Huberman Lab
Contracts of Love & Money That Make or Break Relationships | James Sexton
Mon, 05 May 2025
My guest is James Sexton, Esq., a renowned attorney specializing in contracts related to love and money—prenuptial agreements, divorce and custody. We explore the counterintuitive fact that people with prenuptial agreements tend to stay married longer and report more satisfying relationships than those who don’t. We discuss how legal contracts can foster deeper understanding by encouraging vulnerability and honest communication about each partner’s values and expectations. We also examine what defines true, lasting love versus generic romantic ideals—and how social media can distort our understanding of what we truly need. Additionally, we review how cultural traditions, gender dynamics, courtship length, and age at the time of marriage shape marital outcomes. This episode offers practical tools for anyone—single or partnered—to build more successful and stable relationships through deeply honest dialogue and contracts that reflect genuine values around love and money. Read the episode show notes at hubermanlab.com. Thank you to our sponsors AG1: https://drinkag1.com/huberman Wealthfront**: https://wealthfront.com/huberman BetterHelp: https://betterhelp.com/huberman Our Place: https://fromourplace.com/huberman Function: https://functionhealth.com/huberman **This experience may not be representative of the experience of other clients of Wealthfront, and there is no guarantee that all clients will have similar experiences. Cash Account is offered by Wealthfront Brokerage LLC, Member FINRA/SIPC. The Annual Percentage Yield (“APY”) on cash deposits as of December 27, 2024, is representative, subject to change, and requires no minimum. Funds in the Cash Account are swept to partner banks where they earn the variable APY. Promo terms and FDIC coverage conditions apply. Same-day withdrawal or instant payment transfers may be limited by destination institutions, daily transaction caps, and by participating entities such as Wells Fargo, the RTP® Network, and FedNow® Service. New Cash Account deposits are subject to a 2-4 day holding period before becoming available for transfer. Timestamps 00:00:00 James Sexton 00:02:19 Divorce & Breakups, Men vs Women, Perception; Infidelity 00:12:04 Sponsors: Wealthfront & BetterHelp 00:14:41 Contracts, Business, Marriage Celebration, Prenups 00:26:24 Nesting; Prenups, Creating Rulesets 00:33:56 Prenups & Strengthening Marriage 00:38:19 Marriage Traditions; Divorce Rates, Religion 00:44:44 First vs Second Marriages, Love & Impermanence 00:50:09 Sponsors: AG1 & Our Place 00:53:53 Contracts, Relationships & Hard Conversations 01:02:37 Marriage & Underlying Problems, Love, Successful Marriages 01:16:27 Ideals, Social Media & Advertising, Simplicity, Dogs 01:27:33 Sponsor: Function 01:29:26 Intimacy, Tool: Early Framework for Hard Discussions 01:37:06 Prenup Consultation, Legal Defaults, Reasons for Marriage 01:47:37 Alimony, Prenups & Creating Rulesets, Yours, Mine & Ours, Adultery, Pets 02:02:30 Fond Memories & Ending Relationship, Pain, Divorce 02:12:49 Social Media, Movies & Ideals, Pornography vs Real Sexual Relationships 02:22:43 Revealing Flaws, Bravery, Prenups & Expectations, Money 02:37:49 Bravery, Vulnerability, Relationship Changes, Men vs Women, Marriage 02:47:11 Relationship Sacrifices, Men & Women; Prenups, Government 02:54:45 Life Milestones, Early vs Late Marriage, Navigating Challenges 03:01:38 Courtship Period & Marital Outcomes 03:10:12 Knowing Self & Partner, Vulnerability 03:16:58 "Postnup", Rekindling or Ending Relationships, Tool: Leave a Note 03:26:41 Heartbreak & Love, Divorce; Acknowledgements 03:34:45 Zero-Cost Support, YouTube, Spotify & Apple Follow & Reviews, Sponsors, YouTube Feedback, Protocols Book, Social Media, Neural Network Newsletter Disclaimer & Disclosures Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What are the roles of love and contracts in relationships?
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 then 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.
Thank you. It's good to be here. I've been wanting to do this for a while. I know. It's a long time in the making. Yeah.
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Chapter 2: How do gender dynamics affect divorce?
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 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 sort of drives a kind of female-specific set of psychological responses. Here, I'm basically asking for a generalization. And 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, it's kind of where the mind goes.
Yeah. And I mean, before I would get 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. Like 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 observations. So, you know, in response to that question, I think the world relates to divorced men and divorced women differently.
And I think people's self-conception, right, is very different. So I often tell my male clients when we're dealing with, you know, a custody case, for example, which is arguments over when a child's going to live with whom and when they're going to spend time with whom.
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.
So men were automatically second class when it came to being a parent. So it was automatic. It was the default. Now, of course, in the 80s, there was a different makeup of the workforce. There was a different gender roles, obviously, in terms of assignment of child care responsibilities. It was a different world to some degree. But that was eradicated in the 1980s.
And the bench even, the judges, have changed dramatically. When I started practicing 25 years ago, 90% of the judges I appeared in front of were old white men, period. Like that was it. It was old white men. And so I got in the habit of like have a short haircut, hide the tattoos, like look like you're coming out of the set of Inherit the Wind.
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Chapter 3: Why are prenuptial agreements beneficial for marriages?
Yeah, to me, it's celebration of life. Yeah. You know, it's very different than the birth of a child, but each one of those is a celebration of the life spirit.
Yeah, and your place in the timeline and the history and the merging of families, the merging of clans, and sort of this, we're going to merge now and maybe new life comes of that. Yeah. And then that life merges with more life and we become part of this chain. Like this is gorgeous stuff. And this is the fundamental building blocks of human civilization.
So it is perfectly understandable that we get absolutely intoxicated by the thought of it and that we get so hopped up. But here's what people don't think about. The term contract never gets into that discussion. I'm telling you right now, right now someone's getting married somewhere and they've never – the word contract has never come out of there. They don't view marriage as a contract.
The two things that I as a divorce lawyer am constantly thinking about is marriage as an economy – and marriage as a contract. And those are two. The minute you say that, people assume you don't believe in or experience emotionally any of those other beautiful things you just said.
And I think 90% of the appeal of my media work in this chapter of my life has been that people go, oh, a divorce lawyer. This is just going to be a guy talking about how marriage is the worst thing ever. And in reality, I think what I'm saying is, look, this is amazing. This is wonderful. Why wouldn't you fall in love? Why wouldn't you have pair bonds?
Why wouldn't you consider locking in with another person and say, but my God, be honest with yourself about the risks involved. Be honest with yourself about the ways you can hedge that risk. And be honest with yourself about the contract and the economy. Because those are two things that I do not think That there is anything unromantic.
I don't think it takes away from the romance or the beauty of a thing. You know, I often say my favorite poem is a poem by Joseph Brodsky called A Song. And he wrote it when his wife passed away. And it's a beautiful poem about love and loss. And the sort of refrain of the poem is, I wish you were here, dear. Like, I wish you were here, dear. I wish you were here.
I wish we sat in the car and you sat near. It's this beautiful poem. And one of the lines is, I wish you were here, dear. I wish you were here. I wish I knew no astronomy when stars appear. And I remember the first time I read that line thinking like, oh, that's so beautiful. Because once you know astronomy, there's something less magical about the stars.
Is there?
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Chapter 4: What are common misconceptions about prenups?
Huh.
Most give the kids the husband's name. And again, I don't know if that's a male thing that like men are like, that's my kid. They're going to have my name. I really don't know. But yeah, there's a lot of the feminism gets thrown out the window.
Another one is that in divorces, I've observed this. I don't have statistics on this, but. Women will keep their ex-husband's last name because what I was told is they want to have the same last name as their kids. That's pretty common. Which is understandable.
Yeah.
But, of course, the kids could switch last names.
It eliminates a certain level of confusion because at school, like, to say, you know, like, this is my name, the kid's name is different. So that piece I get, I absolutely get, but I, I also, and by the way, I have clients cause you don't have to change your name back, but you have the right to. And I have male clients who like want their name back.
Like I want her to no longer be allowed to use that name. And I have to explain to them, you're,
That's the kind of funny thing.
You can't force her to not have your name. He's like, well, that's my name. And I'm like, you understand I can change my – as long as you're not doing it for the intent of defrauding creditors, anyone can – I can change my name to Andrew Huberman tomorrow if I want to. Yeah. As long as I'm not doing it to defraud my creditors.
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Chapter 5: How does social media influence our perceptions of love?
And so when we talk to each other, you know, like all of the people I like best are people that like reality, you know, and that see themselves with a certain level of reality, you know. And so I don't have to be afraid to like talk to them candidly and blunt. And I think that in marriage, like, and in divorce, if you tell the story and you're like, yeah, I could have done better.
Like, I really screwed that up. But, you know, I did get this right. And, you know, she's being unfair when it comes to that. Like, when you tell the story and you're not the hero of the story, it's much more credible as far as I'm concerned. And I say that as someone who tells stories for a living, you know, in a courtroom to try to be as persuasive as possible.
I always tell my clients, I'm like, if you make yourself the hero or you make the other person the villain, like, you lose credibility tremendously. Everybody has to be like a flawed hero, a villain that has some traits of positive to them. Like it's a much more believable real story.
That's why little kids' TV shows, there's like the villain and the music gets dark when the villain comes on and then the hero is all good and all. But as adults, that's not what we want. We want Breaking Bad. We want antiheroes. We want complicated heroes. We want villains that we kind of feel a little bad for, like the Joker. We get it, you know? Because we can relate.
Right, because we know that's what we actually are. And by the way, that's what our partners are. So this idea that let's just put a tux on him and a white dress on her and then everybody's heroes, like, that's kind of silly, you know? And that's where I think...
That anger that becomes toxic and definitional to a person, it doesn't have to be that way if early in the discourse about love, we just normalize this idea of you're a human being. I'm a human being. We're flawed. We have hopes. We have fears. We have things we got right, things we get wrong. We're going to change. We're going to change in good and bad ways if you want to parse it that way.
So how do we water the plant? Like how do we keep this thing healthy and vibrant? How do we check in with each other? You have a job. You have performance reviews, right? You have some system whereby there's feedback about what you're doing right and doing wrong or there's a bonus structure so that there's skin in the game.
Like, why does it make it less romantic to look at our relationship that way? To say, like, hey, it's important to check in on this stuff. It's important to have, like, routine preventative maintenance on this thing. Like, if you said to me, like, oh, I'm taking my car for an oil change, I'd be like, what, you don't have faith in your car? Like, no. What, you have a cheap car? Like, no.
Like, of course, preventative maintenance makes sense. It's a whole lot better than waiting for there to be a problem than trying to fix the problem.
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Chapter 6: What role does intimacy play in lasting relationships?
Just breaches of trust. The contract of trust that is...
purely i don't know for lack of a better word it's kind of a spiritual contract where you say hey listen like i don't know if this is gonna work you don't know if this is gonna work yeah i'm willing to wager in a healthy way some of my own safety by revealing some things that aren't aren't like super great about myself yeah and maybe you'll do the same or maybe you won't and i'll just feel okay just with the way it lands that seems more rare nowadays sure um because it's brave it's brave
Like, I grew up, I wanted to be brave. Like, I aspired to being brave. Like, my heroes growing up were from Last of the Mohicans, right? La Long Caribbean, you know? Like, they were samurai, like, in the films, like the Moshashi films, you know, all those kinds of films. And so if you're not scared, it's not brave, right? Like, it's only brave if you're scared and you do it anyway.
Like, that's the thing that makes it brave. Like, and that's the thing we're not teaching young men anymore. Is it's like, yeah, it's scary. It's so much easier to just be like, yeah, women don't mean anything. Women just, they're disposable. They're like iPhones. I'll get a new one. It'll have different features. It'll be great. Like, you think Andrew Tate's brave?
Like, Andrew Tate's brave because he fights Muay Thai. That's brave. That's brave. Like, even ground with another man, bare hands. Let's do this thing. Yeah, that's brave. But having a bunch of women and sort of not committing to any of them, not having being vulnerable to any of them, this is what's brave about. There's nothing brave about that.
Like what's brave is I'm going to give you the ammo to hurt me. Like I'm going to give you the ability to hurt me. And I'm going to do it anyway. And I'm scared, but I'm going to do it anyway. And that's what makes it brave. And I think that that's the thing we've just lost in this culture. And that's where I think it's so backwards. We go, well, a prenup goes to the opposite direction.
Because a prenup is you're saying, well, I don't believe in this thing. It only works if you post it. That's insane. That's insane to say that, you know, if you don't—if you take any precautions at all or give any—or, by the way, more accurately, that if you don't trust it to the legislature of your state that you're not being brave, like, that's insane.
It's brave to merge your destiny with that of another person. It's brave to let someone see what you're afraid of, what you hope for and aspire to. Those are all— Like divorce is intimacy weaponized. Like it's – and I say it as someone who's been in the room with thousands of people going through it.
And I mean the pain and terror of this person who in hushed tones you whispered to them all the things you're most afraid of. when you trusted them more than anyone. And now they're going to use that against you in a public forum, in a courtroom. Like, my God, man. Thank God I have no idea what that feels like to have done to me. Like, it must be horrible. But again, like, is it worth it?
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