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Transcript: https://lexfridman.com/james-sexton-transcript



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OUTLINE:

Here's the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.

(00:00) - Introduction

(09:01) - Why marriages fail

(30:32) - Sex and fetishes

(39:49) - Breakups

(1:05:35) - Johnny Depp and Amber Heard

(1:25:36) - Complicated divorce cases

(1:32:22) - Cheating with the nanny

(1:34:39) - Relationship advice

(1:43:20) - Cost of divorce

(2:05:11) - Prenups

(2:19:33) - Cheating

(2:27:17) - Open marriages and threesomes

(2:40:05) - Sex and fighting

(3:05:00) - Kevin Costner's divorce

(3:14:44) - Lying

(3:22:12) - Productivity

(3:30:06) - Jiu Jitsu

(3:38:38) - Sex, love, and marriage

The following is a conversation with James Sexton, divorce attorney and author of How to Stay in Love, a divorce lawyer's guide to staying together.

As a trial lawyer, James, for over 2 decades, has negotiated and litigated a huge number of high conflict divorces.

This has given him a deep understanding of how relationships fail and how they can succeed.

And bigger than that, the role of love and pain in this whole messy roller coaster ride we call life.

And now a quick few second mention of each sponsor.

It's the best way to support this podcast.

We got 8sleep for naps, InsideTracker for biological data, HowlSum Academia is for delicious and healthy snacks, Masterclass for learning, and AG1 that I'm drinking right now for gut health.

She's wiser my friends Also, if you want to work with our amazing team We're always hiring go to Lex Friedman comm slash hiring and now on to the full ad reads as always no ads in the middle I try to make these interesting I really do try but if you must skip them I will forgive you but please still check out the sponsors I enjoy their stuff maybe you will too This episode is brought to you by 8 Sleep and their Pod 3 mattress.

I cool my body under a warm blanket with the 8 Sleep Pod 3 and my smartphone.

You can control each side of the bed separately to I think down to 55 degrees and as hot as 110.

But some of the greatest experiences in my life include some insanity, so maybe you should try.

Try and report back to me how that goes for you.

And a warm blanket just creates a whole beautiful feeling of comfort.

I think James in this conversation calls it a cocoon.

Like a relationship is when you're just in this private place together and you share this wonderful intimacy so that's how I feel about this Asleep cover.

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My body, as John Mayer says, is a wonderland.

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wait till the day when we can get the full richness of signals that the human body provides.

I mean, just the incredible variety of organisms, the multi-hierarchical system that is the biological organism that each human, each of us are, to get the signal, to get like the detailed chemical, mechanical, electrical signals from this multi-hierarchical organism and use those signals to get an understanding of what's going on inside, the full temporal picture, just from second to second, how all of that changes.

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1, I know I'm an adult because I now have purchased and own a couch This is a big accomplishment for me number 2 is I know I have made it in life as far as material possessions go is I have a small closet in my kitchen I Don't know why I said small like I'm trying to be humble.

It doesn't matter the size It's a damn closet in my kitchen.

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This is not a thing I thought you could possibly have.

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To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description.

And now, dear friends, here's James Sexton.

What is the most common reason that marriages fail?

That's a great question, but it's a question that everybody wants there to be a simple answer.

Like, they want me to say cheating or money or, you know, the internet.

But the reality is, I think it's a lot of little things.

It's disconnection, that would be my answer.

The reason marriages fail is disconnection.

That's the bigger and I think more important question because like Tom Wolfe said about bankruptcy, it happens very slowly and then all at once.

Disconnection happens very slowly and then all at once.

So most of the time what I think people want is an answer like cheating.

But cheating is the big all at once thing.

How did we get to the place where cheating was even something you were thinking about doing or that you would think about and then cross the line from thought into action?

Do you think it's possible to introspect, like looking backwards for every individual case where the disconnection began and how it evolved?

What did you do and what did the other person do?

And see, the interesting thing about being a divorce lawyer is I'm weaponizing intimacy in a courtroom.

So I'm telling, it's full context storytelling, what I do for a living.

So what I do is I take my client's story and I have to present it to a judge and make my client the hero in every way and the other side the villain in every way.

Now I have to be careful not to do that in a manner that loses credibility, because even a judge would know, even a judge is smart enough to know that no one's all good or all bad.

But only if you were reverse engineering a relationship and saying, how did this break?

You really have to look at both people, the good and the bad, what each of them did that moved the dial in these different directions.

And I think that that's very hard for anyone going through a divorce to do about their own relationship.

You know, we don't know who discovered water,

Like if you're in it, I don't think you see it clearly.

I think as a divorce lawyer, whose job is to really drill down on the facts and figure out what's going on in this story, I have to look at both sides.

So I have to think a lot about my own arguments, but I also have to think about what's the other lawyer's argument going to be, especially in custody cases.

So I really have been forced to look at both sides for so many years, so deeply in relationships that once you do that, it's very, you realize that the

good guy, bad guy thing just doesn't apply.

I wonder if it's the little things or a few big things that cause this connection.

Whether it's, I mean, you've talked about granola and blowjobs, but those seem to be stories that you can tell to yourself.

Maybe that story should be explained, or maybe not.

think granola and blowjobs is self-explanatory?

I think people can construct a good, like if you ask GPT, what do they mean?

I think the story that would come up is a pretty good 1.

But that's a story you tell about when you first knew the disconnection has begun, is when he stopped buying my favorite granola or when she stopped giving blowjobs.

I would say when it's reached like a critical mass.

Because I think it started before that, when she said, yeah, I used to give him blowjobs.

And you know, when we were in our early relationship and then 1 day, like, I just was like, oh, well, you know, we don't have as much time.

Like, I'll wait until later and we'll have sex

And they had kids at that point, so I think she really was like, hey, we've gotten a certain window, so let's have something we both enjoy.

So I don't think she had any negative intentions there.

I think that she was working in good faith towards the betterment of the relationship, but it was having this second order effect.

And so I really do think that, yeah, the blowjob's granola.

I mean, anyone who's been in a long-term relationship, I guess it's just worth asking the question, what does this person do that makes me feel loved?

Because I think it's very interesting in my own experience in life.

I remember I had a difficult chapter with 1 of my sons, my younger son, when he was in his early 20s.

And we were having a heartfelt conversation.

And I said to him, do you know I love you?

You know, not just do you know it intellectually, do you feel it?

And I remember thinking to myself, when do we feel someone's love, right?

And sometimes it's the weirdest, silliest things that they would never know.

They are the person who's showing us that they love us and that we're feeling their love.

Like if you said, why does this person love you?

They wouldn't say, oh, because I always make sure that when the paper comes, I bring it from the bottom of

the driveway to the door so they don't have to go out and get it.

Or I, you know, oh, I always, like, again, I buy the granola that I know this person likes, you know, or I remembered that they don't like it when I put on this particular record, so I don't put it on.

Like, and those are these, yes, they're small things, but they're not small, they're kind of everything.

Do you think it's good to communicate that stuff?

It takes away some of the power of it, right?

When you point it out, then the person realizes, okay, he likes this or dislikes this.

So yes, there becomes a deliberateness to it, you know, a conscious.

So I understand not pointing that out when it's a good thing.

I think when it's a negative thing, like I think in the granola situation, if she had said to him, hey, you used to do this and you've stopped, That feels like something to me.

Like she said, she didn't say anything about that, just like he probably didn't say anything about the blowjobs.

Like I think if there had been a moment of this is starting, let's talk about it while it's starting, but people wait.

From what I can see, people wait until the big thing happens, the financial impropriety, the substance use disorder, the cheating.

They wait for that to happen, and then they go, where did we go wrong?

And the answer is, quite a while ago, with the granola.

Yeah, yeah, so when you notice something, like you notice that little something, talk about it.

Because that little something is probably a kernel of a deeper truth.

We're all like a rollercoaster of emotions, so you can not bring a granola 1 day just because you're in this place where just nothing is, just cynicism everywhere, just anger and so on.

But it's a temporary feeling, but maybe that temporary feeling is grounded in some other deeper current that's actually building up.

Yeah, and I think a good partner wants to understand the currents of their partner.

They wanna understand like, hey, are you going through something?

Like, and look, if I'm the 1 you need to take it out on, that's okay, like I'm a big boy, I can take it, you know?

Like if you're hormonal, if you're frustrated at work, if you're whatever, like we should be able to, you know, to have a little bit of that interaction in a relationship.

But I do think it's so easy to just say to people, oh, communication is the key.

saying to somebody, this feels like something to me, am I wrong?

Like this just feels like something to me.

I mean, 1 of the things I'm very caught up on or feel very strongly about is that we have been encouraged culturally to criticize people we're in long-term relationships with.

Not new relationships, new relationships, You put the person on a pedestal, you're allowed to just, oh, they're wonderful.

But every trope out there in every form of popular media is like the wife rolling her eyes at the husband and the husband being like, oh, this loathsome Harpy that castrated me.

As if like people are just passive players in their lives.

And I think that is an incredibly toxic message to send to people, that this is how we should be relating to our partner.

Like we should not, you don't take the piss out of your partner in front of people.

Like the successful relationships I've seen are where people are just cheering for their partner, where they are thick as thieves, where there is just this feeling of like, man, they like each other.

Like they got each other's back like you wouldn't believe.

Like man, you could take sides against anybody, but take sides against their partner, you're going down.

Like, and that, when you see a couple that has that, you just, you know, that's so hard to break.

But I think that comes from having like a steadfast, yeah, no, I don't do that.

Like, and you don't shit talk my partner to me.

You know, like, and that to me is when, Because I think we're just so criticized by the world.

We criticize ourselves so harshly that having a partner who no matter what is like, you've got this, I'm with you.

Like you fuck, okay, yeah, you screwed up.

Look, I'm not gonna lie to you about your blind spots, you screwed up.

If you have that person, like I feel like that's a superpower to have that effect on another person.

Yeah, 1 of the things I love seeing, when you look at a couple and 1 is talking, like in an interview, answering a question, especially like intellectual questions, like what do you think about the war in Ukraine or something, and then the partner is talking and the other person is looking at them as if they're hearing the wisest thing ever.

Like they're still looking at them, not waiting for their turn to speak, not thinking about how's the audience going to take that, but they're looking at them like, God damn, I'm so lucky to be with this smart motherfucker.

Isn't that, but there's a scene- And they can

There's a scene in the movie, True Romance.

Gary Oldman seems like the greatest scene ever done in film with Christian Slater.

But there's a scene in it where she holds up a sign to Christian Slater and it says, you're so cool.

Like I've always, I think I say it somewhere in the book that, you know, you go to weddings and like when the bride walks in, you know, everybody's looking at the bride, it's her show.

You know, everybody turns around is the first glimpse everybody gets of the bride.

I always look at the groom looking at the bride.

Because there's this, to me, that's every, he has this look, because this is the first time he's seeing her in the dress most of the time, and also he's seeing her like, holy shit, she's coming down the aisle, we're getting married, but this is it.

And I always look at him, because I always think to myself, the look on his face is like, that's this feeling of like, holy, yeah, wow, okay.

Everyone's looking at her and she's mine.

And she's coming up here and we're getting married.

And I feel like, yeah, like that, that kind of adoration.

Like, I think that's the look we're describing is like adoration, like that the words coming out of their mouth, that they're like, yeah, that's mine.

Seeing the good stuff, like with True Romance, I mean, you could make fun of the guys, totally cringe wearing Elvis, like essentially being a fake Elvis with shades and like, what is he doing?

It's like watching these Kung Fu movies, but from her perspective and from any perspective you could take on him is this is the baddest motherfucker who's ever lived.

Like He's willing to do those things for me, but not like, it's almost like an epic heroic figure.

And we're living in this epic hero story.

Like if there was a point to this, to this whole thing, this whole couple thing, isn't that it?

I don't understand this idea of we had a successful marriage.

We were miserable for 47 of them, but we hung in there.

Like the primary relationship of your life, you've decided you're gonna turn into like a 50 mile trail race.

Like congratulations, you took the concept of monogamy and made it something that 2 people are absolutely not gonna enjoy, but you hung in there.

And I understand there's religious perspectives that say, well, it's a sacred covenant, but I have a real chicken or the egg problem with that.

Because I think it was like, well, how do we sell this incredibly stupid concept that isn't working to people?

I know, we'll tell them God says you have to.

I Really, because when you see a successful marriage or you see 2, even without a marriage, you see a pair bond, you see a couple that really love each other and cheer for each other in that way and like hang on each other's words that way and like are just in each other's corner that way, you see the fake shit instantly.

It's like if you, you know, the first time, this is the first time I've come to Austin.

I thought I'd eaten a lot of barbecue in my life.

I was like, okay, I've never had barbecue before.

Apparently this is a whole different thing.

I think it's like, once you see real love, like Real love, and I mean romantic love, like real love like that, real bond, real, you go, oh yeah, this other thing's not gonna do it.

Do you think that's a daily deliberate choice that a couple like that makes?

Because it feels like a very easy to do deliberate step.

Like choose to see the brilliant in it, the beautiful in it, and almost immediately everything shifts and it becomes this momentum where all you see is the beautiful and all you see is the brilliant.

I think approaching life that way is a conscious choice.

Approaching any relationship that way is a conscious choice.

or does something hurtful to you and thinking about what's going on in their life that they're doing that or what's happening with them.

And I think a better 1, a better 1 than seething in animosity and letting that eat you alive.

But I don't know that it's, I don't think it should be so difficult.

Like with our children, with our pets, we don't have this problem.

Like you never have someone look at their dog who they've had for 8 years and go, I gotta get a new dog.

Like I gotta get, like puppies are so cute.

They're like, oh my God, this is like my dog.

See all Lex Fridman Podcast transcripts on Applepodcasts

#396 – James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love