Speaking to a Divorce Lawyer and His Views on Love and Marriage — The Discussion Was Nothing Short of Surprising.

If in fact, God spoke to humanity with The Ten Commandments, I think it’s hilarious that the only thing that He has to say twice is “Don’t fuck people you’re not married to.”

I spoke to a divorce lawyer of over 20 years about his views on love, marriage, the laws and life from his view in general. This is everything he had to say:

Thou shalt not kill? Once.

Thou shalt honor the sabbath? Once

Don’t covet your neighbor's wife. Don’t commit adultery? TWICE!

Religion is a huge proponent of marriage. Why? How else are you going to get people to commit to something as iffy as marriage?

One of the most depressing cases I ever worked on was for a guy who was 92. He left his wife of over 50 years for a younger woman, which told me one thing: Even in their 90s, men are still being led around with their dicks. Like I said — depressing.

That guy terrified me. I thought that at least by that age, we’d maybe take a walk in the park thinking “oh, what a wonderful human being.”

Nope. We’re doomed. The guy’s past 90 and still thinking one thing. I thought we’d at least get to experience what it’s like just to be free from all that. Not even close.

Female attractiveness is absolutely the highest-valued commodity. Men are becoming rich and powerful just to get a woman.

A sexually attractive woman — and what I mean is even a sexually confident one — what an unbelievably lucrative career it is.

I do divorces where a woman would walk out with $200 to $300 million.

He was an analyst at Goldman Sachs who built a hedge fund and sold it and then used his trading algorithm to build it up to $500 million.

She was hot.

Slept with him for just a little while.

And then stopped and started sleeping with others, and playing tennis and getting Botox.

And she’s going to get half.

That’s fucking incredible. Do you know what he had to do to get that? Do you know what she had to do?

Even I’ll fuck that guy for $200 million — are you kidding me?

That’s insane. It’s incredible. And God bless. I’m just saying, you know — these are the rules of the game.

But you can’t argue that that’s not easier than going to Harvard.

However, the tradeoff is that as she hits a certain age, the value decreases.

Hey, you hold any stock for too long and the value goes down, right?

Marriage was created at a time when life expectancy was about 18 years of age. It was created mainly for land ownership.

We have to look at it this way: Marriage is a government concept, a contract, a legal status.

Parabonds, however; are two people going into it together. Among billions of people, two will hold hands till whenever and get through it together.

All marriages end. They will all end in either death or divorce and it’s the only thing where the desired outcome is death.

If you break it down fundamentally, 56% of marriages end in divorce. Those are the ones that end in divorce. So what percentage stay together for the kids or because they don’t want to give away half their stuff? 20%?

At least.

You now have a technology that fails 76% of the time. That’s insane. That’s more likely than not.

If I told you there’s a 76% chance that if you walk out the door today, you’ll get hit in the head by a bowling ball, you wouldn’t go out!

Or you’d at least put a helmet on.

And yet, people still get married. Not only that but there’s a presumption that you should get married. If you don’t get married “there’s something wrong with you.”

You’ve got a girlfriend and you’ve been together for five years and you tell someone that you’re getting married.

They say “Oh, that’s great!”

They don’t say “Why? You’re happy. Why would you do that? Everything’s going fine. Why would you run that risk?”

If you tell someone “We’ve decided that we’re not going to get married, she’s just going to move in.”

Then everyone goes “Oh, what’s your problem?”

Meanwhile, 56% end in divorce. It literally fits the legal definition of negligence.

The way you define negligence in law school is when what you lose by not doing something turns out to be lower than the risk of harm.

It’s what’s called “The B.P.L. Analysis”.

The burden of not doing something is lower than the probability of harm.

So burden, probability, and loss.

Do I believe in love? Absolutely.

But love and marriage have barely anything to do with one another.

I believe in parabonds.

56% of marriages end in divorce, but 84% are remarried within five years of that divorce!

So now you’ve done it, failed at it, felt the pain of that loss, then did it again within five years!

Next time you’re out with a couple, maybe they’ve been fighting or they seem whatever throughout the night — ask them how they first met.

You’ll see them change almost instantly. It’s because it takes them back to that place.

Divorce is ugly and I see these people weaponized against each other.

If you were to ask me what the secret is to a long marriage, I’d tell you that the secret is the same as maintaining a healthy weight.

Don’t wait until you get super fat and then try to lose the weight.

My sister’s a dentist. She says that if you have a toothache, she can pull the tooth or perform a root canal. It’s pretty much already too late to save the tooth.

It’s the same mentality.

I once had a client and asked her if there was a moment when she realized that the marriage was over and she said yes.

There was a granola that she liked and always put in her yogurt. Whenever it would run out, he’d always go and bring more, restocking it without telling her.

He never wanted credit for it and she never mentioned how much she appreciated it.

One day, it ran out and he hadn’t gotten more. She left the empty bag in there thinking that maybe he forgot.

But he never refilled it.

I asked her if there was anything that she had like that for him.

She said “yeah, blow jobs.”

It would make him happy and the giving was a pleasure in itself.

But somewhere along the line, it becomes “I’m not happy, so why should you be?”

Maybe the granola stopped so the blow jobs stopped or vice versa.

Maybe they happened at the same time.

The communication stopped and the whole thing fell apart.

All the legally binding variables within a marriage aren’t even known about by your typical married couple.

Inherited money from your mother but you put it in a bank account that mixed with your daily wages? That inheritance is now half-owned by your spouse.

There are so many things that couples know nothing about until they learn it in my office during a divorce or in a courtroom.

Couples talk more about the cake for the wedding than many binding contracts within a contract of marriage that should be common knowledge.

If marriage is a legally-binding contract, then you should really read into it like one.

I do 10 to 15 prenups a month. But many say “Oh no, I really don’t want to talk about that because it looks bad.”

Those are the marriages that usually end quickly.

So in trying to prevent making it awkward, it got awkward very quickly.

Marriage is a performance art.

We used to compare ourselves to the neighbors and what kind of car they had, etc.

Now we’re on the toilet scrolling through happy hashtags as they sit in my office for a consult.

Meanwhile, you’re looking at that “hashtag, best wife ever”.

We’re constantly advertising how amazing our relationships are while they’re on fire burning down. We’re constantly comparing.

Speaking traditionally, my parents weren’t so caught up in their own happiness. These days we’re constantly talking about it whether it’s real or not.

I don’t want to call it narcissistic, but we’re very self-involved and we don’t need to be.

The truth is that times have changed and are constantly changing. Previous generations were grateful to be alive whereas currently, most aren’t grateful until they drive a Mercedes.

But even then it’s questionable.

An important question that comes up is if the world is more sympathetic toward men or women in a divorce?

The answer would be that they’re both the same — however, the world is more sympathetic toward a woman in a divorce.

I think that if a woman gets cheated on, the man’s a piece of trash. But if a woman cheats on a man, she must have been forced into the arms of another man.

If a man cheats, he’s a piece of garbage, but if a man’s wife cheats, he must have not been meeting her needs.

The world is very unsympathetic to men through a divorce.

There used to be a legal maternal presumption called The Tender Years Doctrine. If a child was under the age of 7, they were automatically presumed to be in the custody of the mother.

Bottom line: Men get hit harder in divorce. They see their children less. They get hit harder financially. They’re the bad guy no matter what.

However, divorced men have it a little easier. If he meets a young woman, it’s automatically “instant family — just add me.”

Women who see a man with kids will often think “look how nurturing he can be.”

Women with kids, however — men will think “oh no, she’s got baggage.”

Different problems post-divorce.

In conclusion, of the hundreds, of not thousands of couples that I’ve met, I can think of one couple who are genuinely happy together.

The secret? I think they actually, genuinely like each other. It was to the point where they made everyone around them uncomfortable.

It made all others uncomfortable because this couple made them all realize that they didn’t have the same thing this couple did.

It’s like a lottery. It really is. Either you’re going to buy that ticket or you’re not going to play the game.

Thank you M.L. and J for your contribution.