The Ultimate Guide to Divorce (For You & The People You Love)

1. 0:00 – 0:40

   Introduction

   1. JSJames Sexton0:00

      The pain isn't optional. There's gonna be painful steps you have to take to make it through a divorce, but the damage is optional.

   2. MRMel Robbins0:08

      Today, on The Mel Robbins Podcast, the ultimate guide to divorce for you and the people you love.

   3. JSJames Sexton0:15

      You're not protecting your children by not getting divorced. What you're choosing is what lesson they're gonna learn. Divorce ends a marriage. It, it doesn't end a family.

   4. MRMel Robbins0:26

      From the world's number one divorce lawyer, James Sexton.

   5. JSJames Sexton0:30

      Sometimes happily ever means happily ever after separately. [upbeat music]

2. 0:40 – 15:44

   The Ultimate Guide to Divorce

   1. MRMel Robbins0:40

      Well, James Sexton, welcome to The Mel Robbins Podcast.

   2. JSJames Sexton0:44

      Thank you. It's so good to be here again.

   3. MRMel Robbins0:46

      I am so thrilled that you said yes to this, because when I first had you on the show and you and I had one of the single best conversations about relationships, you taught me four words, and those four words are, "You're my favorite person." And those four words are the secret to having lasting love. And I'm celebrating my 30th wedding anniversary this year with Chris, and we say, "You're my favorite person," every single day to one another, and it has really improved what was already a really great marriage. And so I cannot thank you enough for not only, um, making a difference in my life, but after that conversation, I said to you, "You are the number one divorce attorney in the United States. If Chris and I were getting a divorce and I found out he hired you, I would need a diaper."

   4. JSJames Sexton1:42

      [laughs]

   5. MRMel Robbins1:43

      Not because you're mean-

   6. JSJames Sexton1:44

      No

   7. MRMel Robbins1:45

      ... but because you're exceptional. And I said to you after our first conversation, "Would you come back and do a comprehensive guide on divorce and cover everything?" Because most of us, if we go through that or if our loved ones do, would never be able to hire you. And you said yes.

   8. JSJames Sexton2:09

      Yeah.

   9. MRMel Robbins2:09

      And I would love to have you speak to the person who's listening and share with them what are we gonna cover today, and how do you want them to think about this conversation in terms of it being a life-changing resource for them or people that they love who may be going through divorce or may be considering divorce or may have gone through one and still can't get their power and their life back?

   10. JSJames Sexton2:35

       Divorce is so common, increasingly more common in terms of, of the, you know, what we'll talk about later as being sort of the passive divorce where people stay married, they don't do the paperwork, but they just have checked out of the marriage. So really what I, I hope, you know, everyone will walk out of here with today in a very tangible way is the realization that, you know, A, if a marriage can be saved, that there are some points where that can happen early on in the process. But if it can't be or it shouldn't be, and those are two different things, that there are ways that we can manage what's happening here. A lot of people treated divorce like the weather, like it's something that happened to them, and that's not true. It's a process, and it's a process you have a tremendous amount of control over. So hopefully people are gonna walk out of this conversation with real clarity as to the levers that they have control over and the things that they should be looking at. And if, if you're thinking about it, I, I think you'll see the distinction, a key distinction between is this broken or is this unattended? Because those are two different things. Is my marriage broken or is my marriage unattended? Because they're not the same, and they require two different skill sets to deal with. If someone's in a divorce, meaning they've started one or they're right in the thick of one, I think at the end of this conversation they're gonna spend less money on that divorce, they're gonna hurt their children less, they're gonna do less harm to themselves, and they're gonna work better with the counsel that they have. If someone's been through a divorce and they're listening-

   11. MRMel Robbins4:18

       Mm

   12. JSJames Sexton4:18

       ... I think it's gonna help them frame where to put that in the Wikipedia page of their life, and where does it fit in their self-narrative and in their sense of who they are, and what second-order effects has it been having, and what second-order effects in a positive way could it have? What are the lessons that they learned from it? What are the scars they carry, and how do we see that? How do we notice it, and how do we use it for our benefit and the benefit of the people around us? And if someone's listening who loves someone who's divorced or going through a divorce, or their parents have divorced, or one of their children is divorcing, or one of their friends is divorcing, or someone who they're in a new romantic relationship with went through an ugly divorce, that's... I, I think I've now just described the entire world, right?

   13. MRMel Robbins5:04

       Yeah. [laughs] Totally.

   14. JSJames Sexton5:04

       But I think those people, it's gonna be how can you be part of the structure of this person you love's life? How can you be a support to them? How can you... Because you know, it's a table. There's, there's this person and their spouse and the lawyer, and then there's this other leg, your friends, your family, your community, the people around you. And the thing about tables is if one leg is off, doesn't matter how nice and straight the other three legs are, that table's gonna fall down. So I guess when we're thinking about divorce, what I, what I wanna say to people more than anything else in this conversation is the pain isn't optional. Like, there are gonna either be painful conversations to avoid divorce or there's gonna be painful steps you have to take to make it through a divorce or how to place it in your life afterwards. But the damage-

   15. MRMel Robbins5:56

       Mm

   16. JSJames Sexton5:56

       ... is optional. The damage is optional, and there's a lot you can do. So hopefully we'll walk out of this conversation with a feeling of a little more control.

   17. MRMel Robbins6:06

       Well, I have no doubt that we will. That's why I wanted you here. And I wanna read to you from your first mega bestseller, How to Stay in Love. This is page 261, and you say, "Sometimes getting divorced is the best thing to do. Sometimes it's the kindest thing to do. Sometimes, at the risk of seeming profane, it's the loving thing to do, for yourself and for your spouse." What are the biggest signs that you've seen that divorce is inevitable?

   18. JSJames Sexton6:41

       So I'm gonna push back on the word inevitable, because I think there's two ways we can look at it. When is a divorce necessary, and when is a divorce likely? And those are two different things. So, you know, sometimes happily ever after means happily ever after separately, so I'm a fan of that. I think there are times where divorce is likely and, and, and we're... It's really worth thinking about, where am I in that timeline of, of, of the likelihood of divorce? But I, I wanna say right at the outset, there are times where divorce is necessary. I, I actually think there's five times, five specific categories where divorce is necessary. One, abuse, okay? Abuse, physical, emotional, financial, threats when it comes to the children and their care, okay? That, that... As- you can't be loved if you're not safe, so situations where there's abuse, divorce is likely necessary. The second one I, I call the false self, and that's when there's, like, one person in the marriage and one costume.

   19. MRMel Robbins7:49

       Hmm.

   20. JSJames Sexton7:49

       Like, there's one person being themselves, and there's one person who's just pretending to be something that they're clearly not, right? They're pretending to be a good husband, pretending to be a fidelitous person, pretending to be a reliable per- and in fact, they're just not. And there's some revelation that happens where you realize, "Wait a minute, I'm not actually married to this person. I'm, I'm not... There's one person and one costume in this marriage," okay? The third I, I call the stolen reality, and that- that's, that's where someone has decided they're gonna author your life without your consent. Like, that's the, you find out that the entire 401 [k] was liquidated for their gambling. That's after it's been done. It's when you find out that they have a second family. It's when you find out that they've been in a relationship with another person for the last three years. Like, that's a situation where you go, "Okay, what I believed was my reality was a fiction, and now I'm just getting caught back up to speed as to what's going on in my own marriage." And, and you'd be shocked how many times that actually happens to people, and I have a ringside seat to it when it does. The fourth one, I, I... It's kinda like an unrepentant repeat. Like, somebody cheats. Somebody has- says something terrible in the middle of a fight, you know? Anybody who's been married to someone for more than five, you know, five months-

   21. MRMel Robbins9:10

       [laughs]

   22. JSJames Sexton9:11

       ... they have what I call the nuclear codes. They have, like, a sentence they could say to their partner that they know would reduce them to tears. And y- like the nuclear codes, you can't use them more than once, and you shouldn't use them at all. Like, the only way to win that game's not to play. But everyone, you've been married 30 years, there are some sentences you could say to him, he could say to you, that would just hit the, all the soft targets. You can't love somebody and not let them see where your soft targets are. So it's like weaponized intimacy. So when I talk about, like, the, the, the unrepentant repeat, it's someone who has just engaged in some awful behavior, but the apology has become something they're fluent in. Like, it's just something that they, you know, "I can't believe I did this. I, I'll never do it again." Six months later, "I can't believe I said that. I'll never say that again." And it just becomes a cycle that it's not ending anytime soon.

   23. MRMel Robbins10:03

       Hmm.

   24. JSJames Sexton10:03

       It's just gonna keep happening. And, you know, the fifth type of marriage that I think needs to end is, I would call, it's the shrinking marriage, and that is a marriage that forces you to just become less and less and less of who you are until there's almost no sense of who you are left anymore.

   25. MRMel Robbins10:21

       Hmm.

   26. JSJames Sexton10:22

       Like, a marriage that requires you to be smaller, quieter, and less of yourself. You know, the other thing I, I said in our first conversation was the two wonderful things to say at the end of a marriage, when hopefully it ends in death, is to say, "You helped me become the most authentic version of myself, and you're my favorite person." And I think a good marriage is one that helps you become who you are. So the opposite of that, one that requires you to be something other than who you are-

   27. MRMel Robbins10:52

       Hmm

   28. JSJames Sexton10:52

       ... in a real and increasingly frequent way, that's a marriage you need to have end. But see, leaving a marriage that can't be made safe isn't failure. I, I think it's, it's not a failure at love. It's defending love. It's defending the love you have for yourself, it's defending the love that you have for your children, and it's defending even sometimes the love you have for this other person, who may not realize that they're not the most authentic version of themselves either by virtue of this connection that isn't working anymore.

   29. MRMel Robbins11:23

       You say there's six stages, James-

   30. JSJames Sexton11:26

       Yeah
3. 15:44 – 23:38

   The Warning Signs Your Marriage Is Headed for Divorce

   1. MRMel Robbins15:45

      You haven't put the word divorce in your mind yet.

   2. JSJames Sexton15:48

      Yeah.

   3. MRMel Robbins15:48

      But you're starting to feel unhappy.

   4. JSJames Sexton15:51

      Yeah.

   5. MRMel Robbins15:51

      Heavy. Something's off.

   6. JSJames Sexton15:53

      Yeah. The, the hard part about this is it looks like nothing.

   7. MRMel Robbins15:57

      Mm.

   8. JSJames Sexton15:58

      It just doesn't look like anything. Like, it's just, that's the problem. It's just nothing. There's just a malaise kind of happening. It's not fighting. It's not anger. Anger, anger still implies priority. Like, it's flatness, right? Like, it's not a marriage that's broken. It's one that's been unattended for so long it doesn't look like a marriage anymore. It's like roommates running a daycare center, or just roommates with a dog in common, or it's just people that are just, it's a machine running a program that doesn't make sense anymore, but this is the program that we picked. You know, and I said it in one of our other conversations, that a lot of people get married 'cause marriage is a tradition. And to some degree, tradition is the wisdom of the people who came before us and the things, the lessons they had to teach us about what has value. And tradition's also peer pressure exerted by dead people. So if you're married because, "Well, yeah, we're married," like that's the thing you do. Like, we're married. Like, okay, but, like, you're not, are you paying attention to this anymore? Does this have value to you anymore? What do you do to add value to it? What value do you derive from it? Is it by default or is it by design? What is this marriage? The pre-contemplative stage for me is, like, nobody's asking questions of each other anymore with an actual question mark in it. The conversations are all about logistics of the day and nothing to do with each other. Like, if, if you sat down in front of your partner and said, "For 10 minutes, we have to talk, but it can't be about our jobs, our kids, or something logistical related to our house," would you just stare at each other with the sound of crickets happening? Like, is there anything really between you? 'Cause when you met, there was you and me and then we. And then sometimes the we becomes everything and the you and the me is completely gone. So the question is, when you're sitting across from this person, what's still there? And to me, the most, the most divisive sound starts to appear, and that's, that's this sound. "What?" Or, "All right, yeah." Like, it's just this, this sense of, you know, contempt, this sense of, like, your partner's an inconvenience. "What are you saying? Yeah. All right, whatever." You know? That, that's, to me, the sound- Of the smoke

   9. MRMel Robbins18:19

      Mm.

   10. JSJames Sexton18:19

       It's not fire yet, but that's the smoke. That's the pre-contemplative stage.

   11. MRMel Robbins18:23

       So if somebody's in that stage right now-

   12. JSJames Sexton18:26

       Yeah

   13. MRMel Robbins18:26

       ... what do you wanna tell them?

   14. JSJames Sexton18:30

       You can have 10 awkward minutes or so of conversation with your partner, or you can let it start to become a flood, and then you're gonna end up with therapists or mediators or lawyers involved. So I think there's value in looking at your marriage, sitting down with your partner and saying, "Hey, can we have a conversation about this, about us?" Like, let's look at what we do. 'Cause what, what... Look, you've written books, I've written books. What's a book? Books is, is like people doing things and saying things, right?

   15. MRMel Robbins19:03

       Yeah. [laughs]

   16. JSJames Sexton19:03

       Okay, so this is a story we're writing as a couple. What do we do every day? Why do we do it? Why do we do it that way? Why do we put the mugs in the cabinet where we put them? Is it just 'cause the first day when we moved in we just put them there, and then we just left them there? 'Cause it was like, "Oh yeah, that's where the mugs go." Or was it like, "Oh, why are the mugs there and the coffee maker's over there?" Like, we never stopped and just went, "Yeah, 'cause your brother put the mugs up there when he helped us move in five years ago." Because it's just, oh, that became the co- where the mugs go. Like, there's so much of that in people's marriages.

   17. MRMel Robbins19:37

       So true.

   18. JSJames Sexton19:37

       Like, why don't we eat dinner in this room instead of that room? Why don't we put our phones over here when we talk to each other? Why don't we go on Saturdays anymore to the farmer's market together? Why did we stop having sex in the couch? Why did we stop? Like, why did we stop? Again, there might be very reasonable answers. There might be really good... But just would it take that much to stop and go, "Hey, let's look at our life together, our day to day." 'Cause again, doesn't matter what I know, matters what I can prove. I wanna see the evidence. Let's look at our day-to-day life. Let's take a week in our life. Why do we do this this way? Is it by default? Is it by design? If it's by design, great, you're a step ahead. If it's by default, should we maybe do it different? Would it feel different? Would it feel better? Would we feel better? Would it maybe put us in a better place together? And I, I think there's tremendous value in that. There's, there's an invisible contract that happens in marriages. Why wouldn't you say it out loud? You're bound by it already. Why wouldn't you say it out loud and decide, we're the two people to this contract. We can renegotiate at any time we want to if it's not working for either or both of us. So that's what, when you take action in the pre-contemplative stage, you can actually do something worth... The, the conversation you're avoiding is the cheapest today it will ever be.

   19. MRMel Robbins21:01

       What do you mean by that?

   20. JSJames Sexton21:02

       The, the price tag of silence in a marriage can be my bill. It can be millions of dollars, or it could be 10 uncomfortable minutes with your spouse, or one uncomfortable afternoon. Like, the price of that conversation with your spouse is the lowest today it's ever gonna be. Just say to your spouse, "Hey, are you happy? I wanna do a good job of making you happy, and I feel sometimes like we're kinda passing each other." Or, "You know what? I heard this idiot divorce lawyer talking on Mel's show the other day, and you know what? He said something about how, you know, people don't talk about, like, why they do what they do. Like, and I thought, you know, I really wanna do a good job of being married to you. Like, I really do. Like, I, I know y- you know, you do a really good job sometimes of being married to me, and I just thought it'd be really good for us to have a conversation about that sometime." Like, I don't know a lot of people that would go, "I'm not doing that. I got something else to do." Like, okay, by the way, if your partner would say that, I'd like to know that. I'd like to know. It's worth knowing. If your partner says, "Yeah, I can't spare 10 minutes for this marriage. I'm sorry. I got the games on." Like, okay, if that's how you feel-

   21. MRMel Robbins22:09

       Divorce is necessary. [laughs]

   22. JSJames Sexton22:10

       Divorce may be necessary at that point. Yeah, so the conversation's the cheapest now it's ever gonna be, so have it now. Have it while it's raindrops. Don't wait till the flood.

   23. MRMel Robbins22:19

       Well, I love that you said that, because I do see a lot of people writing in from around the world saying, "I want to go to therapy. I want to work on it, and my spouse won't go to therapy. My spouse doesn't wanna talk about it."

   24. JSJames Sexton22:33

       Yeah, yeah.

   25. MRMel Robbins22:34

       And that in and of itself is more evidence about where things are. I'm gonna come right out and say it. I am thrilled that JetBlue is a new sponsor of The Mel Robbins Podcast. You wanna know why? I love JetBlue. JetBlue is my all-time favorite airline. The thing I love most about JetBlue is this experience that they have called Mint. Holy cow. You walk onto the plane. It's in the front section of the plane. If you're gonna go on a long-haul flight, coast to coast or overseas, flying Mint by JetBlue, for me, it's like a vacation. I feel as if I'm checking into an eight-star hotel. You have these amazing lie-flat seats and fast, free WiFi. They partner with some of the world's best chefs and restaurants, so you get this three-course meal. You cannot believe you're eating on an airplane. You can't believe how delicious it is. So consider Mint a little pre-vacation vacation where you rest, dine, relax, then you step off the plane, and you're gonna be like, "Why am I even on vacation? I just flew Mint." Visit jetblue.com to learn more and book your next trip.

4. 23:38 – 32:26

   How to Know if You Should Get Divorced

   1. MRMel Robbins23:38

      Let's move to phase two, contemplative. This is when-

   2. JSJames Sexton23:41

      Yeah

   3. MRMel Robbins23:41

      ... somebody actually thinks the word divorce.

   4. JSJames Sexton23:44

      Yeah.

   5. MRMel Robbins23:45

      And what do people ignore when they're contemplating divorce?

   6. JSJames Sexton23:50

      So when you're contemplating divorce, there's a list in your head of the problems in the marriage. What I would say is take some steps when the list is at, like, three or four. Don't wait till it's at, like, 32. That's what a lot of people do. Like, a lot of people wait until this thing is, like, bleeding out before they go past the contemplative stage. Contemplative stage is where you're really taking a fearless inventory of what's really going on in this marriage.

   7. MRMel Robbins24:22

      Mm.

   8. JSJames Sexton24:22

      Like, what are the problems that we're having? What impact is it having on me? What impact is it having on this person? What impact is it having on our children? Let's be really honest with ourselves about what's going on here. And I think having that- Conversation with yourself is important because sometimes there's an element of grief happening that people don't look at. So things change in marriages all the time. We talked about this last time, how I said one of the two biggest mistakes people make is thinking, "Oh, nothing's ever gonna change. Things are so great. We're getting married and everything will stay the same now 'cause marriage is gonna be the moat we dig around this relationship that protects it from the world and the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune." And then the other mistake they make is saying, "Oh, no, like, you know, this person will change. Like, they drink too much now, but now that we get married, they're gonna get their shit together." Or, "Oh, no, this person's, like, really inattentive, but once we're married, they're really gonna pay attention to me." Or, "They have a wandering eye, but, you know, once we get married, they won't have a wandering eye anymore." So these are two mistakes that seem like opposites, but they're both legitimate mistakes. Now, the truth is, I, I do think sometimes change happens, right? In the 30 years of you and your husband being together, think of how many-

   9. MRMel Robbins25:36

      Oh my God

   10. JSJames Sexton25:37

       ... losses, how many victories, how many little deaths, and how many huge changes, physical changes in both of you, your children, everything, your environment, where you live, economics, so many things that ch- And by the way, some completely forces beyond your control. Pandemics, economic crisis, all kinds of things happening, right? Okay. So if you're in the contemplative stage now, I just want you to pause for a second and think about the last 18 months. What's happened in the last 18 months that you're feeling this way that could be impacting? Because here's the thing, like, when someone is grieving something, the loss of a parent, a child going off to college, loss of a pet, a change in their employment situation, sometimes it, it, like, it resurfaces 18 months later in a different costume.

   11. MRMel Robbins26:34

       Hmm.

   12. JSJames Sexton26:35

       Like, you just start blaming, 'cause who's around you all the time but your spouse? And your spouse is a whole lot easier to get annoyed at than, like, fate or God. Like, who am I mad at? Your dog dies, who are you mad at? God? Like, it's hard to be mad at God. He's not even one you can yell at, really, right? But your spouse not being supportive of you, not helping you through this process, just not being there for you, not creating an environment where you can feel like you can cry if you need to, or making you feel self-conscious, or feeling like you have to carry the emotional load of their life and, and you have to keep their chin up because they're not gonna be able to hand- Okay. Again, look at what's going on and say, "Okay, wait. How much is the marriage and how much is..." 'Cause Ben, the answer might be, yeah, the marriage. Like, but look at that 18-month lead-up period-

   13. MRMel Robbins27:23

       Hmm

   14. JSJames Sexton27:23

       ... and pay some attention to what's gone on in your life that might have impacted what's happening.

   15. MRMel Robbins27:27

       Who should you confide in if you're contemplating divorce?

   16. JSJames Sexton27:34

       Well, I'll tell you first who you shouldn't confide in. Not social media. Run screaming from social media. Don't lean on the group chat. Do not lean on your kids at any age. I don't care if your kids are eight or 15 or 40. Don't lean on your kids when you're in that stage. Don't, don't say to them, "Do you think I should get divorced? Do you think that they..." Like, this is not, these are not the people you should be talking to. So I would say, one, a therapist individually. Get a mental health professional. Hire a therapist. Again, one that genuinely challenges you. You know, anytime I meet somebody and they're like, "Oh, my God, I love being in therapy," you're doing it wrong.

   17. MRMel Robbins28:15

       [laughs]

   18. JSJames Sexton28:16

       If you love it 100% of the time, you're doing it wrong. I'm not saying you shouldn't every once in a while have one of those sessions where you go like, "Yeah, I've made some progress. This is good." Like, "We're doing a good job," you know? But a lot of the time it should make you kind of uncomfortable because the only question worth asking when you go into therapy is what is it I'm afraid to feel? What is it I don't wanna feel, and why am I so afraid of it, and what would happen if I felt it? And what is it I don't wanna look at, and why? Why don't I wanna look at it? Why is it still there? Why is it still carrying around? Why has it become a backpack that's holding me down? So the first thing in this situation in, in the contemplative stage, get a therapist. Get a therapist who's going to get to know you and get to give you a very honest perspective on things. And then I, I think you need, like, one friend. Like, one. But it's a person with, with no skin in the game and who's proven that they can keep their mouth shut. You want that one friend. Um, and then a lawyer. Go see a lawyer. You don't have to, when you go see a lawyer, you don't have to hire a lawyer. Like, I can't tell you how many people come in and they meet with me, and they go, "Okay, I'm ready to hire you." And I'm like, "Okay, I'm not retiring anytime soon." Like, you come in for information. Learn about your rights and obligations potentially. Learn about how the law- 'Cause most people, by the way, like, again, you, you buy a house, you get a HUD-1, lead paint disclosure, all these things. You get married, you don't even get a pamphlet. Most legally significant thing you're ever gonna do in your whole life other than die, and you don't even get a one-sheet. You got nothing. Like, the first time people learn what happened legally when they got married is in my office when the whole thing's fallen apart. Why not go to a divorce lawyer sooner rather than later? Attorney-client privilege attaches. No one can know that you saw me. If I see you on the street, I'll pretend I never met you. Like, go talk to a lawyer and just say, "Hey, listen. Things are kinda, ugh. I just wanna know, like, what would this look like? What might the issues be?"

   19. MRMel Robbins30:15

       Hmm.

   20. JSJames Sexton30:15

       And then you can give me the ingredients. Tell me, "Here's what's going on. This is what we have. These are the accounts. This is our day-to-day routine. This is who takes care of what with the kids." And I can say, "Okay. Here's the different paths you might take. Here's the different..." Like, good lawyers, experienced lawyers, I want you out of my office. I don't want, I do not wanna make money on you. Like, I wanna send you to a therapist. I wanna send you to a mediator. I wanna send you to a process that is gonna not be me, 'cause I'm a weapon. I'm a weapon. Like, they're gonna do it with a scalpel, I'm gonna do it with a chainsaw. Don't do it with a chainsaw. There is nothing you can do with a scalpel that you should do with a chainsaw. That's insane. So a good lawyer is gonna explain to you upside, downside, all the different paths. So again, what is all this we have? We have the psychological ingredients with our therapist. We have someone we can confide in, in the form of that one friend who's a vault for us, who's gonna be able to listen, and they've proven to us that they're trustworthy. We have a lawyer who's gonna tell us what's going on. And then the fourth most important person to talk to, your spouse, potentially. Like, your spouse, and that's the scariest conversation. But it's actually sometimes the cheapest way to do things. Like, sometimes people don't realize, okay, we had the pre-contemplative conversation. What's going on in the marriage? How are things? Maybe now is the time where we start to have the, "Hey, listen, I'm really feeling like something's gonna have to change." Maybe we don't have to say the word divorce yet, but we can start saying, "I feel like this is either the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning, and we still have a chance, so what can we do, if anything?" What- 'cause what outcome do you want? That's counsel.

   21. MRMel Robbins32:04

       Mm.

   22. JSJames Sexton32:04

       The friend, the lawyer, the therapist who says, when you say, "I'm thinking about getting divorced," and they go, "Okay. What do you hope to get from that? What's the outcome you want?" That's counsel. Take him for everything he's got, that's, that's entertainment. That's entertainment. That's someone just using your life as their entertainment or to work their stuff out.

5. 32:26 – 42:26

   Telling Your Spouse You Want a Divorce

   1. MRMel Robbins32:26

      How do you raise it with your spouse? Like, if, 'cause I've been shocked by the number of people in my life that told their children before their spouse.

   2. JSJames Sexton32:36

      That's insane. But people will come into my office, they'll do the consultation, they'll retain me, we'll file the papers, their spouse hires counsel, and then they'll come in and they'll say, "Yeah, so we're gonna sit down the kids, uh, tomorrow night and we're gonna talk to them." And I go, "Why?" And they go, "Well, you know, we just wanna let them know." I'm like, "Okay, so, um, so I'm your 10-year-old. Where are you going to be living? Where is mom going to be living? Where's the dog gonna live? When am I going to see you? What days will it this? Are we still gonna have the hou- are we still gonna go to Cape Cod in the summers? Are we gonna do the da..." Guess what? You don't know the answer to any of those questions yet, not one. So if your job as a parent is to, one of your jobs is to help your children feel like there's some sense of control in a terrifying world, the worst thing you can do is say to them, "Mom and Dad are splitting up. Kind of not have more information than that for you at this point, but we'll get back to you, you know, in the next couple of months." Like, that's, it's a cruel thing to do. So realistically, can you start shaping your family dynamic in a way that might transition more easily to divorce? Sure. Start spending some more time with your kids separately as opposed to together, maybe going away for the weekend with the kids for vacation separately. So it's not as far, and you can say, "Well, remember when we went and that was, you know, it'll be like that from now," or, "Oh, remember when your dad was away for work for that week? You know, remember, that was, well, Dad was..." Then he comes back, you always see him.

   3. MRMel Robbins34:00

      How do you tell your spouse?

   4. JSJames Sexton34:02

      Well, I like the way you parsed that, which is tell your spouse. 'Cause people often say to me, "How do you ask for a divorce?"

   5. MRMel Robbins34:08

      Mm.

   6. JSJames Sexton34:09

      And I always tell them, "You're doing it the wrong way if you're asking for a divorce." I would say, one, be certain, 'cause you can't unring this bell. Like, once you tell your partner, "We're getting divorced," you can't really unring that bell. So don't say it on a whim, right? Don't have that conversation at night. Don't have it when anyone's been drinking. Don't have it on a holiday. Don't have it at a restaurant. People think that having it at a restaurant's a good idea. I don't know what movie somebody said, "Oh, when you have a difficult conversation or break up with someone, do it in a restaurant 'cause they can't make a scene." No, what they have to do is, like, publicly keep their act together 'cause people are watch- it's cruel. It's cruel to do it in a restaurant. So don't do it in a public setting like that. Again, don't do it when anyone's been drinking, using cannabis, anything like that, any altered state of mind. Don't do it at night. I don't think that's the best time to do those kinds of things. Don't do it on the holiday. Say it in the first 10 seconds. No preamble. That's it. Like, don't have a preamble. Like, say it once and clean and then stop talking. "I have given this a lot of thought and our marriage needs to end." Okay? That's hard. Those are hard sentences to say, but they're clear. They're not a question. "I think maybe we need to..." I understand you're trying to be compassionate. There's nothing compassionate about giving someone false hope. If you've decided the marriage is over, the marriage is over. So say it in the first 10 seconds, no preamble, then stop talking. Because reasons invite rebuttal, so don't give a bunch of reasons. Because if you say, "Well, you know, listen, we don't talk like we..." "Well, we don't talk the way we used to 'cause you're never home and you're working all the time." Now we're having a debate, a debate about the demise of our marriage. We should have had that already. We could have had that in the first two phases. If we've decided now, if you've decided now this is over, it's over. By the way, own your share first. Like-

   7. MRMel Robbins36:03

      What does that mean?

   8. JSJames Sexton36:04

      You know, it's like the movie 8 Mile with Eminem. You know that scene at the end where, you know, the final rap battle, and he gets up and he's like, "Yeah, I am a bum. I do live in a trailer with my mom." He says all the bad things about himself and he goes, "Here, tell these people something they don't know about me." I love that. I do it in the courtroom all the time. Same thing in this. Own your part first. "Listen, I'm, I'm not a good husband to you. I'm not doing a good job of it. I don't feel I can be. It's pretty clear to me. It's become increasingly clear to me that I'm just not who you need to be married to, and I'm not capable of making you happy in a way that you deserve to be happy." Own your piece of it first. Apologize for your piece of it first. "I know I never meant to hurt you. I'm certain of that. But I also know that I have hurt you, and for that I am profoundly sorry. But I'm not gonna double down on that pain by continuing to hurt you." Like, clear, concise, precise, honest, even if it's a little painful. And then I think, you know, have a 48 hour plan. I know that sounds kinda cruel and tactical, but, like, know where you're gonna stay. Maybe if this person needs space, give them some space. Know where the kids are gonna be, make sure they're out of the blast radius. Like, try to give thought to the fact that you're about to have a big moment, and I think it's smart to plan about that. Like, it's page one of what your children's memory of this is gonna be, so I think it's really important if you have kids, and even if you don't, like, how things end sometimes can shape how we remember them in their totality.

   9. MRMel Robbins37:32

      Mm.

   10. JSJames Sexton37:32

       I don't think that's always fair, but I think it's true. So I think clear, clean, precise, but don't, don't invite reasons. Don't invite rebuttal. You can't un-ring this bell, but this is not a request. This is not a negotiation. I'm telling you a decision. That's it.

   11. MRMel Robbins37:53

       What are some of the things to think about? 'Cause you live together.

   12. JSJames Sexton37:55

       Yeah.

   13. MRMel Robbins37:56

       You have kids maybe.

   14. JSJames Sexton37:57

       Yeah.

   15. MRMel Robbins37:57

       Maybe they're at school. You're doing-

   16. JSJames Sexton37:59

       Yeah

   17. MRMel Robbins37:59

       ... this in the morning. I love that you're telling us, do not ask for one.

   18. JSJames Sexton38:03

       Yeah.

   19. MRMel Robbins38:03

       I love the 13 words you used. "I have given this a lot of thought. Our marriage needs to end."

   20. JSJames Sexton38:08

       Yeah.

   21. MRMel Robbins38:09

       And then stop talking.

   22. JSJames Sexton38:10

       Stop talking.

   23. MRMel Robbins38:11

       And then your counsel is own your part of it.

   24. JSJames Sexton38:14

       Yeah.

   25. MRMel Robbins38:14

       I can't be the person that you deserve.

   26. JSJames Sexton38:17

       Yeah.

   27. MRMel Robbins38:18

       I am gonna make this worse if I double down. I apologize. I never meant to hurt you. How often do you think people don't know this is coming? Or they get, they get, quote, blindsided.

   28. JSJames Sexton38:28

       Oh.

   29. MRMel Robbins38:28

       Or if they're blindsided, are you like, "You've been asleep in your marriage"?

   30. JSJames Sexton38:31

       Yeah.
6. 42:26 – 47:30

   Should You Stay Married for the Kids?

   1. MRMel Robbins42:26

      What about the idea of staying in a marriage for the kids?

   2. JSJames Sexton42:32

      So staying in a marriage for the children isn't something people are actually doing a lot of the time, you know? Because your children are in the marriage with you, and the question is not are their parents divorced. They're not gonna remember whether you stayed or not. They're gonna remember what your marriage looked like. Like, they're watching everything you're doing. Like, my, my dad- Sat there when I was a kid telling me, "You definitely shouldn't smoke. It's bad for you," while smoking a cigarette.

   3. MRMel Robbins42:57

      [laughs]

   4. JSJames Sexton42:58

      And you will be surprised to learn in high school I started smoking cigarettes, because I could hear him. What he did spoke so loudly I didn't have to listen to what he was saying. And I think that's what you're doing. You're modeling for your children what marriage should look like. Would you want your children to have your marriage? That's a very hard question and a really important one for the pre-contemplative and contemplative stage. If my daughter's marriage looked like this, would I be happy on her wedding day? If I could look at a crystal ball and see this is what my son's marriage was gonna look like 10 years in, would I want him to get married, or would I say, "Hey, maybe you should rethink this"? Okay. You, you do that for your kids 'cause you love them. Well, love yourself. Love yourself enough to look at it and to say, "Is this what I wanna model for my children? Is this how my husband is treating me, is this how I want my daughter to believe a man should treat a woman? How my wife speaks to me, is that how my son should think his wife should speak to him or how she should relate to him? Is this the love we want our children to see?" Because the truth is, what am I modeling, and can I change it in this marriage? Is it possible to change it? You're not, you're not protecting your children by not getting divorced. What you're choosing is what lesson they're gonna learn. So can they learn the lesson that two people can end a marriage and still have affection for each other and still love their children and co-parent in a productive way? That's a valuable lesson to teach someone, that things end, and that sometimes when they end it's okay, 'cause things are supposed to end and make room for new things, 'cause every new beginning came from some other beginning's end. Like, isn't that a lesson worth teaching children? So high-conflict family dynamics, whether they end in people staying together and gutting it out for the kids or whether it's a conflict-filled post-divorce life where people have a contentious co-parenting relationship, yeah, it's bad for kids. It's bad for kids to have loyalty bonds and parents who hate each other and who weaponize their affection for the children against each other. Yes, it's terrible for children. That doesn't have a lot to do with divorce. That has to do with how you approach divorce. That has to do with how you approach your co-parenting relationship. But staying together, quote-unquote, for the kids is very often, "Yeah, I just don't wanna do this. I don't wanna go through the pain of this." There's never a good time to do a really difficult thing. But the question becomes, do you want to wait until your children are teenagers, until your children are already dealing with their own challenges there, or do you wanna do it earlier on in the process when, again, we don't know who discovered water, but it wasn't a fish. Like, talk to someone whose parents got divorced when they were three. They're like, "Yeah, I don't know. My mom lived here and my dad lived there. I don't really remember my parents being married to each other."

   5. MRMel Robbins45:54

      Hmm.

   6. JSJames Sexton45:55

      So I, I think that divorce is never free for children, ever, but the question of what relationship you're modeling for your children I think is the key question, more important than is divorce good or bad for kids.

   7. MRMel Robbins46:10

      Well, the measuring stick of stepping outside your marriage and saying to yourself, "Would I actually be excited if my daughter was in this marriage?"

   8. JSJames Sexton46:18

      Yeah.

   9. MRMel Robbins46:18

      "Or would I want her out of it?"

   10. JSJames Sexton46:20

       Yeah.

   11. MRMel Robbins46:21

       "Would I be excited if my son was married to a person that treated him the way I'm being treated?"

   12. JSJames Sexton46:26

       Yeah.

   13. MRMel Robbins46:26

       "Or would I want him out of it?"

   14. JSJames Sexton46:28

       Yeah.

   15. MRMel Robbins46:28

       That's your answer. I wanna go back to that 48-hour plan. Can you just tell us what are the things on the checklist as you're thinking about, "I'm gonna say the 13 words."

   16. JSJames Sexton46:39

       Yeah.

   17. MRMel Robbins46:40

       "I'm going to make a decision and say this is my decision. I'm not asking for a divorce." What is the 48-hour plan, because you're about to drop a bomb?

   18. JSJames Sexton46:50

       Yeah. It should be where, first of all, where are the kids and where are they gonna be? Are they at grandma and grandpa's? Are they someplace that they're out of the blast radius? That's ideal, because no one's gonna be feeling great after this conversation, and it's good that ki- the kids are out of the, out of the way of it. Two, um, you don't necessarily wanna go back to the same location with this person. You are the least qualified person to help someone navigate you breaking up with them, ending that relationship. You're, you're not gonna be able to do that, so don't try. And putting yourself in ph- physical proximity to that person is inviting more conversation. So again, don't kick them out of the house. Stay someplace else. Maybe they don't wanna be in the house 'cause it's gonna make them think about you and the situation. No problem. I'll stay in the house, take care of the dogs. You can go to a hotel. Like, create options for a person.

7. 47:30 – 51:20

   How to Prepare Financially for Divorce

   1. MRMel Robbins47:30

      Okay.

   2. JSJames Sexton47:30

      Now, what are some things logistically you should have done before this? Make copies of some of the important financial documents or at least know where things are. Like, consider the possibility that this person might react poorly, and if they did, what would you be cut off from access to? So do I have some money, some access to money, either to get counsel or if I haven't already ideally talked to a lawyer before I drop that bomb? You know, what do I have available to me? And also get yourself, again, get yourself out of this person's path. Like, let this person calm a little bit or fester a little before they calm. And just, it should be very logistical, that 48-hour period. It should be very much about how do we keep the kids and each other out of the blast range for everybody to start internalizing that this thing just happened. Look, there's punctuation marks in life. Your kid is born, you get married. You know, some big thing. This is a punctuation mark. Everything that comes after this is everything that comes after this. So everything that happens is from now on at that point. So you have to really see it as that and treat it with that kind of reverence.

   3. MRMel Robbins48:41

      I think it's incredibly important that you said make sure you have copies of financial documents, that you have logins to thing-

   4. JSJames Sexton48:48

      Yeah

   5. MRMel Robbins48:48

      ... that you have backups.

   6. JSJames Sexton48:50

      Yes.

   7. MRMel Robbins48:50

      Because you don't actually know how somebody's gonna react.

   8. JSJames Sexton48:53

      No. No, and, and it's very rare in a marriage that both people have equal access to the financial information and equal interest in it. You know, it's very often that, like, "Oh, yeah, you know, she likes doing the investment stuff, and I don't really, I'm not into that, so I just put my checks in the thing, and then she does all that." Okay, you don't know where any of your money is then, you know? And again, I'm a fan in marriages, like, I don't think marriages should be we have to do the exact same things. Like, if I love to cook and you don't love to cook, I'm not gonna say, "Well, I'm gonna give up cooking half the time," which I love, "And you should have to cook half the time," which you hate, "So that we can be equal." No, I'll cook. I love to cook. Like, that's great. But there's something else. Like, you should know how to cook something. Like, if I go away for a weekend, you shouldn't be like, "Well, what do I do now?" Like, there has to be some sense of, okay, you might not be, like, really into how do we do our trades and what's our exact asset allocation. Where is our money? Roughly how much of it do we have? Roughly how much is retirement and roughly how much is liquid? Like, what's the name of our financial planner? Do you have life insurance? Who's it with? There should be some basic snapshot that you have so that if something... Again, even if you're happily married and never gonna get divorced, your spouse could die. So you, you need to have a general sense of where your assets are and what they look like.

   9. MRMel Robbins50:11

      You said stage four is taking steps. Tell me about it.

   10. JSJames Sexton50:14

       Yeah, so look, a, a divorce ends a marriage. It, it doesn't end a family, and you're restructuring a company that you're gonna co-own for the rest of your life. So the sooner that you think about that, the better. I, I often will tell clients, like, even if they have a two-year-old, I'll say to them, "Listen, there's gonna be a wedding. It's probably, like, 20-plus years from now, and what we do at this table is gonna dictate what that wedding looks like. Like, we're gonna create the architecture of that wedding." So, like, not every hill should be the hill you're willing to die on. Identify pretty early on in this process what are the goals, write them down, give them to someone you trust, and have them read them back to you when you lose sight of that, 'cause you'll lose sight of that from time to time in this process.

   11. MRMel Robbins51:02

       I don't think I've ever heard anybody say that you should write down your goals for getting divorced.

   12. JSJames Sexton51:11

       Well, I mean-

   13. MRMel Robbins51:11

       I mean, I think it's a really important thing, because I, I, I think having not gone through it-

   14. JSJames Sexton51:16

       Yeah

   15. MRMel Robbins51:16

       ... I will just tell you my impression, no offense to you-

8. 51:20 – 58:26

   How to Choose the Right Divorce Lawyer

   1. JSJames Sexton51:20

      No

   2. MRMel Robbins51:20

      ... is that there are divorce attorneys that seem very much like, "Let's come to an agreement. Let's work this out."

   3. JSJames Sexton51:28

      Mm.

   4. MRMel Robbins51:28

      There's a messy way, there's a brutal way, there's a collaborative way, and I would think that the vast majority of divorce attorneys are probably wanting to try to help a couple sort this out. But I think the, the, the thing that most of us think if we've never been through one is you get the attack dog, you fricking aim it at the other person, kill, kill, kill.

   5. JSJames Sexton51:53

      So what you need is a very interesting and prodigious amalgam. It's kind of a uni-

   6. MRMel Robbins51:59

      What? I don't even know what those words mean.

   7. JSJames Sexton52:00

      So what you want is you want someone who is capable of legal violence, basically. Like, you w- you need someone who's very good in a courtroom at doing what needs to be done in a dispassionate fashion. I, I've been described as the sociopath you want on your side, because I, I will take a person apart in court no problem. That's the job sometimes. But what you want is someone who has the ability to do that and wants more than anything not to have to. See, many of the divorce lawyers that are out there that advertise themselves constantly as, "I will help keep this friendly. I want... Your divorce should be a friendly divorce," they're afraid of court. They've never heard the six magic words, "Please call your first witness." And if they heard those words, they don't know what to do with themselves. And I know, 'cause when I have cases against them, I make sure they hear those words, 'cause then they're gonna play Let's Make a Deal. So what you do is people make the mistake of thinking, "If I hire a litigator, I'm gonna end up in litigation." And the answer is actually no. If you hire a litigator, the chances of you going into litigation get exponentially smaller.

   8. MRMel Robbins53:12

      Why?

   9. JSJames Sexton53:12

      Because when you put me up against another skilled litigator, we both know at the start of this thing what it's gonna look like. I know every argument they're gonna make, they know every argument I'm gonna make, and we look at it, and we go, "All right, look, you're gonna do this. I'm gonna do this. We know this judge. This judge is gonna do A, B, and C. Let's just get there right now." I had a case recently, $8 billion marital estate. We settled it in, like, a month with four phone calls, because my adversary is a lawyer named Jon Tytler, I consider probably the best divorce lawyer in the state of New York, and he's very, very skilled, and we both know what the other one could have done. And we both just went, "All right, look, you're gonna do this. I'm gonna do this. Let's save everybody the trouble." Now, if on the other side of that case there had been someone who doesn't know what they're doing in a courtroom, either he or I would've eaten that person alive. Like, there's a, there's a school of thought that says cops carry guns so they don't have to use them. Like, you wanna hire someone who is capable of making it through an ugly divorce and protecting you, but who is not going to do anything to increase the chances of this thing getting ugly. Like, who takes it as their task to not use this t- I, I will beg people, "Don't make me do this. Like, don't... If there's a way to avoid it, don't make..." 'Cause my feeling has always been when it comes to violence of any kind, like, and I, I've been training Brazilian jujitsu for 20-plus years. I, I love to fight. I fight for fun. I fight in a courtroom for a living, and then I fight on a mat for fun. And what I tell people all the time is, "Listen, don't fight. Don't hit people. Apologize. Lose face. Who cares? Don't worry about it. Walk away. But if you have to hit someone, hit them so they don't get up. Don't hit them softly. That's stupid. You're just gonna make them angry. Don't tell them, 'I'm about to hit you,' 'cause it's gonna give them a chance to run away or hit you first." Like, so the truth is, like, you want to hire counsel. All of these attorneys that do all this advertising of, you know, "Divorce doesn't have to be difficult" I- if one person in the ecosystem of your divorce has decided this divorce is gonna be difficult, your divorce is gonna be difficult. So you want to have a full toolkit. So that's why a lot of people, I'm their second lawyer, 'cause the first lawyer was like, "We're just gonna hold hands and sing Kumbaya." And by the way, it'd be great, it'd be great. If you could mediate your divorce successfully, you should. There's no question in my mind, but that's not how it works. It's not the right tool for a lot of situations. And again, you don't get to make that decision yourself, because the other side, your, your co-parent, your spouse, they get to decide if they're gonna be as reasonable as you are, too.

   10. MRMel Robbins55:48

       What if you're writing out your goals?

   11. JSJames Sexton55:51

       Mm-hmm.

   12. MRMel Robbins55:52

       Because if I, I, if I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of somebody getting divorced, and I don't wanna blast them into hell-

   13. JSJames Sexton55:57

       Yeah

   14. MRMel Robbins55:57

       ... right? And just like-

   15. JSJames Sexton55:58

       Yeah

   16. MRMel Robbins55:59

       ... uh.

   17. JSJames Sexton55:59

       Yeah.

   18. MRMel Robbins55:59

       Spend all the money just torturing them-

   19. JSJames Sexton56:01

       Yeah

   20. MRMel Robbins56:01

       ... and dragging this out.

   21. JSJames Sexton56:03

       Yeah.

   22. MRMel Robbins56:03

       But there's a lot of people who do.

   23. JSJames Sexton56:04

       Yeah.

   24. MRMel Robbins56:05

       But if you were to write the goals, for me, it'd be like, amicable split, like, kids are okay.

   25. JSJames Sexton56:10

       But see, what you're describing right there is emotional states and feelings, and that's great.

   26. MRMel Robbins56:15

       That's probably-

   27. JSJames Sexton56:16

       Those are really important

   28. MRMel Robbins56:16

       ... not surprising either, but-

   29. JSJames Sexton56:16

       Yeah, that's real- those are really important things.

   30. MRMel Robbins56:18

       Okay-
9. 58:26 – 1:03:49

   Navigating a High-Conflict Divorce

   1. MRMel Robbins58:26

      How do you manage your emotions when you are dealing with somebody on the other side who is nasty and is just out for war? How do you stay grounded, knowing this is a person who is gonna just drag this out?

   2. JSJames Sexton58:47

      Yeah. So it's really important to remember that a divorce is the architecture of your post-divorce life. It is not the final argument in your marriage.

   3. MRMel Robbins58:57

      Wait, what does that mean?

   4. JSJames Sexton58:58

      It's not the final referendum on who was right and who was wrong in the marriage, who was a good person and who was awful, whose fault was it that this didn't work out. You're not gonna have a Perry Mason moment where this person realizes, "Oh my God, you're right. I was a terrible husband," or, "I was a terrible wife." Like, this is not the final act in the play of your marriage, and you want to be the hero in this chapter or this scene in the play. Like, that's not what this is. This is logistics. This is who gets what, when do they get it, how do they get it, where are the kids gonna be, when will they be there? Like, this is logistics. This is not the f- the, the Committee's on, on Fellowship and Reconciliation where people get up and announce their pain, and they hear each other's pain, and they... Again, do I think there's value to that? I think there'd be tremendous value to people telling their stories and listening to their spouse's story. I think it'd be amazing. If lawyers were free, I'd be like, yeah, let's try every single case so that people can be heard and tell the story of the marriage from their point of view. But that's not how it works. So the sooner that you approach a divorce as the logistics of uncoupling, undoing the legal status that was done on the day you said, "I do," and thinking about the architecture of your post-divorce life, the happier you're gonna be.

   5. MRMel Robbins1:00:20

      I think that's really helpful. Extremely helpful. That you could remind yourself this isn't right or wrong.

   6. JSJames Sexton1:00:26

      Yeah.

   7. MRMel Robbins1:00:26

      The marriage is over.

   8. JSJames Sexton1:00:27

      Yeah.

   9. MRMel Robbins1:00:28

      We're arguing about logistics. That's it.

   10. JSJames Sexton1:00:30

       Yeah. It's a business transaction. It's so hard to say that to people, because I am not minimizing the emotion of a divorce. Like, I, I'm not at all. Like, I understand the pain of heartbreak deeply. You know that. I, I was crying. How many things have I cried at? I'm very emotional. I'm very sentimental. There is a time and a place to mourn the beauty of love and how it fades and goes away. Like, there's so much value in that. The legal process is not the place for that. The legal process is a place for the logistics of it. It's for the architecture of it. It's for the architecture of your post-divorce life, and the sooner as you start to look at it like a business transaction, the better

   11. MRMel Robbins1:01:13

       I wanna talk to parents and grandparents who are watching right now, because school's now started, and you probably have a better sense of where your kids are thriving and where they may need a little extra support. So I'd like to tell you about our sponsor, IXL. IXL is an award-winning online learning platform that helps your kids truly understand what they're learning, and it's for kids from pre-K all the way through 12th grade. They offer personalized interactive learning that adapts to your child's level, pace, and learning needs, whether your kid needs more practice with a challenging concept or they're ready to keep progressing. That way your kids can practice what they're learning in school, it reinforces the concepts that they know, and they can spend more time on the skills where they need a little bit extra support, and that's gonna help them build confidence along the way. You can make an impact on your child's learning by getting IXL right now. And The Mel Robbins Podcast listeners, that's you, can get an exclusive 20% off IXL membership when you sign up today at ixl.com/mel. Visit ixl.com/mel to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. Stage five is I'm in it. What is the most common mistake you've seen people make who are in the middle of a divorce?

   12. JSJames Sexton1:02:29

       The biggest mistake I see people making when they're mid-through it, you know, when they're the, like in that, what I said stage five, the I'm in it stage, is, um, trying to get a feeling out of a system that doesn't generate feelings. Like, they're trying to get a feeling of vindication. They're trying to get a feeling of closure. They're trying to get a feeling out of a system that doesn't produce feelings. The legal system produces outcomes. If you're looking for a judge to vindicate you in the history of your marriage, it's not gonna happen. Like, a judge divides property, sets a schedule, and then goes to lunch. Like, this is their job. This is what they do. Like, if you treat it as the last round of the argument of your marriage, you will be disappointed, and that's something I think sometimes people don't realize until after they're through the process. And I also think, you know, one of the biggest mistakes people make when they're in it is deciding on a timeline how they're gonna view this divorce by everyone's worst moment. Like, their worst moment, their spouse's worst moment, and decide that that's gonna be the defining moment of our marriage or our divorce or both. If you judge my parenting by my greatest moment as a parent, you're giving me way too much credit, and if you judge my parenting by my weakest, most impatient moment as a parent, you're not being fair to me.

   13. MRMel Robbins1:03:48

       Mm-hmm.

10. 1:03:49 – 1:15:49

    How to Heal and Move On After Divorce

    1. MRMel Robbins1:03:49

       What separates people in post-divorce life who navigate it well-

    2. JSJames Sexton1:03:55

       Yeah

    3. MRMel Robbins1:03:55

       ... versus those who don't?

    4. JSJames Sexton1:03:57

       So I think unattended sorrow is very toxic in every setting, and divorce is no exception. I think you have to attend to your sorrow. I think you have to grieve. I think that grief isn't evidence that love failed. I think that grief is evidence that love matters, and I think it's really important for people to let it have been real. Like, don't rewrite the history of your marriage to, "I never loved this person, I never cared, it never mattered." I know that feels really good sometimes. It makes you feel empowered, but it's dishonest for most people. Like, you, you felt what you felt with this person. You loved this person. You thought that they loved you, or maybe they did in fact love you, but the marriage ended, and so now you have to grieve that marriage and, and, and you're not doing yourself any favors by just ignoring that and pretending that it didn't happen and pretending that it didn't matter. I think that there's tremendous value in letting yourself feel the pain of loss in a meaningful way. It's so much easier to be angry than it is to be sad. I find that all the time. Like, I find in therapy most of the time what I'm saying to my therapist is, "I just wanna be mad. I wanna be so mad at this." Why? 'Cause it's so much easier than being sad. It's so much easier than saying, "Yeah, that hurts so bad." Like, it's so much easier to just get angry, and so resist that. Like, let yourself feel the pain of that. I've talked before about when I was grieving the loss of my mom, how something a therapist said to me that was really helpful was that I should write a letter to my mom with all the things I needed to say to her that I never got to say, and I did, and then I read it out loud through tears, and it was really useful. And then the harder thing is the therapist said, "Okay, now write a letter back from her."

    5. MRMel Robbins1:05:51

       Oh.

    6. JSJames Sexton1:05:52

       "And have her say all the things you needed to hear." And that was much harder, because I sat there and I wrote all the things I wish she'd said, all the things I wish she knew. And what I realized is, yeah, I, I knew what I needed to hear from her. Like, I, I knew... And, and a lot of it I, I knew she knew. Like, I knew a lot of it was stuff that she knew, like, but never said out loud to me, but that I know she knew.

    7. MRMel Robbins1:06:23

       Mm.

    8. JSJames Sexton1:06:24

       Like, that we just never had that conversation. Maybe she didn't have the insight. Maybe she hadn't done the work. But, so I think there's value in that in a divorce or any, any breakup. Like, or even a breakup that you were adjacent to, like the son-in-law that you really loved and now they're not your son-in-law anymore. They're your daughter's ex-husband, and you loved them. Like, write a letter. Don't ever send it to that person. You don't have to. Like, just say all the things you needed to say. Write a letter back from them where they say all the things that... Like, we live in imagination. Like, so much of the future is in imagination. So much of the past is some recollection of what happened, but it's infused by our imagined, you know, way of viewing it, our subjective experience. So why not embrace that about ourselves? Why not put that to work for you? Like, why not use that in divorce? Why not write a letter back from your spouse where they go, "Yeah, I cheated on you. I was weak." I was a coward. I should have been honest with you, and you deserved that, and I didn't, and I'm really... I will, I will spend the rest of my life wondering why I did that. Okay? You may never hear that from them.

    9. MRMel Robbins1:07:28

       Probably never will.

    10. JSJames Sexton1:07:29

        But you know what? It would have value to know what it is you wanted to hear.

    11. MRMel Robbins1:07:34

        What do you say to the person who's listening right now who is on the other side of divorce-

    12. JSJames Sexton1:07:40

        Mm-hmm

    13. MRMel Robbins1:07:40

        ... but they just can't move on, like they're still struggling?

    14. JSJames Sexton1:07:46

        Yeah, I think, I think struggling is a feeling, and I think the solution to feelings sometimes is structure. So I would say s- start making some rules for yourself. Like, I think the secret to healing is structure. So one, like, what are some things you gave up in the marriage? Put some of those on a list. I used to go to yoga classes. Okay, go back to, start going to yoga classes again. You know, I was really interested in art. I used to go to museums. Cool, go to some museums. Put it in the calendar. The next two weeks, put some things on the calendar that you gave up during the marriage. Like, do, do some things that remind you who you are. Like, we were the you and the me and the we. The we got undone. Who's me? Who's me? Like, make some dates with yourself. Like, spend some time remembering who you were and who you are and who you still have the possibility to be. There are pillars in all of our lives that hold us up. Like, none of us are just floating. We're, there are pillars. There's community, there's family, there's our faith community, there's our pets, there's our hobbies, there's all these things. Like, avail yourself of the pillars. Identify them. Be grateful for them. Go out and volunteer somewhere. Be of service. Remind yourself how much value. You've been of service to this marriage for an extended period of time. Be of service to people who genuinely need and deserve it. Like, you will feel of use. There is value to feeling of use, and you are of use. You are needed. Every single person listening, we need your help. Right now, somewhere less than a mile from where you are, someone needs you. Go find them and help them. I've seen amazing resilience from broken people who were weeping at my conference room table, and now a year, two years, three years later, are just unbelievable in the gifts that they're giving to themselves and the world. When you're going through a divorce, you're gonna have moments where you feel really sad, sad for the marriage that you thought you had, sad for the life you thought you were living that you're not gonna anymore, like the future that you imagined that isn't gonna be your future anymore. I think make an appointment with grief. Like, unattended grief takes all day. Unscheduled grief will eat your whole day. Like, I think give yourself a chance. Say, "You know what? On Sundays at 1:00, I'm gonna wallow in the self-pity of this thing. I'm gonna listen to Pink Floyd The Wall or Ray LaMontagne's first album, and I'm just gonna be sad. I'm gonna sit, and I'm gonna cry." The, the reality, too, is I said it earlier, get a therapist before you get a dating app. Like, too many people go from one relationship to another relationship very, very quickly.

    15. MRMel Robbins1:10:27

        Why do you say that's a bad... I mean, I see it too-

    16. JSJames Sexton1:10:30

        I, listen-

    17. MRMel Robbins1:10:30

        ... and I'm always like, "Oh, God. Here we go."

    18. JSJames Sexton1:10:31

        I get it. I get it. Like, the best way to get over someone is to get under someone. I've heard all the jokes. I get it. But the truth is, you are really not doing any of the repair or the grief if you're jumping right into something. Of course, it feels warm and wonderful to be loved and desired, and if you've been in a relationship that had grown cold and you didn't feel beautiful or handsome or sexy or loved, and you didn't feel passion or desire, so human to want those things. But here's the thing. Like, there's a whole architecture of your post-divorce life that you just have to start putting together, and putting that together with another person as a variable in there, it, it's not gonna be as pure and as honest as you need it to be. It's why the divorce rate for second marriages, third marriages, particularly when people marry people who they got involved with while they were married. Like, there's an old saying, "A man who leaves his wife for his mistress just creates a job opening."

    19. MRMel Robbins1:11:26

        [laughs]

    20. JSJames Sexton1:11:27

        Because what's happening, you know, is that a person's not really repairing their instability in relationship. They're just diving into another one, and that's a dangerous thing to do. Get a therapist first, and then the time will come where a dating app might make sense or getting back out there might make sense. Doesn't have to be long. It might be a few months. Might be a few, well, it might be a few years. Who knows? But work with someone about that.

    21. MRMel Robbins1:11:52

        You know, at the, at the beginning of the conversation, you talked about framing the Wikipedia page of your life.

    22. JSJames Sexton1:11:58

        Yeah.

    23. MRMel Robbins1:11:59

        And that, you know, divorce isn't the entire story. Where does that idea of the Wikipedia of your life play into your self-narrative post-divorce?

    24. JSJames Sexton1:12:15

        Yeah. I think it feels because it's one of those punctuation marks.

    25. MRMel Robbins1:12:18

        Mm.

    26. JSJames Sexton1:12:19

        It would make the Wikipedia page of your life. Like, don't let it be anything but what it is, which is a piece of who you are and a piece of your journey. It's a punctuation mark. It's, it's stop chasing who you were before. Chapters is sequential. Like, relationships are chapters in a long book, and if you chase the person you were before this chapter, you'll never get there.

    27. MRMel Robbins1:12:45

        Mm.

    28. JSJames Sexton1:12:45

        Like, just become who you're going to be now. You ha- you have so many ingredients now. And the- Cormac McCarthy, in one of his novels, I think it's No Country for Old Men, he says that people reach a stage in their life where they've lost so much that they focus on it, and they don't see what else is going out the door. And I see people going through divorces do that all the time, that they're so caught up in what they've lost, that they just don't... They completely lose sight of all the other stuff just going out the door behind them, 'cause they're so fixated on what they've lost as opposed to thinking of, what do I still have left, and what can I do now with what I have where I am?

    29. MRMel Robbins1:13:24

        For the person who is in that space-

    30. JSJames Sexton1:13:26

        Yeah
11. 1:15:49 – 1:26:38

    How to Support Someone Going Through Divorce

    1. MRMel Robbins1:15:49

       If one of your kids is divorcing or a friend or, you know, somebody that you care about is currently going through a divorce, what is the best way to show up and support somebody in the middle of this?

    2. JSJames Sexton1:16:01

       It's a great question. I mean, so the first thing I would say is stop being useful the way that you want to be useful.

    3. MRMel Robbins1:16:09

       Now, what does that mean?

    4. JSJames Sexton1:16:10

       Like, stop giving them what you think they need. Figure out what they need. Like, you wanna show up useful in a certain way. Like, you wanna, like, be their compadre in this, or you wanna, like, tell them, like, "Yeah, you're right. He sucked." Like, first just stop and don't worry about how you wanna show up. Worry about how they need you to show up. Like, try to, try to go in and get a sense of where is this person at, okay? So rather than bringing your set of stuff to this-

    5. MRMel Robbins1:16:43

       Mm

    6. JSJames Sexton1:16:43

       ... your divorce, your frustration in your current relationship, your, you know, like, vision of, "Oh, my God, if it was me going through this, I would feel this, this, and this," meet this person where they're at first, first and foremost. Also, be specific. Like, saying like, "Hey, you know, let, let me know when you wanna get together." Like, "Hey, let me know. I wanna be here for you. Let me know how I can be..." Like, that is too vague. Like, "Hey, do you wanna have dinner on Thursday? Do you wanna get together Thurs- We don't even have to eat if you want. We can just go for a walk. Do you wanna just... Let's get together on Thursday. How's 6:00?" Like, be tangible with this person, because when you say to someone who's in pain or grieving, whether it's from death or divorce, "Oh, I'm, I'm here for you. I wanna be here for you," it's too vague. Like, saying to this person, "Hey, can I come over on Thursday? And by the way, if Thursday morning comes and you don't feel like seeing me, that's fine. I'll come over Friday." But, like, let's put something tangible in the book with this person and, and make yourself present for that person. Offer them a menu. "Hey, listen, I'm coming over on Thursday. We can talk about it if you need to. If you don't wanna talk about it, I can just tell you about all the crazy stuff going on at work right now, or I can tell you knock knock jokes, or I can whatever you want to. We don't have to talk about anything. We can go to the movies and just be entertained, and we'll get a large popcorn and split it. We can go walk around, go shopping, and get some retail therapy. If you wanna cry, you can cry. If you want me to cry, I'll cry. If you want to not cry and you want me to just make you laugh, we can do that." Just offer this person a menu, and then say, "By the way, if you pick one of those things and it doesn't feel good when we're in it, we can change."

    7. MRMel Robbins1:18:17

       Hm.

    8. JSJames Sexton1:18:18

       You know, one of the things I've been doing lately when I have a friend who's grieving is I say two things to them. I say, "I wish I knew the perfect thing to say, 'cause I would say it right now." Because I'm pointing out something about the inadequacy of words. All I'm saying then is, "I love you. I love you, and it hurts that you're hurting," you know? And then the other thing I really try to do now with people who are in my life who are struggling is I, I try to remember and I say to them, "Can you let me do something for you?" Like, "Let me come over and mow your lawn. Let me take the kids for the day and take them out someplace, to Legoland. Let me cook you dinner. Not for you, for me, because I, I feel out of control in this, and you're hurting, and I love you, so could you do me the favor of letting me do something for you?"

    9. MRMel Robbins1:19:17

       Mm. So, you know, James, one of the things I'd love to have you speak to that I've seen personally happen to friends and family members- And that is after the divorce, the absolute shattering of the social network.

    10. JSJames Sexton1:19:31

        Yeah.

    11. MRMel Robbins1:19:32

        And how friends pick sides.

    12. JSJames Sexton1:19:35

        Yeah.

    13. MRMel Robbins1:19:35

        How you're not invited, or you're no longer a member of the club, or pick-up line is weird 'cause you're now the newly divorced, uh, wife, and your friends don't invite you over. Can you just talk a little bit-

    14. JSJames Sexton1:19:51

        Yeah

    15. MRMel Robbins1:19:51

        ... to that piece of it? 'Cause I don't think-

    16. JSJames Sexton1:19:52

        Yeah

    17. MRMel Robbins1:19:52

        ... a lot of people see it coming.

    18. JSJames Sexton1:19:54

        Well, well, first, I, I think there are some things people can do to be proactive about preventing how deep that goes. Because I think the more that you invite people into the discourse of your divorce in your worst moments while you're going through it, the more that people rightly feel, "Okay, I've gotta pick a side, and I've gotta be a buffer, or I've gotta keep these people apart from each other."

    19. MRMel Robbins1:20:15

        Mm.

    20. JSJames Sexton1:20:15

        Whereas if you do have a script that you both can try to stick to of, "Listen, the marriage ended, but we're both still co-parents, and we both really wanna raise our kids together in the right way, and there's no sides to take. You know, and the best thing you can do for me, if you wanna be loyal to me, is to still treat her with civility and respect and vice versa." Make that your status. Both of you should, at the same time, put something on Instagram that says, you know, "Yes, the, our marriage has ended. We both ask for some privacy in this. We're focused on our kids, and we ask that you just treat each other, both of us, with love and support because we will always continue to be co-parents to our children. Someday we'll be grandparents together, and we ask that you have respect for that." So there are some things-

    21. MRMel Robbins1:20:51

        Really, on social media?

    22. JSJames Sexton1:20:52

        Oh, yeah. Why not? Why not? Why don't we say the quiet part out loud? Like, what? People didn't notice you got divorced? Like, people didn't... Like, of course. Why not? Why can't two people decide they're gonna put out a press release? I mean, it's the modern equivalent of a press release. You posted what you had for breakfast today. You're not gonna mention the fact that you got divorced, and you don't think people are gonna ask the question of, "Hey, are there sides? And if there's a side, whose side should we be on?" So why not say that part out loud of just saying, "Hey, there's no teams. There's no teams. It's just a family. It's just a family that's changing shape, and we ask you to just still love us and still love us together, love us separately." But there's gonna be separateness. Like, there's no way to not have that be. You're gonna wanna bring your new boyfriend or your new girlfriend or your new husband or your new wife to things, and the question is, is will this make an uncomfortable dynamic?

    23. MRMel Robbins1:21:38

        Mm.

    24. JSJames Sexton1:21:39

        Or is this a dynamic where people have some ability to behave themselves and conduct themselves in appropriate manner? And again, not everybody's created the same level of maturity. So you do the things that you can do.

    25. MRMel Robbins1:21:51

        I just love how you explain things, James. I am so glad that I asked you to come and do this ultimate divorce guide for us. I know this is gonna really help people. What are your parting words?

    26. JSJames Sexton1:22:02

        A friend of mine says to me quite often, my friend Mark, he says to me, um, "Don't worry, nothing's under control."

    27. MRMel Robbins1:22:07

        [laughs]

    28. JSJames Sexton1:22:10

        And I always really like that because I'm someone who really loves to have control, you know? And, and, and he's the therapist, and he, he's like, "Yeah, don't, don't worry. Nothing's under control." There's no way to control all of it, but there are pieces of this we have control over, and the more that we remove ourselves from the abstraction of ourselves, our marriage, our parenting, our divorce, the divorce of the people around us. Like, you're either getting divorced, someone in your family's getting divorced, someone in your family has been divorced. Divorce is like cancer. It's something you don't wanna say out loud, but I guarantee it's gonna touch some part of your life. Someone you know is gonna have it. Someone you know is gonna go through it. Having a toolkit on how to do that for yourself, for the other, for your family, for your children, for the people around you, you, you will do yourself a favor. It's like having a first aid kit around the house.

    29. MRMel Robbins1:23:02

        When you look out to the future, what is possible for a person post-divorce? Like, what do you want somebody to hold onto? Because I, I know that this episode, much like the first one that we did-

    30. JSJames Sexton1:23:15

        Yeah

Episode duration: 1:26:38