James Sexton: Why slippage quietly ends most marriages

1. 0:00 – 2:05

   Intro

   1. JSJames Sexton0:00

      Every single marriage ends in death or divorce, but it ends. But the majority of them end because of slippage.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett0:06

      And what does slippage mean?

   3. JSJames Sexton0:07

      Slippage is... James Sexton is back. The world's leading divorce lawyer.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett0:12

      With over two decades of experience, he offers practical, no-nonsense advice for maintaining healthy relationships.

   5. JSJames Sexton0:17

      We live in a society that presumes marriage is a good idea. You're about to do something incredibly dangerous that fails so much of the time, and I think it has almost nothing to do with love. But if you get married, here's what I will tell you. Have you talked about a prenup? Getting married without one is a fairly risky activity. But the truth is, is having a child with someone is the most risky activity in relationships. There's so much stuff a person can do to torture you if they have a kid with you. And what I'll tell you is, the people who are obsessed with their children stop paying attention to their partner, which leads you right to my office.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett0:53

      Okay. So, if you were to give me one piece of advice to prevent me and my partner ever ending up in your consultation room?

   7. JSJames Sexton0:58

      If there's a core message to my approach to relationships, it is... That'd be the only advice I'd ever give to anybody.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett1:05

      James, if you think about the divorces you've seen in court, was there ever a case that broke your heart?

   9. JSJames Sexton1:10

      Yeah. It was a case that I won that I should've lost. I remember looking at the judge and thinking like, "You're letting this happen. She's gonna lose 'cause she's poor and she can't afford a lawyer, and he's gonna win because he can afford a lawyer that knows how to put a document into evidence," and there's something really wrong about that.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett1:32

       This has always blown my mind a little bit. 53% of you that listen to this show regularly haven't yet subscribed to this show. So, could I ask you for a favor before we start? If you like this show and you like what we do here and you wanna support us, the free simple way that you can do just that is by hitting the subscribe button. And my commitment to you is, if you do that, then I'll do everything in my power, me and my team, to make sure that this show is better for you every single week. We'll listen to your feedback, we'll find the guests that you want me to speak to, and we'll continue to do what we do. Thank you so much.

2. 2:05 – 3:56

   What Do People Say When They Reach Out To You?

   1. SBSteven Bartlett2:05

      James, our last conversation, I think, did almost 10 million downloads and views across platforms. And I can't imagine the amount of messages you get on a daily, weekly, monthly basis from people that are interested in the subject of divorce, but also the sort of interconnected subjects of love and, and marriage and all of these things. When people contact you, what do they typically say?

   2. JSJames Sexton2:30

      Y- you're absolutely right. I mean, the number of people that contacted me after our conversation exponentially increased. It also very much broadened the palate of things people contacted me about. So, a lot of, a lot of my prior work, a lot of my writing prior to our first conversation was very much tied to just relationship issues, divorce-related issues. So, I would get a lot of messages from people saying, "I'm going through a terrible divorce. I'm dealing with this situation. You know, even though you can't represent me because I'm in a different state or a different country, could you give me some general advice?" Um, so people would reach out with very specific to my c- career topics. I got a lot of people talking to me about the conversation we had about our dogs, and about loss, and about the nature of, um, you know, aging and endings, and whether it's the ending of a marriage or the ending of a dog's life or our own lives, and how the loss of our pets, you know, brings us more sharply into focus about the mortality of everything around us. So, um, yeah, I, I mostly get people saying, "Oh, you, you gave voice to something that I'd felt, and, um, it, it was meaningful to me to do that." And I, I try to write people back and just say, you know, very briefly, like, "I'm so glad that something in my perspective resonated with you."

3. 3:56 – 6:23

   James' One Message To The World

   1. JSJames Sexton3:56

   2. SBSteven Bartlett3:56

      If there was one message that you could give to everyone that messages you, so one singular message, it was a broadcast message and you had to send it to everybody that's messaged you about all of these interconnected subjects, but you could only say a couple of sentences, and you think it's the couple of sentences that would most serve all of them in one go, regardless of what their issues are, because it's a fundamental message about love and marriage and divorce and all these things, what would that message be?

   3. JSJames Sexton4:21

      I mean, I've always said that I think the core truth I've learned in my life is that the hard thing to do and the right thing to do are usually the same thing. So, I would, I would often challenge anybody who reaches out to me about anything that, that they're struggling with, I would say to them that, "What is the hard thing to do in this situation? Because that's probably the right thing to do." The, the other thing I would say is that, although I really appreciate that someone would reach out to me in the hopes that I could give them some answer, I, I pretty strongly believe that the only zen you find on mountaintops is the zen you brought up there. And, and so I think a lot of, a lot of the truth we know when we hear someone say it out loud, it's, it resonates in a way, but it's because we knew it was true. We already knew it was true. Maybe that person gave voice to it.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett5:13

      When you said the thing about zen and mountaintops-

   5. JSJames Sexton5:16

      Yeah.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett5:17

      ... can you say that again and what did you mean?

   7. JSJames Sexton5:18

      Yeah. I, I mean, you know, you can also parse it as the only wisdom we find on mountaintops is the wisdom that we brought up there. You know, there's this, you know, there's all of these sort of zen parables of the, of the monk who, like in Batman Begins, you know, sort of in his, in his flip-flops and robe, sort of wanders up the mountain through the cold, trying to find the zen master at the top of the mountain who has the wisdom that he can then share with him. And, and very often, like, that wisdom's inside of all of us. That wisdom is something that, whether we wanna call it our gut, whether you wanna call it your soul, what- whatever you wanna call it, that, that the wisdom is inside of you. And that, um, we, we, we want, I think, sometimes to have other people validate it for us or say it out loud because perhaps we're not as articulate about it. But to have someone give voice to it...... it gives us the ability to go, "Okay, okay, so it's not just me." And I think that's, that's what I mean when I say the wisdom we find on mountaintops. I, I think we travel very, very far to find a joy and a wisdom that's inside all of us.

4. 6:23 – 11:11

   Why You Can't Hide From Your Problems

   1. JSJames Sexton6:23

   2. SBSteven Bartlett6:23

      On that point, uh, as you were talking about it, and the reason I was so piqued by it is, I've got so many friends over the years who have been struggling in relationships and in their life and in their marriages, who have thought that the answer to all of those problems was to basically get on a plane and move country or city, to go somewhere else.

   3. JSJames Sexton6:41

      Yeah.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett6:42

      And so when you were saying that, I was thinking, I was thinking back to a conversation I had with my friend many years ago where he said, "Do you know what? I'm gonna move to Spain."

   5. JSJames Sexton6:49

      Yeah.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett6:49

      And you know, his life was in ruins, really, at the time. His relation- his partner had just cheated on him and was pregnant. Um, and he thought moving to Spain would solve the problem.

   7. JSJames Sexton6:57

      Yeah.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett6:57

      So I remember the conversation with him where I said, like, "By the way, all the problems are buying a plane ticket with you."

   9. JSJames Sexton7:02

      Yeah.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett7:02

       Like, they're going to Spain with you.

   11. JSJames Sexton7:04

       Yeah. Wherever you go, you know, there you are. And so I had a friend who was a, uh, a hairdresser. And I remember once talking to him, it was while he was cutting my hair. And, uh, we got on the topic of, you know, because both of us are, are someone that people talk to, you know?

   12. SBSteven Bartlett7:21

       Mm-hmm.

   13. JSJames Sexton7:21

       People talk to me about their problems in their relationship as a function of my work as a divorce lawyer. And people sit with their hairstylist and they'll talk, particularly women, will talk for a long period of time about the things that are stressing them out and upsetting them. And what he said to me is, "You know, um, a lot of women, in particular, come in and they say, 'I, I wanna cut, I wanna cut it all off. I wanna cut it all off,' or, 'I wanna cut it very short. I wanna cut it very different.' Like, 'I want just a whole'" And he said, you know, there was a time early in his career where he would give them what they were asking for. So if they came in with super long hair and they said, "I want a little, short, very bob cut," you know, he would do it. And then he would get a call from them a few days or weeks later going, "Oh my God, when can you fix it?" Like, "What do we do?" And he said what he started to figure out is what they, what they're really saying is a very human thing, which is, "I don't wanna be me anymore." Like, "I don't wanna be me anymore." Like, "I can't do it." Like, "It's all too heavy right now." Like, "Can I stop being me? Can I look different than me? Can I f- 'Cause maybe if I look different than me, I'll feel different than me, and maybe I'll do things differently than the way I've been doing them." And I think that's so human, you know, to, to say. And that's the same thing about, "Okay, that's, I'm just gonna move. I'm gonna move." I'm, uh, like I, I'm just as guilty of this as anyone. When I've had a really stressful, difficult week carrying all of my clients' chaos and stress, and there's just bombs falling from the sky constantly in my line of work, I go, "That's it, I quit. I'm done. I'm done. I'm just gonna do media stuff. I'm just gonna write books. I'm not practicing law anymore. I'm never setting foot in a courtroom again. Mic drop, I'm out." And the reality is, n- I'm tired. I'm just tired. Like, or, okay, if it's true that I'm at a place where transitioning it, then just cut back. It's so, you don't have to cut all your hair off. Like, it, and I said to my, my friend who's the hairdresser, "So now what do you do? Do you try to talk them out of it?" And he said, "No." He said, "I, I kind of play a trick." He's like, "I, I do something a little different, but not so different. And then I play up in my reaction to it, like, 'Oh, I love it like this. Look at how it's .......................... I didn't take as much as you said, but I think this is really'" And he said, "And, and very often, they're thrilled." Like, they just go, "Oh yeah, this is great." Because it was symbolic. Like, it was a symbolic thing for them that, "No, I'm gonna do something different and I'm gonna look a little different when I look in the mirror. And when I look in the mirror, it's gonna remind me to be different." But that's inside of you. Like, I, I, I mean, for me, uh, we wake up every single day and decide to be who we are, or to continue being who we are, right? And, and, and one of the, the reason why this is always so present in my mind is because as a divorce lawyer, people have this very clear image of who they are and what their life's gonna be. And very intentionally, they went and put on the white dress and the tuxedo and they took the vows and they were like, "This is the path. This is the path. I'm taking this path, and this is who I am. I'm Bob's wife," or, "I'm Jen's husband, and I'm gonna be a mom," or, "I'm gonna be a dad and I'm gonna, this is what I'm gonna do." And then it blows up, whether it's five years later, 10 years later, 20 years later when the kids go off to college, whatever it might be. And then they're, what they're really struggling with is, "Wait, who am I?"

   14. SBSteven Bartlett10:36

       Mm-hmm.

   15. JSJames Sexton10:36

       "Who am I now? Like, the barn's burned down. What?" (laughs) Like, "What do I do? Like, what? I'm not Bob's wife? Then what am I? You know, I'm Bob's ex-wife? That's a terrible thing to be. I don't wanna be defined by what I'm not anymore and used to be, you know? So what do I, who am I now?" And, you know, watching people over the course of their divorce navigate that is one of the most inspirational things in the world, because people are so much stronger and more resilient than they give themselves credit for when they're in the crisis of it.

5. 11:11 – 18:37

   The Case That Broke James' Heart

   1. JSJames Sexton11:11

   2. SBSteven Bartlett11:11

      Was there ever a, a particular case that you think about that broke your heart?

   3. JSJames Sexton11:18

      You're gonna try to make me cry again, Steven. This feels unfair.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett11:21

      No, it's interesting 'cause I, I didn't, I was ... Our conversation last time was so interesting because we spoke so matter-of-fact about the, the subject of love and marriage.

   5. JSJames Sexton11:30

      Yeah.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett11:30

      And then for me to also learn at the same time that you are a deeply emotional person ...

   7. JSJames Sexton11:35

      Yeah.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett11:35

      What is the one case?

   9. JSJames Sexton11:41

      I, I've had a few. I mean, one of them I wrote about in my book, which was I represented ... I, it was a case that I won that I should've lost. I was, I represented a pimp. That's what he did for a living. And, uh, he owned a variety of, of illegal businesses. Uh, he's in prison, um, for a long time now. But, uh, at the time, he had, uh, very brutally abused, uh, a woman who he had children with, and we went to-... uh, fam- there was a family court proceeding and the lawyer on the other side of the c- of the case, the lawyer who represented his, um, his co-parent, his victim, if you will, um, was very inexperienced. She was an assigned lawyer, so I was privately paid, as I am, and she was assigned by the state, so she was getting, I think at the time, $25 an hour, something like that, versus my $750 an hour. And she was quite new as a lawyer. She was right out of school. She wasn't quite sure, you know, of, of what to do and how to do it, and I was fairly experienced and a judge who was very impatient, who just was in a bad mood that day. I don't know what he had for breakfast or what it was, but he was an older judge. He'd been on the bench for probably too long. He retired a few years later. The key piece of evidence they had was a photograph of the way that my cli- of this woman's face after my client had allegedly beat her up quite badly. And getting a photograph into evidence is very easy, but it requires a very specific phrasing. So what you say is, "I'd like this to be marked for identification." You mark the photo and then you hand it to the witness or you hand it to the court officer who hands it to the witness and you say, "I'm showing you what's been marked as Petitioner's 1 for identification. Do you recognize that?" "Yes." "What do you recognize it to be?" "It's a photograph." "Does that photograph fairly and accurately depict your face after he beat you up or does it accurately reflect your face on the date you've been discussing?" "Yes." "Your Honor, I'd like it put into evidence." That's it. It's easy. Does it fairly and accurately depict? For whatever reason, most likely lack of experience, opposing counsel, I guess, didn't know how to get a photograph into evidence. Now normally in that situation, a judge will be helpful. Like, they will just jump in and say, "Ma'am, does this fairly..." But this judge was just not in the mood and posing counsel said, "Um, I'd like this to be marked." And then she said, "Could you hand it to the witness?" And she said, "What is that a photo of?" So I did my job. I said, "Objection. She's asking about the contents of a document not in evidence, which is my job." Judge said, "Sustained."

   10. SBSteven Bartlett14:32

       Which means?

   11. JSJames Sexton14:33

       Which means my objection is correct. So she said, "Uh, okay, uh, I'm sorry. Uh, who took this photo?" And she said, "I, I, I don't, I don't know who took it." She says, "Okay, well what, what is it a photo of?" Stood up again. "Objection. Asking about the contents of a document not in evidence." And I could see opposing counsel getting flustered because she didn't know the words and my internal dialogue at that moment was, "Just say it.Like, just get it right. Like, just say, just say fair, does it fairly and accurately depict, does it... Just say it." Like, and I- and, and I- I remember looking at the judge and thinking like, "You're letting this happen. You're letting this happen. Don't let this happen. Like, she's poor. She's poor. That's, that's why she's gonna lose. She's gonna lose 'cause she's poor and she can't afford a lawyer and he's gonna win because he can afford a lawyer that knows how to put a document into evidence and there's something really wrong about that." And the judge didn't. The judge just let her drown and she, she asked three or four more questions that were the wrong questions and then she just said, um, "I, I don't, I don't know. I don't know what to say. I'm sorry." And then she just sat down and the case got dismissed and we walked out and as we walked out, my client patted me on the back and he said, "You know, a good lawyer is better than 20 stickup men." And I remember thinking, "This isn't... This is not a good day. It's not a good day." And that case, that was a long time ago and it's st- it still stayed with me because it, it was... I did my job and I'd, I... You know, I represent my client, but I also represent the system and I don't always believe in my client, but I have to believe in the system and I have to believe that I am not... It's not my right to judge people's case. It's the judge's right. Like, like I believe in this system. I believe in the adversarial system, but watching someone lose who shouldn't lose and winning when you know you shouldn't win does not feel good in this line of work.

   12. SBSteven Bartlett16:57

       Would you take that case again? Exact same case, exact same person, exact same scenario. You're asked to go and do it again tomorrow. Same opposition lawyer.

   13. JSJames Sexton17:06

       I would, yeah. Well, first of all, it's many years later and I still know that lawyer and she's actually become a really good one and I'm really proud of that.

   14. SBSteven Bartlett17:13

       If she was equally inexperienced, the same woman, the same circumstances, the same victim?

   15. JSJames Sexton17:20

       You know, if I knew it was gonna go that way, I probab- I would turn it down. I mean, I turn down a lot of cases. I don't actually know if today I would represent him anymore. It's a hard question for me to answer. I... See, I think you don't always... You don't know in the consultation and like, it's not like this guy came into my office and said, "Yeah, I beat this woman terribly. Uh, will you retain... W- will you represent me?" Like, that's very different. No one's ever done that in my, in my office. (laughs) Like, he came in and he said, "Yeah, she's accusing me of all these horrible things. I didn't do any of it."

   16. SBSteven Bartlett17:56

       But you knew he did.

   17. JSJames Sexton17:58

       In my gut, I think I knew he did. Yeah, the more I got to know him... I mean, in a consultation, you don't know. Like, in a job interview, you don't know what kind of employee somebody's gonna be. You know, sitting across from someone in a one-hour consultation, most of the time I'm talking, telling them about their rights and obligations and how the legal process works. Like, I don't really get to know them. But throughout the process, I started to figure out like, "Yeah, there's... This guy did this."

   18. SBSteven Bartlett18:20

       You said you turn down a lot of cases, uh, you know, these days.

   19. JSJames Sexton18:24

       Yeah.

   20. SBSteven Bartlett18:24

       What are the kind of cases that you would absolutely turn down irrespective of remuneration?

   21. JSJames Sexton18:29

       I turn down cases where I feel like the person ... I mean, s- a lot of times I turn down cases that I don't think they need me. Like, I don't think

6. 18:37 – 21:24

   What Type Of Cases Would You Refuse?

   1. JSJames Sexton18:37

      you need to bring a gun to a knife fight. Like, I think if you can do it with a scalpel, don't use a chainsaw, and I'm a chainsaw. So, like, don't, you don't need me. And so, I, I, I, I'm very honest with people about, "You don't need me. I'm not the right tool for the task." But there are a lot of cases I turn down that I think people are using ... They wanna weaponize the legal system to punish their ex for their transgressions, real and perceived. Like, they want to ... Their spouse was cheating on them and they wanna just litigate them into submission. They want them, force them to spend a million dollars in counsel fees by making ridiculous motions and by minimizing, you know, their access to the kids and making them fight for every single hour of visitation they get with the kids. Like, I, I'm not interested in being a, a weapon that's used for-

   2. SBSteven Bartlett19:25

      Yeah, 'cause-

   3. JSJames Sexton19:25

      ... for that purpose.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett19:26

      ... presumably, sometimes your job is to get custody of kids, essentially.

   5. JSJames Sexton19:30

      All the time.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett19:31

      Which means that you're, you're basically taking children away from a parent.

   7. JSJames Sexton19:36

      You can look at it that way, yeah.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett19:37

      It's a harsh way to say it, but that, that, the crux of it is.

   9. JSJames Sexton19:38

      Yeah. I, I've jokingly said that before, 'cause when my kids were little and they would have those, like, you know, bring your dad to school day-

   10. SBSteven Bartlett19:46

       Yeah.

   11. JSJames Sexton19:46

       And, you know, it was like, "Oh, this is my dad. He's a firefighter." And, "This is my dad. He's a doctor." And I always felt like my sons were like, "This is my dad. He's the reason why your firefighter dad only sees you on alternate weekends."

   12. SBSteven Bartlett19:57

       (laughs)

   13. JSJames Sexton19:57

       You know? And that felt a little strange, you know? And there were times where actually I, my kids were in school with people whose divorces I had, I had handled, um, you know, their, their parents. But yeah, I, I, I think, um, I do have a tremendous impact on, on people's access to their children, both positive and negative. Like, I help, I help people get access to children that's being withheld from them. I help people, um, address parental alienation and negative gatekeeping, the kinds of things that are really becoming much more insidious and prevalent in our culture, where, where people are using children essentially as weapons against their ex who they're mad at. I mean, look, breakups on any level are difficult, you know? And, and there's usually hurt feelings and anger in a breakup, and I don't think that abnormal. Like, I think you lose someone, whether it's to death, or whether it's to divorce, or just to split up, there's some anger. You know? There's resentment. "Why don't you love me? Why don't you love me the way I love you? Why don't you wanna be with me anymore? What does this say about me? Does this mean I'm a bad person 'cause you don't wanna be with me anymore?" Like, this, these are really universal themes. Like, there's almost no one in the world, in any culture that if you go to them, "Breakups," that they don't go, "Ugh." You know? They get it. Like, they get it.

   14. SBSteven Bartlett21:08

       My friend's going through a breakup at the moment. Um, he's been with his partner for many, many years, and I ... When he sent me the voice note explaining like, "We've been together eight years. We've kinda broken up four times, but ..." Um, my, the ... He's being broken up with, so he's-

   15. JSJames Sexton21:22

       Mm-hmm.

   16. SBSteven Bartlett21:23

       ... the, he's the sort of victim

7. 21:24 – 23:45

   Is It Better To Be The One Hurt In A Breakup?

   1. SBSteven Bartlett21:24

      per se, and-

   2. JSJames Sexton21:25

      Which is the better one to be.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett21:26

      Really?

   4. JSJames Sexton21:27

      Oh, yeah.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett21:27

      You want someone to break up with you?

   6. JSJames Sexton21:28

      Oh, I mean, l- well, here's what I'll say, 'cause I, I'm, I have something of a PhD in this one. I, I have to tell you, when someone has been broken up with, there is a tremendous ama- unless it was by some patently awful behavior, you know? Like-

   7. SBSteven Bartlett21:42

      Yeah.

   8. JSJames Sexton21:42

      ... they got caught with the girlfriend or the boyfriend red-handed. Like, then it's, no one's gonna give you much sympathy. But if someone dumps you, like, "It's not, it's not me, it's you." Like, they just dump you. There's a tremendous amount of sympathy. Like, if somebody called ... If I called you and I said, "Dude, I just got broken up with," you'd be like, "Oh, mate, come on, man. Let's, let's go out. Let's ... That's tough, man. We've all been there." Like, "Don't t- you know, what happened?" But when you break up with someone, there's only so much sympathy people will give you, because, you know, "Well, we broke up." Uh, if you're so upset about it, get back ... What did you do it for, then? Like, you ... Whereas sometimes, you know, you're just the one who called it. Like, it's not ... It wasn't a happy relationship. It wasn't like ... You're sad that it had to end, you know? Like, "I didn't want to break up. I wanted the relationship to stay good, and it didn't. So one of us has to be the grownup and say, 'Okay, this thing's over now.'" But I think that person actually sometimes deserves, you know, just as much sympathy as someone who got dumped, because it, they're both someone who's experiencing a loss of sorts. Even if it's a loss that ... It's like, you know? I mean, it's a terrible metaphor, but if someone said to you, "I have lung cancer," you would go, "Oh my God, that's horrible." Like, "Are you okay?" If someone said, "Well, I was a smoker for 50 years and I got lung cancer," it's not like you'd go, "Well, what did you think?" (laughs) I mean,

   9. NANarrator23:05

      (laughs)

   10. JSJames Sexton23:05

       "Now it's g-" Of course you're still gonna go, "Oh my God, that's ter-" It's not like you deserve it. It's t- I mean, yes, is it shocking? I- it's not as shocking if you've been smoking for 50 years, but it's still quite sad and it's still a journey this person's gonna have to go through. So it's the same thing. It's like, "I've, I just went through a breakup." "Well, who's, who picked, who decided to break up with who, before I tell you if I feel bad for you or not?" Like, I don't think that's a fair way to approach a breakup.

   11. SBSteven Bartlett23:29

       A lot of people wanna own the, they wanna own it. They wanna say that they broke up with them, right, as well? Because that-

   12. JSJames Sexton23:33

       It's very popular.

   13. SBSteven Bartlett23:34

       ... makes you seem-

   14. JSJames Sexton23:34

       Well, there's something empowering about that.

   15. SBSteven Bartlett23:36

       "Yeah. I, it was my decision."

   16. JSJames Sexton23:37

       Yeah, yeah.

   17. SBSteven Bartlett23:37

       Yeah.

   18. JSJames Sexton23:38

       Yeah. Or, or the like, "Well, I've ... I'm glad they did, 'cause I, I'll tell you the truth. I was about to. I was about to break up with that person." You know? Yeah, that's very common.

8. 23:45 – 27:21

   Why People Want Control In A Breakup

   1. JSJames Sexton23:45

      I think that's a pride thing though, because you know, there's something about the rejection of, "It's o-" You know what? A great example of this for me, which is, it, it is very, um, it's always vexed me professionally. So a lot of people, um ... I've handled a lot of divorces where someone, uh, breaks up with ... In a heterosexual marriage, because they are coming out as gay or lesbian. Okay? So they end the relationship, so in the, in the heterosexual example, man and a woman are married to each other for a period of time and the man says, "I'm ending things with you because I'm gay. I've realized that I'm gay and I'd like to live my life as a gay man." My thinking, as someone who's never had that happen to me-... my thinking, and perhaps it's naïve, like my experience has taught me that maybe I'm just strange, which I kinda knew. But this is another example of it. If- if a woman broke up with me and said, "I'm breaking up with you because I'd like another man better than you." That's very hard to swallow. It's like, "I want one like you, but better than you." Whereas if she said, "I'm leaving you 'cause I'd like to go be with a woman now." It's like, well, I mean, I don't- I don't have that. Like I can't give you that. It's not like I want someone who's a better dancer, I want someone who's funnier. I want someone who has different parts than you. And okay, I mean that feels a little less like a reje- you're not rejecting me necessarily, you're rejecting my entire sort of gender. You're- you're basically saying this isn't who I want. The opposite actually happens. It- it- it... Those are some of the most brutal and vitriolic, awful divorces you could possibly imagine. And they've at- actually gotten worse over the span of my career. Because over the 25 year span of my career, when I started, when someone said, "Okay, my husband is leaving because he's gay and now he's going to live as a gay man." It was actually okay to then say, "Yeah, and he's a pervert and a horrible human being and da-da..." Because there was just such a widespread homophobia at the time. I mean, you know, Will & Grace, like Will couldn't even kiss his boyfriend on TV. They- they... He couldn't really even have a boyfriend. It was like so, you know, young- young people today have no idea how in my lifetime that- that has changed so much. Not to say there isn't still homophobia, not that there's still not heteronormativity. But the reality has changed tremendously, the boots on the ground reality. Now, if your spouse leaves you for a w- if- if I was married and my spouse left me for a woman and I'm upset about it, I'm opening myself to an accusation of being homophobic.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett26:35

      (laughs)

   3. JSJames Sexton26:36

      And- and the truth is, like, uh, no. It- whoever she's leaving me for, it's really upsetting. Or whoever she's been sleeping with, male, female, anything, it's upsetting because they're with another person. So I- I think there is in that phenomenon of people's breakups the sense of like, "Well, I was gonna break up with them anyway," is like a pride thing. I think- I think there is a tremendous amount of, um, of stuff that we carry around when it comes to those breakups.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett27:05

      I've always wondered what heartbreak actually is. Because I- I- I flip between thinking, okay, it's like you s- mentioned the word rejection. Is it a blow to our self-esteem? Is it the loss of a future that we had like built in our head?

   5. JSJames Sexton27:17

      Yes. Yes.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett27:17

      Because if you can understand what it is, I was thinking about how do I give my friend advice

9. 27:21 – 32:37

   Understanding Heartbreak

   1. SBSteven Bartlett27:21

      on it, then I- then I know what the advice should be or the support should be. Because if it's a loss of this future then okay, I- I, you know, I know I'll say this. If it's his self-esteem, okay, I'll boost his self-esteem.

   2. JSJames Sexton27:31

      Yeah.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett27:32

      So...

   4. JSJames Sexton27:32

      I think it's all of those things.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett27:34

      Mm-hmm.

   6. JSJames Sexton27:34

      But I- I think it's- it's- it's an ending and I think that endings are hard. I think that saying to... What I always try to do when I have friends going through a breakup and even with clients is that, you know, every beginning is born of some other beginning's end. So we talked about this the last time we sat down together where I said that, "You know, I only got Cabo because Buster died."

   7. SBSteven Bartlett27:59

      Which is your dog's...

   8. JSJames Sexton28:00

      Yeah. My- my dog that passed away 13, 14 years ago, and my dog that's now 13 years old. And- and one, one... I only got one 'cause the other died and I love both of those dogs so much. But if I'm being honest, I guess I have to say I'm glad that I lost Buster so that I could have Cabo. That- that sounds terrible 'cause I don't mean it like, "Oh, I'm glad that he di-" But death... Like that ending was part of life just... And it made room for the beginning of the next thing. And what I always try to focus my clients on is that this relationship is ending and that's, there's mo- there- there has to be honoring that, mourning that, feeling that, seeing it as the transition that it is. Grieving the loss of it, but also realizing that every ending is the beginning of the next thing. And- and there has to be an ending for the next thing to come and for the next beginning to happen. And I have now watched that cycle for s- thousands of clients over a span of 25 years where- where their life is ending. Who they, "I was this person's husband." "I was this person's wife." "I was a dad who lived with his kids full time, that had them every Thanksgiving, not every other Thanksgiving. That I had them every Christmas Eve, not alternate years, on, in even years they're with me and odd years they're with her." Like, "What are you talking about?" Like, "This was who I am, who I'm dying. Like who I am is dying and I don't know who I'll be next." And when you're in that, right? And when it's your first divorce, it's not mine, but it's yours. You know? It's very hard to see, like just- just like when someone dies. You know, when- when Buster died, I- I said it last time, I- I said, "I will never do this again. I will never love anything like this ever again." "I'll never let my heart be broken like this again. I'll never open myself up like this again, ever. Never. This is the worst pain. Why would I ever do this? Loving anything is stupid. It's insane. You're opening yourself up to the inevitability of loss." And yet, e- eh, Cabo was the gr- such a joy. And now I'm near the end of that. And- and what do you do? Well, I- I like to believe that now, I'm not saying that's not gonna be as painful when it happens, it will be. But...... I no longer believe the world is ending. Like, I understand that, like, the beauty of who he is was born of the emptiness that had to be created by the loss of Buster. Like, I- I understand that now. And so I, like I said, will I do it again? There's gonna be a period of time where I'll say, "No way." And same thing with love. Like, people get divorced. I had a client last week say to me, they're- they're- they're right kind of in the middle of their divorce, and I said, "You know, 86% of people are remarried within five years of their divorce." And they said, uh, "Oh, I am never doing that. Are you kidding? I am never doing this again." And every time they say that, I laugh 'cause I think to myself, I'm like, "You're so wrong." And I get it. Like, you don't see it right now. Like, right now, I know you think that's true. Like, but you will love again, and you will... When you love again, like, you will feel it, and you will be in it, and you will go, "Ah, and this one's perfect, and this is great." Like, I've done divorces for people that spent a million dollars in counsel fees and went through absolute hell. And- and when they're about to get remarried, I go, "You know, we should do your prenup so that you don't ever have to do that again. Like, I'll do it for free if you want. Like, let's just do it." And they go, "No, no, no. This- this is real. This is real." And I sit there and I think like, "Oh my God, you've just... You've learned nothing at all." (laughs) Like, you... That was real too until it wasn't. Like, but- but this is... You know, perhaps, you know, love is a delusion brought on by inadequate lighting. I don't know. But there's- there's something in us that, you know, feels that pain, and then there's something in us that forgets that pain. And I think that that... You know, that's a good thing. That's a good cycle.

   9. SBSteven Bartlett32:19

      "I think life is a game you can't win, and so you play it to the utmost."

   10. JSJames Sexton32:25

       Yeah.

   11. SBSteven Bartlett32:25

       "To love anything is insane because you are accepting that you're going to lose it." It's a quote you said. You think life is a game you can't win?

   12. JSJames Sexton32:34

       Yeah, I don't think there's any winning. You die.

10. 32:37 – 37:45

    Is Life Winnable?

    1. JSJames Sexton32:37

       Like, that's the only truth. The only, the... You know it... Every story, you know, starts the same. You were born. Like, every Wikipedia page starts the same. They were born. And every Wikipedia page will end exactly the same. They died. That's it. Everything that happens in between is your life. But those are the only two inevitabilities. Those are the only two real things for certain. So, I- I look at it as, it's a game you can't win, meaning if you pursue money, like, your money will eventually be useless. The things you accumulate with it will be useless. Every car you own, someone else will either own it someday or it'll get to the scrap junkyard someday, or it'll, you'll give it to somebody. Like, it's... All your material possessions will be utterly meaningless. Like, we all went through this when the COVID lockdowns first started. Everybody was like, "You know, I've got all this money and I've got all these travel vouchers," and they're like, "Yeah, you can't go anywhere now." And it's like, "Oh, okay. Well, what do I..." Uh, you know, you started to see the limitations of things. Have the power go out in your house sometime, and it'll remind you that like, "Oh, wait. Yeah. Like, everything I have, I just have like this much of a grip on it. All you gotta do is just take that away and it's gone." And that's, that's it, you know? And it's the same thing with our health. It's the same thing with, you know, everything. Like, everything is totally fine and wonderful, and then you have a terrible splitting headache, and then the only thing that matters is that headache, you know? And then that headache goes away, and for like a day you go, "Oh, I don't have that headache anymore." But did you wake up today and go, "I don't have a headache. Oh, and the power's on. Isn't that great?" You know? "And I don't have cancer. Isn't that good?" You know? No, you don't. You walk around going like, "Oh, you know, I really... Why aren't... Why aren't my page views where they're at? Or what happened with this? And why did that person be so nasty to me?" Like, we get caught up in all this stuff when, in fact, the only thing that... You know, again, if you keep... You know, uh, uh, Epictetus, the stoic philosopher said like, "Keep death and everything horrible in your line of sight," sort of memento mori-

    2. SBSteven Bartlett34:42

       (laughs)

    3. JSJames Sexton34:42

       ... because nothing will bother you that much if you have that there. So I think life is a game that, look, we're playing it, we're doing our thing, love is... But all love, all relationships end. Every single marriage ends in death or divorce, but it ends. Every relationship ends. Your child, you will p- hopefully predecease your child, but your child will die someday. That's the nature of it. So we have created a culture where we really try not to talk about that. We really try to just keep that out of our gaze. Let's not talk about it. Our only depictions of death are preposterous. They're like the person in the deathbed being like, "I loved you all," and then just beautiful. You know, beautifully di- Death doesn't look like that. If you ever spend time with people on their deathbed, I- I- I was a hospice volunteer for many, many years, and I spent a lot of time with people who were dying, actively dying. And I have to tell you, like, you hang out with somebody who's dying, they... It's- it's- it's- it's not pretty. It doesn't smell good. It doesn't sound good. But it's real. It's natural. It's okay. It's where it's all going. And- and the reason why I say this is not to be morbid. It's that we're doing ourselves a tremendous disservice by not acknowledging this, because I can tell you how many families when I was a hospice volunteer, when their family member, their loved one would die, would say to me, "It's not that they died, it's that they died terribly. They died without dignity." And I would say to them, "No, they d- they died like everyone dies." (laughs) Like, it's okay. Like, they... Just because it wasn't like on TV where you, you know, like sort of fade out and have... Say a few final words and then fade out, like the... No one, very few, if anyone, dies that way. It's not how it works. So we're not doing anyone... Like, this is the part I don't understand, is that we don't wanna talk about...... divorce. You know, we don't wanna talk about death. We don't wanna talk about endings 'cause I think there's something in our brain that says, "If we talk about it, we're gonna make it happen. And if we don't talk about it, we'll prevent it from happening." And that seems to me insane because this, these are things that are absolutely inevitable when it comes to death, and highly likely when it comes to divorce. So why not bring them back into the discourse? And I'll tell you the truth, I think one of the reasons why my conversations have become something people are interested in is because I think we're all fascinated by this, but we don't wanna talk about it over dinner conversation. And we don't wanna, m- you know, but, but we know it's important. Something in us knows, you know, this is important. Like this is something that needs to be talked about and thought about.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett37:28

       You did your thesis-

    5. JSJames Sexton37:29

       (laughs)

    6. SBSteven Bartlett37:30

       ... your master's thesis on the subject of death titled-

    7. JSJames Sexton37:33

       Oh, you do your research.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett37:34

       ... O- On Metaphor and Mortality: The Semantics of Death and Dying.

    9. JSJames Sexton37:37

       Yeah.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett37:37

        Why would you write your thesis on the subject of death?

    11. JSJames Sexton37:39

        Well, it was a different life. So I, this is before I went to law school. I, I had gotten out, I got

11. 37:45 – 49:27

    James' Thesis On Death And His Mum's Cancer

    1. JSJames Sexton37:45

       out of college with a degree in psychology, and I decided I wanted to, um, I was a hospice volunteer. I, I, um-

    2. SBSteven Bartlett37:53

       Why?

    3. JSJames Sexton37:56

       I have to ask my therapist that question. I, (sighs) I, I can give you the answer. So I, when I was quite young, uh, I think I was about six or seven years old, my mother was diagnosed with a very rare form of cancer called leiomyosarcoma. It's a soft tissue sarcoma and it's, it's very rare. (clicks tongue) I was way too young to understand what was going on. I, I just, I remember my mother crying, the sound of my mother crying in the bathroom and running the sink so I wouldn't hear her crying, but I, I knew she was crying. And I didn't really understand what death was. Like, I understood that my gerbil had died, but I, I grew up Catholic, so I remember, like, you got to go to heaven and that sounded pretty good 'cause it was, like, a really nice place apparently. And I remember hearing my mother talking on the phone to her sister and talking about the fact that she had six months. And I remember my sister, who's six years older than me, explaining to me that mom was sick and she wasn't going to get better. And I remember being so young that I didn't really understand what that meant, but it was scary and everyone was very upset. And then my mom didn't die. What had happened is, depending on how you looked at it, either it was a miracle or it was science, and that is that the tumors had encapsulated itself, meaning that the, the immune system had essentially closed up around it so it didn't metastasize or spread in any way. They went in, they did surgery, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and, uh, she was fine. She was well. And then five or six years later, it came back. And again I got told, "Your mom has six months to live." It's at that point I was, like, old enough to understand what that meant. And I was terrified by it, I was saddened by it. And once again she had surgery, she had all kinds of procedures and things that had to happen to deal with it, but once again she just miraculously sort of ducked a bullet and she made it. And three years later it came back again. And then they said, "Your m- you know, your mom has six months to live." And I remember by that point thinking, "Yeah, you, you don't know how many times we've had this conversation. Like, I don't believe you anymore." Like, and, and it's okay, like, I'm not afraid 'cause I'm not, like, it's not gonna happen. I know that something's gonna happen and it'll work out. And it did, once again she had surgery again. She had seven surgeries over the course of my, into my 20s, and every single time the prognosis was bad, and every single time they kind of took more pieces of her unfortunately, because the type of cancer this is sometimes gets into other organs. And so they had to take, you know, they had to take her ovaries, forced her into menopause in her 30s. Then they had to take, they had to change the way her, they had to do a bowel resection. They had to do all kinds of awful things. And, uh, and it changed her. It was a painful life for my mom. It was very hard. And I remember, though from a very young age, being forced to think about death. Being forced to sort of see death as something that was just there and that it was part of things and that there was no way around it. And it, i- it just became familiar. It became sort of this person in our home, you know, this possibility that was always there. And I remember every time I would get the call that my mom's cancer had come back, there would be some part of me that thought, "Oh, is this the phone call?" Like, "Is this the one where this time she's gonna die? Like, is this the one?" And most of the time it wasn't. And 10, yeah, 10 years ago, um, once again she had a recurrence. She was supposed to have a very complex surgery. My dad and I sat in the waiting room. My parents were married for 50 years and, uh, we sat in the waiting room. It was supposed to be a eight-hour surgery 'cause it was very complicated, and the doctor came into the waiting room a half an hour into the surgery and said, you know, "We opened her up, it's like a bomb went off. There's nothing we can do. We're gonna close her up and put her on hospice." And, um, she passed away eight years ago after, you know, she was on hospice for over a year. Um, and she died with us all around her. And there was something about the reality that we had been able to talk about death for so long that there was a tremendous peace there.... like, there was a tremendous sense of, "Well, this was gonna happen." You know? This was part of our life, you know? That this was what was going to happen. And she had a tremendous peace about her because it had been part of her life for so long. So when I was in my late teens, I think my mom had had three or four rounds of this, this cancer thing. I just remember thinking, "I, I have to confront this. I have to spend time around death." You know, I, I... again, I'm strange. You know? I was always afraid of spiders. I didn't like spiders when I was a kid. So when I went off to college, I bought a tarantula and I put it in a glass terrarium next to my bed so that every morning I would wake up and there was just this giant spider sitting there next to me. And I'm not afraid of spiders anymore. And it, it got rid of that very quickly. And so, I thought, you know, "This is something that's been around me all the time and it's something I'm not quite at peace with, so I'm gonna confront it." And I went and did a hospice volunteer training. And I remember, I... you know, it was a weird thing for, like, a 20-year-old to do. I had just gotten outta college. (laughs)

    4. SBSteven Bartlett43:39

       Mm-hmm.

    5. JSJames Sexton43:40

       I was 21. And, uh, I think I was the only person under 60 who was in this volunteer training. And hospice training, hospice volunteer training, I would recommend to anyone, because they do things like, they make you write your eulogy.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett43:52

       Your own eulogy?

    7. JSJames Sexton43:53

       Your own eulogy. Yeah. Yeah. They make you write your own eulogy. Like, and it can either be, if you died right now, what would the eulogy be? Um, or if you died in your idealized future, what would it be? Um, they make you write your own obituary. Like, they make you confront the reality of thinking about death and, and thinking about your own death and death of the people around you. And then after you've been through the training, they assign you families. And I intended initially just to do it as sort of a f- part-time thing in the summer after I'd graduated college. I was working as a waiter and I had a lot of time during the day 'cause at night I was, I was waiting tables. And, um, I got assigned to a bunch of families one at a time. And, and I, I loved it. It was the most, it was the most, it was the most life-changing thing I've ever done. Like, it, it, it, uh... there is something about when you're a hospice volunteer and you're just brought into a home and you're just there to be of service. Like, you're just... if they wanna talk, we'll talk. If you want me to help do the dishes so that you can hang out with your loved one, that's great. I'll do that. Like I, I did yard work. And a lot of times, like, people... 'cause caring for someone who's terminally ill in your home is hard. And, and, like, things like, "I wanna run out to the store and get a few things myself." Like, that's hard 'cause you don't wanna leave this person alone. So, a lot of times I was just there to sort of be relief, just to sit with someone. And, um, and, and every time I would walk out of a hospice home, I felt like... I don't know, I felt like a zen monk. I felt like, like I could hear the rain. Like, I just felt like, "I'm alive." (laughs) Like, "I'm a..." like, that, "I..." that's not happening to me yet. Like, "I'm not there yet." Like, "That's not, that's not someone I love in that bed." Like, "I l- I, I have love for this person. I wanna be there for them. I'm here of service, but that's not my father. That's not my brother. That's not me. It will be someday." And one day it was. One day it was my mother. But it wasn't me. And I have to tell you, there's something about going through that experience when you're in your 20s when you're so self-centered and you're supposed to be. You're kind of supposed to be self-centered in your 20s. You're supposed to say, like, "All right. What am I gonna do with this life? What am I gonna do with these hands? What am I..." But there is something about it, that stage in life, to be told, "Whatever you do with these hands, whatever you do with all this, that's where it's gonna end. That's where it's gonna end, best case scenario. Best case scenario, it's gonna be in your own home with your family around you. Worst case scenario, it's gonna be on the street somewhere, prematurely." You know? So I was fascinated with death. And I, I decided I was gonna go to graduate school and I was going to study thanatology. I was gonna study death and dying, but there really aren't any programs in that. So I went to New York University's Department of Culture and Communication, and I found, um, uh, Neil Postman, Dr. Neil Postman, who was gonna be my... because NYU of... w- back then and still, it gives you a lot of opportunities to kind of create your own curriculum as long as it's something serious, you know? Academically serious and as long as you can put together, like, an amalgam of classes from different disciplines, they'll let you put together something very individualized. And so I put together a, a study about ar- the cultural approaches we have to death and dying. And my master's degree thesis was called The Semantics of Mortality. Or, or... I'm sorry. Metaphor and Mortality: The Semantics of Death and Dying. And was published in a journal called The Et Cetera, um, which is the Journal of General Semantics. And it... what I did is I studied the words we use to talk about death and what they reflect on how we think about death. So like, you know, I remember when I was a kid and our, our dog, when I was a child, had to be, um, had to be euthanized. I remember the doctor saying, "We're gonna put him to sleep." And I remember thinking, "No, you're not. He's gonna die. He's not going to sleep." Like, "I'm gonna go to sleep later." Like, I... he's not gonna go to sleep, he's gonna go to death. Like, "Why are you calling it that?" And I understood why, obviously as an adult. Like, it's... a, in a primitive culture, someone... it's an eternal sleep. It looks like y- I mean, you're asleep, you look like you're dead, you know? I've held a mirror under someone and be like, "You all right?" And I, I will... I understand where these me-... like, doctors... I, I explored doctors talking about, "We lost the patient." Like, "What? Wait, what? What... you don't know where he is?" Like, "No, you, you know what room he's in." "No, we lost the battle." The battle against death? You're definitely gonna lose that battle. Like, that's... they, they... d- death's record is amazing. Death, death always wins. Like, so d- if you're setting it up for that battle, like, that's a, that's a bad battle to set it up for.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett48:48

       We just don't wanna confront it though, do we? That's the essence of why we use the words like-

    9. JSJames Sexton48:51

       Which-

    10. SBSteven Bartlett48:51

        ... pass on, pass away.

    11. JSJames Sexton48:52

        ... which is fascinating to me because it is the only...... certainty we have. And we act as if we are certain it's something bad when, in fact, absolutely no one can say with certainty what it is and what happens, except that it's inevitable.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett49:10

        Having spoke to so many people in their final days, weeks, and months, and final minutes, I'm really compelled to understand what I can learn from them about how I should be living my life based on the types of things they then say to you, "Focus on, prioritize."

    13. JSJames Sexton49:25

        Yeah. Yeah. That's, uh, it's, uh, uh,

12. 49:27 – 53:28

    Lessons Learned From People On Their Deathbeds

    1. JSJames Sexton49:27

       that is true. Like, you can learn a tremendous amount from that. And here's what I will tell you I learned. They don't talk about death. Like, you go through this hospice training where they're, they're, they're very much preparing you to talk with people about their fear about their death or their imminence of their death. And all people really wanna talk about is their grandkids, their kids, their wife, their husband, what they did for a living and what they liked about it. Like, most of the time people talk about, like, the things that made them happy. Like, I, I spent a lot of time just listening to people tell me about... tell me happy stories about their life, tell me moments that... And it, and it made a lot of sense to me. Like, it made a lot of sense to me. Like, if I said to you right now, like, "What are five moments in your life where you just felt loved and happy?" Like, you could stop and close your eyes and, and, and there'd be like... And, uh, and what a comfort it would be, like, to have those. And every once in a while, like, when you're in that moment, you go, "I'm in one of those right now." Like, "I'm gonna remember this moment." You know? And, but most of the time, you don't. Like, most of the time, it just happens, and then you look back and you go, "God, I remember that kiss." You know? Or, "I remember that," you know, "that meal." "I remember that." And, and you don't see it when it's happening. And that, for me, is, is what I really learned from doing hospice work, was that, like, all these people wanted to tell me about was, you know, when they were alive, like, really alive, not laying in a bed dying. Like, they wanna talk about, like, "Yeah, I did this," or, "I saw that." And, you know, I, I learned it in my mom's passing. I remember my last day with my mom before she became so ill that she was not mobile and, and not, not really functional to have a discussion with. I just remember we just sat there, and I told her about, like, how great my sons were doing, her grandchildren, how great they were doing. And, and I talked about how happy I was and, like, just how great life is and how great I f- ... And I, um, just remember, like she just was... I remember thinking like, "Oh, that's what I would want." Like, I would wanna know that, like, "Yeah, you did it." Like, "You did great." Like, "Look at, look at all this stuff that's here because of you." You know? And to me, like that, that's what hospice work very much taught me, was it, it, it taught me that, that, um, no one's really gonna care that much about, you know, some of the stuff that seems so fucking important (laughs) . Like, it's just not that important. Like, like, the people talked about their kids. They talked about their grandkids. They talked about, you know, the love of their life, or if they, if they had survived that love and, and they, you know, they talked about how like, "Oh, maybe, you know, maybe I'm gonna get to see them again." You know? And, and it's very funny 'cause I, I remember, I remember talking to someone a few years ago and saying something about, "Oh, you know, I wish my mom had been alive to see me do, you know, this thing." And they said, "Oh, well, I, I, you know, I, I bet she's seeing it." Like, "I bet she's seeing it from..." You know, 'cause this person was religious. And I remember thinking, "You know, I don't believe that, but I really hope I'm wrong."

    2. SBSteven Bartlett52:44

       Mm-hmm.

    3. JSJames Sexton52:45

       "Like, I really hope I'm wrong." That would be amazing. Like, that'd be wonderful. It'd be beautiful, you know? So I, I think hospice, for me, the reason why I, I got into the hospice work, the reason why my research interests became death-related, um, was that, that, uh, I just think life is better when you have those things in front of you, when you, when you remind yourself of the inevitability of endings.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett53:11

       "We're just the imagination of ourselves." Those are words that you said. You said, "We're just the imagination of ourselves. There's nothing to be afraid of. Everything's connected. We're just in one state of being now and then we'll be in a different state of being. There's probably a benevolent force out there."

    5. JSJames Sexton53:25

       That was something that came to me

13. 53:28 – 57:27

    Are We Just Products Of Our Imagination?

    1. JSJames Sexton53:28

       as a function of, of, of, um, of my, my experiences with psychedelics very early in my life, is, um, was that realization, was the realization that everything is connected and that there is some benevolent something underneath all of it and that there's nothing to be afraid of. And I think some of that was a function, of course, of, of growing up in an environment where you couldn't deny death, where it was sort of always present. And perhaps that was on my mind at that stage in my life when, when I had those profound experiences. But, um, that stayed with me. That's never gone away. That's been very, um, very much a part of my view of things, that, that, um, that perhaps we are just one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, and that we, we are just... You know, I heard, what was it, Pete Holmes, the comedian, recently talking about how, you know, people say that like, "Oh, we came from nothing. I don't believe in God. I believe in nothing." And, you know, he has this whole bit about it where he's like, "Really? So like, instead of believing in God, which is something that you can't touch, can't prove, can't photograph, and science can't prove or disprove, you believe in nothing, which is something you can't see, touch, feel, science can't prove or disprove." Like, so if your nothing just spontaneously, you know, creates everything, that's pretty impressive nothing in the scheme of things. So I think, I think that I am very much a believer in the fact, I like to believe whatever the name of it is, whatever we wanna call it, having spent a lot of time with hospice patients and having thought a lot about death.I, I'd like to think that we, you know, we are drops of water and that when we die, we return to the sea, that we just merge with our creator again. And I'm not, I'm not really worried that Jim stops existing. Like, 'cause I don't remember what I was before Jim, so I have no reason to think it was something terrible. And I don't know what I'll be after I'm Jim, but I have no reason to think it's gonna be something terrible. It could just as easily be it's gonna be something fantastic, and that I'm gonna get there and go, "Wh- wh- why didn't I get here sooner?" You know? And if there's a God, then he might greet me and be like, "Yeah, why are you guys so fixated on not getting here? It's awesome." You know? Like, that temporary thing, like, there's a reason why as an organism you're supposed to just... there's all these things that'll kill you. Like, it's supposed to be that that happens sooner rather than later. But, like, that's, that's a very uncomfortable thought. Like, it's an uncomfortable thought that, like, this might be hell or this might be the part that we should be afraid of. Like, this might be the part that's really hard. Like, maybe what's before it and what's after it's really the easy part, and what's happening here is what's challenging. Like, when someone dies, I've always thought to myself, like, when someone dies, like, the people who suffer are the living. Like, the person who's passed, they're gone now. That's why I never believed in the death penalty 'cause they were like, "We're gonna punish this person by, they're gonna die." I'm like, "Well, my grandmother died. I, I didn't like to think that it was a punishment." Like, put them in a box, feed them terrible food. That, that sounds like a punishment. You know? Like, you know, make them watch bad TV, I don't know, something. But death? Like, death to me doesn't, I don't like to think of death as punishment. I, I, I, I'm enjoying this ride and I'm enjoying this body and I'm enjoying all of this. But I'm not terrified of death. I'm genuinely curious. I'm genuinely curious. And when the time comes, I want to face it with open, with, you know, clean hands and an open heart.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett57:10

       Where does acceptance play in dealing with an ending? Like, how important is it to accept? And when you, when you meet your clients as a divorce lawyer now, is part of the suffering the resistance to accept the situation?

    3. JSJames Sexton57:26

       Yes.

14. 57:27 – 1:03:59

    Can Acceptance Heal Suffering?

    1. SBSteven Bartlett57:27

       Even if it, you, it wasn't your fault? Because, you know-

    2. JSJames Sexton57:29

       Yeah.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett57:29

       ... this is, sometimes people conflate this idea of acceptance with, like, you know, justification.

    4. JSJames Sexton57:34

       Yeah.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett57:34

       I'm not saying justification. I'm saying accept this is the situation you find yourself in.

    6. JSJames Sexton57:38

       Yeah, yeah. I, I think that's very, very astute and very real. I think there's a step before acceptance, so there's a number of steps before acceptance, but, but the first one is acknowledgement. Like, I think you have to acknowledge that something is happening before you can start, 'cause acceptance has to do with adjusting your emotional state and reaction to it, changing the level of tension in your body about it. You know, like, every time I've ever gone to the dentist, you know, there's this part of me that's like, "Oh, here it comes. Oh God, here it comes. This is gonna hurt." you know? And it's like, "I'm ready. I'm bracing, I'm bracing." And, and I have to remind myself, like, "Wait, stop. Don't do that."

    7. SBSteven Bartlett58:15

       Yeah.

    8. JSJames Sexton58:15

       Stop, soften, soften, soften. Over and over, soften. It's one of the reasons I love Brazilian jiu-jitsu, because when you're a white belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, everything is like resisting everything, you know, trying to stop everything. And, and then you, you start to learn like, "Oh, no, no, no." Like, soften, like yield. Like just, you know, protect the neck, move the hand. Okay, go ahead. Try and choke me. Like, you're not gonna do it. Like, and, and there's something about that, like, not trying to resist the thing, but a-

    9. SBSteven Bartlett58:45

       Trust. What you were saying there about-

    10. JSJames Sexton58:47

        Trust in how natural something is.

    11. SBSteven Bartlett58:50

        Yeah.

    12. JSJames Sexton58:50

        But it's acknowledging first, okay, here is the reality of my situation. This marriage is ending. Like, there, there's a, there's a, a, a zen parable or saying I heard many years ago, which is, if you don't learn to find joy in the snow, you will have less joy in your life and precisely the same amount of snow. The, the, reality is reality. Like, I, I broke my favorite teacup. I can be happy about that. I can be angry about that. I can be sad about that. Either way, my teacup is gone. It's gone. That's it. Like, and so I think that the acceptance piece first requires, okay, my life is finite. My life is finite. My marriage is not permanently gifted to me. Love is not permanently gifted. It is loaned. Whether it's the life of my, my life, the love of my dog, the love of my romantic partner, the love of my children, it is on loan to me. It is not permanently gifted. So that's just acknowledgement first. Then it's not pulling from that, yielding from, like, it's, it's about softening, softening and realizing that, okay, so now what do I do with this? Like, what do I do? You know, there's something about... My, my therapist once said to me, we were talking about, um, we were talking about, like, resisting change in life. I was going through a transition in life, and, and I was having a hard time with it. And he said, you know, uh, he said, "You're very curious." He said, "You, you try to, like, swim against the current and it's not gonna work. Or you just let go and let yourself go with the current and that's not gonna work. So you try to, like, I'm gonna be the ocean and that doesn't work." He's like, "Surf." He's like, "Surf." He's like, "Surfing is kinda the perfect balance." Like-... you're not trying to fight the wave. You're trying to take it where it's gonna take you. But you're going to impose yourself on the process a little. You're gonna use technique, patience. You're gonna use your body, and you're gonna try to just see, 'cause there's an element in surfing, just like in jujitsu, just like in so many things in life, of like yielding, but also maintaining an active role, right? And I think that is in the demise of a relationship, or the loss of someone 'cause of death, or again, any transition, any ending. First, it's about acknowledging the reality of what we had, what we were, you know, what our health was, whatever it might be. And then saying, "Okay, and now this has changed, and I can resist it, or I can yield to it. I can accept that this is what's happened. It is snowing. My teacup is broken." Whatever it is. And then you can see what's next. Because, again, we don't know what's next. We don't know what that will lead to. Like some of the worst things, some of the moments in my life where I went, "Oh my God, I'm never getting through this," gave way to some of the greatest moments in my life. Like just when the, just when the caterpillar thought its life was ending, it became a butterfly, you know? But it had, the world had to end. Like imagine being the bird in the egg. You know, you've been warm and happy. Imagine being in the womb, like you're warm, you're happy, everything's being fed to you. It's like lovely. You're just buoyant and floating around. And now, if you're that bird, you gotta break through a shell and get into this cold, weird world, and you don't know how your wings work yet. Or if you're a baby, it's like all blood and screaming. But you gotta do that to get to the next thing, and the next thing is beautiful. Like the bird only gets to fly because it broke through the egg, and it only broke through the egg 'cause it was brave enough to destroy the only world it's ever known. And that's how I look at divorce in some ways, is that divorce is like this whole... whether I'm the one ending it or my partner is the one ending it, like something is ending that I never thought was gonna end, and it's done. And now what? I don't know. I don't know what, but I have no reason to think it's gonna be horrifying. It might be incredibly beautiful, but it's, it's the road ahead of me now. And, and that to me, there's something very beautiful about that level of acceptance.

    13. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:28

        But the lights are off. The lights are off on that road. It's a, it's a road with no street lamps.

    14. JSJames Sexton1:03:34

        Yeah.

    15. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:34

        And that's what the uncertainty of what-

    16. JSJames Sexton1:03:36

        Yeah, it's scary.

    17. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:37

        It's scary, right? We-

    18. JSJames Sexton1:03:38

        Yeah.

    19. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:38

        Humans are particularly bad with dealing with uncertainty. I learned this when I, when I studied, um, Uber Labs, which is this laboratory they had at Uber to figure out how to build the perfect taxi app. And they discovered that much of the reason why we love Uber is because it kills the uncertainty that we used to have when we called a taxi on the phone, and then we had to stand there for seven or maybe 17 minutes-

    20. JSJames Sexton1:03:55

        Yeah.

    21. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:56

        ... hoping that it was coming. And it's the same analogy

15. 1:03:59 – 1:06:57

    Why Humans Struggle With Uncertainty

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:59

       you might find if, you know, you go to an airport and it says, "Flight is delayed." Now, flight delayed is much worse than flight delayed two hours.

    2. JSJames Sexton1:04:05

       Yeah.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:04:05

       Because I can work with that.

    4. JSJames Sexton1:04:07

       Yeah.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett1:04:07

       But flight delayed-

    6. JSJames Sexton1:04:09

       Yeah.

    7. SBSteven Bartlett1:04:09

       ... with no certainty around how long I'm gonna be stood in this airport for-

    8. JSJames Sexton1:04:13

       Yeah. Yeah.

    9. SBSteven Bartlett1:04:13

       ... is like mental torture, and it's the same thing.

    10. JSJames Sexton1:04:14

        And, and the truth is there is something... I'm, I'm not, look, I'm not Pollyanna about it. Like there is something terribly frustrating, upsetting, difficult about your flight being delayed or your flight being canceled, for example. But I, in Frankfurt, Germany, I had the, I think it's the best meal of my entire life at a little tiny restaurant. I only had that meal because I was flying back from Poland and had a stop in Frankfurt that was supposed to be for one hour. And because of snow, they canceled all the flights to, essentially to the United States. And I was stuck in Frankfurt for the night. Now, I, I certainly had a few moments of like, "Are you kidding me? Like, I have work, I have this, I have that." But then something in me went, "Okay, like you can be upset about this all you want, man, but it ain't gonna make the flights happen. And you can't walk home from Frankfurt, so what are you gonna do? You've not been in Frankfurt before. See what happens." And I walked around Frankfurt, and I found this amazing little restaurant. And it was, I think, still to this day, the best meal I've ever had in my life. And I've gone back to Frankfurt three times just to eat at that restaurant. And I, the hotel that I found, because I was like, "All right, I need a room. I need to get a room somewhere," turned out became one of my favorite hotels, and I stayed there several times. So, you know, again, if you'd said to me in advance, "Jim, would it be awful if you got stuck in Frankfurt?" I would be like, "Oh my God, that'd be so bad. I have a court appearance tomorrow, and I have this to do, and I have that to do." My life would've been so much poorer if I hadn't gotten stuck in Frankfurt. I had like four amazing trips and a bunch of amazing meals and all these incredible experiences 'cause one time my flight got canceled 'cause of snow. And I tell you something, I- I'm really, really glad that flight got canceled. I wasn't at the time. At the time, it was very frustrating. I had to call my assistant middle of the night and be like, "All right, you gotta cancel all my stuff. You gotta resched-" But the truth is like, you just don't know. You just don't know. You won't know. You won't know until you're sitting ideally in a bed and there's a hospice volunteer sitting next to you, and you're telling them all about the amazing meal that you had in Frankfurt that one time. Not, "You know, my flight got delayed once."

    11. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:40

        You said earlier at the start of this conversation, no one intends to end up in the consultation room, um, with a divorce lawyer. But I wondered when you said that, I thought, "Do you know what? I bet you've met someone in your life that did intend to end up there, i.e. someone that got married because they

16. 1:06:57 – 1:10:24

    Have You Met Anyone Who Planned To Divorce?

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:57

       wanted the divorce."

    2. JSJames Sexton1:06:58

       Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure I, I, I have met...So I've met people because I'm in, in the high net worth and ultra-high net worth space. High net worth we define as like 10 to a few hundred million, and ultra-high net worth is like 500 million and up. I- in those spaces, yeah, there's a, there's, there certainly are people that get married to a wealthy person for what will be great financial benefit. But a lot of them are not planning on cashing the chips out necessarily. They see it as a possibility. But they more often are like, "Oh no, I'd like to ride this ride as long as possible, because the amount of money I'm going to have access to with this person is much greater than even if I divorce and take some of their things." So, um, that, that is certainly... I, I would... The overwhelming majority of people, like 99.999% of my, of clients I have met in a 25-year career did not mean to get divorced.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:08:05

       'Cause I w-

    4. JSJames Sexton1:08:05

       They, they, they move towards divorce and eventually, many of them go, "Oh yeah, this, I saw early on we were doomed." But you know, love is so intoxicating. We fall in love so fast, you know, and we really do, like, have a tendency to, in the early days, like we, we tend to just be so forgiving of a person. I mean, thank God that passes to some degree. Could you imagine like that, you know, when you first are with your romantic partner, like they brush up against you and it's like electric, that feeling, you know? 'Cause yeah, we couldn't... What would we as a world get stuff done if we felt like that forever about our romantic partner? If 10 years into the relationship when your partner brushed up next to you at the sink, you went like, "Oh God," you wouldn't get anything done. Like, you wouldn't get anything done. You, we, we would be a very unproductive world. So thankfully, that fades and changes. I, I hope it never goes completely away for, for any couple, but it becomes manageable. You start to see this person a little more clearly, hopefully still with tremendous optimism.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett1:09:04

       What's the quickest marriage you've ever represented?

    6. JSJames Sexton1:09:06

       Quickest marriage and divorce?

    7. SBSteven Bartlett1:09:08

       Yeah.

    8. JSJames Sexton1:09:08

       Marriage is 72 hours.

    9. SBSteven Bartlett1:09:10

       From marriage to divorce?

    10. JSJames Sexton1:09:10

        From marriage to divorce, yes. Marriage, marriage to annulment in that situation. But I've, I've seen divorces that were 72 hours.

    11. SBSteven Bartlett1:09:19

        Were they, were they drunk? What was the...

    12. JSJames Sexton1:09:20

        Yeah, it was the, in one it was that they were drunk. In one it was, um... I don't know how to put it. It was almost like a, it was almost like a game of chicken that went too far. Like they were, they had just sort of started dating and one of them was like, "I bet you wouldn't get my name tattooed on you." And they're like, "Oh yeah?" And then they went and got their name tattooed on each other, and then they were like, "Well, I bet we, I wouldn't, I like you so I'd get an engagement ring." And then they went and got an engagement ring and they were like, "Oh yeah, well I would, I, would you marry me?" And then they got married. And then I think, like, they probably had a great night. Like that night was probably, that might have been some mind-bending sex. But then two days later they were like, "Wait, you know, do you, you don't actually want to have kids? Oh, 'cause I do." And like, "Oh you're..." You know, like, and they realized they were just fundamentally incompatible people.

    13. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:07

        Have, have you seen any patterns, though, with compatibility then? So if, if a couple walks in and they've been together for... I guess when you look back at the types of people you've represented-

    14. JSJames Sexton1:10:17

        Mm-hmm.

    15. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:17

        Um, is there a certain length of engagement and boyfriend-girlfriend phase that

17. 1:10:24 – 1:12:18

    How Dating Length Impacts Marriage Success

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:24

       is typically conducive with it working or not working or...

    2. JSJames Sexton1:10:26

       No, I don't see that pattern. I, I'm constantly... I'm very fixated on pattern recognition, so I'm constantly thinking... I'm always looking at same religion, different religions, or religious versus non-religious, or older and younger, older man, younger woman, younger man, older woman. Like what, what permutation... Same culture, different culture, same races, different races, like first generation to the US or, you know, both first generation or neither. Um, I, I don't, I don't see those patterns. I really, I, I... If I did, I'd be the first to say it. You know I don't hesitate to say stuff. But I, I've not seen those patterns. I, I have found if I was to say there was any, any pattern, it, it really is, um... I think substance use is probably the main thing. Like that if, if one or both people are big drinkers or drug users, that's usually a good indication that the marriage is gonna lead to divorce. Because substance use issues tend to get worse in either both people, which causes all kinds of second order effects, or more commonly, one person when they have kids or when they reach a slightly different stage in life scales back on alcohol or drug use and the other person has an unhealthy relationship with the substances and it gets further down, and that's the direction that it goes in.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:12:02

       I had, um... You said something earlier which really piqued my interest as well, which kind of relates to this, is you said love is loaned. And I, I immediately thought of a friend who, who brought me to a restaurant one day to basically tell me that him and his, um, wife were being divorced. And the way they described it was

18. 1:12:18 – 1:20:00

    Why Do People Fall Out Of Love?

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:12:18

       quite heartbreaking because it seemed like they had a good relationship. It's kind of like they got busy with their jobs and the kid and they forgot to water the plant.

    2. JSJames Sexton1:12:28

       Yeah.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:12:28

       It's like the only way I can describe it 'cause they're, like, good people. They didn't really appear to argue at all.

    4. JSJames Sexton1:12:33

       Yeah.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett1:12:33

       They had this kid. They're both CEOs. She's a CEO, he's a CEO.

    6. JSJames Sexton1:12:36

       Yeah.

    7. SBSteven Bartlett1:12:37

       And it's like they, like, raised the kid and forgot to water the relationship.

    8. JSJames Sexton1:12:40

       Yeah. Yeah. I- I've, I've phr- always phrased that as they lost the plot. Like that they were... Because when you get married, you're trying to write a story together. And sometimes I think you lose the plot.

    9. SBSteven Bartlett1:12:51

       Ah.

    10. JSJames Sexton1:12:52

        Like, you know when you're reading?

    11. SBSteven Bartlett1:12:53

        Mm-hmm.

    12. JSJames Sexton1:12:54

        And like, all of a sudden you stop and you go, "I don't really remember where I am in this." Like, and you gotta go back a few pages, you know?

    13. SBSteven Bartlett1:13:00

        Yeah.

    14. JSJames Sexton1:13:00

        To like, "Oh, okay, I remember this part. Let me start there." I think sometimes we lose the plot.... and I, and when we, th- I think that happens in every relationship, every long-term relationship. I think sometimes you lose the plot. Like, other things are going on at work or you have kids, and, and kids require a tremendous amount of your bandwidth. So, I, I get it. But I think if you lose the plot, that's where it's, like, hard to, it's A, it's again, acknowledgement of it. Like, awareness, truth, being honest and saying, "Hey, I feel like we lost the plot." Like, "I feel like there's, you know, we lost the plot. How do we get it back? Like, how..." But, but the problem is when you say to your partner, "Hey, I, I feel like we kinda lost the plot." Rather than hearing that as, "Hey, this is really important to me. You're really important to me. Yeah, work's important, kid's important, but you and me, you and me, that's really important. Like, it's equally, if not more important. So I feel a certain way. I, I feel like we've lost the plot. And, and I'm not saying that's your fault, I'm not saying it's my fault. I'm saying it's the kid's fault. I don't know whose fault it is. I don't really care, but I don't wanna lose the plot 'cause I care about you and I, and this plot, this story's important to me." People don't hear it that way. People hear it as, "We lost the plot. Well, what do you want me to do about it? Like, I, you know, oh, oh, okay, so I'll just ignore the kid? What do you want? What, what, what? What? What do you want? I'm sorry, I'm doing the best I can." And that's, like, that's not the way to hear that. I, I understand, I think it's very human to hear it that way. But I genuinely believe that, that, you know, yeah, it's like you forgot to water the plant. Like, and nobody meant to kill the plant, but you killed the plant 'cause you weren't thinking about the plant. And by the way, that's right there. You walk past it every single day. You just not once thought, "Oh, yeah, I gotta remember to water the plant." And so, I think it's very easy in marriage, in long-term relationships, it's very easy to just forget that this is, you're borrowing this. You know, this is not yours. Like, this person's not yours. This person is loaned to you. And it's, by the way, it's the same with death. Like, this person is loaned to you. They could be taken away by divorce or by death. They could be taken away. Every marriage will end in one of those two things, death or divorce, for sure.

    15. SBSteven Bartlett1:15:18

        You've used this word slippage before.

    16. JSJames Sexton1:15:20

        Yeah.

    17. SBSteven Bartlett1:15:20

        When does it happen? And what does slippage mean?

    18. JSJames Sexton1:15:24

        I mean, slippage is, everyone understands slippage, I think. Like, it's not like you eat cake and then the next day your suit doesn't fit. Like, you just make lots of little choices, and those little choices add up and all of a sudden your suit doesn't fit and you go, "Wait, when did that happen?" You know? And I think it's the same thing in relationships. Like we, you know, Ernest Hemingway said in, um, The Sun Also Rises, um, "I w- I went bankrupt the same way anybody does, very slowly and then all at once." And I think that's how, that's slippage. Like, it's just little raindrops that eventually become the flood. And, and I think that's what happens in relationships, is you, you start to, with good intentions, you're focused on other things. Maybe you start to go, "Hey, I got this." Like, 'cause you know, when you were single, finding the one was big. That was big. That was a big priority in your life. And then you found them, and then there's, like, a whole bunch of just high-fiving and celebration, and it's like, "Oh, this is so great. I found the one you found. You wanted the one too and you found it. It's me. Isn't this great?" And then you go, (exhales) "All right, we got that. Now what other stuff? You know, what other stuff can we do? 'Cause now like I'm supercharged. I got you, you got me. We're gonna do this thing." And you go, and what do you do? You make new life or you make careers or you go amazing places. Like, you're do, it's not enough. It's not enough to just go, "We got each other and it's so fun and let's just tuck in here and just stay together." You know? And I, I always laugh with friends, by the way, because I can always tell when someone's like in love 'cause they put on a couple of pounds.

Episode duration: 2:43:46