Most Replayed Moment: Why You Need A Prenup And How To Avoid Divorce!

James Sexton begins by reframing the prenup conversation. He says every married person has a prenup: either the government has written the rules, or the couple has written them for themselves. In his view, two people who love each other are better qualified to establish the rules of their marriage than politicians they do not know—politicians who won a popularity contest, change constantly, and may create rules nobody explained to the couple in advance. Sexton’s preferred way to raise the subject is therefore not, “I think we’re going to break up,” but, “Let’s decide together what the rules of our marriage will be.” He argues that discussing a prenup can be a healthy exercise because it forces couples to talk about difficult subjects before they are in crisis. He says many people have told him that seeing an earlier conversation about prenups prompted them to have unusually meaningful discussions with their own partners. The host and Sexton agree that hard conversations often feel awkward while they are happening, but can leave a couple feeling closer afterward. The host describes the value of getting through conflict without resentment: rather than emerging from an argument damaged, the couple can feel proud that they repaired the relationship and are still together.

Sexton says he tried to rent a booth at four or five U.S. wedding expos, where photographers, bakers, travel companies, registry services, and other wedding-related businesses sell to engaged couples. He offered to make the booth positive and respectful: a congratulations on the engagement, an invitation to consider a prenup, and informational brochures. He says the tables cost thousands of dollars, but every expo refused to take his money, regardless of how carefully he described the idea. He believes the expos rejected him because prenups introduce an uncomfortable reality into an industry built around optimism and the “wedding industrial complex.” Sexton says every marriage ends—through death or divorce—and that the majority end in divorce, yet vendors preferred not to let that reality into the room. He sees the prenup conversation as potentially romantic rather than anti-romantic: a couple can say that they do not want to lose each other through death or divorce and can discuss how they would want to treat one another if the relationship ended. The host notes that people may hear “Should we get a prenup?” as “I think we will break up someday.” Sexton agrees that people prefer optimism, but says optimism and realism are compatible. He compares a prenup to an annual physical, a seatbelt, or an airbag: none means a person expects disaster, but it is sensible to understand whether the protection is there before something goes wrong.

The conversation turns to the difference between U.S. and U.K. divorce law after the host mentions a celebrity who publicly complained that his estranged wife’s lawyers wanted his bank statements after his career improved. Sexton explains that child support can be modified when income changes—he gives the example of a 30% income change every three years—and that in New York the guideline percentages are 17% for one child, 25% for two, 29% for three, and 31% for four, calculated from gross income after the FICA deduction of 7.65%. He adds that courts can consider caps, the children’s marital lifestyle, their reasonable needs, and special expenses such as security for celebrity children. Sexton says he has seen a $65,000-per-month child-support award, covering items including private-school tuition and a security detail. The money normally goes to the parent with primary physical custody rather than directly to the child, and that parent can generally decide how to spend it. He rejects the idea that requiring receipts would be a simple fix, arguing that the system is already complicated and that policing every expenditure would create more problems. For Sexton, having a child with someone is riskier than getting married because a child can become the center of prolonged emotional and financial conflict. He recalls a client who spent about $100,000 litigating whether Thanksgiving should run from Wednesday through Sunday or from Thursday morning through Thursday evening. Marriage disputes can be constrained by the value of an asset, but people may assign limitless emotional value to time with their children, making apparently minor disagreements extraordinarily expensive.

Asked why couples divorce, Sexton identifies infidelity and money as the two major causes. Money-related divorces can involve losing money through gambling, bad investments, failed businesses, or day trading. He recalls a period when many clients tried day trading and learned that shorting stocks can expose them to almost unlimited losses. Crypto also became important in divorce cases, particularly when spouses stored assets on hard wallets. Early in cryptocurrency’s history, lawyers and judges sometimes struggled even to understand the difference between Bitcoin and Ethereum or how a hidden wallet might work. Sexton says the job requires him to learn the financial systems of his clients. He has had to understand how surgeons are paid and what expenses they can have, how hedge-fund capital accounts and compensation work, and where money might be concealed. He describes two different versions of apparent wealth. Some people look rich but are deeply leveraged: celebrities may buy expensive houses, cars, and lifestyles after a successful record or film, then borrow more because lenders are willing to advance money to public figures. He recalls a client with multiple Bentleys and a McLaren who did not own the cars outright; they were heavily financed. The second version involves people who deliberately structure assets through trusts, corporations, and layered property-holding companies. Such arrangements may be legitimate estate planning for tax reduction and intergenerational wealth, but they can make divorce difficult because the spouse may not directly own the assets. Forensic accountants then investigate whether transfers were made in good faith for wealth preservation or fraudulently in anticipation of divorce.

The host asks about cases where a spouse expects to receive money but discovers that the other spouse is actually entitled to a payout. Sexton says this happens frequently, including when women who are prominent feminists learn that they may owe alimony to a husband. He describes a high-earning female executive married to a lower-earning, long-haired musician and says the calculation is gender-blind: if one spouse earns dramatically more, that spouse may owe support. Some men, like some women, refuse to accept alimony because they find the idea uncomfortable. Sexton explains that spousal support is different from child support. It can help maintain the marital lifestyle or rehabilitate a spouse’s earning capacity. His example is a British physician who gives up the ability to practice medicine in the United States after moving for a marriage, then needs financial support after a short marriage ends while she reestablishes her career. He says the question is not automatically whether one spouse gets half of everything. The amount depends heavily on when wealth was acquired. If the host hypothetically married Taylor Swift and the couple acquired $1 billion in cash during the marriage, Sexton says the host could receive half, subject to the facts and legal process. But if the wealth existed before the marriage, the result would be different. Jeff Bezos illustrates the point: his former wife was present for Amazon’s entire rise, whereas someone marrying him after that wealth already existed would have a significant premarital component. Sexton also mentions Adele’s and Kelly Clarkson’s former husbands as examples of spouses who did well after marriages coincided with major career success.

When the host asks whether Sexton would take a commission if he recovered $500 million for him, Sexton says he cannot. Divorce lawyers are paid by the hour and are prohibited from taking a percentage of the result. He argues that this rule is appropriate because a contingency fee could encourage a lawyer to maximize the size of the recovery rather than pursue the settlement that best serves the client. Sexton explains that the best result is not always the largest immediate cash payment. In some cases, he may recommend accepting less cash in exchange for more child support, spousal support, or real estate. A lawyer whose compensation depends on the cash recovery could have a financial incentive to recommend the wrong trade-off. He contrasts divorce work with personal-injury cases, where contingency fees are permitted after a slip-and-fall or similar injury. The broader point is that divorce is not a simple transaction in which winning means extracting the largest possible check. It involves support, property, children, taxes, future earning capacity, and the practical value of different arrangements. Sexton’s role is to evaluate those competing outcomes without making his own fee dependent on the percentage of the result.

Asked for one piece of advice that might keep the host and his partner out of a divorce lawyer’s consultation room, Sexton does not say “don’t get married.” He says, “Pay attention.” He breaks that attention into three parts: the “you,” the “me,” and the “we.” Each person must continue being the individual the other fell in love with, rather than allowing the relationship, work, or outside pressures to erase that identity. He says each partner should make room for the other to remain themselves and should notice when either person is changing. Change is not automatically something to resist, but couples should acknowledge it and ask whether it is healthy or harmful. At the same time, they must pay attention to the “we” by treating the relationship as something valuable that needs to be maintained—his metaphor is watering the plant. The relationship can help both people see their blind spots, but that benefit disappears if they stop caring for it. Sexton connects this advice to the earlier theme that the hard thing and the right thing are often the same. Couples should lean into the difficult questions—“Are we okay?” and “Is everything good?”—rather than avoiding them. The segment closes with his view that this is advice about connection and love generally: preserve the individual people, deliberately protect the shared relationship, and do not be afraid to discuss what is changing.