because it's absolutely impossible to plan your life in any way, like a social life in any way, because on any given day I can say, "Okay, I'm going to be free tomorrow. I have a wide open day." And then you get a call that there's some kind of an emergency and you end up either writing a motion all day or in court all day. So after a lot of post-diverse attempts at having a stable relationship with another person, I think I came to the realization that a lot of people in my profession do who do it at the level I do it, which is you either have to be in a very established relationship that you have the ability to sort of say, "Hey, I'm going to be totally unreliable, but I'll see you when I see you," and you have that bond that's deep enough, or you have to just say, "Yeah, this is like not what something I have the bandwidth for." Because I think a lot of people, and I see this representing celebrities, like a lot of people think dating a celebrity is going to be really fun, and then they do it, you know? And the person will say, like, "Yes, you thought it was really fun that I was like on set and that I was traveling to all these things, and then after a little while, the reality of that is like, "Oh, this is really not fun." Like, it's really not fun to have a partner that you just never know when they're going to be around and they're constantly canceling plans. And so I think that, you know, there's chapters in life, and that's not the chapter. When you do date, what's their reaction to the fact that you're a divorce attorney? I think that, you know, it's an interesting profession, so I think people find that interesting. I think anytime I talk to anybody, they find it interesting. It's an interesting job. Yeah. I mean, it's a, yeah, I'm a tattooed divorce lawyer who does media stuff. You're a vine. It's kind of weird. Yeah, it's a whole thing. I don't, yeah, I think that it's an interesting, for anybody, it's an interesting thing. But, you know, again, like, I think what's interesting and what makes good ingredients for relationships are sometimes different. Like, I just finished a case where I was representing a woman who's married to a very successful chef. And she was saying how when they dated, like, it was the coolest thing in the world, dating a chef, because you could get into any restaurant any time and like, they would always like bring you in the back and yeah, and like, and at home, yeah, he would like make cool stuff for her. She's like, and then we like settled in together and every holiday he's not around. Like, especially all the ones that people would normally go out to dinner with their loved ones. And she's like every weekend he was working and the hours were insane. And then like, at the end of every night, like all the servers everybody gets together and they don't have drinks. And there was always like young hostesses, you know, and she was like, it just in practice, that is not a place to build a stable life if that's what you want. You know, so I think what makes for an exciting boyfriend or girlfriend versus what makes for someone that you can have a stable relationship with. And a lot of people, although they might say, oh, I just want to have fun. How long do you really just want to have fun for? And if you just want to have fun, like, what would you be looking for if it's just somebody fun? Like, you could find somebody other than a late middle aged, you know, dude. So I think that it's, it's definitely a question. People, I make a living off the fact that people don't ask themselves practical pragmatic questions when making decisions about their romantic relationships. But you help them do that. And you actually say that people should talk to a divorce attorney before they get married. I think so. Yeah. Why? Well, I mean, if you were trying to learn about how to keep your car in good running condition, I think the last person you should talk to is someone at a car dealership. I think the person you should talk to is a mechanic to tell you all the things that could go. Well, they're going to tell you, here's all the points of failure. Like on this particular car, the brakes always go. Or the, you know, the engine needs this kind of maintenance and they could give you the preventative maintenance. But you go to a car dealership. They're going to tell you like, it's like go to a bridal show. Like they're just going to tell you all the wonderful things. They're not going to talk about anything real and pragmatic. And by the way, people often don't want to hear it. Like they don't want to hear it. We're in that that lofty, heady, romantic space. If you say, by the way, you're having fun up there, but can I tether you to the ground for a minute? They're like, no, like I'm having so much fun up here. And I don't blame them. Like it's lovely. Like there's another early days of any relationship is the greatest intoxication ever. We fall in love incredibly fast. And we fall out of love the way we go bankrupt very slowly and then all at once. And that's, you know, a lot of what my messaging is, you can't, there's like no course to take. There's no, you know, there's nothing special to do. There's no product to buy. It's really about like paying attention and making very small preventative maintenance choices in your relationship. Just staying connected to your work. Like what? So let's be Debbie Downer. What was you tell somebody before? I don't think it's actually Debbie Downer. What I would tell people is, you know, look at your relationship at the risk of being unsentimental, a little bit like a job. Like you, when you're unemployed, you want a job. Like you'll take any job, but you want a career. Like you want something satisfying. And so you put on your best suit and you get your resume out there. And then you get the interview and you leave the interview and you call everybody you know and you go, Oh my God, like I think I did, I think this was good. I think the interview was good. And it's not just like a job like this could this has growth, like this has growth potential long term 401k benefits. Like this is like this could be a career. This isn't just like a gig, like a hustle. Like this is a thing. This is it. And then you get the job and you show up and you're like, Oh my God, it's my first week of work. I can't wait and you like get your new bag or whatever it is and you're so excited and for a little while, you're still. And then like a few months and you're like, Yeah, that's my job. What is this job? Well, relationships the same thing. Like you, you're looking for your person and then you find your person. You're like, Oh my God, I think I found my person. You tell everybody you know, I think I found my person. And then you like do the whole pageantry and the ceremony of it and then you get them and you're like, I cool, I got this person. And then you just start rolling your eyes about the person. You stop really doing the things you did, like the giving them the grace that you were giving them during the and again, there's a level of like, you know, rosiness that I think is delusional. Like when you, you know, when you have on rose colored glasses, all the red flags look like flags. So I'm not saying everybody should just, you know, stay in that space of just giving their partner the grace forever to do whatever they want. Like you do in your first dating. But I do think there's a difference between that and like, you know, you know, women were in relationships that are doing the like, yeah, my husband or my boyfriend. And we all know the guy who's like, you know, my girl, my girlfriend, like she's most loved some harpie ever to castrate him in, you know, like and you're just sort of look at them and go, why? What are you doing? Just wake up. Like there's eight billion people in the world. I think you have to ask yourself if you should be in the relationship you've already answered that question. But I think you're absolutely right. But I also think that you don't just go from that like intoxicated madly in love. There's eight billion people in the world and you're the one I'm picking to, you know, like there's this slow slide. And I, I guess all I'm trying to say is it doesn't have to go that way. Like if you, I really think there's little unsexy things you can do. Like what does it take to send your partner a text? Hey, I heard that song on the radio today and I was thinking of you. What does it take to leave your girlfriend a note that says, Hey, it was so fun hanging out watching Netflix with you last night. I have the prettiest girl in the world. Like what is that 30 seconds? Doesn't cost anything. Who wouldn't want to get that? Who wouldn't want that note? Who wouldn't want that little text just saying, you're so handsome. You're so beautiful. I'm so lucky. Like what does it take to do that? It takes almost nothing. But there's this feeling, well, I don't owe this person that and you're absolutely right. You don't owe anybody anything. Like you don't have to be in a relationship. But if you're going to be in a relationship, wouldn't you want to like give and radiate that same kind of connection that you would love to have from your partner? And by the way, isn't that the best way to know if the relationship's worth having? If you're radiating that in their direction and they're not radiating it back, then maybe that's when you go, okay, exit visas are imminent here. Because that's the best way to do it. But like don't complain if your partner isn't like honoring you and making you feel seen and loved in the same way that you're not honoring them and not making them to see. Yeah, be the change. Also, my husband and I talk about each other as boyfriend and girlfriend. Is not love or like I'm getting my fiance to because we were all of those things. And don't you want him to be your boyfriend forever? Totally. And don't you want to be his girlfriend? Absolutely. Because there's nothing more like your girlfriend. You're constantly trying to close the deal. And your girlfriend, you're constantly trying to impress. And I'm not suggesting that there shouldn't be a level in a long term relationship of, hey, I don't have to put on this persona. I can just be my messy self. I think it's one of the most beautiful things about being in a relationship. But there is real value and still making your partner feel handsome and smart and capable. Like every single man in the world gay, straight, all of us open a jar of pickles in front of us. So I can't get this open. Whatever age we are, we can't wait to be the hero. We can't wait to open that jar of pickles for you. Like there is no one who doesn't want to be of value and purpose to their partner. And it's not that hard to make someone feel seen and loved and important. And I tell my male friends all the time, particularly my heterosexual male friends, I tell them all the time. Like, you know, when they, when they send a text to their wife or their girlfriend in the middle of the day, just saying, like, oh, I was thinking of you. I'm like, that's the equivalent of her sending you needs. Do you understand? Like, that's like, it's literally the same thing. It's saying like, you're special. I see you. I haven't forgotten you. You're on my mind. You're in my heart. That takes nothing to do. And I really think it's the antidote to the slippage that occurs in the absence of that kind of thing. So from everybody that you've represented, you think that the commonality to mitigate getting to that icky divorce place is just doing those small things. Yeah, they just stopped doing the thing. They stopped doing the thing that they used to do. One, or both of them stopped doing the thing. Now, I'm not suggesting there aren't people who choose a partner who is incompatible with them, where there are fundamental differences, or where there are some intervening circumstances like mental health issues, substance use issues, that impact what was a functional relationship. But most of the time in my experience, we want to point to big things like infidelity and financial impropriety and say, that's the reason we got divorced. But I tend in 25 years of practicing divorce law and representing the cheater and the cheater on the perpetrator of domestic violence and the victim of domestic violence. I've represented both sides of every single issue in 25 years and I've represented people from Main Street to Wall Street. I've represented people who were, the beginning of my career was like cops and teachers and now it's hedge fund managers and celebrities. And we all suck at this, by the way. It's the great commonality. Great equalizer. It really is. Like it really, really is. I represent someone who won an Emmy and I represent their housekeeper. They're in very different tax brackets and have very different life experiences and their marriages failed for very similar reasons. Because this is not something that you're just born with knowing how to do, I think it's actually a teachable skill though. We spend a lot of time trying to teach the quadratic formula to people and teaching them that, you know, like sodium and chloride at the table salt. At the agree zero. It's fully none. Zero time. Like none time. Not one forever. But understanding like how to have a conversation with your romantic partner, like the importance of checking in with them. How to tell someone something they don't want to hear in a way that doesn't make them instantly defensive. Like those are really, I think easy teachable skills. Like how many men I will tell you, I've met so many men who, one of their chief complaints in their marriage is, we used to have so much more sex and now we don't have as much sex. And if you say to those guys, have you ever brought the topic up, they'll often say, oh yeah. And I'll say, what did you say? And they'll say, I said, hey, why are we having sex as much as we used to? I'm like, did you think that was going to go well? Like that's an accusatory way of bringing that up. It's going to bring out nothing but defensiveness. I'm like, whereas, didn't anybody ever tell you like, there's another way to have that conversation. Like what if you said to her, you know what, I happened yesterday. I was driving past that restaurant that we went to on like our third date. I don't know if you remember it. We drove past it. And I was thinking about how like we went out on that and then we literally didn't leave my apartment for two days. And I was thinking about like how like, oh my god, that was like so much fun. Like I remember when we were like, we never care in the world and we were just, okay, now you've primed the pump. Like you're bringing her back to this shared memory that the two of you had. And now, like now you're there and you're kind of like, oh, she's there with you and she loved that moment too, you know? And now we're not bringing out something defensive. Like every couple, like I guarantee you and your husband have some core memories from the early days of your relationship that when you go back there in your memory, your wild about him again, the way you were back then and he's the same way towards you. So bringing the person back to, why don't we teach people this? This is so easy. It's so it doesn't cost anything. You don't need to take a whole course. It's just a simple way to talk about things in a way that doesn't bring up defensiveness. But we don't teach this to anybody. We'd rather so derision and division and have the girls versus boys conversation that the algorithm keeps shoving down all of our throats where everything wrong for women is men's fault. Everything wrong for men is women's fault. Every time a woman says, man, it's really hard to be a woman, man or condition to hear it as and it's easy being a man. And similarly, when a man says, man, it's hard to be a man sometimes, women are conditioned to hear it as, oh, and it's easy being a woman. Like that's what the algorithm shoving down our throats. And the truth is, like a world where women are flailing is not a world where men are thriving and a world where men are flailing is not a world where women will be thriving. Like we need each other. We're stuck with each other. Like this is a knife fight in a closet. It's not going to end well, you know? Just start stabbing like the lights are off. We're going to hurt each other. So why don't we like stop and try to hear each other a little more and start to sort of have the conversation be one about, I don't know what it's like to be a woman. Help me understand that. You know, you don't know what it's like to be a man. I'd like to help you understand that so we can love each other better and we can do a better job of hearing each other and seeing each other and making each other feel loved because I don't just want to love someone. I want them to feel my love. Yeah, it's not just communicating. Everybody says that's the key to it, but it's how you communicate. What does that mean? Like I love when people say like, you know, I mean, we're both in professions where everybody just loves to give these platitudes that sound more like a roomy poem than anything of value. You know, like what you have to invest wisely. What does that mean? Like 10 people could define that differently. You have to communicate better. What does that mean? Like I need practical answers. Like what should I do with my money? Should I be in bonds? What should I be doing? Like I need practical wisdom. You know, I want real advice. Same thing with this like communicator. You need to stay connected to your partner. What does that mean? Does that mean we should have a date night? Does it mean we should go on vacation more? Does it mean I should send her a telegraph? Like what? Give me some practical solutions to this very real practical problem I'm having and I'm all ears. And I think that's what the world is not getting when it comes to relationships. Well, divorce everything is so expensive and so draining. Yeah. Getting married is not. Do you think that there should be a higher barrier to entry for marriage? Yeah, you know, it's a great question. It's I think it's the question where people should be asking everybody's so caught up in like, you know, no fault divorce made it too easy to get divorced. And it's like that's like saying like, well, you know, like hospitals are so easy to get into now. So that's probably why people like break their limbs more often. And it's like, I don't think people are making. Cause I've shan call it. Yeah. I don't think that you think you got it mixed up. I think if you wanted to increase the success of marriages, you would make it something that you have to work a little harder to get, you know, it's the most legally significant thing you'll ever do other than dying. And when you do it, no one explains to you legally what you just did. Like you've opted out of the title system. Yeah, but like it's the only contract that you don't actually sign. Like you sign a marriage license, but it doesn't have the terms and conditions in it. It doesn't say by signing this document, you've opted out of the title system, opted into a system of spousal support. And by the way, it can be changed by the state legislator or the state in which you reside at the time of a divorce, which could be changed anytime. But you're son, when you sign, you sign up for all of that. You sign up for all. Well, that's why I always tell people every marriage has a prenup. Every marriage has a prenup. It's either one that's written by the government and gets to be changed by the government without your consent, or it's one that's written by the two people that claim to love each other more than the eight billion other options. Now to me, whatever your political leanings left right or the disgruntled middle, the truth is at some point in the last 15 years, you've looked at the government and went, what are these people doing? They should not be in charge of anything. Okay. Whatever side of the aisle on it, some point in the last 15 years, you've looked at the government and said, I don't trust them. Okay. So why would you trust a future government of a state that you don't know which state it'll be that you'll be residing in in the event that your marriage ends? Why would you trust that future imagined politician with making the rules set for your marriage? That's insane. But people do it all the time because it's easier to just trust that than to have a potentially difficult conversation. We talked a lot about prenups on the show. So I don't want to get into the blocking of tackling. We'll link some of those episodes to show notes. But I do want to ask you about what's enforceable because you have a story of somebody you've represented that blew my mind about what's enforceable or not. I always told that the crazy clauses like the weight game clauses or the fidelity clauses that hanging out, the in-laws clauses, all of that stuff, were not enforceable. Yeah. I don't know who's telling you that because the truth is they are enforceable. It depends on the jurisdiction that you're in. The UK certainly has a less enforceability approach towards prenuptial agreements. But the major states, California, New York, Florida, they have contract laws very well settled law. Now what I think a lot of people are probably mistakenly characterizing as the prenup not being enforceable is a prenup that's not drafted properly. So for example, a fidelity clause that does not very clearly define with specificity what is infidelity for the purposes of that clause. And it doesn't specifically delineate what the penalty is and the penalty isn't so severe as to make the entire contract what's called unconscionable, which is a deal that is so unfair and lopsided that no reasonable person would offer it and no fair dealing person would ever accept it with full knowledge of facts. Like, yeah, if you don't draft things the right way, they're not enforceable. That's how prenups work. This is what people tend to do is they tend to like go online and find a $20 prenup that they have a clause or chat GPT. do a prenup for them. And then when it fails because it was badly drafted and they never showed it to a lawyer, they go, Oh, prenups aren't enforceable. Okay, that's not, that's like me trying to build a car from spare parts I found at a junkyard and then saying cars are very dangerous. Like no, cars built by an idiot who knows nothing about cars are very dangerous. It doesn't mean like a Volvo wouldn't be super safe. So I think those clauses can be an R. I mean, that case is a factual case. You can look it up. I mean, it was a, I didn't write the prenup, but it was a well drafted prenup. And it was a very wealthy man. It was marrying a woman who'd been a model for extended period of time. And the economy between the two of them was fairly clear. Like he was rich and she was hot. And that was kind of there what they both brought to the table. And they had a provision in their prenuptial agreement. Again, I didn't write it, but it was written by a very experienced attorney here in New York, who was very reputable and a good drafts person, a curmudgeonly drafts person. And it defined one of the terms was for every 10 pounds that the bride gained from the date of marriage to the date of what was called an operative event. So separation or divorce, she would lose $10,000 a month in Alamoney. And you know, there was even a procedure as to like what her base weight was at the time of marriage and how the weight would be determined for the purposes of enforceability. Which again, for me as a lawyer was what I was interested in. I was like, if so I would do the weigh in when I got married with like pennies in my pockets and like I'd be wearing my heavy shoes. And then when I did the weigh in at divorce, I would be like a wrestler wearing like the sweatsuit in the sauna, you know, to try to be as light as possible. But or you wouldn't marry this could create the judge said the judge actually said this is a bullish clause. The, you know, I don't, I can't imagine why you married someone who insisted on having this clause in the agreement. However, it's a contract and you were both represented by council. She read it. She knew what she was signing. She not only read it. She was represented by council who made modifications to it. Like they made modifications to that provision. What some of the evidence that came in at the hearing was prior drafts. And there had been like multiple revisions to that provision so that they both like found a common ground. And it was bargain for consideration. And she, by the way, she's still got like $50,000 a month in all. And these were, these were people with literally billions of dollars. But. And you represented this dude. I represented the dude. How did that feel? Um, you know, I represent the client and I represent the system. And I don't always believe in the client, but I always believe in the system. You didn't believe in this client. I mean, I believed in him to the extent that I have to do the job. But you know, anytime somebody says to me, how can you represent this person, whether it's a perpetrator of domestic violence or someone who is bullish in that way? My attitude is if you don't believe in our legal system, it's a fundamental tenant of our democracy. Like I, I, I have, maybe I'm overly patriotic, but like we have a flawed legal system. It's the worst one in the whole world except for all the other ones. Like I think we have a pretty good job of it. And so it requires Ellis advocacy within the bounds of law. So I'm not going to like go to bat and then the rules for that guy, but I'm going to do my job. And I didn't like that. I don't hang out with any of my clients. Like they're my clients. They're not my friends. They don't want me to be, they don't want to be friends. I first of all, I'm not very fun to have as a friend because all I do is work. And second of all, like you know, you're hiring me to do a task. And my job is to go in and do that task. I'm a weapon really. And, and a weapon in the hands of someone who's trying to protect people is a really useful, positive force for good. A weapon in the hands of a villain is incredibly dangerous and does a lot of damage. So I have the pleasure of occasionally getting to do a lot of really good for a worthy person. And sometimes I represent an awful person. One of the things I said to my son, my older son is an attorney himself now. He doesn't do family law. Thank God. I said to him when he went to law school, that the truth has a way of coming out. Like in court, the truth has a way of coming out. Sometimes despite my best efforts to the contrary, the truth has a way of coming out. When I lose, I don't usually get out-loyered. I lose because the truth comes out. Despite my best efforts to obfuscate it, throw up red herrings, detract the court's attention from it. It has a way of coming out. Our system works a lot of the time. But, you know, is it, does it feel good when you're representing somebody who's doing so? I mean, that was just sort of, look, I don't feel too bad for that woman. Like she signed this thing. Like she married this person. And by the way, he was ogresh. Like this was not a guy. Like you didn't look at these two people and go, oh, yes, they must have just met somewhere in fell in love. You looked at them and went, oh, he's rich and she's gorgeous. Like there's no, and there, by the way, there didn't seem to be a lot of substance to her. And there was absolutely no beauty to him. So they both knew what they signed up for in that transaction. Like I've felt bad representing some people. That's right. That marriage, yes. That was a transaction. Listen, I use very unsentimental language when I'm talking about marriage because I consider marriage an economy. And like any economy, I mean, you understand economy is better than most people. And economy is an exchange of value, you know? So how many apples is an apple worth? Well, it's a dumb question. Apple's worth an apple. But how many pine apples is an apple worth? Okay, now we're having an economy, right? So it's harder to grow a pineapple and you have to bring it from different places. So there's going to be more apples in exchange for a pineapple. Okay. How much someone is willing to pay for that? What is beauty worth? What is love and affection worth? What is financial stability and security worth? How much of one will you trade for the other? That's what marriages are. Like you didn't get married because you and your husband bring exactly the same things to the table and you're the exact same person. Like you don't need another person to be you, you're you. Like, but can you learn everything you need to know about yourself from yourself? No. Like can you see your blind spots? No, that's why they're blind spots. So you get into a relationship because there's some polarity and because the other brings other things to that economy. So I don't think it's a dirty word. Like I think if we really broke down your marriage or any marriage, you bring certain things and he brings certain things and sometimes it's the same things. We listen to each other. We support each other. We have affection for each other. We give each other physical affection. But I bet there's some things you bring to the relationship that he does and some weak spots that you shore up in the relationship and he's probably got some strengths that you know shore up things that you aren't as strong in and that's the beauty of a good relationship is that you have some similarities and some polarities and it's like just a healthy little ecosystem that the two of you develop together. For sure, I didn't want to marry myself or sleep with myself. Absolutely. But let's dig into the enforceability of this prenup clause. Prenapp is your contracts. So hold on. Laura Walser was on the show. Sure. You know, I love Laura Walser. Yeah. I love. I actually send a lot of business to Laura. She is such a badass like you. She's great. Incredible divorce attorney. She came on the show and said that these clauses around sex and weight because there have been some gnarly ones that she's seen to are not enforce the episode. I was shouting at my radio, but yes, I have a radio. Yeah. Well, my car is the call to the radio. But yes, I was listening to the podcast. Yeah, I mean, listen, Laura and I might respectfully disagree on this. I think that California is a little different than New York and she's a California lawyer. So I will say California, for example, in prenups is not as generous when it comes to total waivers of spousal support whereas New York enforces that. Maybe New York is more mercenary than California. I mean, I guess I wouldn't be the first person to say that. But yeah, I'm glad that she wasn't giving that advice to the New York audience because we would have to agree to disagree on or maybe it's just the lawyer. So maybe she got it. I mean, Laura is without question one of the best divorce lawyers in the world. So I certainly would not ever bet against Laura in a courtroom. I send a lot of clients in her direction because there's a lot of people that are New York City and LA and they have homes in both especially celebrities. So we have these jurisdictional battles sometimes of which place would be more favorable. And anytime it's a client that has some potential connection to California. I was sent him to Laura and her firm. Laura is not a one woman operation. She manages an excellent firm and has nothing but an A team of people in there. So I always feel very comfortable sending people to her. But yeah, I mean, I think we might disagree on our experience with this. I think if there is a place to attack something, Laura will find the place to attack it. So I don't find it hard to believe that she has probably managed to find little of vulnerabilities in those contracts and found ways to try to set them aside. That's why, but I will tell you, I bet if anybody I know could do it drafting a pre-napped provision, for example, with a fidelity clause or a weight clause that was the most likely to be enforced, it would be Laura or someone on her team because those are very high level attorneys. And most of us in the high net worth high level space, we all know what to do to make something enforceable. So it sounds like you can put whatever you want in a pre-napped. The enforceability is up to the talent of the lawyer. Yes. And just like a non, just like any, look at a pre-napped like any other contract. So for example, a non-compete, right? Like if you make a non-compete that is too broad or has no duration to its time limitation, it will not be enforced. So you can put anything you want in a contract. The question is, will it be enforceable? And if it's not enforceable, will it set aside everything else in the contract? Will it create a house of cards that when that clause falls, the rest of the thing falls too? So an Art Fullerton. drafts person is going to draft a prenuptial agreement where there are what we call non-severability clauses, which say that if one clause falls, the other ones stay in full force in effect, and we're going to very clearly define things and make sure we do it in a way that's not contrary to public policy, creating an enforceability issue. But I will tell you, I mean, I consider myself a very good lawyer. I have had a very low level of success at setting aside prenuptial agreements. I mean, and I think most very skilled attorneys, probably Laura included, will tell you when it is a well-crafted prenuptial agreement drafted by an experienced attorney where both parties were represented by council when they executed it. If you are the party trying to set it aside, you are in the disadvantaged position. So I don't, you know, listen, in a courtroom and a negotiating table, I'll say whatever crazy thing I need to say to try to get the job done. But behind closed doors, somebody comes in to me and says, yeah, I hate this contract that was negotiated, fairly drafted by skilled attorneys and we were both represented by council. I'm going to say to them, listen, I don't think you have a good chance. We can put on a show. We can do the best we can. We can try to use the potential expense of trying to set it aside, you know, like nuisance value. By the way, most good prenupts have provisions in them that say that if you unsuccessfully try to set aside this prenupt, or you ask for relief outside of this prenupt and you're not granted it by a court, you have to pay the reasonable council fees of the party who was trying to uphold the meaning. If you try to get out of that prenupt and you know you signed it and did all the things going into it, but then at the end, you try to say, you try to set it aside later on. And so it should be important that you can be responsible for the reasonable legal fees of the person seeking to uphold the contract. It's to prevent nuisance value suits where a person comes in and says, listen, I know I'm not getting this prenupt set aside, but I'm going to make you spend $50,000 in legal fees. So if you give me an extra 40 grand that I'm not entitled to, I won't make you go through that exercise. It's to disincentivize that. So if you're a regular person trying to get a prenupt going to like hello prenupt.com, something like that. That's my competitor trusted prenupt is my company. Trust the prenupt going online to do something that's pretty boilerplate. Yeah. You just want to make sure that you have a lawyer for each side taking a look at it. I think that's always good. And what I will say is even though my company trusted prenupt and hello prenupt are sort of competitors, I know Julian and her team at hello prenupt and they have an excellent product as well. We have a slightly different system that we use in terms of our software interface and the AI behind our products, but they have a good prenupt. They put together a good prenupt. They have good legal minds behind it. Laura is actually an attorney advisor for that company. My company was crafted using my stuff and some of the attorneys that I work with. But we all put together prenupts that we know are enforceable and that are, you know, include. Thankfully, we've leveraged both companies of leverage technology and experience to create prenupts that are customizable within the state that you're in. But both hello prenupt and trusted prenupt and any attorney who is worth listening to will tell you, you should bring it to an attorney and have it reviewed. And both hello prenupt and trusted prenupt have services where you can bundle in and we have referral attorneys who we've vetted very carefully. Both companies do that. So, you know, there's a right way to do things and all of the companies that are doing that in the space that are well known, hello prenupt, trusted prenupt, we all do it the same way to some degree, which is we all want it to be a carefully crafted customized document that you should take to an attorney and it should be an attorney who's been vetted and is a specialist in family law and knows what they're doing. And you can put those crazy clauses in there if you want? I mean, you can. Again, I don't encourage people to put those clauses in. I don't think that there's a lot of value in putting those clauses in. Like I think fidelity, fidelity clauses is the most common thing that people talk about. Like I'm only once or twice had someone suggest a weight clause and you just have to give them the look and most of the times, like, yeah, never mind. But like fidelity clauses, you can have whole, like a couple of times a week somebody will suggest a fidelity clause to me. And I have to have the very harsh conversation with them about the fact that is this really going to disabuse anybody of cheating? Like do you think anybody is ever thinking about cheating and then goes, I don't want to have a $10,000 penalty for having had sex with this other person? And by the way, like, let's put this in a really personal context, you know? If you went home and said to your husband, you know, I met like four guys when I was in New York who I really wanted to have sex with. But you know, we're married and we promised we're not going to sleep with other people. So I'm holding up my side of the bargain. Do you think he would go, that's so great, baby, you're so awesome. Like if he said that to you, you would be like, don't do me any favors. You met a bunch of women, you want to have sex with them then? Like I don't, I don't think, I think in the right permutation of monogamy, you should have sex with as many people as you want to. And that would be just the one, right? Because that's the one you chose. Whether it's in a free number or not. Whether, what would you feel good if somebody said, listen, I'm not going to sleep with other people because we signed this contract. Like no, I'm not going to sleep with other people because I don't want to sleep with other people. Like I'm not going to eat because I'm not hungry. Like I'm not going to have sex with other people because I'm happy having sex just with you. Like I would not want someone to say, you know, I really want to have sex with other people but we signed a contract. Like that seems insane to me. So that fidelity clause usually looks like what? If somebody cheats, you have to pay a penalty. Usually there's a penalty. Lower alimony. It could be that. That could be the penalty. It could be a lower alimony. It could be, I mean, there used to be in New York and many other jurisdictions, if you could prove adultery, the person couldn't ask for alimony. And that's why like the image of the divorce lawyer sitting next to the private investigator with binoculars and the camera, like with the telephoto lens, it's like ingrained in people's cultural memory. That's been gone for a really long time. And proving adultery in court is surprisingly difficult. Like in New York, we had to prove what's called inclination and opportunity. So inclination was you had to show that there was some tangible evidence other than the testimony of the paramour, the alleged paramour, the other person they're supposedly having sex with because they didn't want it to be able to be weaponized like to call people as witnesses. So you had to have some third party evidence. It would be like a letter or be photographs of someone going in and out of a hotel or something. Something that shows that there was an inclination that they were attracted to each other and then opportunity, meaning that they were somewhere where they could have had sex, which by the way is the funniest thing in the world because we've had cases where it was like, you know, a dentist having sex with their dental hygienist, but it's not like they were going into a motel. They would just have sex in the dentist chair, you know, or in the office. You know, like people have sex in offices all the time. So it's- >> You don't want to be in that dentist chair. >> You don't want to be in that dentist. >> Yeah, but although, you know, there is, it's lots of sanitary stuff around. I guess it's a sterile environment. Just not sexy. I've never been in a dentist's office and thought like, oh, yeah, you know, it's not really a sexy environment. But who knows, maybe there would be dentist fetishes out there, you never know. >> But there are some sex clauses too. Like we have to have sex a certain- >> You've put that in there. I mean, the question, like as a lawyer, it doesn't matter what I know. What matters is what I can prove. So if somebody says like, oh, I want to put in a clause that talks about how often we have sex, how are you going to prove how often you add sex to make that clause enforceable? Like a clause that- >> When you're wearing- >> That's not enforceable. Why have- You know, or a ring though, is or a ring really going to know you're having sex? I mean, Apple Watches, like sometimes you're having sex and just thinks you're doing yoga or going for a walk, you know. >> Okay. All right. So we'll get off the prenup soap box. Everybody should have one. Otherwise, it defaults to your state. >> Well, everybody has one. It's just should be one that the two of you write. >> You've seen anecdotally though that people who have prenups are less likely to get to one? >> Yeah, look, it's an unfalcifiable premise. But what I'll tell you is the following. The thing about prenups is they're not filed anywhere. It's not like it's on contract with the state and that it's like held somewhere and that you can look up someone's prenup. That's not how it works. The prenup is in the safe of the lawyer who drafted it and each party has a copy of it. Like that's where it is. Like I've seen celebrities on TV being interviewed saying how they don't have a prenup and I'm like, yes, yes, they do. It's in my safe. Like I've joked that if TMZ went into the safe in my office, the bolts safe, they would be so much stuff in there because there's so many people's prenups and thumb drives that have video evidence of people. There's all kinds of chaos in there. >> I would love to get into that. >> Yeah, leave me. It's fascinating. The people who work for me have to sign NDAs all day long because you learn so much stuff and you never look at people. Like I can't watch TV because I invariably see somebody that I'm like, he likes feet. I just know stuff about people that I wish I didn't know. >> Who likes feet? >> Lots of people like feet, apparently. I don't know why. It's not my thing, but I don't want to yuck anybody's yum. It's not in my business. If it makes you happy and it doesn't scare the horses, I don't care. But the truth is, there are a lot of really personal things you learn as a divorce lawyer. I mean, about a lot of people, like a huge cross-section of humanity. >> But I guess what you could infer is that if somebody can have that type of conversation going into the marriage. It's more likely to be successful to have those conversations. >> I believe that. Because I believe having the prenup conversation is actually quite romantic. Because I think at its core, it's a conversation about what do we mean to each other and what do we owe each other. And there's a song by Prince. I was a big Prince fan. There's a great song by Prince Off the Album Sign at the Times called If I Was Your Girlfriend. And it's a song sung by a man to his girlfriend. But the idea is, if I was your girlfriend, like if I was friends with you, like instead of being your boyfriend, if I was your girlfriend. Lyriks are like, you know, would you let me dress you or help help you pick out your clothes before we went out? Like would you let me do your hair? Like it's just this like how would our relationship be different if I was your girlfriend instead of your boyfriend? And one of the lines is would you run to me if somebody hurt you even if that somebody was me? And I always thought that was such a like romantic line. Like the idea that someone would love you so much that they want to protect you from everything including them. A future imagined version of them. And so to me as a man who wants a woman who I'm in a romantic relationship with to feel protected. Like I want you to feel protected from everything including me. Like I want you to feel safe. Yeah. And this like I've represented victims of domestic violence. You can't feel loved if you don't feel safe. Like feeling safe is the most fundamental aspect of love. And so really what is love but feeling like your heart is really safe with this other person. And so to me like the most beautiful thing about being in love is that like I'm going to show you all the parts of me even the parts that are weak and I'm ashamed of. And you're going to say, oh I see them and I love you anyway. Like what a lovely thing. What what what what the best thing in the world that is, you know. So to me like part of making someone feel safe is what do you need to feel safe in this relationship? And like I do a ton of pre-nubs and I just finished one last week where you know it was starting to turn to like a heated negotiation because the lawyer on the other side was treating it like you would treat the negotiation attendant to a divorce which is the total opposite of a pre-nub. Like instead of two people that have decided they're ending their romantic relationship. These are two people who have chosen each other out of the eight billion options and are now trying to like start this process. So it created this like disconnect between the two people. And they were like getting into positional bargaining where it was like well he wants this well I want this and it was like positions. And you know I'm sure you're familiar with the story. I used to teach a negotiation class at NYU. And it's a story of lemons. Do you know sorry about the lemons. So if I'm talking to you it's a point about positional bargaining and why positional bargaining is inferior to principal based bargaining. So if I if I have a lemon and you want a lemon and I want a lemon. Okay, but we only have one lemon. What's the fairest way to divide the lemon? Split it. Split it in half, right? Okay, that makes sense. No one would argue with that. Great. You wanted the zest for baking. I wanted the juice for lemonade. We could have had a hundred percent of what we wanted if we just taken a second and said wait what do you need a lemon for. But instead we just go well let's cut it in half and you got half of what you needed and throughout the half that I wanted. I got half of what I needed and throughout the half that you wanted and we're all poor for it. Why? Because we didn't say out loud. What are we doing? What do you need? What do you want? Right? So that's what a prenup conversation should be. It's a conversation about what are you scared of? Like what are you afraid of? And by the way, like as someone who's a fan of therapy and in therapy. I think the most powerful question you can ask when you decide to go to therapy is what is it I'm afraid to feel? Like what is it I don't want to feel when I pick up a drink or I pick up a drug or I go to work for 14 hours a day and like you're just focus only on that. What is it I don't want to think about? What is it I don't want to feel? What do I want to get away from feeling? Right? Right. What am I numbing with exercise or work or whatever your choice of drug might be? Right? So ask yourself what is it I don't want to feel? What is it I'm afraid of? And I don't think it's crazy if someone has a tremendous amount of resources for them to say I'm afraid you're going to take these things I work so hard to get. And the other person saying okay, but I'm afraid that like you're going to leave me and I'm going to have like foregone so many opportunities in reliance on the fact that you have so much and we're going to share it. Neither of those is crazy. Like those are both really fair things to be afraid of. So how if we love each other so much that we're about to get married can't I make you feel safe and you make me feel safe and we can figure out some accommodation between these two. And by the way, your prenup can be like your estate planning like whenever somebody says to me I don't do wills but if somebody says to me, oh, should I have a will the answer is always yes. And if they say when should I do my estate planning I would say early and often. So do it as early as you can and do it frequently go back every couple of years and redo it. I mean when you tell listen to you when you tell people to make financial plans you don't say make it once and then set it and forget it and never think about it for the rest of your life. Constantly revisit it constantly looked as this still makes sense my applying a rule set that no longer makes sense for the circumstances of my life. So I think it's the same thing do your prenuptial agreement and then do addentums or modification agreements every couple of years when your family dynamic changes or your asset profile changes or your life circumstances change. It doesn't it can be like a marriage a conversation that's an ongoing conversation. How romantic say I told you don't have to be not can you also include financial infidelity. You can I mean look in any contract you can include all kinds of things the question is do you do it in a way that's enforceable but yeah I think that there should be some provisions there can be provisions about maintaining certain financial transparency. What do you think is worse financial infidelity or sexual infidelity. I think they're the same thing their betrayal their betrayal their betrayal of trust that's what they are and there are betrayal of trust very often. Motivated by the same underlying problem like I represented so many people that have cheated and so many people that have been cheated on. And not one of them ever got up and said I'm going to screw up my life today and I'm going to screw up the life of this other person who I'm going to have an affair with and then I'm really going to screw up my entire family did I like I just think that it be fun like no one does that. Like it really is that there's just some human need for attention affection desire someone's feeling unseen someone's feeling whatever there's and again I'm not saying that excuses it but it explains it a little bit. And what happens is you make a series of small bad choices and then you get so far from sure that well I'm this far I might as well keep going you know and that's how these things happen but it's the same underlying issue which is it's a series of bad decisions and bad choices none of which seemed gigantic at the time you made them and none of which were designed to screw your whole life up but ultimately have that effect so I think any kind of betrayal is very painful and it's hard to recover from. What kind of financial fights or arguments in a relationship are most toxic. I mean I think leverage is a big thing like how how willing someone is to extend credit and to be in debt I think that's a conversation a lot of people don't have about like what is your comfort with a debt structure because those are two really big things what is money mean to you like what is it because money is not about money you know that I mean you talk about that all the time like it is about money but it's not about money it's not about the past that's not the past. It's about the past about like it's about about a million things yeah it's about well and he has someone who grew up without money I remember thinking money was essentially like a symbol for everything I didn't have so like if I had money I would have stability and security and safety and I would feel worthwhile and I would feel successful and how's that worked out you know you get money like it's nice like I've been broken I've been wretched it's way better to be wretched it's really really nice. But money offers you real solutions to imaginary problems and imaginary solutions to real problems like it's you know it's kind of like all technology it's an improvement to an improved end like it's money fixes money problems like some problems are very easily solved by money and that is the greatest blessing in the world to not have to think about how am I going to pay for my health care how am I going to like the fluctuation in the price of eggs does not affect my day to day life in the way that it used to you know like where it was like okay I have some choices I have to make I can either have this or I can I can put gas on in my car and get to work or I can eat something other than ramen you know like or I can go out with friends and eat their coleslaw and pickles because I can't afford to order something at the diner like I've made those choices before I I I've made the choice of I can put money in my kids 529 this month or I can put money in my 401k this month like I've made those choices before not having those choices is a beautiful wonderful thing the fundamental problems of life my mother having cancer I could throw all the money at that you want I got a slightly nicer room its loan catering but it didn't solve the problem right because it can't like the problems of loneliness it can't really solve that problem and if anything you can just you know really distract you from what your real problem is like I represent a lot of incredibly incredibly wealthy very deeply unhappy people like many of whom have addiction issues many of whom have mental health issues many of whom have terrible issues with their children like money we all know that you don't have to watch that much you know internet to see how miserable many celebrities are it's why they're making mental health issues and constantly in legal trouble and constantly getting divorced because it doesn't solve those problems those fundamental human problems but is money still something of incredible importance does it bring great value it can certainly upgrade your misery you know it definitely won't buy happiness but it'll upgrade the quality of your misery that was part one of my conversation with James make sure you're subscribed to money rehab so that you can hear part two when it comes out in a few weeks