Contracts of Love & Money That Make or Break Relationships | James Sexton

**Andrew Huberman** (0:00)
Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life.
I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is James Sexton. James Sexton is a renowned attorney with over 25 years of experience in family law, specializing in prenuptial agreements and divorces. He is known as what many call the voice of reason between love and legal. Today we discuss something that might seem counterintuitive, which is how the legal frameworks and contracts surrounding relationships, particularly prenuptial agreements, can actually deepen emotional connection and build trust between partners. As James points out, intimacy and trust are fundamentally about the ability to be your true self with your partner and them with you. It's about allowing ourselves to be vulnerable. It's also about having a same team spirit, of course, respect for one another and admiration for each other's unique qualities. Today, we explore how prenuptial agreements, which most often are viewed as being unromantic or pessimistic, can actually serve as ways to establish a sense of safety for both people and prevent many common conflicts and misunderstandings. As James puts it, everyone has a prenup. You either have one that was created by the state legislature or you can tailor one to you and your partner's unique needs. He also points out something that many people will find surprising, which is that the vast majority of people who do prenups stay married, and yet most people opt not to do them. We also discuss love itself and the key questions that we all need to ask to find the right partner and if you have one, to build the strongest possible bonds with them. The information in today's episode is going to be extremely important for anyone looking for or currently in a relationship. Whether you're single, dating, engaged or married, understanding how the legal and emotional frameworks that support lasting relationships intersect can help you navigate one of life's most rewarding but challenging journeys with much greater awareness and intention and probability of success. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, this episode does include sponsors. And now for my discussion with James Sexton. James Sexton, welcome.

**James Sexton** (2:17)
Thank you.

**Andrew Huberman** (2:18)
It's good to be here. I've been wanting to do this for a while.

**James Sexton** (2:20)
I know. It's a long time in the making.

**Andrew Huberman** (2:22)
I think if two guys sit down, one of them a lawyer who's known as a divorce lawyer, and they're talking about divorce and love and money and contracts and the ending of things, I think there's a understandable default mindset where the female half of our audience are probably going to think, like, here are a couple of guys talking about relationships and divorce through the lens of their Y chromosomes. Which of course, it's impossible to avoid completely because I haven't done the karyotyping, but you have a Y chromosome and I do as well. I would like to know, in your experience working with male clients and female clients, is there something unique to the female experience of divorce? Or the female experience of realizing, wow, this contract that I thought was for life, may not, or is it not for life, that drives a female-specific set of psychological responses? Here, I'm basically asking for a generalization. I want to be clear, I'm not asking this for politically correct reasons. I'm asking this because, like I said, two guys sitting down to talk about relationships, love and divorce, that's kind of where the mind goes.

**James Sexton** (3:35)
Yeah, and I mean, before I would get canceled in the comments for being misandrist or misogynist, I always try to say that the things I'm observing are a function of having divorced thousands of people, men and women. For 25 years, I've done nothing but divorce law on a full-time basis, and I mean it on a truly full-time basis. So I wake up in the morning thinking about this stuff. I go to bed thinking about this stuff. I work six, seven days a week. That's why I'm divorced. I really, really love the work. And so all the things I'm saying are really just my observation. So in response to that question, I think the world relates to divorced men and divorced women differently, and I think people's self-conception is very different. So I often tell my male clients when we're dealing with a custody case, for example, which is arguments over when a child is going to live with whom and when they're going to spend time with him. And there was this concept called the maternal presumption, which was around legally for years or something called the tender years doctrine. It's called different things in different states, but it was around until probably the 1980s. And that was that a child was assumed to stay in the custody of the mother unless you could prove she was an unfit mother.