Marriage Is the Biggest Financial Risk You’ll Take — ft. James Sexton

I don't think I want to raise girls who are nice. Girls who are nice are pliable and do what other people tell them so that they can be liked. This week on Project Swagger, the incredible Shonda Rives. I felt really overwhelmed after Grace was a giant hit. And then I thought like, well, how am I supposed to do this again? We talk about motherhood, confidence, knowing your worth and adding tax. If you go in already thinking to yourself, I have to take a deal, I have to make this deal. You've already lost. Listen now at Project Swagger. When it comes to home improvement, even the most experienced DIYer has a limit. I'm not going to come in here with the blowtorch and get it hot and solder and put the copper pipes to the couch. I'm not doing it. I call it very nice man to handle it. When to call the experts and when to do it yourself. That's this week on Explain It To Me. My new episodes, Sundays, wherever you get your podcasts. Today's number 49%. That's how much more likely AI chatbots are than humans to validate a user's action. Even if it's deceitful, illegal or harmful. I just asked my ex wife once she wanted for Christmas and she said a divorce. And I said, hmm, that's way too fucking expensive. Listen, they market are bigger than them. What you have here is a structural change in the world. If you should cash, it's trash. Stocks look pretty attractive. Some things got to break. Forget about it. Ed, how are you? I'm doing alright. I'm in New York. Yeah, I'm doing okay. How are you doing? Well, I was fascinating Ed. We don't talk about me enough. Okay, I'm doing great. I'm headed to Florida on Thursday. I'm going to take some time off. My kids are coming with me. They'll get to see their friends. Yeah, I'm super excited. I'm going to Los Angeles to get more projects going that will soon be canceled. Movie projects? Yeah, or TV. My book has been option. Notes on being a man. And it's either going to be a documentary or a seventh time lucky. Yeah, there you go. It's either going to be, I can mock my failure in Hollywood. You cannot. It's either going to be, which you like better, a documentary on young men and the challenges they face, including solutions or an original scripted series that's sort of an R-rated wonder years. Original scripted series. Louis Thoreau already did it and he did it better than anyone could. Yeah, this would be a little bit different. Did you see the atmosphere? I have. I thought it was one of the best documentaries I've seen in years. Well, let's talk about that. What did you take away from that? Honestly, I think my biggest takeaway was the fact that there is an entirely different media ecosystem that is flourishing beneath a lot of people's noses. I mean, I thought Louis, the way he conducted himself, was excellent. And I thought that he, the way he exposed what is happening and the messages that are being put out there by these guys was excellent. But honestly, I think the big takeaway, what I loved about it is that he shined a light on how huge these guys have become. And most people don't really know the names of these people. They don't really know who Justin Waller and Sneakow and H.S. Tickey, Tockey R. But I mean, thousands, hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of young children love these guys. And so what he did was he showed like, this is what is exactly happening. And he didn't, you know, he didn't really miss words about it. He literally went into the, as the documentary says, he went inside of it and he showed us what's really happening there. I hope the way he did it was just excellent. Even the way that they showed how the live streams work and the comments streaming in and how things get reposted and clipped up and repackaged, like it was really a lesson on how media works today in a way that I think a lot of people could honestly benefit from. The Master's starts off positive. The fact that there's a group of people or thought leaders trying to speak to a young man, I think it's a positive thing. And it starts fine, be fit, be action oriented, take responsibility for your life, initiate action. And then it just comes off the tracks. It's all about money. It's all about dominance. It's all about the grief. It's all about misogyny, which is really a shame. But I have another theory I want to lay on you as a young person and I'll be, maybe we'll get Claire's reaction. So 80% of women under the age of 30 now don't have a kid. And I don't think it's because they've decided they don't like kids. I think it's because they're having trouble finding economically and emotionally viable partners. And also there's less venues for men to demonstrate excellence. And I think one of the ways that men demonstrate excellence and bear with me right now, I think that the lack of bars, the lack of venues, the lack of people going out, I think the young people, I think we should have tax subsidies for places that offer dancing. I'm convinced that one of the venues for mating is when people dance and now nobody dances. I just read an article saying the number of times a person under the age of 25 dances is off 60% because they're worried about being filmed and mocked and that people aren't drinking as much so they aren't dancing. And I remember I go back, you know, everything is anecdotal here, but I remember in college, the initial stage is a flirtation. We're dancing with somebody. And we need more dancing in young people's lives. Anyways, Ed and Claire, more dancing. Is that going to, could that be a solve here? I think that's one of the problems, but there are way more problems. I'm not suggesting it's the solve. It's a tax subsidies, right, for places that offer it. My idea is to have subsidies for third places and that is a place we don't work or sleep for the young people get together and the company of each other for no other reason than to do something together. Yeah, I love the idea. I also think some of the best clubs in New York are the ones that don't allow phones on the dance floor for exactly that reason. I mean, I think partying has gotten, has just been ruined by phones and concerts have been ruined by phones. It's kind of sad to go to them these days and everyone just has their phone out recording the situation instead of just living in it. Is that a being in the moment? Yeah. Yeah, instead of being in the moment and meeting people. So clubs that have phone free dance floors, I think, would be a good thing to encourage. All that said, we have our guests in the lobby. Are we good to move on? All right. Let's try our luck. We spend a lot of time on this podcast talking about where young people are struggling and relationships on near the top of the list. Fewer young people are getting into relationships and even fewer are getting married. It's dramatic 60 years ago, more than 75% of 25 year olds were married. Today it's less than 25%. So instead of asking why relationships are breaking down, we brought in someone who sees firsthand how they fall apart. James Sexton is a divorce attorney who spent his career on the front lines of failed marriages, making him uniquely qualified to tell us what not to do. He has been an attorney for 25 years and has earned a place in the top 1% of family law attorneys practicing in New York. So James Sexton, thank you very much for joining us on Prof. G. Markets. Thanks so much for having me. Great to see you guys. So I'll start with a question here. Something that we often talk about on this show is the fact that money seems to be a big problem in relationships. Some people say that it's the number one issue that married couples fight about. We've also seen that it's actually the second leading cause of divorce behind infidelity. I just be curious to get your perspective to what extent has money and money management played a role in the divorces that you've seen over the course of your career? Yeah, I mean, money is a tremendous piece of the puzzle. I think it's not just the money itself, but it's also what the money comes to symbolize for people. I think people who grew up with economic insecurity, money comes to symbolize all the things they didn't have in their life. Money is a symbol of security. Money is a symbol of peace and tranquility, safety, a feeling of not being so afraid. So I think when that gets threatened, it creates tremendous distrust between parties. When people lose their jobs, when there's economic instability, when technological innovation changes the job landscape that has a tremendous effect. There's a high correlation between men losing their job and the divorce rate because there's a significant hit to a man. As men being defined in many cultures as being the provider, the protector, feeling like as a result of factors beyond your control, you've lost your job as a tremendous difficult experience for anyone, but certainly for men when they're defined in their role as a provider. Then you see second order effects that come from that substance use issues as a coping mechanism, men being disincentivized to participate in genuine things like therapy that might be a better solution than trying to pour whiskey on the shame. You see money underneath all these things, but I always try to say to people, even when you're talking about infidelity, we want simple explanations for the complex problem of a divorce and the breakdown of a relationship. I think people get divorced the same way they go bankrupt very slowly and then all at once. No single range drops responsible for the flood, but all of these little things add up. Then there is some final indignity, some final moment, whether that's infidelity. whether that's financial and propriety, that really is the straw that breaks the camel's back. And I see that both with when I used to represent the cop and the teacher and all they really have is a 401k and a house. And now I represent billionaires and they have some of the same problems. There's just no, if $100 million is it enough, 500's not gonna be enough, if a billion's not enough, 8 billion's not gonna be enough. And I think that has a lot of second order effects on relationships. James is really good to see you. I feel like if I know you, I see you so much on TikTok, the algorithm, it consistently says, "You'll be interested in what this guy has to say." So you see couples on the back end after it's gone south. Do you have kids, James? I do, you and I both are fathers of sons. I'm a little further down the road. I have a 26 year old and a 28 year old. So if you had, I would imagine, at this point, you're asked on the front end for advice around how to avoid ever seeing you or your colleagues. What, you've talked really eloquently about some of the red flags in a relationship. If you were to advise people who are thinking about getting married and say, "And by the way, "I don't expect any of them to listen, to listen." I find that when people are in that situation, they don't listen to, by the way, I've found it as a no-win situation to tell your friend not to get married. 'Cause they get married anyway, but they tell their spouse that you told them not to get married. Anyway, so what are the two or three red flags? You would say you really wanna be mindful of if you're thinking about getting married in a partner or in the relationship more broadly. I am very much a believer still in marriage. I think the value that a good marriage adds to someone's life is just beyond measure and I think on every level. But I think marriage is like the lottery, you're probably not gonna win. But if you win, what you win is so good that it would be really difficult to argue you shouldn't buy the ticket. And unlike the lottery, you can actually do things to improve your chances of success in a marriage. And I think the red flags are actually sort of the counter of what I would see as what you need to do for the marriage to be a successful and stable one. And I think you're a divorced man, I'm a divorced man. Like we learn, I learn from my mistakes. I have to step on the rake in order to learn how to do something well. And I think sometimes people who've been divorced or have shepherded hundreds, if not thousands now, people through a divorce, we get a very unique view of, okay, here's where people get things wrong. I think big red flags are the things that draw us together or sometimes things that in the long term are gonna be hard for us to navigate. So you may love the fact that you're this disciplined focus to really like OCD person and she is more like free and easy. It's a barefoot in the park kind of a thing going on. In dating, like you help her be a little more serious, she helps you be a little lighter-hearted. Man, that feels so good when you're dating somebody. But when you marry someone, those habits and those, you know, that polarity that brought you together, it might start being something that's antagonistic and it's gonna start creating long-term issues. Because again, marriage, it's such an odd thing, modern marriage because we've really packaged it as this person's your best friend, best roommate, best co-parent, best financial partner, best travel partner, best companion animal partner. Like, it's a long list. You know, if I was talking to you about a chef and said, you know, Jose Andre is an amazing chef, would you be like, well, but Kenny Farm? You know, like, well, no, like those things have to do with food, both of them, but it doesn't mean like, if you're not good at one or you're automatically good at one, you'd be good at the others. So I think, you know, not being mindful of how the polarity that drew you together might have long-term difficult effects. So that would be Red Flag number one. Red Flag number two would be the inability or the fear. Like, if you feel a real fear about talking to this person about issues between the two of you, that's a huge red flag. Like, you are going to have disagreements with your partner. You're going to have to navigate difficult conversations. When I talk to people about prenuptial agreements, you know, very often people say like, wow, I'm just, you know, I don't want to have this uncomfortable conversation. I want to say to them, if you don't feel comfortable having an uncomfortable conversation with this person, you might want to choose one of the other eight billion other options because you're going to have to have difficult conversations from time to time. And I guess a third one, you know, would be your, it's sort of, you know, like it's a little contrary to each other, right, or a little contradictory. But I think two major mistakes people make when they're getting married is thinking that if I marry this person, they're never going to change. They're going to stay the way they are. Like, this is so great. It's going so well. I want it to stay really good. So I'm going to marry them because that will be like the wall we build around this thing, the fortress that'll keep it safe. And I just don't think that's honest. I don't think you can have a long-term relationship with someone, have the changes, the slings and arrows about rage just fortune that everybody has in their life. And conversely, thinking that marriage will change a person is another big problem. So I can like, it is, they are going to change, but they may not change in the ways you hope they would as a function of marriage. Like, you know, he drinks a little too much now. But once we get married, if we have kids, he'll, he'll stop that or you know, he works at a ton now. But once we get married, he'll make more time and he won't push it so red line. Like I think sometimes the things we think are going to change don't and the things we hope won't do. And that leads, unless there's good communication, that leads to a lot of disappointment. - So just a follow on here. So Ed's girlfriend is much higher character, much hotter than him. Is that a problem? Sorry, couldn't resist. I've been waiting. - I mean, listen, playing above the rim is excellent. - I've been waiting for 10 minutes to say that. So let's talk about, let's say that things work out in a moment of weakness for you agrees to marry him. Give them advice, what are two or three best practices during the marriage that make it less likely they'll be in your office? - I mean, you know, Ed, first of all, what I'll say is Scott and I are proof of the fact that thank God for good women with terrible taste in men. - That's right. - That is something you-- - Bad vision. - That is a good thing. Okay. So yeah, when you're playing above the rim, realize you're playing above the rim. So that's a good thing. But what you know, I think one step, I think is really important, is to talk when you're not fighting about hey, at some point we're gonna disagree on something. What does that look like for you? Do you need a minute? Are you somebody that like give me a minute so the emotion of it calms down and maybe we sleep on it, we'll talk in the morning? Or are you the, hey, we gotta figure this out right now. I'm not gonna be able to sleep tonight if we don't work it out right now. Like I need you to engage with me on this 'cause I can't let this sit in fester. The time to have that conversation is when you are in that place of abundant goodwill and deep connection to each other. And you, 'cause look, this is a job the two of you signed up for, the job of loving each other, the job of being the other person's person. Like marriage is fundamentally your my favorite person. Like there are eight billion in the world and you're my favorite one. - You know what I thought? - What more beautiful four words could someone say than your my favorite person? And what more beautiful four words could you hear someone say and know they mean than your my favorite person? Like that's the most lovely sentiment. And if I had a toast for you at your wedding, you know, it would be, I hope 50 years from now, one of you when you're losing each other 'cause every marriage ends, it ends in death or divorce. And I hope yours will end in death. That's a weird thing to say to a human being, but I hope it does. I hope what you'll say to each other is, this person helped me become the most authentic version of myself and they're still my favorite person. And that's the greatest blessing you could shoot for. And I think the way to do that is to not be afraid to talk about, hey, when we disconnect, what's the best way to reconnect? The other thing is, I think that, look man, we have all these gadgets, all these reminders, all these little watches and whoops and all the things we all use, you know. I don't think there's anything wrong with, you know, every day just taking a minute to remind yourself, hey, her, like keep her in your line of sight. You know, we're busy people, we're hardworking people, we got a million things going on, we're spinning all kinds of plates. And any woman who's signing up for someone like you or either of us, they're doing it for, you know, a reason. They know, we're as advertised, but take a minute, take a minute to just, 'cause right now, you're still trying to close the deal. You know, you're still trying to impress each other, you know, you're saying, and I think that, if you can keep a little piece of that, like how, what does it take to send her a text message that just says, hey, I was in the coffee shop and that song came on that, you know, it makes me think of you. Or, you know, hey, you know, it was so fun on the couch watching TV with you last night. I'm so glad I have the prettiest girl in the world, you know, I caught her eye. What does that take 30 seconds? That is the equivalent of her sending you nudes. (laughing) Like that is for her. (laughing) Like that's flowers. Like you just send a dozen roses if you send that, you know. And it's a lot cheaper and it's a lot easier. And it's something that, again, if you make a point of just, you don't even have to tell her that you put a reminder in your phone, but put something that just reminds herself to just that little bit of connection. 'Cause it's really easy for all of us to say, all right, I've got that. Whew, thank God. You know, I found my person. I can focus on these other million things now. But take the time, like take the time to just keep that little bit of connection, little. bit of gratitude, that reminder that this is your person. I think that's a giant piece. And then the last thing I would say is, you know, I think it's really important to be able to share with each other. Again, I like things that are a practice. So I would say, build into your week. You know, once a week, just have like a walk-in talk or send each other an email, whatever works for the two of you in your dynamic. What are three things I did this week that, you know, made you feel loved? What are three things I did this week that maybe I could have done better? What are, make it fun? What are three things I did this week that turned you on? Like, I have to tell you, you'll be shocked. You'll be shocked. They won't be the things you thought. Like it won't be, oh, you had to have eight pack abs. Like it was something like, oh, and when the dog was running around and you wiped his paws off in the mud, you looked like so sweet that you were, that turns you off. Like, what I've been doing my obliques in the gym? Like, what, what was that? You know, and the truth is, like, never stop exploring that connection. I think that's so easy, solo percentage. It's free. That's why you don't hear about it because it's free. You don't have to buy anything. You don't have to get an app for it. Like, there's nothing you have to do except that little bit of connection. And I'm telling you, I think that keeps, that'll keep you connected to each other, keep you communicating with each other. If you add in that piece of what's something that I could have done better this week, then I think that, that starts to create a space where both of you feel like you can give each other pointers. Because I would tell you, like, I'm 53 years old. I've been in therapy 20 years. I understand about 70% of this guy. And I'm in here, you know, like, so to think another human being, I'm going to be able to navigate them perfectly, like, you're kidding yourself. That's insane to think. So I think there's real value in creating habits of connection and communication. We'll be right back off to the break. And if you're enjoying the show, please follow our new ProfGMarkets YouTube channel. The link is in the description, starting next week. That is where you will find all ProfGMarkets content on YouTube. That's where you'll find all the content that you can find. The link is in the description. The link is in the description below. We're going to be doing a lot of work on this. We're back with ProfGMarkets. So James, I've read that 70% of divorce filings are now from women. And some of that is that women no longer fill in economically indentured and that an increase in divorce rates in some ways represents progress in our society. But also that potentially women bring more divorce energy to a relationship. And the data I saw that, and I'm very open to push back here, is that the lowest divorce rates are among gay men. Second lowest heterosexual couples, highest divorce rates gay women. Thoughts on divorce energy by gender and different types of marriages and what you observe in terms of the likelihood of them deciding to end it. Yeah, I mean those statistics are accurate. I think they're often weaponized in the wrong ways. So in what I'll roughly call the red pill, manned sphere space, although our mutual friend Chris Williamson describes you and I and he as the gentlemaness sphere. So we have a male audience or a percentage of audience that's male, but we don't have that sort of hard line position that made for an interesting documentary for Louis Thoreau. I think the way that gets weaponized is this idea that women are somehow playing at the casino of marriage and then when the chips get high enough they cash out. What I think it really is, is the tendency of men more than women to go out for milk and never come back. And then what happens is the woman comes to my office or one like it and says he left. He left for his secretary left and I don't know where he is and he's not paying the mortgage and I don't know what to do and I go okay we have to file a divorce action. She goes wait I don't want a divorce. I didn't ask for a divorce. He's the one who left. I want him to come back. I want us to figure it out or I want us to be civilized with each other and I say look if you want that mortgage paid if you want temporary child support we have to go to a judge and the only way to go to a judge there's no such thing as an action for I'd like to work it out if possible. It's an action for divorce. So we have to file the divorce action and I can't tell you the number of divorces I've done over span of 25 years is a high number but I would say very few of them have ever been a woman just cashing the chips out at the casino whereas I've had a large number where the guy just leaves and the woman ends up having to be the plaintiff and adding indignity to that is that very often that man will say later on well you're the one who filed for divorce. You know you're the plaint your mom filed for divorce. So it's misleading but I do think the idea of like divorce energy I think we're in a you know unfortunately we're in a misandressed moment I think and it's it's it's become very acceptable for women to engage in behavior that in relation to marriage that if it occurred with men would be viewed very differently. I've always said that in the context even of like you know the song maybe next time he'll think before he cheats you know where she craps you know breaks his car with baseball bat and all these things if that was a song by a man about maybe next time she'll think before she cheats it would be a hate crime like it's multiple felonies being described in that in that song and you know if a if a man cheats on a woman even if she hasn't had sex with him in years it's while he couldn't keep it in his pants and he's a Lithuario if a woman cheats on her husband even if it's with like the hot personal trainer or tennis instructor it's you know he wasn't keeping her happy her husband she needed to figure out who she was so if he cheats it's his fault if she cheats it's his fault and there's a lot of that energy out there on the internet and a lot of that content and I think the algorithm continues to drive that and you know I I know that you you understand better than most in the context of your writing and thinking that you know this boys versus girls world that we've created and then at the algorithm rhythm pushes because it creates engagement you know whether you're shouting in opposition or shouting a man it's just engagement and and so you know the the social media gods love it so I think that's only increasing we're getting further from each other and we're not recognizing what you've rightly pointed out which is that a world in which men are flailing is not a world where women are thriving and vice versa such an obvious insight that men more men and marriages than than is perceived because it's the woman that ends up filing I never thought of that they what you're saying is that number is misleading there a lot of men effectively end their marriages they're just not the ones legally filing for divorce correct yeah I mean the divorce statistics that are tracked see I get into this conversation a lot because I talk to people about how divorce how marriage is arguably from a legal standpoint not just a negligent activity it's potentially a reckless activity so the law makes a distinction between negligence and recklessness negligence is a failure to perceive a substantial and unjustifiable risk of serious harm and recklessness is a conscious disregard for a substantial unjustifiable risk of serious harm with the divorce rate hovering just over 50% and then you add to it there's been quite a bit of interesting studies about marriage dissatisfaction because remember those are just the marriages that catastrophically failed meaning they divorced there was the entry of a certificate of dissolution marriage which means that divorce was finalized but there's another 15 to 20% that are physically separated under a binding written agreement but not finalizing a divorce for whatever reasons they can stay on each other's health insurance religious reasons whatever it might be and then there are the percentages of people and there's been a lot of interesting research on this that stay unhappy in a relationship either for the children or because they don't want to give away half their things or economic insecurity that you can't move out now of two cable bills because you're barely affording your single cable bill so it really turns into something where statistically this is a very unlikely to succeed enterprise and one that is likely to cause tremendous harm but again it's wildly popular and it's not one that we would ever ask the question of someone like if that said hey guess what my girl and I were getting married if I said really why That would be in delicate. That would be a rude question to ask. Whereas most things that catastrophically fail 50% of the time and generally fail to achieve the objective, which was living happily ever after roughly 75% of the time, it's not unreasonable to say to this person, "Hey, what are you, what is the problem to which marriage is a solution?" And you know, my graduate work before I went to law school was at NYU and I was Neil Postman's research assistant on a few of his books and I was in his department, the department of culture and communication. And when I was there, Neil had this approach to technology of saying anytime you encounter any technology, ask yourself, "What is the problem to which this technology is a solution? Who has that problem? How does it practically solve the problem? And what new problems might have done intentionally cause?" And if you apply that model to the technology of marriage, you're going to have people that are going to approach it very differently because marriage is above all else a contract with the state in regards to the rule set for your relationship. And that's not how most people look at it. So I just want to push back or ask for a follow-up on that 50% number because my understanding of the 50% number is that each year, at that moment, they look at the number of marriages, the number of divorces, and they divide one into another. But my understanding is that a lot of divorces come into fruition right now or a function of the economic dependence women may have felt 20, 30, 40 years ago that they no longer feel. And that if you look at the data around young people, Gen Z, and millennials getting married now who start out on more of an economic equal footing that the divorce rates may in fact be much lower that that 50% number is actually misleading and young people getting married today will in fact have much lower divorce rates. So I've spent a lot of time discussing this and defending this. So I've really done the research on it. So the, you know, and I'm going to rely a little bit on notes here, but because I want to get the numbers right. But you know, there's what we call the crude divorce rate. And the CDC does the national vital statistics system that looks at a crude divorce rate of approximately 2.5 per 1000 population in recent years, which again seems low in this scheme of things. But it translates to literally hundreds of thousands of divorces. Second and third marriages, it's much higher. Second marriages, you're looking at 60 to 67%. Third marriages, 73 to 74%. What's really interesting is couples who marry before the age of 25 have a significantly higher divorce rate, roughly 60% and couples where one or both partners did not complete college divorce at much higher rates than college educated couples. So what often happens is people do a great job of lying with statistics on this because they'll say, well, you know, a survey of college educated women over the age of 30 at the divorce rates only 5%. You're like, right, you just cherry picked people who graduated college, which is not the majority of the world. Or of the United States. And people who marry after the age of 25. And so this is like, you're again, you're picking a statistical model that's going to work best for you. And then on top of that, like I said, you have these statistics of a marital breakdown without a formal divorce. And the American Psychological Association did some good work on that. The US Census Bureau American Community Survey. Bowling Green State University has something called the National Center for Family and Marriage Research. And they've done a ton of research not with that simplified model of saying, here's the marriage rate, here's the divorce rate, and let's match those up because people are very rarely in the same year getting married and divorced. And when you have things like the pandemic where the court system essentially slowed or shut down for a period of time, then of course, right after, you know, the world sort of came out of lockdown, there was a glut and backlog of divorces that happened. So really you have to look at the data in a long-term way and you have to sort of try to control for all of those variables. But the marriage rate has gone down. The divorce rate has gone down as a function of the marriage rate going down. But what's frightening in terms of what you'd call like the refined divorce rate is it's really the majority of Americans and people don't like to talk about that. But the majority of Americans don't have a college education. And the college education framing is a very important piece of this because there is such a disparity in the divorce rate when people are college educated versus not college educated. And again, I'm not sure of the reasons behind that. I'm sure there are people more qualified than me to answer that. But if you know, like if one in four planes crashed, people just wouldn't fly. And so even if you just said 25% of marriages catastrophically fail in divorce, I think that would be, you know, a very frightening number. But again, I still think legal separation and unhappily married like there's a what's called the Tishiro estimate, which was a psychologist named Taitishiro wrote a book called The Science of Happily Ever After. He talks about, you know, the percentages of people who express real satisfaction in their marriage. And I'd say some of the stuff that comes out of that is absolutely terrifying. Because what you've got basically is 42 to 45% of people that formally divorce, 3 to 4% separate without divorcing. And 14 to 19% report their marriage is unhappy, loveless, feeling obligated to stay and actually report that they dislike their spouse. Now, I don't think anybody who got married is saying that would be success. That if I could maintain that level of connection, that would be success. Like so, so again, are we looking at marriage as like an endurance race that if you don't divorce you one, or we looking at as we maintain this high level of connection and goodwill with each other and that we say, Hey, I don't regret this choice that I made. And I think that impacts the statistics in a real way. We try on this show, this is Profty Market. So we try to look at things through a general lens of economics and economic security. One of our views, and I'd be curious to get your perspective on this, is that marriage, if just strictly from an economic security perspective, is generally a good thing. That it means that we kind of get our shit together, we work harder, we notice this anecdotally among the people who work at our company. But generally speaking, if you're trying to get rich, if you're trying to build economic security, then you should probably trying to get married too. And I have some follow up questions, but first I want to hear your response to that question. I don't disagree. I mean, I think a successful marriage is a tremendous asset. I think Warren Buffett said that the best investment he ever made was his marriage and that, choosing the right spouse is the most important economic decision you're ever going to make. I think many, many people would agree with that. I represent a tremendous number. I'm in New York. So if you're talking to Laura Wasser, she's going to tell you about her clients that are all celebrities. My clients, you'd pass them on street. You wouldn't know who they are. Scott might know. You guys might actually recognize a different, you guys are a different kind of geek. You might be like, "Hey, I know him. He's from Black Rock." But they're the Patagonia vest-wearing guys that I do the pre-NEPs for when they marry a yoga teacher. And what else they say is, yeah, I think they realize value. You know, they see that this is bringing something to my life. And I think what that is is it's eliminating a certain noise. And that is the noise of mate selection. It's grounding someone, you know, in connection with another person. I mean, look, I'm still very much a romantic at heart, even after doing this for 25 years. I think that the value that a good, strong relationship brings to someone in their life is you can't measure it. I mean, I've seen some incredibly successful people have incredibly successful marriages. And by the way, I don't think a marriage has to last forever for it to be successful. I think, you know, you can have a happily ever after separately. You know, my ex-wife has been remarried for 15 years. She's a wonderful person. The man she married is a wonderful guy. I consider him part of our family, you know, and we raised our sons as a group. And I'm so blessed to have had that chapter. And I think that it would be much healthier if we viewed relationships as chapters in a long story. And I think, you know, marriage came about when most women died in childbirth and most men died before they were 50. And now happily ever after were, marriage is running into the same problems that the pension system is running into, which is it made sense when you paid in for 20 years and then you died when you were in payout for 10 years. But now you pay in for 25 years and then you define benefit plan kicks in and it's paying you for the next 40 years. This is why the postal system is going to go under because the pension, it was not designed for these current climate conditions. I mean, marriage is like so many other things. We are primates living in medieval institutions with God-like technology in our hands. Like how does that story end? Does it end with a happily ever after? Does it end with a tremendous amount of confusion? I think it creates a lot of confusion. But I do think if, again, if you get it right, the stability and security that a pair bond brings, even without children, like with children, of course, I think it takes multiple people and it takes a tremendous amount of energy. I won't even call it masculine or feminine. energy because I actually think it's human traits that tend to cluster in man or cluster in women for a variety of reasons, but it takes the unique skill set of multiple people to raise children successfully. And I think marriage is a great opportunity to bond very closely with another person in raising new humans. Or even if you don't have children, in navigating the self and having someone there who genuinely sees your blind spots and calls them out with real love and helps you again. When I gave my example earlier about what I hope on your deathbed you get to say, it's not this person became who I wanted them to be. It's I helped this person become the most authentic version of who they are, who they were. And I think that is something we need other people to be able to do. Given how high these marriage rates have gotten, it seems as though that's something that everyone should at least recognize. Yes, you're getting into this relationship. This also contractual agreement, which might pay dividends later, hopefully it will. That's why you're doing it. But also it comes with tremendous, tremendous risk, which makes me think shouldn't everyone be signing pre-nubs? What is your advice to most people getting married today? Every marriage has a pre-nub. It's either one that was written by the state legislature of the state in which you reside and can be changed by them without your consent. And then once they change it, you don't have the right to opt out anymore. I mean, find me another contract where you sign up for something and they can change the essential terms and you're not allowed to say, well, wait a minute. If you change the amount of my car lease, I don't want it anymore. I know you changed what apartment I get in my apartment. At least, no, no, I signed up for this one. Like the state legislature in the state in which you reside for a period of six months or more has jurisdiction over your divorce. And they can change. Now, by the way, I don't care what side of the political aisle left, right, or a raging moderate. That was my little plug for you, Scott. The reality is you put yourself in this situation and your, I guarantee over the last 16 years, every single person you know has looked at the government at some point and said these people are idiots. So you're signing a pre-nub with the government or the person you like better than the other eight billion other options. You tell me, you tell me which of those two things is more sensible, relying on a future government that will be elected by a popularity contest and you hope it'll work out and the rules that they came up with will make sense for your specific dynamic or this person and I, this person I've chosen out of the eight billion options, we are going to make a rule set for our marriage. There's no contest there as far as I'm concerned. I think some people would say that the trouble is that it's a little overwhelming and at least if you're going with what the government has decided, you're depending on some level of precedent for these very, very difficult questions that often do have to do exactly with money, the kinds of questions that people don't really want to confront. So I guess my follow-up question for you is what kinds of things should be going into a pre-nub, how should couples be thinking about their finances, are they together, are they set, what are the kinds of things you run into? Yeah, look, it may be a difficult conversation and that's what I was saying earlier about, don't marry someone if you can't have difficult conversations with them. The solution to it though is, look, I've been to the DMV. I've never walked into the DMV and thought, oh yeah, these people should be in charge of everything. They've got this whole thing locked down. I'm going to put them in charge of my finances. This is great. This is the best and brightest the world has to offer. That's who you're trusting if you don't do a pre-nub together. Look, I've represented victims of intimate partner abuse, course of control, domestic violence for many years. What I will say is, I've learned conclusively from that that you cannot feel loved if you don't feel safe. The most important thing is to feel safe. Safety comes in a lot of forms. It comes in the form of physical safety, which is obviously the most important, but also emotional safety, economic safety. When you love someone enough to marry them, you should want them to feel safe. There's a line from a song by Prince of the album, "Sign of the Times," a song called if I was your girlfriend. Prince as a man is singing it to a woman he's dating and one of the lyrics is, "If I was your girlfriend, would you run to me if somebody hurt you even if that somebody was me?" I always thought there was a very romantic line because the truth is, that's what a pre-nub conversation is. What are you afraid of? What are you afraid of in this relationship? I'm afraid that I'm going to sacrifice a bunch of things and trust you to take care of the finances and I'm going to diminish my lifetime earning capacity and then you're going to find a younger model in split. Hey, you know what? That's a very fair thing to be afraid of. There's lots of examples of that you can point to. Say it out loud. Sometimes when you're afraid of something, Scott knows this as a father. My kids were little and they would say out loud like, "Yeah, I'm afraid of this or I think there might be something under the bed." That's the way you go, "Okay, let's look under there. Let's put the light over here and let's see what that is." You don't do well by pretending it's not something you're afraid of. I think sharing with each other, "Look, I'm afraid that you're going to weaponize against me someday and try to take everything I built, including the things I had before we got married and that the threat of litigation is going to be so potentially expensive and the valuation of my business interest is going to be, and the things I'm going to do for wealth preservation and tax avoidance that are legitimate fair things are going to get weaponized and spun in the full-contact storytelling that is divorce law. The lawyers are going to walk out with hundreds of thousands dollars in fee and we're going to walk out with a lot less and a lot of pain and I don't want that. Those are both really legitimate fears. If we can give them voice, I think if you love someone, you'll want to understand their fear and not go, "Oh, you don't trust me?" You'll look at it and say, "Okay, I know you trust me, but you're afraid. It's okay to be afraid. Let's figure out how we can make each other feel safe." Is there some form of managing finances? Is there a way to go about the money problem in a relationship, in a marriage that is ultimately either going to maybe decrease the likelihood of getting a divorce or if we're not trying to make a boogeyman out of divorce, that makes the divorce less difficult. It is generally speaking a good thing for the marriage. Obviously everything in a relationship, how much sex should people be having? What should they do in terms of dinner rituals or date nights? I think the particular chemistry of two people is important to look at. I'm not a fan of giant one-size-fits-all approaches. What I will say is for me, I think a very sensible system that I can understand is the yours nine-an-hours, because I think really our relationships are based on a series of then diagrams. There's the "you" and the "me" and the "we." You met her, there was you, and there was she, and then there's "we." Whether it's economic or whether it's interests or how we spend our time, you want that then diagram to continue to be a then diagram. There's a temptation to make the "we" because it's so warm and cozy, to make the "we" and reject all the "you" and the "me." But that's not healthy because you fell in love with each other and that's the "you" and the "me." So the "we" wouldn't exist if you didn't like each other, so you can't let it subsume your identity. And I think the same thing financially, I think that there should be some shared sense of the finances, but there should also be some separateness. If I'm buying you a Christmas present and you're going to always see exactly how much it costs, we have no privacy or autonomy in our spending. So again, I think for each couple, the conversation about what should be the "you," the "me," and the "we," economically, it's the same conversation that you should be having on every other thing, which is what do you want, what do I want, what's good for us, and how do we have that check-in? And again, it's kind of like a state planning. When somebody says to me, "When should I do my estate planning?" I would say early and often. It's the same thing. And constantly say, "Is this still working for the two of us?" Because you're going to see on a long timeline as a young buck. You're going to see that as time goes on, what's incredibly important in your 30s and even in your 40s, it shifts. It starts to change. It moves in different directions. And again, that's not necessarily a bad thing. As long as you say to each other, "Hey, something changed. Is it good? Is it bad? Is it just a function of the natural flow and progression of time?" That's, I think, the most important thing is to have the mechanisms for just constantly checking in. We'll be right back. And by the way, first time founders is officially moving to the Proff G Market's feed. The first episode on the feed is coming out tomorrow with the CEO and co-founder of Holotifull. You can find it right here on Proff G markets. We're back with Proff G markets. You said something that, some data that was really illuminating that people would get married and over the age of 25 have lower divorce rates and people with college education have lower divorce rates. So, if you take away that as you get older, you're more mature, better perspective. If you are fortunate enough to have a college degree, it might, it doesn't necessarily mean you're smarter, but maybe you have more historical contacts, maybe even again, you're blessed with not only privilege, but maybe some perspective that comes from education. is my name. to take away that it's a smart thing to do to wait to get married and also a really smart thing to try and stay married. Yeah, I mean, I think you could make that argument from that data. The downside of making that argument is the biological reality of people wanting to marry for the purpose of having children. So if you say to somebody, and this is where this, you know, this becomes such a fraught conversation to have and somehow, you know, thankfully, I've managed to like have it without too much offending either side, partly because I've represented both sides of every single argument in the divorce space, you know. And so whenever somebody like I posted something a few weeks ago on International Women's Day that got me a lot of negative and positive, you know, press because I posted five of the wealthiest women in the world. And they, the majority of them, the ones that I posted, were all billionaires as a function of divorce. And, you know, of course I was immediately getting attacked and people were saying, you know, well, didn't these women deserve this? And I wanted to say what argument do you? The men were billionaires because of the women they married. Well, argument, do you think I'm making court? Like I represent those women and I represent the men they're married to in roughly equal measure. So like I'm, I think it's hilarious when people are saying to me an argument that I've made in a court, you know, they're saying like, well, don't you know that those women contribute? Of course I know those women contribute. I've made those arguments. Some of those women are my clients. So of course I get that. But I also get the other side of that argument as well. I think the truth of of marriage statistics is people who have a college education, it's usually a sign of other things like they're, you know, again, the substance use disorder rates related to a person who has a college education and doesn't. This is not a function of the fact that they had a good liberal arts education. This is a function of the fact that this is a person who probably had the economic stability that they could go to college in the present climate. You know, again, it's not, you know, it's not your story of a person who could get into a state school and could do that. They're not, I went back to, I went to a state school in New Jersey. I went to Ramapok College of New Jersey and they asked me about 10 years ago to come back and to speak at an open house. And, you know, I was very effusive about the fact that, hey, I didn't have good SAT scores. I was a really unambitious bad student. I had long hair and a bad attitude. And I said, you know, this is a school that took a chance on me. And I'm so grateful of the fact that I moved on to become someone very successful. And afterwards, one of the admissions people came to me and said, you know, this was so great and you were so funny. But in the future, when you come like, maybe don't talk about that because you wouldn't get in now. Like you then wouldn't get in now. And I said, do you know how horrified you should be to say that out loud? Like, because you just admitted, you would have passed on me and look at me. You have me speaking here today. So I think that there is a reality. And I mean, again, I don't want to sound like a me in college saying there's no war but the class war. But I do think that, that, you know, if you really care, this is why I always think it's funny when like right wing conservatives, you know, I debated with Matt Walsh on the daily wire about this because he was very gong how about how we got to get rid of no fault divorce. You know, that no fault divorce is to blame for the demise of marriages, which is kind of like saying like emergency rooms are to blame for the number of injuries people have. Like your mistaking, causing effect and you're thinking barriers to exit. I would actually say barriers to entry makes more sense. Like you got a, you know, it's the most legally significant thing you're ever going to do other than die. And you don't even have to take a test, you know, before you do it or fill out like there's no waiting period, nothing like that. But if the right really cared about marriage and keeping marriages together, they would care about creating economic stability. They would care about creating opportunities for people to go to college and to be able to get educated. They would look at the raw data and say, hey, this improves marriage outcomes. So let's feed that. And that by the way, it would have a lot of other cascading effects because that would increase the number of people that don't deal with, you know, substance use disorder, which again, when you take that demographic out, improves the marriage rate. So all of these things, they're all tied to each other. And the answer is not that difficult to, to sus out, but it's not going to be popular among the left or the right, the left because it's got a lot of gender stuff in it, which becomes fraught terrain. And on the right, they don't want to have to look at the fact that the, you know, the wealth disparity in the United States is a big piece of this. When we look at the way that divorce rates have changed over time, also we've been talking about how young people are not really dating as much as they used to. They're not having sex as much as they used to. And they're not really having children as much as they used to. I think the start that always kind of shocks me is the fact that around half of Gen Z, my generation say they don't want to have children. And a lot of people try to figure out why is that? We believe that it's mostly to do with financial anxiety. But I guess my question, as someone who is literally a practitioner of marriage and divorce, how would you say that the digital age has changed marriage? And are there any ways, I mean, I guess how has it changed marriage as an institution for the worst? Perhaps has it maybe changed marriage for the better? It is not changed marriage for the better. It has changed it for the worse, I think, unequivocally. There's a chapter in my book called if we were going to invent an infidelity-general rating machine, it would be called Facebook. I would probably change that now to meta, because I think Instagram and TikTok are better. But look, I think, you know, at your two young to remember the song part-time lover by Stevie Wonder. But it was a song about a man who's having an affair and he's singing to his mistress and he says, you know, a call-up ring once, hang up the phone to let me know you made it home. So then my wife won't suspect. And the whole song is about like, if there's an emergency, have a male friend call and ask for me, now it would just be, I'm going to text you, don't worry, I'll, I'll, I'll DM you. Like we, we have created technologies that are wildly antagonistic to monogamous parabones because a, you're watching everyone else's relationship greatest hits while living your gag reel, which creates this endless comparison. And by the way, I cannot tell you how many people celebrities, because I represent a lot of athletes, celebrities, that I see them on social media, hashtag, blast, greatest husband, and they were just in my office. They were just in my office for a concentration. They've been living apart for the last two years. Like this is, this is an absolute, but again, we don't show that to anybody. And then what happens is one day they just go, it's with great pain. We tell you that we're separating. We'd like some privacy during this difficult time as we navigated and move on in our relationship. Well, grateful for the gifts that we gave each other in our conscious uncoppling. Like, and this is, but, but meanwhile, the rest of us, the civilians are looking at this and going like, I admire relationship doesn't look like that. They're so happy. Look at how happy they are. And by the way, at the same time, while we're, again, when, when are you looking at your social media? Like when you're bored, when you're on the subway, around the toilet, it's not when you're having like great moments. So you're watching everyone's greatest hits. You're sitting in this bored sad moment of your own. And what are you looking at? Everyone's curated wonderful life. And you now have reasons to communicate with people you have absolutely no business communicating with. Like in the past, if you wanted the flirt with a woman who was one of the moms on your son's soccer team, you would have had to like slide up to her in person at practice, which is pretty obvious. Whereas following her on Facebook or Instagram, because there's a group where you guys share information about who's doing rides and who's doing snacks, well, that's perfectly harmless. And now you're seeing your vacation pictures with her in a bikini. And you have a message, oh, where'd you guys stay in saloon? We were thinking about maybe going our cell. Oh, well, you look great. You know, did it now. We're talking and we're talking privately, by the way. Like if, if at the soccer practice, I grabbed that mom was like, let's go over here behind the bleachers and talk everyone with looking at what are you doing, man? Whereas if I'm doing that on the couch, next to my wife, she doesn't even know I'm having that conversation. So there, there is so much coming at marriage right now that I am shocked that the divorce rate isn't higher than it is. And that the marriage satisfaction rate is going to survive this at all because there is just such an endless progression of comparison and false, performative things. I want to believe the optimist of me wants to believe that part of the popularity of my work is how honest and blunt I am about the challenges we're facing, but how it has not taken my optimism and belief in love and how ultimately the most important thing in life is to find deep connection and to feel loved and to feel worthy of love. I think our greatest fear is that if people knew us, the real us, they couldn't possibly love us. And I think that real romantic love is about someone looking at you and seeing I see you. I see the good, the bad, the fool in you, the hero in you, and I love you. I love the whole thing of you and I'm cheering for you and I believe in you. To me, that's the most worthwhile, beautiful sentiment in the world. It's a super power. If you find it and can keep it, but like everything that has value, it requires an effort. And I think we're not doing anybody any favors by pretending that it's effortless. We make these rom coms and it's like everything's fine. They live happily ever after right, because you end the story. But if Jack had survived the Titanic, eventually, Kate Winslet's character would have been like, dude, what with paint in the French girls? Are we going to get a real job? What are you doing? You know? And we're not doing people a service by showing them like only the greatest hits and not the day-to-day maintaining of connection part. James Sexton has been an attorney in New York since 2001. He holds a lot of grief in Fordham Law School on a master of arts degree from NYU where he focuses, graduates studies on persuasive speech and propaganda. After nearly two decades of refining his skills as a lawyer in the Corboham's Manhattan, Brooklyn, Rockland Westchester, and Orange counties, James earned a place in the top 1% of family law attorneys practicing in New York. James is the best selling author of, "If you're in my office, it's already too late. How to stay in love and how not to fuck up your marriage." He's also the host of the podcast, "Better Call Sexton." James, this was entertaining and meaningful. Very much appreciate your time and good work. Thank you. It was a pleasure, Scott. I'm a fan of your work for many years now. And if I had a dollar for every person that said to me, "You and Scott Galloway should chat some time." And I do have to say, I owe you a big one. I've heard the same thing. Yeah. I owe you a big one too because you got me through the pandemic. I jokingly say that you and Cody Rigsby were my two best friends in the pandemic because I listened to Pivot constantly during that time and it was like a lifeline. And I remember, and I did Peloton rides like three times a day and Cody Rigsby was like my savior. So, no, I'm thrilled. We finally intersected. We have a lot of people in common and I'm glad Ed that we got to meet as well and it's always fun. Like Scott, I really share Scott's passion and enthusiasm for men connecting with younger men and us trying to sort of collaboratively share our life experience and wisdom and share from you and get from you, you know, all the different perspective that you bring to the older guys like us. So I think we're all really lucky to have each other. I'm really glad we chatted tonight. I hope we'll connect again. Really appreciate it James. Thank you so much. It's a blast. Good to see you guys. Scott, reactions? So, I really enjoy James' content because James is a great player. I think it's important we normalize talking about cancer before you didn't talk about even when my mom got cancer. I remember you like, you only told your closest friends because it was somehow embarrassing. Then we normalized mental health struggles. You never said, oh my kids start with anxiety or I'm in a relationship with someone who's bipolar and we've normalized that which is really healthy or made it a topic of conversation which is an acceptable topic of conversation. And I think divorce is finally an acceptable topic of conversation outside of kind of TMZing and it's something I consider one of my biggest failures. I had a wonderful relationship with my ex and I'm still very fond of her. We still speak pretty regularly and it's just I find his, I find his content comforting because I think, I mean, I actually don't think he's a divorce attorney. I mean, he may be in practice during the day but on TikTok, he's basically a marriage counselor. He's basically saying, these are the, it's like if you want to understand how to be a good pilot, you should go to airdisaster.com and listen to every black box recording of every crash in history so you know how to avoid air disasters. And I think he's very instructive and informative for people your age around how you, what are the red flags, how do you set yourself up for success? So I really like his content. I also appreciate, I think he's a fantastic communicator. He's sort of, again, I said this, he's kind of tailor made for TikTok. Your thoughts said? Also tailor made for podcasts, I mean, I was just gripped the entire time. Yeah, I found it really interesting the thing he said about pre-nubs, the fact that you're signing a pre-nub either way and it's either you sign it with your spouse or you sign it with the government. And it just kind of got me thinking, I mean, it reminds me of a conversation that we had with Rameet Saiti where Rameet was talking about this cult of home ownership, this idea that everyone believes that you, you have to own a home and so we'll kind of do whatever we can just to make sure that we can say, yes, I am a home owner. And then we forget about all the fixed costs and we just completely disregard doing the cost benefit analysis of could I be renting versus owning? And it makes me think that marriage is kind of one of those things that there's almost a cult of marriage where we're so obsessed with the precedent, we're so obsessed with what you're supposed to do that we refuse and get anxious at the concept of just thinking for ourselves. And the pre-nub is almost the perfect example of that. Like his point is exactly right, you're signing a pre-nub either way, but it's up to you on whether you want to negotiate the terms of your own relationship or if you want to outsource those terms to someone else. So I guess my big takeaway from him is I think he's really empowering people to think about the institution of marriage. One, he's promoting it because he believes that it's a good thing, which I appreciate. I think it's a good thing too. But he's kind of encouraging us to rethink the terms or at least view it from a more first principle's perspective and think, okay, what are we actually trying to do here? What is the goal of this? And that's a far more powerful and wise decision versus just doing things because that's what everyone else does. So that's kind of what resonated for me. I always talk about it. I always say when I meet women that I'm attracted to, I'm like number three. And now the pot is ruined. Oh my best line. You could be the future ex-Mrs. Galway. Zero lessons learned. This episode was produced by Claire Miller and Alison Weiss and engineered by Benjamin Spencer. Our video editor is Jorge Cotty. Our research team is Dan Chlann. Isabella Kinsel, Chris Nodon, Hugh and Measel Vario. Jake McPherson is our social producer, Drew Burrows is our technical director and Catherine Dylan is our executive producer. Thank you for listening to Prof. Markets from Prof. Media. If you liked what you heard, give us a follow and join us for a fresh take on Markets on Monday. [Music] Forming the one so hot right now. It's like if traders and succession had a baby on wheels. Teams lying. Drivers beefing. These everywhere. And scandals. Lots of scandals. So we made a show about it. The Red Flags podcast where we recap races and break down all the latest F1 headlines. But no nerdy tech talk. We only cover the stuff you want to hear about. 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