What Actually Predicts Divorce, and What Women Really Want in a Partner — ft. James Sexton

In part one of a two-part Office Hours special on relationships, Scott Galloway is joined by divorce attorney James Sexton to break down the subtle signals that predict divorce, why fairness and desire pull in opposite directions, and the red flags people talk themselves out of. Want to be featured in a future episode? Send a voice recording to [email protected], or drop your question in the r/ScottGalloway subreddit. Plus, you can now call or text Scott a question at our new Office Hours hotline: ‪(201) 472-3656‬. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  Hogging seats on a crowded train, not saying excuse me, watching videos on your phone with no headphones in. Sometimes it feels like we don't know how to act anymore. What we have been seeing increasingly is people breaking rules. Why should I play by the rules if nobody else is going to do that for me? This week on Explain It To Me, how to mind your manners. New episodes Sundays, wherever you get your podcasts.

• 0:36Scott Galloway?

  Welcome to Prof G on Relationships, a special two-part series about love, marriage, and what it takes to make a partnership last. We're joined by divorce attorney and author James Sexton, who's become a bit of a, like, almost like a, I don't know, a relationship guru, having seen kind of the other side of what a successful relationship looked like. Together, we're going to try to answer your questions about what predicts divorce, how couples maintain both fairness and desire, and what we've learned from navigating complicated relationships. James, it's great to see you.

• 1:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, good to see you too, Scott. Always, always fun.

• 1:07Scott Galloway?

  Yeah, I'm, the algorithm is clearly, you're, and I feel as if, I feel as if I know you better than I do because I'm getting, I'm getting so much insight into you. I really enjoy your social media presence and your ability to break stuff down.

• 1:23Speaker 02

  I really appreciate it, man. You know, I think we've, we've run a lot of parallel paths in terms of our, not only our NYU affiliations, but also our, our status as divorced men who then, you know, who had children and kind of been through the whole experience of it and, and talk a lot about the intersection between relationships and work and life and balance and how to, how to try to get the whole thing right. So, and also you, you really saw me through the entire pandemic. I listened to Pivot just nonstop, over and over. Between Pivot and the Peloton bike, it was like the only thing that kind of kept me sane. So I, I feel like I'm in your servitude forever now.

• 1:58Scott Galloway?

  All right, let's roll. So neither of us have seen these questions. The question number one comes from Jacob Stav on Instagram. Which is the most important predictor of a divorce and the one for keeping a relationship? Go for it, James.

• 2:11Speaker 02

  You know, I think the biggest predictor of divorce is, is, is something subtle and that is just disconnection between two people. I think everybody looks for like the big relationship killers, you know, like people who are in open relationships or people who, you know, sometimes that's the blood in the water, you know, of the relationship being in distress. But I think it's actually much more subtle than that. I think people get divorced and their relationships fall apart the same way that I think Thomas Wolfe said, people go bankrupt very slowly and then all at once. So I think it's a lot of little small pieces of disconnection that eventually just catastrophically lead to the failure.

• 2:46Scott Galloway?

  You have a great story about one of your clients, and it involved granola. Do you know what I'm talking about? Can you, can you tell that story?

• 2:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, I, I talk about it in the book too, where I had a client, very put together, beautiful, young woman in her 30s, and she was getting divorced, two young kids. He was a successful guy in finance. And, you know, you spend a lot of time with people when you, you know, you go a lot of miles when you're their divorce lawyer and you get to know them really well in a very candid way. And I was just sitting outside of the courthouse with her and we were chatting. I was, I was drinking espresso on a lunch break. And I just said something along the lines of like, when did you realize that the relationship is over? And she told me a story about how there was granola, this particular type of granola that she would put every morning in her yogurt, and they only sold it at this one Whole Foods. And she said he used to just always like buy the granola for her. She never had asked for it. He didn't ask for like, you know,

• 3:37Speaker 02

  what Chris Williamson calls good boy points, you know, and we'd do something for our significant other and we'd go, babe, did you see what I did? He would just do it. And she said it made her always feel so loved. And at some point, she said, you know, it just, the granola just ran out. And, and she kept waiting for him to refill it and he never did. And she realized, you know, yeah, this thing's going down. And I, I said to her, was there anything like that on your end? And without missing a beat, she said, yeah, blowjobs. And I spit my espresso across the courthouse. And she said, yeah, when you were first dating, I was like, you know, like, I would give them to them pretty often. Sometimes in the morning, it'd set them off on the right tone for the day. And she said, man, at some point, you know, maybe when the kids came or life got in the way. She said, I just got to the point where I was like, oh, well, you know, I'll wait till tonight and we'll have sex

• 4:22Speaker 02

  and we'll both enjoy it. And she was like, but I don't really know why I stopped. She's like, it wasn't like something happened. We both just, and really, it, it stuck in my mind because there was this sense of like, there's this atrophy that starts to happen. And it starts to create this weird spiral where it's like, well, I don't owe you that. Well, I don't owe you this. And, you know, what's interesting to me about that as a divorce lawyer is I see the effect of it. But, but then in this work I do in the relationship space, I find myself thinking, well, you could kind of reverse that spiral, which is I don't have to send a text in the middle of the day saying, hey babe, I was thinking of you, or leave a note in the morning that says like, hey, I had a lot of fun watching a movie on the couch with you last night. I married the prettiest girl in the world. But it's nice to do that. It's, doesn't cost anything. It takes 30 seconds. And maybe

• 5:07Speaker 02

  it reversed, because what, you know, I said to her, what came first, the chicken or the egg? Was it the granola or the blowjobs? What ran out first? And she really couldn't tell me. And so I think there's a lesson there.

• 5:18Scott Galloway?

  Yeah, the, the, the research I've seen on a, on an empirical level from John Gottman's Love Lab work at the University of, University of Washington is that contempt is a very strong indicator of divorce. And like, when you're out with a couple and one is rolling their eyes or just finds everything their partner's saying to be, they can't hide their disgust.

• 5:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, I've always said the most dangerous phrase for me, the biggest predictor of a divorce is when I hear someone respond to their spouse with the following, what? Like, what? Like, just that, that contemptuous, what are you on about? And it's fascinating because we all, you know, like you said, you sit down sometimes with couples or you go out with couples, and you can just feel on people, you know, when there's this sense of like disrespect or disconnection. But what's interesting is you can also reverse it, you know, when you're out to dinner with that couple, all you have to do is say to one of them, so tell me about when you guys met. How'd you guys meet? And you can actually see like a softening happen when they're telling that story because they go back in

• 6:25Speaker 02

  time to that place where there was still this abundance of optimism and connection. So I, a lot of my work is really about, you know, as a divorce lawyer for 25 years in the trenches on these things, like I see how it catastrophically fails. And if you want to figure out how to keep something together, like if you want to figure out how to keep your car together, you don't talk to a new car dealer, you talk to a mechanic who's seen him break down, you know? So that's how I try to view this is, look, whether you like it or not, this is just what's sitting across from me in a courtroom and in an office.

• 6:53Scott Galloway?

  The other factor, and it's much more uncomfortable to talk about because it's not aspirational and it just has sexist overtones, but I think there's data to back this up. What I have found is a pretty strong predictor of divorce is economics, specifically when the man in the relationship starts making, stops making money or is making less money than the woman. And it's uncomfortable to talk about, but I, personally, that's where I have found. And also divorce, the likelihood of divorce doubles when the woman starts making more money than the man. And it's not something we like to talk about because

• 7:32Scott Galloway?

  it, it, it positions women in an uncomfortable light. I would also argue that what, what we're missing in that data set is that I think men, when they don't, when they lose their economic vitality, they become insecure and, and quite frankly, unproductive in the relationship. So.

• 7:54Speaker 02

  So I wouldn't even say counterproductive in the relationship. They become antagonistic to the relationship.

• 7:59Scott Galloway?

  And resentful. And, and in other words, it's not just a woman saying, you're no longer the baller you were, I'm out. It's just the economic strain, the lack of self-esteem on the man's part creates real agitation in the relationship. Your thoughts, James?

• 8:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, 100%. I mean, I see it all the time. I see it from both sides because I represent husbands, I represent wives. I, I, what it more often is, is the cascading effect of a man loses his job, he feels emasculated. He feels like, you know, his role as a provider. Again, even if both of them are working people, both of them are successful, even if she makes more money than him, when there is that loss or that demotion or some disgrace associated with work, there's this sense of self that gets taken away from a man, you know? And, and that causes him to have a kind of self hate that then radiates at everyone around him. Substance use issues start to kick up. He starts to drink a little bit more. He starts to smoke a little more, whatever it might be. And then there's this effect.

• 8:58Speaker 02

  And again, it's super easy in this world we've created of boys versus girls on the algorithm to say, oh, well, this is a man being insecure over his woman, or this is a woman cashing her chips out at the casino because now he's not making money anymore. But really what it is, is, is what did the job loss, what were the second order effects of that on his internal life and the way that he shows up in the relationship and how he feels about himself? I see it all the time. And I've represented, like I said, both sides of that equation. And, and it's a, it's a really heartbreaking thing to see because, you know, there are so many politicians on the right in particular that talk so much about the sanctity of marriage and wanting to preserve and protect marriage. And yet, when we look at the statistics that talk about, marriage does better when people have,

• 9:41Speaker 02

  you know, economic stability and can meet their basic needs. They're not in distress. People who have a bachelor's degree or higher have lower divorce rates. When you start to point these things out and say, hey, maybe creating conditions where there's catastrophic job loss and putting massive strain on marriages might be more worth your attention than griping about no-fault divorce and how it's ruining the world. So there are real solutions to these problems, but they're, they're, they're part of a serious discourse as opposed to like the boy versus girl thing that works so well.

• 10:11Scott Galloway?

  I also thought that in a very, I don't know, coarse. I think all relationships are a certain form of transaction. It's just a question of the currency and the cadence. Unless you're a family, I would argue, there's a really healthy level of what I'll call irrational loyalty within families. And I actually think that's important for the survival of the species. I describe family as people you otherwise wouldn't choose to hang out with. But what I saw.

• 10:37Speaker 02

  That's because we both survived having teenage sons. That's probably why.

• 10:40Scott Galloway?

  There you go. Oh, 100%. There's no way I'm getting a return there. No way. They're never going to be up at 2 AM worried about me. I just know. There's no way the home they're going to put me in is going to cost me, cost them more than UVA has cost me this year.

• 10:52Speaker 02

  No, Jell-O's never cost that much.

• 10:53Scott Galloway?

  Yeah, that's right.

• 10:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:55Scott Galloway?

  But what I, my dad was a case study in marriage and divorce, married and divorced four times, as far as we know. And his third marriage, a really nice woman, Linda, first person who ever spoiled me. But my dad was never very engaged. Quite frankly, he was never very nice. Didn't bring a lot of emotional or domestic support to the relationship, but he was a good provider. And then when he stopped being a provider, and I, I, I hope Linda doesn't take too much offense to this because I don't mean it as a criticism. I think she did the math and said, all right, if you're no longer bringing in money and you're no longer really present in the relationship and you're not picking up slack with domestic and emotional labor, I'm out.

• 11:39Scott Galloway?

  And I think a lot of men, quite frankly, don't, when they lose their economic vitality or it reduces, I think a lot of women wake up and say, okay, I'm paying the bills and I'm fucking doing the dishes and I'm the one picking up the kids.

• 11:53Speaker 02

  There's a sense that men have too of purpose in the workplace that very often, you know, over time, when that, I mean, I've had clients who, you know, a person retires and their spouse, you know, literally comes in and says, look, I said for better or for worse, I didn't say for lunch. Like I did not plan on having this person around. I have a routine, I have a life, and now this person's sort of doddering around without direction because they were, you know, spending so much of their time and their emotional and physical bandwidth on work and now that's gone. The most successful retired people are retired people who, you know, just replace work with some other volunteering or a church or whatever it might be. So I, I think that there is a clear, in every part of our lives, there's a sense of like,

• 12:34Speaker 02

  do you have a place to go, a thing to do and something to be passionate about? And I think when we lose that, we lose a big piece of our inner compass. And I think when we flail in our sense of self, how can we not flail in relationship? I mean, a relationship is the you, the me and the we. So if the you or the me starts falling apart, how is the we supposed to hold it together?

• 12:55Scott Galloway?

  Yeah, let's, uh, I thought that was great. Let's move on to question number two, which also comes from Instagram. Miss V lady asks, modern relationships often promote equality, but attraction frequently depends on differences in power, competence or polarity. How do couples preserve both fairness and desire over decades without one undermining the other? James?

• 13:14Speaker 02

  You know, I, I tend to think we need to be thinking about equity and not equality. I think fairness is what's important. I mean, I've said before, when I talk about relationships, look, if I love to cook and you don't like to cook, the, the, the school of thought that says, well, we should do 50 50 on the cooking. Okay, so you should spend half the time doing something you don't enjoy and I should lose half the time doing something I enjoy. It doesn't make any sense. But that being said, you should know how to cook a little bit. Like I'm going to be away at some point and you need to like do something other than DoorDash. Same thing with finances, you know, I have tons of clients who come in and they just know absolutely nothing about the marital finances because the other person in the relationship, you know, enjoyed doing the investing and balancing the books and keeping eye on things.

• 13:59Speaker 02

  So I always tell clients and I always tell friends, look, you know, everybody should know how to do everything a little bit, but you should be leaning into the fact that you don't marry yourself, you know? Like Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, each one of them without the other. Without Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs would have been, you know, a very, a guy with a lot of vision and he couldn't really accomplish very much. And without, you know, Steve Wozniak, you know, Steve, I'm sorry, without Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak would have just been a really talented software engineer who didn't really know how to have a vision of anything. Together they changed the world. I think the best couples, whether it's, you know, John and, and Paul, or whether it's, you know, the, the Jobs and Wozniak combination, like I think the best couples, we have complementary

• 14:41Speaker 02

  sets of skills, we have complementary pathologies in terms of where our insecurities lie and how we can complement those for each other. But the best thing to do obviously is to be able to like say that quiet part out loud. We're really taught in this culture, I think now in this moment that we're in that like, well, why do you like that? And why do you feel that way? Look, you feel how you feel, you know? And by sheer power of will, if you think you're going to change your feelings or your desires, that's as insane as thinking you can pray the gay away. Like it just doesn't work. Like the desire we have is the desire we have. And, and it's rooted in culture, biology, you know, so many things that for us to pretend that we're going to be able to just modify it based on, you know, uh, being more evolved

• 15:25Speaker 02

  in the culture, I, I think it's foolish. We can be the most girl boss culture in the world, but look at Fifty Shades of Grey, look at Twilight, look at all romance novels out there, look at all of the film that's out there. It's usually some archetypal, big, bold, strong, dominant guy who's still the hero. Of course he has an emotional vocabulary now, but it's still that kind of a archetype. And again, it's speaking to something in us. And I don't think, I think feminism and the idea of liberation from the rigidity of gender roles was there to serve men and women without, you know, allowing us to access, you know, the real, you know, volume that's contained in us and letting us be who we really are without those restrictions. I think in relationship, you got to do the same thing.

• 16:10Scott Galloway?

  Yeah, it's so. And again, I'll be accused of being a Gen X boomer here and out of touch and that, and some of that might be true, but what I have found is that TikTok and Instagram and most podcasts are lying to you about what women want in a man. I do think that there is absolutely a recognition and an appreciation for men who are willing to be vulnerable, more in touch with their feelings. And generally speaking, women have leveled up and they're demanding that men bring more to the table. It's just a marketplace, right? If all of a sudden, men just got much better looking and, and, you know, much more successful and interesting, they would want higher caliber mates.

• 16:55Scott Galloway?

  You know, if you, if the marketplace affords you with a lack, with economic independence, you're not economically indentured to someone, then you might think, well, maybe being alone is a better, is actually a pretty good plan B. So the market has shifted and men have to adjust to that. Having said that, I have found this notion that if you were to build the perfect man according to social media, it would be this guy who's working on himself, very sensitive, listens all the time. That's called a friend. That's called your gay best friend.

• 17:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:28Scott Galloway?

  And I don't think that's the guy women want to have sex with. I'm sorry, I, I think things have changed, but I still think there is a, a, I don't know for lack of a better term, a masculine male energy that regardless of what women claim to say in their TikToks or on, on social media, is not who women want to mate with.

• 17:52Speaker 02

  Well, I think who we claim we're attracted to and who we're attracted to may very often be different things. I think you and I are of the same generation, so we had two choices growing up. We could be Clint Eastwood or Richard Simmons. Those were your two choices. There was nothing in between.

• 18:07Scott Galloway?

  Nothing in between.

• 18:08Speaker 02

  There was nothing in between. And, and that was kind of our two choices. And so I, I feel like now, you know, raising sons who are 26 and 28, I see that they have a broader emotional palette to choose from, which is amazing. But I still think the truth is the truth and it was true of my father and it's true of my generation and it's true of my sons. And I suspect it'll be true of their sons, which is that every girl wants a bad boy who's only good for her and every man wants a good girl who's only bad for him. And that's it. And that's always been, and I think it will always be, because I think this is something about the human creature, the heterosexual relationship dynamics, that's just an archetype that feeds for all of us. And it's been very successful in the dating marketplace. But I think you're right.

• 18:48Speaker 02

  We've now created this prodigious amalgam of traits that are just totally disconnected from reality because we want someone who's a billionaire, but also has an abundance of free time and isn't obsessed with work, but also is incredibly physically healthy, but also knows how to have fun and be laid back and eat whatever and be decadent. These are like all contrary things and trying to find this perfect union of contrary things is absolutely bananas.

• 19:15Scott Galloway?

  The, uh, uh, recently, literally recently, I've had.

• 19:20Scott Galloway?

  Three women approach me and say, do you have any single friends? These are very progressive, impressive women. And then they'll say under the breath as if it's embarrassing, they're like, and this might surprise you, but I like kind of like a more manly man. I'm like, no shit, that's called being a woman. And it's nothing to be, that doesn't mean, it doesn't mean the man can't be emotionally sensitive and vulnerable, but they say it as if it's like a, like they're almost a little bit embarrassed by it. The other, and I realize you're not a therapist, you're a lawyer, but most of my friends, and I don't know if this is generational, most of my friends kind of fit into the stereotypical mode of that the guy is mostly responsible for the economics of the household and the woman is responsible for the kind of emotional and domestic labor. That is the vast majority of my friends, to varying degrees.

• 20:05Scott Galloway?

  There are some exceptions, but 80%, 90%. And that's what guys, I don't care what they say, that didn't happen by accident. That's what the guy wanted, that's what the woman wanted, that's what the guy was attracted to. He was attracted to someone who would be really impressive in the relationship and at home and a good mother and all that. And I don't know if it's because I was raised by a single mother that always worked. We had no choice. My mom was up, you know, was out of the house before I was even up and home late because she had to work. And I've always, my, my ex-wife was an investment banker and then the COO of e-commerce companies worked her ass off. My longest term relationship out of marriage was with a surgeon. And then my current partner worked at Goldman Sachs.

• 20:50Scott Galloway?

  I have always been really drawn, not for economic reasons, but like professionally impressive women have always flicked my back. That's just really sexy to me.

• 21:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, but it's not the economics, like you said, I think it's the same thing for men.

• 21:07Scott Galloway?

  I just find it a turn on. I find impressive, professionally impressive women, I want to have sex with them. I find that impressive.

• 21:13Speaker 02

  Well, and also what's underneath it, you know, because I have a buddy who, who, who was, I was talking to a friend of mine and he said, women like to date men with beards. And I said, well, yeah, of course, women like beards, you know, I got the clean shaven thing going, but I, you know, you got the like, oops, I didn't know I was sexy, stubble. It happens, it's a thing women like, I get it. But the truth is, is that there's something underneath that. My friend said to me, you know, the thing that's nice about a guy with a beard is it shows he has patience. Because in order to grow a proper beard, you have to have a little bit of patience. And I've always thought that about money and economic success, unless it's inherited wealth. The reality is, is what, what I think a lot of people find attractive about a person who's successful and competent in the workplace, or who's been successful in the game of money, is it says something about their tenacity.

• 21:58Speaker 02

  It says something about their drive, their focus.

• 22:01Scott Galloway?

  Hundred percent.

• 22:01Speaker 02

  And how incredibly appealing is it to think about that drive, that focus, that determination, that tenacity being pointed at you and at your desire, your pleasure, your happiness, your goals together as a couple? When someone's successful economically, in theory, they're saying, hey, I can set a goal and I can trade what I want now for what I want most. Those are the traits we want in a partner. So it makes sense to me that these are the things people want.

• 22:26Scott Galloway?

  Yeah, that really resonates because I've read research that says women aren't physically or optically attracted to a guy with big pecs and big biceps. What they're attracted to is a guy who clearly has discipline, shows up and can commit to something. Because those types of attributes will make that person a good partner. All right, let's, let's take a quick break. We'll be back in a minute.

• 22:56Scott Galloway?

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• 23:56Scott Galloway?

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• 25:09Scott Galloway?

  Welcome back. Question number three comes from Matthew Ags, A G S, I think I'm saying that correctly. What are the biggest lessons you've learned managing complicated relationships? Whoa, you go first, James.

• 25:21Speaker 02

  I mean, listen, I, as a divorce lawyer, I see good people at their absolute worst. So I'm used to dealing with people in very high-stress situations. I'm used to coaching people behind the scenes on how to interact with a person that they're divorcing but still living with while the divorce is going on. So how to sort of deal with the charging bull of a, of a difficult person is something I'm accustomed to. I, I'm a big fan of being clear. I think we cause a lot of damage to our relationships by trying to like, I don't want to say hedge, but soften something that we know the other person doesn't want to hear. You know, breakup's a good example, like when you decided you're going to end a relationship, doing the, I've been thinking that maybe we need to take some time.

• 26:03Speaker 02

  Already, we're throwing in maybes, we're throwing in like this idea that instead of saying, I've been giving this a lot of thought and I've come to the conclusion that we're just not where we need to be in this relationship and I think it needs to end. So I think clarity is a huge piece of this. Being clear about what you want, what you need. Look, I, I think all relationship problems stem fundamentally from two things. We don't know what we want and we don't know how to express what we want, even if we did. I think the most dangerous lies are the ones we tell ourselves. And we tell ourselves a whole myriad of lies in relationship. Because why? We're ashamed of, of what we want, what we need, what we really feel, as opposed to what we think we should feel and should do.

• 26:48Speaker 02

  Marriage is a tradition, you know, like our present relationship format is a tradition. And tradition is in some ways, you know, the wisdom of the past being brought to bear on present circumstances. And it's also peer pressure exerted by dead people, you know? And so I think sometimes in relationship, you know, relationships have no business being unmanually. Like there's no manual on how, they spent a lot of time in school trying to teach me how to divide fractions. I've never used it. But no one really ever taught me, you know, how do you diffuse or de-escalate a fight with your partner? When you feel like, okay, I can be right or I can be happy in this situation and what's the best way to de-escalate? I think we need to acknowledge that this is potentially a teachable skill, that it's

• 27:32Speaker 02

  something we can get better and better at if we talk about it. Instead of doing what humans do, which is just watching the people around us, which is watching our parents and our grandparents, who A, may not have been good at relationship, B, were growing up in totally different life circumstances, and throw in C, that now we're comparing ourselves to, to people on social media, where that is just, they're playing their greatest hits while we're living our gag reel. And it's just not honest. And we're comparing ourselves to fake people saying, you know, it's like how we, we, our body image, like, oh man, I wish I looked like that. They don't look like that. Those are filters. So all we're doing is putting like, you know, filters and spanks on our relationships

• 28:16Speaker 02

  and then everyone's comparing themselves to that filtered version and feeling dissatisfied as opposed to us just having this ability to be blunt and honest with ourselves and our partner and, and handling conflict that way proactively.

• 28:30Scott Galloway?

  Yeah, it's.

• 28:33Scott Galloway?

  The terms that came to mind for me are red flags and self-assessment. And the first is, I know guys and women who like complicated. They like, the term is, they like drama. It turns them on. It makes them feel invested in the relationship. It makes them feel like the other person's invested. They manufacture drama and seem to enjoy it. And so self-assessment around, are you drawn? I have a friend who's a therapist and he married a very complicated woman. And I'm convinced he's decided he likes to work so much, he's going to bring that skill to his house. And, but hey, it works for them. She, you know, they have so, you know, it's sort of like different strokes for

• 29:18Scott Galloway?

  different folks. But something you said that struck me was that, and this goes to red flags. If you're like most people, I don't think, you know, when people say this relationship, you know, relationships take a lot of work. My sense is a relationship that takes a lot of work is a sign of a bad relationship. And I'm not suggesting you don't invest in it. I'm not suggesting that everything's going to be easy always, especially if you throw kids and financial problems and aging parents into it. You need someone competent that's generous with you and a level of commitment there to stay together, even when things aren't great. But assess, one, do you like complicated? Because some people do. But for the majority of us who don't, a red flag that you highlighted that really resonated, if someone really think long and hard before you decide to commit to someone

• 30:02Scott Galloway?

  who has substance abuse issues. That is just something. And the other red flag that I noticed, probably, you know, the one that kind of got away, or you just always, you felt this immediate connection and were just crazy about, was a woman who I was in a relationship with, and she struggled with mental illness. And I remember making the conscious decision, I had called two friends who were married to people who struggled with mental illness. And I said, there's just so many wonderful things about this woman that in my mind kind of override this. And they were very sort of practical. They like, run. Like, I love my wife. I'm not going to go anywhere. You don't know who you're waking up next to. And you can't, and they said to me, Scott, you think of yourself as a

• 30:46Scott Galloway?

  fixer and someone who can handle anything? They're like, you cannot fix this. And so an honest self-assessment around whether you're drawn to the drama, and if you're not, just being honest, there are about, have situational awareness around the attributes of this person, or the, or what you're entering into, in terms of how complicated it is, and whether you're, you're really going to enjoy that complexity. Or if you're like most of us, you don't, and you, you know, and you want some peace and harmony, because complexity will find its way into your relationship as you get older, with, again, kids.

• 31:24Speaker 02

  And I think depth, I think depth, you know, like, look, look at, look, give an honest assessment, like you said, of what it is underneath this trait, right? So what is it about the fighting? Is it that it's passionate? Okay, there's a way to have passion without having it be toxic passion, right? Like, I had a tendency when I was a young man to date women who had problems I could solve, because I love solving problems. And I feel really of use. It led to me, my career, you know, being a problem solver. But the truth was, like, at some point in relationship, I got to the point where I was like, man, like, the hospital's full. Like, this is not what I need. Like, at the end of the day, I don't need somebody who I have to manage their entire life. But again, I'm attracted to it for a myriad of reasons, many of which my therapist would be happy to talk

• 32:07Speaker 02

  to you about. But I think if we can have that honest self-assessment and say, look, what is the thing underneath this trait that is so attractive to me? Because there are ways to get a dose of that and not deny your desire, but not let it be like the defining characteristic. If I like to be of service and of use, and that makes me feel masculine and excited and passionate, that's great. But it doesn't mean I have to be with someone who's just emotionally crippled, and who has, you know, severe substance use issues, so I can drag them from the other room and carry them. Like, it could just be someone who doesn't mind letting me open the jar of pickles, and that might scratch the itch for me. So I think, you know, we don't want to treat dandruff with decapitation. It'll work, but, but it's just overcorrection. And we're very prone as a species to

• 32:51Speaker 02

  overcorrection. So I think coming to grips with what's the thing under the thing that, that causes that attraction and excitement for you.

• 32:59Scott Galloway?

  Don't treat dandruff with decapitation. That's the line of the segment. James Sexton, also known as America's Divorce Lawyer, is a trial lawyer with two decades of experience negotiating and litigating high conflict divorces in part two, out next Monday. James and I will answer your questions about keeping money separate in a marriage, de-escalating conflict, and why fewer young people are getting married. James, thanks, and I will see you next week.

• 33:24Speaker 02

  Always great, Scott.

• 33:26Scott Galloway?

  This episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez and Laura Janer. Kami Rique is our social producer. Brad Williams is our editor. And Drew Burrows is our technical director. Thank you for listening to the Prop She Pod from Prop She Media.