The Most Eye-Opening Conversation on Marriage & Love You Will Ever Hear (From #1 Divorce Lawyer)

Have you ever gone to a funeral, and noticed that as soon as you leave, you have this deep urgency. You're like, "I have to allow myself to live my life." Or you go to a wedding, and you are reminded of just how extraordinary it is to be in love.

“These moments, it's as if the force of life is moving through you.”

Well, that's going to happen to you as you listen to the conversation today. It will have a transformational and profound effect on you.

Because you're about to hear the most important relationship advice.

Our expert today is going to talk about love in a way that you've never heard before. He's also going to teach you the simple habits of successful relationships. For me personally, this is one of the most impactful conversations I have ever had on this podcast, and I cannot wait for you and everybody that you love to experience it. It's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast.

I am so excited that you're here. It's always an honor to be together. It's always an honor to spend time with you, but today I can't wait.

And if you're a new listener, or you're here because someone shared this episode with you,

I want to take a moment and personally welcome you to the Mel Robbins podcast family. Today, you're going to learn the best relationship advice that you will ever hear. Today's guest, James Sexton, is a world-renowned authority on relationships. But coming from a perspective, you may not expect. He's the author of the best-selling book How to Stay in Love. But he also happens to be one of the top divorce attorneys in the world.

Which means for decades, he has had a front row seat to the reason why marriage is fall apart. And he's going to tell you, most breakups don't happen because of something catastrophic. They result from the little mistakes over time that everyone misses. Today he'll teach you what those mistakes are and convince you that a few small changes are the secret to creating, lasting, and loving relationships. Without further ado, please help me

welcome James Sexton to the Mel Robbins podcast. James Sexton, welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast. To be here. I have so many questions for you, but where I want to start is this? How could my life be different if I take everything to hurt that you're about to teach me today? And I apply it to my life

“and my relationship. What could change? I mean, I think, you know, as a practicing divorce lawyer”

for 25 plus years, I have a really unique vantage point. You know, a lot of relationship advice that people get and people give, it's coming from a psychology background, it's coming from a hypothetical theoretical background. And again, has tremendous value, but it's not like in the trenches, and it's not this really raw, candid version because I think people lie to their therapist all the time, but they don't lie to their lawyer. Like your doctor and your lawyer are the two people you

should never lie to under any circumstances. Everything we're doing is to protect you and everything

we're saying is subject to privilege. So you can tell us the raw candid truth. And I think that's created in me a unique perspective on, you know, if you wanted to figure out how to keep your car in good shape, don't talk to the car salesman. All they do is deal with new cars, talk to the mechanic. Like talk to the person who's seen every way a car can break down and we'll say to you, hey, here's the stress points. Here's where I find this model of car tends to break and here's how

you could shore that up and prevent it. So a lot of what I try to give people instead of like

“platitudes, like, oh, you need to maintain connection with yourself. Like, what does that mean?”

Like, I need to know what that means. Like, if I'm trying to fix my relationship or keep my relationship on track, and you say, stay connected. Okay, do you mean like a date night or more sex or should we go on vacation or should I be asking different questions when we're having breakfast together? Should we be having breakfast together? Like, what do you mean? Like, I need practical things because there's a lawyer. You know, like, it doesn't matter what I know, it matters what I can prove.

So I don't just have to think in these broad ways that, you know, maybe a researcher or psychologist can. I have to think, okay, what can demonstrate something? What is evidence to support what it is that I'm putting out there? So I think what you could walk out of this conversation with is a feeling of, I have practical, specific things that I can now bring to my relationship, that aren't complicated, that don't require me to buy anything, they just require me to buy

I think you'll actually see challenges in your relationship potentially improve, or if you're fortunate enough to be in a place where your relationship is strong, you'll find yourself kind of maintaining that because, you know, it's a whole lot easier to maintain fitness than to let it fall

apart and then try to get back on track, like those first miles are so hard. And that's really

what the goal is, is to help people by learning from the mistakes I've now seen thousands of people make, just keep their relationship in a good place. I am so excited you're here because I don't want to make those mistakes. And what's interesting about that example of fitness, as you said,

“it can be easier to maintain it. I think it's almost equally easy to let it fall off as it is to”

maintain it. It's really whether or not you understand those little levers when you start to fall off because just like fitness, there are probably areas in your relationship right now where you are falling off and you don't even realize this is a major mistake that will land you in front of somebody like you James. Yeah, and falling feels like flying for a little while.

What do you mean? And like it feels good, you know, like when things are sort of coasting,

yeah, you kind of go, because there's just so much coming at us in the world. And so to go, all right, I got my person. I got that lockdown. I can worry about all this other stuff. The kids work, you know, what's going on in the world, everything else. Because I have this. I'm good. I'm good. We have each other. We're wearing a ring. We're doing the whole thing. We're in. We don't have to worry about that anymore. And meanwhile, like no, that's that's that you've got to water that plant.

Like that's it. That's a relationship that when you were looking for it, it was so important. And when you found it, you were so happy that you found it. You know, we make the mistake of thinking love is like permanently gifted to us. It's known like every marriage ends. It ends in death or divorce. But it ends. And it's one of those weird things like to say to someone I hope it ends in death for you. But it's the truth. Like I hope your marriage ends in death. Because the other way

that it's going to end is divorce. And the majority of marriages end in divorce over 50% end in divorce. And that's just the ones that catastrophically failed. Think about how many people succeeded

in marriage. But, you know, they meaning they didn't divorce. But they're unhappy. They never really

become the most authentic version of themselves. They stay together for the kids. Because I don't want to give away half their things. What is that? Another 10% 20%. Now you have something that fails 70% of the time. And yet we are like, let's do it. We got to sign people up for this. It's a great thing. It's like, even if someone says I'm getting married, if you were to say, really, why? It would be rude. That's a rude question to ask. But meanwhile, you're doing something that

fails roughly 50% to 70% of the time. It's not unreasonable to say, why? And I think the big issue

“is, and that's why I say, like falling feels like flying for a little while until you hit the ground.”

Because sometimes by the time you realize, oh, this marriage is not a good place anymore. It's real far gone. And it's real hard to come back. And that's why when people say, like, what's the number one cause of divorce? It's like, disconnection is the number one cause of divorce. But there's a whole bunch of other symptoms that come from disconnection that are easy to point to and say, well, that was the cause. But it wasn't the cause. The cause was the disconnection.

No single raindrop was responsible for the flood. But the flood's nothing but little raindrops. Do you believe in marriage? I do. Yeah, I do. I mean, I think I think that's an individual question. I like to look at relationships, romantic relationships as chapters in a long book. And I think like any chapter in a long book, you know, there's some chapters that are tragic and some chapters that are sad and some chapters that are just filled with nothing but joy.

“You know, I think Orson Well said that whether a story is a comedy or a tragedy depends on when”

you end it. You know, and I think a lot of, you know, relationship stories that we sell to people, rom-coms and things like that. They're kind of the relationship equivalent of pornography, like they're just a stylized version of what actual relationships look like, you know, without any of the complexity, like with just the good part. And I think I think marriage, I don't think I can learn everything I need to know about myself from myself.

I think I need someone who'll see my blind spots. And I think I need that person to be someone I can be really fearless around. And I think like at its core, marriage should boil down to four words that I think I think are potentially the most beautiful words you could say to someone in mean or have someone say to you and know their true. And that is you're my favorite person. Like, what could be more beautiful than being told and knowing,

back, yeah, you're my favorite person. Like, what would be better in the world than having that,

you know? And so I like to think about kind of the end of things and then reverse engineer. And to me, like at the end of your life, if you could look at another person and say, you helped me become the most authentic version of myself and you're still my favorite person. That's the greatest wedding toast you could ever have. Like that's the greatest blessing you could

“have in your life. And I think it'd be the greatest asset you could have in your life. But having”

represented tops, teachers, firefighters, CEOs, elite athletes, celebrities, we are all equally terrible with this. What do you wish every couple understood before they got married? So two things and their contradictory. So I say that out front. Because as soon as I say it, I know it's going to sound like a contradiction. But I think you'll, as a long, long married person, I think you'll agree. I think they make two contradictory mistakes. One is thinking that marrying

this person will change them. So you know, he leaves his socks everywhere, but if we get married, he'll stop doing that. He drinks too much, but if we get married to something, you know, she's not very fiscally responsible, but if we get married, she'll, you know, shape up and get that together. So thinking that if you marry somebody, they're going to become a better version of themselves and they'll definitely change. This is not a great idea. Like, this is not a,

you're not buying a depressed company that this, you're hoping the stock will go up. But the

contradictory thing is also thinking this person will never change. If we get married, that it'll

prevent them from change. Oh, I see exactly why these are the same thing. Right. Because it's the feeling of, hey, you know, like, this is so good. Like, the sex is so good and our companionship is so good and our conversation is so good and our whole vibe together is so good. Like, if we get married, we're going to, it's like building a wall around this thing and it's going to keep it amazing. You know, and that's, this is what we have to do. We'll shore up all the defenses

against the world and we'll, if nothing will change, we'll just be happy and haven't sex and haven't agreed. Just like we are right now forever. And like, that's just ridiculous. Like, there's nothing. There's no way to have me maybe when people died in their 30s and 40s. That was

“possible because you had a short window of time. But the truth is, like, to say,”

how many people would be with somebody 30, 40, 50 years in this very intense intimate relationship?

And, you know, it'll never change. Like, that's insane. We're going to, our bodies change,

our goals change, that the pressures were the society around us is constantly changing, technology is changing. So, how would you think that a contract we signed with the government about our relationship is going to prevent it from eroding or having any of the, like, natural things that happen to our bodies or lives to every other relationship we have? So, is there a better question to ask yourself knowing how much change is going to hit you? You know what I'm saying?

Like, so if you could grab every young couple by the shoulders who's in that moment where they're like, I think this is my person. You're my favorite person now. Yeah. And I'm feeling the pressure or I really have always wanted to get married or all my friends are getting married or I'm the only single one or I've been divorced for too long and I want to try this. Like, is there a question

“that you wish couples or people personally would just stop and ask themselves the true question?”

I think everything is what little things can we do to stay connected? I don't think it's that hard. Like, I think you can dedicate 10 minutes a week to the upkeep of a relationship and stay out of my office a lot of the time. I genuinely believe that if you spend 10 minutes a week, just saying to your partner, what did I do this week? Tell me three things I did this week that made you feel loved. I think you'd be surprised at the answer. Like, I think you think you know the answer,

but you'd be surprised. Like, I think if you're husband, if, if you, if he said to you, what are three things I did this week that made you feel loved, the practical actual answers, you might not be able to predict those. Like, he might not have been able to guess in advance what they are because little things make us feel loved. And by the way, if you have courage and you go into this transaction saying, hey, we're going to not hear this defensively. Like, we're going to speak

honestly and we're going to hear in a non-defensive way. Then you can ask another question, which is, where did I miss the mark this week? What are three things I could have done better this week? What were three things I did this week that made you feel less than loved or less than seen? You get a fun with it and say, what are three things I did this week that made you want to have sex with me? Like, what were three things this week that I did that turned you on? By the way,

question, it's the weirdest things. It's like, oh, you were the dogs came in from outside and you were

like, you know, kind of tawling them off and the way they were looking at you. And like, that made you want to have sex with me? Like, here I have the dogs. I'm trying to get me to talk abs. And meanwhile, this is what makes you feel like, like, feel, but it really, like, the things that they did. I understand. I honestly, when you said what makes you feel, I was thinking to myself, "Well, Chris asked me that while I was here working, he was with his friends skiing and he took

our two dogs." And so he spent the day, you know, hiking up the mountain and skiing down, the dogs were chasing him. He sent me photos. And I felt so love that he remembered me in the middle of that and sent me that in the middle of the day. And see, and you identify what that really was, which

wasn't just the thing. It's what's underneath it. Yes. Like, that he thought, "Oh, this is so good.

“I want to share this with her." Yes. Like, and that's what I mean about your”

my favorite person. Like, all that is is just staying a little bit connected and conscious. Like, what did that cost? Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. And we get so fixated on these grand gestures. Like, you know, "Oh, love is about like these grand. I'm going to plan a birthday party. I'm going to make it a huge, and listen, there's value in grand gestures." But like, dated day things like that, that's the thing. And by the way, it works in both directions. Like, I guarantee there's some

little thing you do that you may not even think is that big of a deal. But that's the thing that makes him feel deeply connected, valued, seen, understood, safe, like emotionally. And like, even just the fact that he's, you know, you know, he loves the dogs as much as you, because the shared connection of things you love. Like, whether that's your children, whether it's companion animals, whether it's an activity, whether it's a friend group. There's something about knowing, like, "Oh, this

person feels this as deeply as I do." This person feels this depth of love and connection for, I mean, animals for me is a big thing. I'm a dog person. But like, there's something so beautiful about sharing that with someone and knowing, "Oh, it's okay. I'm away." Because this person loves the dogs as much as I do and panders to them as much as I do and will send me photos and will, you know, do all the little things that I do when I'm out so that, you know, I know that the

dogs feel safe and love to me. Like, that, that is so easy to just articulate to each other and remind each other. Like, I don't think it takes the magic away to know that and to hear that.

“Like, I think if Chris heard you say, "Do you know how special that made me feel? Do you know how”

beautiful that was? Like, do you know how much more that makes me love you and feel seen by you when you did that?" You'd be like, "I was just taking pictures of the dogs." Like, "But me, like, it's not the thing. It's what's underneath. It's what it's emblematic of and I feel like so many of us have so many of those things." Absolutely, we don't say it. And they're good and bad. Like, like, if you're the kind of person like me, I like all the dishes out of the sink by the end of

the day. Like, I'm very, and I like doing dishes because unlike the practice of law, there's like a middle and end and you're done. And it's like, "Oh, everything's clean." Whereas, with cases, it's like, I could work 24 hours a day and there'd still be more to do. It's not about like leaving the sink full of dirty dishes. It's about what are those symbolized. That symbolizes you know that I like things a certain way and it's not that important to you. You assume I'm going to take care of this

thing and that, you know, you don't have to, like, it's always the thing under the thing. And if

early on in a relationship when there's still all this abundance of goodwill and connection and optimism, if that's when you say, "Hey, let's figure out how to keep this here with these little, tiny, practical discussions, communications." Again, whether it's an email, we send each other once a week with that list or whether it's we go for a walk and it's like our walk and talk once

“a week and we do this. I think those kinds of practical little things are the way you stay connected”

period. Well, just to make sure as you were listening or you were watching here on YouTube that you got just those two simple questions. The first one was, "What are three ways that I made you feel love?" May you feel love. Yes. And the second one was, "What are three ways where I missed the mark?" Yeah. That's it. And you might want to throw in, you know, here are three ways you made me feel loved, this way. Like just to, because again, I'm a believer in that positive reinforcement.

Absolutely. You don't beat your dog into becoming well behaved. You love them into it. You're a war good behavior. This is like basic, this is the basic stuff that we don't do it. We start with, this is what you did wrong. You know, I mean, you're like, "Ah!" Right in the entry point in the conversation, so important. Because there's so many couples, for example, that, you know,

much sex as we used to. We used to have so much sex." Okay. So if you walk into your wife and say,

“"You know, we're just not having sex as much as you used to." You know, the response to you,”

"Well, you're not here." And when you're here, you're in a terrible mood. Well, I'm in a terrible moment because work is, "Now, where are we going?" We're going nowhere good. Like, no one's walking out of that conversation when let's have more sex. Everyone's walking in that conversation going, "Yeah, this is exactly why we're not having more sex." Whereas, if you entered that conversation with, "God, you know, I was driving down the street the other day and I remember when we were first

dating and we went away to that cheap B&B, you know, that we didn't have the money to afford. We were supposed to go do it. And we didn't have to stay in bed the whole day. Like, remember, God, I was just thinking about that today. Like, that was so, you know, like, when we were so connected physically, I just love that about, okay, now, now you're like, "Let's book the hotel." Let's book, right? Like, because what am I doing? I'm talking about something we did.

“That this was us and it's a version of us. Let's visit it for a second. Wasn't it great?”

Well, here's what I love about that. Here's what I love about that. You can use nostalgia and going back

to a better time as a reference point to remind both of you of what you miss and something that's underneath all these little things that have led to all this disc content and disconnection and what their epistereal calls normal marital rage and and and hostility. I think you call it normal marital hostility. Yeah, it's called normal marital resentment. Yeah. That is just about the disconnection because I think the resentment comes from knowing deep down. You started in a different place. And for I think

for a lot of people, you just don't know how to get back. And you think since it feels so off, what's right in front of your nose is what you're pointing out? Yeah. Well, we've been told it's supposed to be easy, too. I think that we're constantly baraged in media with examples of just effortless love. And I think that there is an aspect of love that's utterly effortless. Like love is an emotion but loves a verb. You know, love's a verb. I mean love is an emotion. It's a feeling,

but it's a verb. Like to love someone is to act with love for them. Like it's a verb. It's a thing you do. So it's not just something you feel at something you act upon and to act with love towards someone. And so the acting with love towards someone, loving someone actively, the act of loving them requires a some understanding of them and their blind spots. Like what would be wrong with sitting down with your partner at the start of a relationship and saying, look, we're going to get in

fight. Some point. It's probably going to be my fault. I'm going to say something stupid. I say dumb things all the time. So we're definitely going to have an argument at some point. When we do, what kind of person are you? Do you like need a minute? Should I let it kind of like air out? Because if I if I try to force the conversation, we're going to have a big argument or are you the like, we cannot go to bed angry. We got to work this out. We have to talk about this

tonight. Because the time to learn that is not when you're in a fight. Like the time to learn that is when there's this abundance of connection, optimism between the two of you. And then when that moment comes to have the presence of mine, when you have a conflict to go, okay, we knew this was going to happen. And this is how we talked about we're going to try to navigate this together. Again, like everything I'm proposing anybody do in their relationship is free and it usually doesn't

take more than a few minutes. And by the way, what you said about nostalgia, I think nostalgia is a

powerful tool. But it's not just nostalgia. It's also framing. Because there are ways to effectively

“manipulate the emotional state of your spouse. Please tell us. What do I think of as a lawyer?”

My job is to manipulate people's emotional state. That's my job. Like I want the judge to like my client. I want my client to feel safe. I want the other side to feel scared. I want the court reporter to like me. I want the court officer to like me because they're going to go back and chambers with the judge and I want them to go sex and it's a really good lawyer. I don't want to go that sex and so arrogant. So I got to be really I want everyone. Not everybody can help me. But

damn you're everybody can hurt me. So I'm going to do my best in that courtroom to manipulate everyone's emotional state and have no one think I'm doing it. Well, here's the other thing, though, when you're doing it, you're very authentically intentional. 100%. Because that's what you actually want. 100%. And by the way, you know, because people hear the word manipulate. But what you're actually being is you're being super strategic because you do want the court officer to think you're an

excellent lawyer. Listen, I manipulate the screw because I want the thing to be screwed into the walls. Like manipulation is not in and of itself anything to farious. Yes. Like what when an example I've given before is so I you know, I'm a trial lawyer. So I try to be like clean shape and I don't get to have that like oops I didn't know I was sexy stubble that's so popular. So I have to like be clean shape it. But on the weekends, I like to not shape. Like it is a

shave on the weekends. By like the second day by Sunday, I have like scruff and it's kind of

course. Yep. And I was dating a woman who had very sensitive skin. And anytime I would like go to kiss her, she would go like oh god, like you're beard so scratchy. And immediately in me, I went like in my head, like you know, like all right, so now I got to shave on the weekends too. When I see you, that relationship didn't work out, not surprisingly, not for that reason, but it didn't work out. My next relationship, she had the exact same issue. She had sensitive skin.

But her response, her way of handling it was, I would shave and she would invariably come up and go, kind of love it when you're clean-shaven. Like it's like you and I'm like John Ham, like a don't draper and madman. Dude, I would shave three times a day. I would, I'm constantly I would shave

“and I would go, I'd just shave today and she'd be like oh my god, I love it. Okay, what did she do?”

What did she do but manipulate me in a positive way? Like all she was doing was saying instead of framing it as something I'm doing wrong. She framed it as, here's this opposite thing you do, that oh, I love it. And now I want to please my partner. I want my partner to feel good about me and think I'm sexy and think I'm so of course, I'm going to want to move towards that. Right. And not pull away from it. So a lot of it is about framing. The nostalgia is a very

powerful tool but it's really like how do we frame what it is we're trying to accomplish here.

And really focusing often on the things that are going well and that you like and tripling down on what they're doing well. Because I mean let's be honest, the world is like constantly criticizing us and even constructive criticisms, criticism. Like it doesn't feel great to have this person who's supposed to be your favorite person and you're their favorite person and they're criticizing you. Like everything is criticizing you. Like what's right in this connection very often is

the cure for what's feeling wrong in it. And criticism is rarely the path there. If you really think about kind of all those little mistakes, kind of like a mechanic that can tell you what's going to go wrong with the car, what do you feel are the list of mistakes that people make in long-term relationships that lead to divorce or lead to all the problems that we may not realize. And I realize that you've already said that underneath it all is disconnection. But what

“are those mistakes that we need to really know about? Yeah. I mean I think if you start with where are”

we when we meet and fall in love. We fall in love super fast. I mean we we really connect with the person so instantaneously. And then we we fall apart the same way we go bankrupt, which is very slowly and then all at once. You know it's like this little tiny little bit a little bit bump off the cliff. And so I think it's the same thing with falling out of love. And so the big relationship killers or infidelity, financial, impropriety, you know outright deception. Like and

that's huge. Like I would say a good 85% of the divorce is that I'm involved in fidelity has some role in it. Why do you think that is? Because I think we have a human. The same reason why so many people want to get married. We have a human desire to connect to another person. And I think we're social creatures. This is something in us like we want to connect with another person. We we need desperately to to be interested and interesting. And we want to feel

loved. We want physical connection with another person. We want the attention that comes with

“physical connection. You know we want the I think we whether it's marriage and the early days of”

marriage or dating or the early days of infidelity. It's not just the other person that we kind of fall for. It's also who we feel like when we're with them. You know like you stand a little taller when someone sees you as so beautiful or so handsome. Like you you feel like a version of yourself. Like everyone I talked to in my office who's had affairs very often they'll say like look

I love my spouse. I never stopped loving my spouse. But like my spouse doesn't find me beautiful or

handsome anymore. Like nobody you know like and I've stuck and then I met this person and like I'm fascinating to them. They tell me how beautiful I am or how handsome I am. And I actually feel that. Like I feel that way because it's so lovely to be told you know you're so wonderful. I'm enjoying being like even just the two of us right now talking to each other. There's something so beautiful about like oh what you're saying is so interesting. I'm enjoying talking to you.

Like that's such a lovely exchange. So it's a natural human. Like if you think about like the seven deadly sins you know all they really are is like seven very normal human things

another person lust. You know we get angry when someone hurts us wrath. Like if you look at

“those things all it is a normal human thing weaponized. So I think that's where we you know we”

lose the plot in that we just forget like the the most common thing again is just that disconnection. And that disconnection can be in the form of I'm disconnected from the me you made me feel like. Which is a me problem. Which typically by the way I'm sure you see this is that when you have a relationship where there's been infidelity and the person who's cheating is being is feeling seen and feeling like they can stand taller and feeling like they're interesting. The person who's

being cheated on is like well I wanted that to in our relationship you ask whole like what like

I was missing that too and so you can see that the disconnection and the lack of feeling cared

about is that problem is happening for both of them. It's happening for both of them and there were all of these moments where you had like a last clear chance to steer out of that. But there's like an opportunity for people if they'd communicated early on like hey I'm not feeling like I feel like my eye is wandering. I don't want my eye to want like I want to be good at this job right like when you marry someone you're signing on for a job like

it's wonderful it's bliss all this and it's been so so job it's got a job description you know like I'm yeah and by the way it's an insane job description like you're gonna be my best friend best co-parent best roommate best travel partner bet like wow really like that's a big list you found one person that can do all of that we've convinced people that no no this is your person and they should be the best at everything and if they're not by the way maybe you're soul mates

“out there and you missed the boat and you gotta go find that person because life is supposed to be”

like a hallmark movie you know I feel like anybody that's in a relationship right now is leaning in because it's easy to feel like roommates it's easy to fall into a law there's other people all around you you actually have a chapter in your book how to stay in love chapter 19 if we were designing an infidelity generating machine it would be Facebook Instagram YouTube social media this is page 14 if you're vaguely unhappy with your relationship or marriage and especially if you're

more than vaguely unhappy with it stay away from social media the vast majority of what you'll find there is unhappiness mass is happiness it will fuck with your head your heart and your relationship and you talk all about how social media is a single greatest breeding ground ever for infidelity nothing that has come before not swingers clubs key parties chat rooms workplace temptation Ashley Madison Tinder grinder no not not even porn comes within a thousand miles

yeah I stand by that why because it's just a perfect storm of of attacks on the institution

“of a monogamous marriage like it it a you have an innocuous reason you should be using this”

technology oh I wanted to see what this person's up to or oh the Facebook group of the

blood is you know for our kids thing or like there's a million reasons you'd be on your phone

that are totally innocuous right unlike a strip club or if for example I think that one of the women at my one of the moms at my son's soccer practice is attractive if the only entry point I have for talking to her would be walking up to her at practice it's not as threatening because you can't really do that without it but now what we follow each other on social media because we both are part of that group that is a group chat that you know and now I also see her vacation

pictures and now I might innocuously say to her oh I saw you guys went to Tulum where did you stay we're thinking about going and now I'm talking to you and I'm talking to you by the way privately like I'm in your DM's we're talking so it's not only like not it's not like approaching you at the soccer game it's like approaching you alone in a restaurant like and we're just the two of us talking and no one can see what we're saying you're just creating this perfect storm

for people and by the way the performative self like all of anyone posts is the best pictures of themselves and when and when are you on your phone looking at social media is it when you're having like the greatest day or the greatest moment no you're on the subway you're on the toilet you're bored right you're just bored you're living your gag real and you're looking at everyone's greatest hits and and you're supposed to walk out of that transaction feeling deeper connected into

to create all kinds of enticements and connections that really are not going to be good for your marriage and you have total plausible deniability if your spouse has any question about why are you on

your phone there's a million reasons we'd all be on our phone so yeah it's a perfect storm like

as a divorce lawyers we owe the people who made these platforms a debt of tremendous gratitude because they have given us job security so if you're in a committed partnership yeah what is the kind of ground rules around social media for yourself and for your partner I like how you framed that question because I think a lot of this has to do with what are you doing yes because I think most people who are married would like to have a happy marriage so just like

most people would like to be in good shape the question is not what do you want it's what are you willing to trade for it like what are you willing to give up in exchange for that thing so I think the first question we have to ask ourselves is am I using this technology in a way that if my spouse was standing here I would use it differently like would I be following these people if my spouse was watching who I follow I'm not suggesting we have to monitor each other social media that's a

I think a very personal decision couples have to make but I think the best entry point is yourself right because I have much more control over myself than anything else so I think starting with would I be having this communication with this person in this specific way if my spouse was part of

the conversation and sometimes it's very obvious that the answer is no like I genuinely think

the cure for the entry points of infidelity is monitoring your own behavior like if my spouse was standing next to me would I be talking to this person this way would I be looking at them this way would my body language be what it is if my spouse was standing here and if the answer

“is no okay then just notice that notice that I'm not saying you have to do it differently but”

notice that because you realize hey this is a problem like I I know I keep bringing things back to like food and fitness but you know like I can't I can control my food environment better than my brain like if there's potato chips around I'm eating them so I know okay I can't have that in the house or if I have it in the house it's with the understanding that oh yeah I'm gonna annihilate those potato chips at some point in one sitting you know and that's okay like listen life is to be

enjoyed but if you it's discipline is trading what you want now for what you want most and so what do I want most I want a long term satisfying relationship I want to be happy in this relationship I want my partner to be happy in this relationship I want both of us to feel fulfilled I want both of us to feel loved like that's what I want James I am so grateful that you're here I have so many more questions I could listen to you all day but I want to hit the pause because if you're like me

I just want to send this to my husband Chris I want to send this to everyone of my kids I'm sure there are people in your life that are coming to mind and I want to give you a chance to share this

extraordinary conversation with people that you love so take a listen to our amazing sponsors

well they share a few words do not go anywhere because James sexton he's just getting started

“and coming up he's going to tell you the three specific things you need to do if you're in a relationship”

that's starting to have a downward spiral there's so much more we're going to cover stay with us welcome back to friend Mel Robbins and today you and I are going to spend time with the incredible James sexton who is sharing the best relationship advice that you're ever going to hear so James the next thing I want to talk about is this let's say that you're at that point in your relationship where as the person who's here with us right now is listening and having a panic attack because you

realize you're in that phase of the relationship that every long term relationship goes through you've had the fairy tale now you're in maintenance now you're noticing the resentment is hitting you're disconnected you're not having sex you're annoyed at your favorite person all the time you're wondering if there's somebody better you wish it didn't it wasn't this way but it started to

“feel like will we ever get back what are some of the things that you should do immediately yeah I mean”

I think in in in in 25 years of practicing matrimonial law what I'd say to you is you're where most people are who are married like that's where you are you're where most people are and you probably got there by this succession of small choices that created this what I would call it a downward spiral this spiral where you know well why should I do that you don't do that well

whether that started just recently or whether you were down in the valley right like it is just been I don't remember what it was like and what it felt like when we were in that great place you can reverse that spiral it works the same it works the same in the opposite direction how is the same way that it went wrong small small actions like start small start with leave a note leave a note you're leaving in the morning for work leave a note it was really fun hanging out with

you last night I married the prettiest girl in the world or you know um hey thanks for you know thanks for taking care of that you know thing for me yesterday and calling the cable company it really means a lot when my big strongman does things like that whatever like some little courtesy or kindness cost nothing takes five seconds to do you know you also did because you're really good at manipulating yeah it being strategic you reminded me in that note of how I felt when we first met

yeah yeah prettiest girl in the world strongest guy best person on the planet why not why not like that's so easy throughout the day like I I tell a lot of my male friends if you text your wife in the middle of the day with a song that was like a song important to you and you send a link to that song and you go I heard this song in the coffee shop today and I thought

of you like that that's an incredible feeling like it's an intoxicating wonderful feeling like

and it doesn't take much to just bring someone back to that place and by the way the person's initial reaction might be what what inspired that like where because if you're down far enough in the valley you kind of go like but it's not hard to just say you know what I just I feel like

“I have to do a better job of like telling you these things I think a bit a lot but I sometimes don't”

say it out like who would not want to hear that like how much would it take and how much would it cost nothing we cost nothing to write your spouse an email here's 10 things I love about you 10 things and by the way it's not just for them like they love reading that but also like it's for you like remind yourself why did you choose this person like they're still so much beauty in this person there's still so much beauty in you like why wouldn't you take a moment

and just enjoy the warmth of that like it's right there it's like no one's gonna advertise this because it's free you don't need to buy a book to learn it you don't need to take a course there's nothing I can sell you here like this is just you have it it's right there it's right in front of you

have to actively steer away from it at some point and again it's never too late to change that

I'm thinking about the person who here's that yeah the writing the email of 10 things and I think we can get so sequestered in our corners that you your immediate reaction is either I can't think of 10 or why aren't they writing it to me or what if they don't respond yeah separate great questions so and I think I would answer them separately so the first one is

“what if I can't think of 10 things I love about this person then maybe you should consider getting divorced”

what I mean if you if you're telling me you're married to a person and you can't think of 10 things you love about them there are 8 billion people in the world maybe you're married to the wrong one like sometimes happily ever after means happily ever after separately like I'm divorced my

ex wife is one of my favorite people she's amazing I love her very much there are a lot of people

I love that I wouldn't want to be married to actually all of them all of them right because it's a very specific kind of relationship if you're telling me I can't think of 10 things this person I chose out of 8 billion other options to be my most intimate partner in life I can't think of 10 things I love about that person I maybe you should consider a divorce because that's an insane reality and by the way okay maybe you've grown so far apart my ex wife

has been remarried for 15 years to an amazing guy who's absolutely nothing like me personality wise and perfect for her and I have to tell you I love her I love him we're like a weird family

“but the truth is like God bless like God bless she found the lid for her pot amazing amazing I'm so”

glad I have to say I can tell you 10 things I love about my ex wife she can tell you 10 things she loves about me like I can tell you 10 things I love about almost anyone in my life so if you're in a place where you're looking at your spouse and going I can't even think of 10 things then I think go to therapy and really try to answer that question and then try to answer the question why would I be married to a person I can't think of 10 things I love about them so that's

your question number one yes question number two is what if they don't do it back for me yeah

even try like to I I understand so well as a human being how vulnerable it feels to express need and it's hard for me I don't know if it is for you but it's hard for me being that kind of person to say I really need help I can't do this myself yeah and and it's humbling it's getting easier as I age it's one of the things I actually like best about aging is that it's okay for me to say like oh I need some help with this or oh I'm not so good at that are you good at that can you

help me with that like and maybe there's things I'll be able to help you with which by the way that it's best is what marriage is so true you know it's about like hey how can we how can we become like complementary pieces to each other and and to to to create this beautiful whole together so

“I think that's an amazing opportunity is to is to really say to yourself like hey I'm going to try”

I'm going to try and it's brave to try and it's scary but like if you're not scared it's not brave like it's only brave if you're scared you do it anyway so I think that most of us if love is on the line if our marriage is on the line like we can be brave like you believe in Santa Claus for seven years you can believe in yourself for 15 minutes you know like just just just really like you know five or three to one like go yeah like just do the thing you know so I think try and at least that

way you'll know where you stand because if you've now made a concerted effort where I you've tried a few times to really reach out to this person in a consistent way and create some connection between and it's been rebuffed every time then I think you're going to have a much clearer understanding of where you're really at in that relationship and that might guide you in a direction like my office.

“I believe some marriages need to end I genuinely do I've seen some people very successfully”

divorce many of which then go on to find love that is more deep and connected for them and real joy they they're better people and they're better parents after their divorce and I I think we do the world of disservice to you all divorces as failures I don't believe it's a failure

I don't believe my divorce was a failure it produced to amazing children that are now amazing adults

I became a better man by virtue of my connection to her I'd like to think she would say the same about herself she went on to find tremendous love in her life I have to there's tremendous value in connecting well disconnecting bravely and maturely if you can do it. What did you learn about yourself and about relationships by going through your own divorce? My divorce was you know very boring because we're both very reasonable people who can see the possibility of our own

error and we fell in love as like teenagers basically we met in college and we got married 22 and had to get it 24 so we were babies um what I learned is that you know that there are a lot of people in the world that I love that I wouldn't be appropriately married to I also learned that the job description of a husband and of an ex-husband or two different things I'm a really good ex-husband I'm a really good father I'm not a great husband like I don't have the patience I don't

have some of the skills that I think are really good in a husband like I think a husband is very comfortable sort of like accommodating their will to that of the other and their patient in some important ways and like as an ex-husband and a co-parent I was great at it like I was consistent reliable dependable good communicator I'm a good dad like I put my kids first I was like you know

still even as adults I I love them and I make time for them and they're always you know my priority

and I always you know as an ex-husband like had a tremendous love and respect for my co-parent I always every mother's day would make sure my kids you know had gifts for her every birthday every Christmas I'd make sure they had things for their mom then when she got remarried I sat down with her new husband at the time and said like okay like I'm gonna like do you want to get her birthday gift for the boys now like because I don't want them empty handed like they're gonna fill self-conscious but

“I also don't want to overstep like I'm gonna still do mother's day because that's what she is”

to me for my sons but maybe you'll get the boys Christmas gifts with her and like we had this discussion he was a divorce guy himself so we were like it was this really lovely like oh how are we gonna shape shift this dynamic so I learned a lot about how you can disconnect in like a very beautiful way and and have a non-traditional kind of family that you know is joyful I learned a lot

about how divorces don't have to always be the kinds of things that I was handling even at that time

I was already a divorceler at that time and I and I really thought divorce was always this knock-down drag out that all that you need someone like me and I you don't always need like you can do it with a scalpel you don't always need a chainsaw like I'm kind of a chainsaw and so it was really lovely for me to learn because you know if you think about divorce the ones you hear about

and said what do you do for living I saw him a divorce lawyer and they go oh my god you must have stories and I said oh my god if I got one there was this couple and they got married when they were quite young and then you know the venn diagram of their interests kind of didn't intersect as much and they grew in different directions and then they amically divided you know their property and they continued to co-parent their children that they both love a whole lot you'd be like

that is the most boring story ever like I've talked more about my divorce in this conversation than I probably have in the last five years because it's not that interesting it's too cool I actually think it's super interesting because it shows that there is a different possibility in terms of how you can conduct yourself right right both during it during the marriage at the end of

“the marriage during the divorce and it's all about normalizing like so much of what I think is”

gone right in our culture in the last ten years is normalizing certain things like normalizing therapy normalizing mental health issues we need to normalize pre-nups we need to normalize what a civil divorce can look like what a cooperative co-parenting relationship can look like it does not have to be because the kind of people that talk about their divorce constantly are people who were terribly wounded by it I understand it became a formative trauma in their

lives and it became something that everything comes back to I get that I've seen a lot of people who've been victimized by that kind of a divorce but that is now become culturally what we think divorce looks like and that is the unbelievable minority of divorces the majority of divorces are the high conflict people are destroyed for years after what is the majority the majority is

“two people that at some point were deeply connected to each other lost the connection and now”

have usually children in common or extended family in common and they need to end their relationship but they don't hate each other or if they're angry at each other they're love for their

children is much greater than their dislike of each other like I always tell people a divorce is

like a table it's got four legs there's you and your lawyer and the other side and their lawyer all you need is one of those legs to be off then matter how nice the straight the other legs are that tables falling down like one irrational person or one person with like bad faith intentions is going to make this into something much uglier than it needs to be. I want to finish up the topic of the signs and really giving the person listening the just resources or the awareness so that

if there's a chance for this to spiral back up you can you know based on all your experience what are the signs that you are headed for a breakup or for divorce the ones that you actually see like because I bet you go to a party or you can walk into a room and you can literally be like

“in a year five years they're in trouble. What you have to do first is look at your baseline”

so like look at what it was you did when you were still connected to each other like how did you interact with each other how often did you have physical intimacy how often did you spend time together just the two of you what did you do separately and what did you do together because until you look at your baseline you won't know how far you drifted from your baseline relationships change people change their bodies change everything changes but the question is is when it did it changed

by default or by design have you ever thought or talked about as a couple why it's changed and are we both okay with that or is it something that one or both of us feel like hey we might have lost something in that process so I think again baseline is a really important thing to be thinking about

then one of the first things I observe when I'm seeing the cracks in a couple like when I walk into a

room or I'm watching you know one of those housewife shows and I'm like oh they're definitely getting divorced and they're definitely getting divorced like I often tell people to me the sureest indicator of a divorce is not anything anyone says it's a sound and it's this sound it's just that like like when the other person's talking and there's just this like like what oh yeah what it what yeah okay like why are you bothering me with what you're saying or that like kind

of eye rolling like it's just those subtle discuracies and disrespect it's the tone it's the body language like that's a huge piece is so I would when you're looking at signs look at how you physically relate to each other I mean you've seen couples I'm sure oh we're like why are they even when they touch each other it's like you know when you're first together like you touch your skin and it's like an electric bolt through you off like oh my god this person touched me this like oh my god our legs

touched like it's just that I mean and thank god that passes or we just never get anything done you

because all that person maybe you don't like holding hands that's okay but maybe they're trying to connect with you yeah so do you want to connect with them like and if it's that I don't like sweaty hands okay so put your arm around me like you know lean in and do something like like meet each other halfway there's a lot of these little tiny physical and verbal disconnections like even just the act of when your spouse is talking to you if you are on your god damn phone

like that to me like watching couples sitting there one of them is talking and the other one is sort of going through the phone and you see them doing that oh yeah yeah uh uh like all I'm saying to you is you're not important you're not as important as this and then what do you meet that with very often people meet it with like they'll either keep going and condone that behavior or they'll stop and go while they finish going no no finish what you're doing on the phone and

now that feels accusatory because that person's like well no I was trying to look at this thing they weren't trying maybe to insult you the two things I say that everybody accuses me of being unromantic that I actually think are two very romantic sentences one marriages a job it has a set of roles and responsibilities you signed up for it you didn't have to take it there were other

“positions available and you chose this one and you can quit if you want to you know and you can”

go get a different one if you want to so it's a lot like a job and it's a job that theoretically you want to be good at because you want happiness right in this into this exchange James you are incredible and I bet you're thinking the same thing James is not only incredible the timing is incredible this is exactly what you needed to hear it's what you needed to be reminded of it's so hopeful it's

simple and I'm sure you're thinking of your favorite person and here's what I want you to do I

want you to share this episode with them because this is something that will make your relationship better it's something that's gonna expand love in your life so go ahead and share this take a minute to listen to our sponsors and don't go anywhere because we will be right back stay with us you know for the past two years I have been using work in a busy schedule as my number one excuse to not put my health first I bet you can relate even when I was being consistent with the

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I think you're ever going to hear from the incredible James sexton thank you for sharing this with

people that you love so James let's get back into this is there something that you recommend in the middle of an argument to just diffuse it or diffuse yourself I think the worst time you'll learn how to fight is when you're in a fight I think in advance there should be some you know it's almost like what's the safe word like there should be a word that we've agreed in advance is we're ejecting from this conversation and we'll continue at it another time like we both know

where the other one lives you know like we'll find each other so like if you have like you know a phrase like how about that meds like something that just has nothing to do with any discussion you're having that should be the phrase that like I don't think this is productive and I think

“we're going down road that's dangerous and you should agree on it in advance and you should”

make a commitment to each other that listen I'm not saying that that ejects us out of this conversation for good because that would be a great way to just you know it's like a like you get a

a whole pass in the conversation we'll never bring it up again right what we're saying is listen

this will be deferred for 24 hours or this will be deferred for a maximum of x number of hours or days or whatever it might be because you both bet the corners you back yourself into you got to figure out ways to get out of I mean think about the commitments you've made to this person I'm going to love you you and only you for eternity and you can't make the commitment of hey listen if we're in an argument one of us feels like this isn't productive or we're feeling really

you know you can't really love someone and more importantly like you can't really feel someone's love until you show them a really honest and vulnerable version of yourself like I'm a great performer in a courtroom you know and I can present however I need to present but if in my relationship I am playing the character of like the best version of myself and I don't let this person see any of my soft spots or any of my vulnerabilities or any of the

shit I need to work on any of the things I get wrong the things I'm afraid of I'll never feel

their love like I'm depriving myself because I'll always have in my head oh no no if if they knew me they would love me they love me because they bought the character I'm selling them so I'm depriving myself by not showing this person these weak difficult challenging parts of

“myself but here's the thing if someone is brave enough to show you those things”

in a fight if you weaponize those things that is a despicable and almost irreparable thing to do to someone because when really what is divorce at its worst but intimacy weaponized because intimacy is not sex intimacy is the ability to be completely yourself with another person like you're honest authentic self with another person and so to take the vulnerability and the soft spots that a person has shown you in good faith so they could feel connected to you

and you guys could trust each other and each feel like you can show each other of the soft spots to in a fight in a moment of anger to weaponize that is a really really awful kind of betrayal

so I would always tell people like have some round rules like no low blows like listen I

like I like the UFC I like a good fight I train Brazilian Gigiitsu for 20 years like most of my best

“friends have broken my nose at some point I'm telling you like have a fair fight like if you're”

have to have a fight have a habitability to call a timeout and keep it a fair fight yeah there's a couple of sentences you have somewhere in the back of your head that you know if you set them out loud to him you would reduce him to a pile of tears in the corner yes and he knows those sentences to about you he has some sentences he could say that are all of your scariest most vulnerable pieces of you and I know that because you love each other and you've been together

a really long time and you can't love someone for that duration with that depth and with that much affection without having been vulnerable to that person or shitty to them right but but the truth is is having knowledge of what that is having that ammunition isn't incredible responsibility and it's something it's like having the nuclear codes of the relationship and like keep them locked like don't use them because just like nuclear weapons like you get to use them once and then

the whole world blows up so like don't do I've seen people who in a moment of anger let that fly and you can't take that back you can't you can't bring that in you know and so really give more thought in advance to when we disconnect we do we disconnect like as a parent you know yeah who do you love more than your kids and when they're in middle school you're telling me you

didn't want to kill them like I tell my son's all the time I'm like I never disliked anyone as

much as I dislike both of you in middle school and by the way I know you dislike yourself more than anything in middle school like you'll never meet a human being in their life who goes the best

“or is my life for middle school it's always though a happiest person middle school is miserable but the truth is like you”

you love your kids but you also are like okay I have to have some ground rules and how I'm going to interact with them not in moments of love it's easy it's moments of tension that you have to think about in advance and figure out how to not back yourself into court that's a great framework thinking about kids are even work like they're those days you want to just go on a tear and if you did you get fired or you cancel yourself but isn't it funny how many things about marriage like we put

marriage in this weird category and it's just really another relationship it is like you know I often use the analogy of dogs because I love dogs but I have two senior citizen dogs I have a 15 year old and a 16 year old dog and I know I'm you know I'm I'm playing with the house's money at this point I'm I'm borrowed time with these guys and I've had them since they were babies or seats or do yeah and and I'm enjoying it every minute I have but I have to tell you like I've never

once looked at my 15 year old dog whose death and thought do you not got to get a puppy like these are just dogs so old and like hardly can hear and I gotta carry it down stairs now like puppies are

this dog so old to I love this dog morning every day like this the scent of the dog it's like

“this is you know but yet with love like our romantic partner it's this constant feeling of like”

oh well there's a younger model out there and there's a more compelling model out there so it's like how you do anything is how you do everything like if somebody said to me I'll give you well you have dogs you have two dogs okay so two dogs so let's let's try this all right if I

told you I'll give you a hundred million dollars for your dogs you would say no no okay

well I can pay my bills right now so that's that there's that case line right so if I said to you God forbid not gonna happen but you have 30 days left with one of your kids no matter what okay you only have 30 days would you take a hundred million dollars then for those 30 days you're gonna lose them at 30 days anyway would you give me a hundred million dollars like give you for that no because I'm a friend that you even the time would even be more precious knowing that it was so short

okay that's love that's love that's that that's as good of a definition of love as I could ever come on with like that that there is something beyond any other kind of value that you attribute to the

“connection you have to this no matter how finite it is because a hundred years from now no one”

you love will be here and no one who loves you will be here so this is finite we're losing everything

all the time and I say that as a divorce lawyer for 25 years and I say it as a hospice volunteer for 20 years like we're losing everything all the time that's what makes it precious that's what makes it beautiful that's what makes it worth paying attention to because I don't have unlimited time guess what don't have unlimited time with anything in our life so why wouldn't we just commit to like this much preventative maintenance well you do have this really beautiful chapter later in the book

how to stay in love that's all about writing a letter oh okay and this is on page two 38 and you talk about the power of writing a letter to the person that you're in a relationship with a really deep personal letter would it be weird to write a letter to someone you've shared a bed with for years whom you see and talk to dozens of times a day even for those who can find the right words when speaking writing things out may help you to better organize I at a why am I getting

emotional to better organize and hence understand what you really want to say even if you end up

not writing the letter to your partner I know mediators who encourage or clients to come to the first

meeting with the letter to their acts to be because it quote lubricates communication as one put it to me if at least some people in the midst of divorce can do that it should be ways here for those in love knowing that their partner is receptive to maybe even hungry for communication and intimacy anything that might ease communication and a divorce should apply far more effectively in a loving relationship write a letter to your partner list at least five things they do that you

appreciate tell them a few things they do that upset you tell them what you are craving but not getting from them tell them a few things you are getting and are incredibly grateful for tell them a story from your shared history and as much detail as you can that you remember fondly maybe

“read a many critical of your marriage it's been said that the unexamine life is not worth living my”

experience has taught me that the unexamine marriage is not sustainable so write your spouse a letter make it simple or make it detailed but make it authentic and honest you love him right yeah yeah I I stand by that you know it's what I didn't say in there and I think is worth saying is even if you don't give it to your spouse it's worth writing that letter like I'll share with you you know what my mom passed away ten years ago after a long battle with cancer we had a complicated

relationship and I remember talking to my therapist about it and saying like you know there's so many things like I wanted to say to her that I didn't get to say because it just wasn't we just I don't know it just wasn't you know she was so ill and there was just no opportunity to have that conversation and he said you know write her a letter like write her a letter and say all the things that you needed to say so I did took the time I wrote this long letter saying

all the things I needed to say I brought it into therapy and I read it out loud weeping and then he said I'm going to give you another piece of homework and I said okay he said write a letter back from her and say all the things you needed to hear that was much harder

like what is it I needed to hear to heal and so even though like she never got to read that letter

“and even though the letter I wrote from her was from an imagined version of her it was one of”

the most powerful exercises I've ever and I've since then used that technique in my life when I'm having a really difficult time with a person in my life where I'll write a letter of all the things that I feel like I needed to say to them often not that I would ever give them and then I'll write back like what is that I needed to hear from them what is that I want to hear from them what would be their perfect response to this and very often like it reminds me that the answers to these

things are sometimes inside me like like the wisdom you find on mountaintops is the wisdom you brought up there because sometimes you just find yourself thinking like you know what is it I needed her to say because I know I don't have to hear her say it I knew it you know when I wrote the letter back from my mom a lot of it was hey I wasn't mad at you I've been sick for a really

long time like and I was in pain and it wasn't you and even though she never got to say that I thought

oh you know that like you know that or you couldn't have written it if you didn't know it but just writing at the act of writing it and giving it voice and reading it out loud even if there was no one else in the room so writing a letter to anyone in your life you're having a challenge with writing a letter back from them with what it is you needed to hear from them even if you never do anything with that you never edit it and give it to the person or anything like that you're just

framing in your head what's really going on here inside of me because I'm in here like this is

what's amazing to me about marriage is I feel like after 53 years of walking around on this planet

and 20 in therapy I get myself like 75% okay and I'm in here like I'm in here and I get about saying what hope do I have of understanding 100% of the person sitting across the table for me or laying in the bed next to me I'm in here and I get 75% of it and I'm going to get mad at myself because I don't understand this person 100% and get them what they need 100% I don't get me what I need 100% of the time I don't get me what I need 50% of the time I screw it up

constantly and then go why did you do that to yourself give ourselves and each other some grace and just realize that listen this is just about understanding ourselves what we need what we want this person helping them understand what they need what they want and then figuring out how to do

“that dance if you had to save a marriage with one thing what would it be I think the most important”

way to save a marriage is to pay attention I think we just stop paying attention like whoever discovered water it was an fish when you're in it you just stop seeing it and I think there's so much going on that you just don't see and I think if you paid attention you you might see like you might step out of the water and see and I think because marriage is very often about this deep kind of proximity it becomes the water like it just becomes this thing that's around

you all the time and you stop seeing it and I think if you paid attention to what's going on inside of you and what's going on with this person I think most things the solution comes from that first step that's I think the most beautiful answer I've ever heard about a marriage and of course I love David Foster Wallace yeah so good so good I actually reread that I say I do too quite often because I I actually think it's fascinating how often I have to be reminded

of that you know if you don't know the essay we're talking about which became this very very viral graduation speech that David Foster Wallace the writer gave before he died. I genuinely

“university yeah it's out there I think it's called this is water it's published it is something”

called this is water but you can actually watch a video of it and there's this point in the moment the essay hangs on we're two fish or swimming and they pass another fish and one of them says the other he has the water and he says what's water and then it unravels into this unbelievably profound essay about how much of life you're missing because you're just not present.

maybe not every person who's writing the story in their head realizes which is you could just

as easily cast the characters as villains or heroes and you know he talks about in the essay how like the person in line in front of you you know who's like in a bad mood you can just say oh they're an awful person or like maybe they have a sick relative at home and this is like the only minute that they manage to get out and they're so stressed and he's like and if you just refraint like it's just as easy to tell yourself that story as it is to tell yourself the story where

they're the villain and you're the hero if if you judge me as a parent by my greatest moment of parenting you're giving me too much credit and if you judge me as a parent by my weakest worst moment as a parent you're not giving me enough credit I'm really kind of the aggregate of all of those things well that's a lesson to bring to your marriage because in your marriage any time someone tells me the story of their life and they're the hero of the story I'm instantly skeptical

well that's a really good insight because we all have that friend particularly the one going through root of horse where the narrative is evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil because you're hurt of course and there's no self-awareness to say well you know I haven't been affectionate three years so I can kind of see how the door opened up for them to walk away or find somebody else or I really have some reflective there's and what I just going back to that essay and the moment

in the essay of not seeing the water and also you can choose to write a story about the rude person

it goes back to the original thing that you said you always have the opportunity to remind yourself

that a really good relationship is one is where you can be in the narrative this is my favorite person yeah even if they're pissing me off right now yeah even if I have a lot of evidence for the things that have gone wrong even if I'm scared we're headed for divorce I can still

“stand in a narrative that this is my favorite person at least remember a time when they were”

yeah and and what are what are the core components of that beauty that you saw in them yes that are still there if they've changed what changed them because it's rarely like a nefarious thing right like you know if I let myself get out of shape it's not that I was like oh I really want to be in bad shape you know like when my mom was actively on hospice i gained 30 pounds because I took such like pleasure like everything hurt it felt like so I would eat dinner every night

and I would just eat anything I would eat like delicious because it just gave me like a moment of sensory pleasure and I remember like people who I knew but only knew casually through work we were like oh jibbing I put on a couple of pounds I just remember like it hurts so badly

“because I wanted to say that I'm like do you understand this is the only thing I have right now”

like is that food tastes good like everything else hurts right now and I I feel like if we look at our partners and went okay this even if they're not currently my favorite person they were I think it's a really important tool that I want to make sure you're listening and watching you land the plane on that one and understand that it's a tool which is if you're in a patch in your relationship where things are really challenging okay or you hear that phrase you're my favorite

person because I ran to the bathroom and bumped into somebody that was coming out of the bathroom like oh my god james things are unbelievable and he can boil relationships down to one sentence you're my favorite person and the person coming out of the bathroom looked at me and said oh my god

“that's hard I think it's hard because I think it's scary to think that no one could love us that way”

and it's also scary to think that anyone could I think those are equally terrifying like as a human being I find both of those things terrifying I find the prospect that I could ever feel that way about another person and I would know I'm going to someday lose them is terrifying and to consider the possibility that someone could actually know me all of the stuff in me and go no you're my favorite person like to me like that's I mean there's nothing

more incredible than the possibility of that when I look back at my life every single thing that meant

anything was some connection to another person someone I loved someone who loved me a moment where I felt loved truly and deeply for who I am where I felt joy for being in the presence of

as a hospice volunteer I will tell you nobody I've ever done hospice visits with once to talk about the fact that they're dying it's not that interesting it's something that they're confronting all the time they're aware of it they don't want to talk about it they don't need to talk about it it's their present reality they want to talk about their life they want to talk about the people they love they're not that interested in the things they owned like they're

interested in the connections they made the impact they made and when they were loved like

feeling loved I think is the most powerful thing in the world and there are a lot of people who

don't feel loved ever in their life and sometimes that's their circumstance and sometimes it's that they they haven't had the real courage it takes to let someone see the truth of you from your best-selling book how to stand love this is page 248 when is the last time you and your spouse discussed what it specifically means to be happy and how you each define that term

“what was the last time you discussed in specific terms what a satisfying sex life is for each of you”

these should be conversations you look forward to they're about being happy and about fucking for fuck sake you're married that means you're in the same car driving on the same road logic says you should be headed toward the same destination are you who selected that destination is it where you both want to get is it one of you crawling out the back window while the other one plows ahead blindly yeah yeah I think we we don't ask enough questions about what's going on

in our relationships I mean in terms of where are we going like what's the story we're writing

together you know you'd never I live in New York City you'd never get in a cab and just go drive

you know you you say where it is you want to go and then you can have a conversation about what's the best way to get there but you know to some degree we we learn about relationships by watching our parents where the environment we grew up and and by watching popular media and now by watching curated images on social media so those are the three ways to do it I don't think any of those is a particularly honest or great teacher necessarily and you know marriage is very much rooted in tradition

“and tradition I think is is really two things in varying measure it's the wisdom of the people”

who came before us and what they have to teach us and it's peer pressure exerted by dead people when you're doing something because it's tradition like why did you get married will my mom and dad got married and my grandparents got married my great grandmother got married and by the way the reason you're great grandmother got married is because her mother got married right so you're great great great great great grandmother got married okay your great great great great grandmother used a

buggy whip do you have a buggy whip like or all the technologies that made said did she have the entire sum total of human wisdom available in a device held in her hand that comes from the sky because that's incredible like she lived in a different universe than the one you navigate in a daily basis why would you think the technology of marriage that worked for her will work for you the same

“way with the same tools and all you need to do is watch how this was done in this apprenticeship”

model of figuring out what marriage looks like your relationship your rules the two of you so only two people that matter is the two of you are you happy the two of you to you have a rhythm that works for you you know I I posted something a couple of weeks ago where I was talking about how I personally don't understand why people sleep in the same bed just for me I just don't get it like two adults and two dogs it's a lot in a bed like I'm not saying well you also have a broken nose

I'm not like a big snow that's I want to be a time snoring you do not want to be about that

and the truth is like if you think about it like I listen like spend time in bed have fun and

been all this I think I'll sleep in your own bed like a civilized person now again this is my personal feeling people had a lot of feelings about this it had hundreds of thousands of comments why do you think people had a lot of feelings about that because I think people here anyone saying here's what's important in my relationship as you're doing it wrong in your relationship and all I'm actually trying to get anyone to do is just let's all come out of the closet a little bit like let's all come

out and say you know my spouse and I do this it works for us because it once you start doing that everybody at the table starts to go oh yeah we do that too to me that's the best stuff in life is that that intimacy is those little tiny shared private joys like that's the coolest most

but just sharing that like give it a shot and see like that might be the cure for the disconnection

between the two of you used to be silly sometimes together or maybe you know what really is like

“well we have to sleep in the same bed who told you do you have to sleep in the same bed maybe”

where the kind of people that would be more comfortable sleeping in separate beds or maybe one of you or both of you think it's really important to be in the cave together curled up holding each other like all that matters is the two of you coming up with rules that makes sense for you who cares how many times a week I have sex how many times a week did the two of you feel satisfied with having sex

if it's good enough for the two of you no one else is business it's no one else is business

well I think the reason why people get so offended by that opinion is that if you're honest with yourself you're cleaning to very surface level pieces of evidence of connection yeah we're doing great we're just laying on a finger or the fact that we're in the same bed that that means you're connected and when somebody erupts it's because you're showing us all that connection is

“actually something else and again like I love that because the truth is we live in a symbolic”

world as humans we're constantly making meaning we live in a symbolic world like why do I wear a tie why do I wear a suit like why couldn't I just go to court and jeans in a t-shirt like I wear this suit for when you wear this why do you wear suit to a job interview or a funeral or a wedding because you're saying this suit is a statement the statement is I take this seriously this thing I'm doing I take it very seriously and what you're what you taught us today or what you taught

me is that the symbols of I'm sleeping in a bed or I have a ring on my finger or we've been together for 32 years that's actually not the symbol of connection no it's do you show up and treat

somebody as if they're your favorite person yeah yeah because here's what I'll tell you and it's a hot

take and it's an unfalseifiable premise so it's safe I genuinely believe that the connection that you have with Chris and that many of the very happily married people that I know if you took off the ring if you took away the government's involvement they would still be two people who were each other's favorite person and loved each other more than anything and wanted to stay together forever not

“because they were afraid of giving away half their things or because of but because their life is”

better because this person is next to them and to me that's worth fighting for that's worth building that's the thing worth protecting if you've lucky enough to have found it like I say sometimes marriages like the lottery you're probably not going to win but if you win what you win is so fantastic why wouldn't you buy a ticket why wouldn't you try why wouldn't you and unlike the lottery there are very specific practical things you can do that will increase the chances of you succeeding at

this thing and they're not difficult they don't mean require you to buy anything they don't require grand gestures which is by the way why you're not hearing about it from advertisers because there's nothing to buy there's no course to take there's nothing like it's all stuff you already naturally know how to do and what to do because it's all the same things that if someone did it for you it would make you feel seen and loved and heard and important. James sexton what are your parting words?

oh my gosh you need me speechless. I think my parting words are you know love each other fearlessly it's the bravest thing in the world like it's the bravest and best thing in the world and I genuinely believe that we're worthy of love. I genuinely believe almost everything we do every day is to find love be worthy of love and keep love and I think it boils down to two words and four words pay attention and you're my favorite person.

I cannot tell you how completely flawed I am thanks by you I feel so grateful that you are doing the work that you're doing. I'm so moved by everything that you shared and even just pay attention and you're my favorite person. Those are two things that are going to immediately improve and deepen my relationship with Chris because it's a skill that we have to contain it's the rep that you do in a relationship. But I think you know what what you're standing in

for Chris and for the people in your life that you love and the love that of the various that you

feel towards you and how that makes you view yourself because you know it's authentic and real that love and and if you can love yourself the way that those people love you like that's the greatest

“superpower ever and so like I think this is just what loves supposed to be is that we bring this out”

in each other we bring out in each other yes what's in there yeah that's all yeah well thank you for absolutely everything thanks for having me it's great to see you it's great to it's it's great to stand in the presence of it when people like there's so much that I have to learn from people

like you and Chris who have maintained that connection and I feel like for me there's tremendous

value when I get to talk about these things because I'm learning it it's moving me in the same way you know like this is all I could I could say this every day and I would still lose the plot sometimes so well I'll tell you one thing that really struck me is when you said ask yourself if you're in one of those moments in your relationship what's changed and if I look back on the period of time or Chris and I really struggled and you can point at the stress of life and the financial pressure

we were under and just everything that was going on but what we've now really realized is that a

lot of what changed was as father died in the middle of it and it's only recently and this

would have been 19 years ago I mean that he really understand how that just changed him and I didn't see it and grief you know sneaks up on you and especially to when when like Chris you navigate the terrain of that like it's a familiar terrain you sort of feel like oh I'm I'm exempt from it like a physician who's like when they get ill you know but it's like no no like this is different like experiencing it outside of the connection of self and family and it puts yourself in where you stand

in the history of things and you know it's all sort of impermanence at the end of the day but I

“have to say I think again if you pay attention it all of that is there like I've learned first hand”

as a divorce trial lawyer for almost three decades now how much ugliness and anger is in all of us and I've also learned how much beauty is in all of us and I try in my relationship with the world to bring what I think people bring in a good marriage which is they cling to the possibility of the good in us and they try to overlook the possibility of the full in us and there's nothing to me more beautiful than that well James sexton thank you for showing us what to pay attention to thank

you so we can experience all the possibilities that love and relationships have for us and I also want to thank you thank you for making the time to listen to or watch this conversation I know you feel so moved I hope you will share this generously I hope you've already shared it with your favorite person and in case no one else tells you today as your friend I want to tell you that I love you

“and I believe in you and I believe in your ability to create a better life and I know based on”

everything that I was reminded of everything that James taught us today that I have tools to create a better life because this is going to lead to more love better relationships and we all deserve that all righty I'll see you in the very next episode I'm going to welcome you in the moment hit play okay are we ready okay here we go I want you as your listening to notice who popped into your mind it's some is it your favorite person what do we know okay I want and one more thing if that

subscribe button is lift up if that subscribe button is lit up please help your friend Mel Robbins achieve the goal of having 50% of you be subscribers to this we should do it back there see I'm such a workaholic I have to live three and a half hours from here yeah yeah that's no yeah that's good yeah can you imagine Tracy if I was a Tracy is a block from here sure whatever what is it no it's fine okay wonderful oh my god awesome oh and one more thing and no this is

not a blooper this is the legal language you know what the lawyers write and what I need to read to you this podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes I'm just your friend I am not a licensed therapist and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician professional coach psychotherapist or other qualified professional got