How to Stay in Love

James J. Sexton

12 annotations • Sep 2024 • data

Introduction

I know this: In twenty years of practice, I have never—not once, not ever—met a person who was cheating on their spouse and who also appeared genuinely in love with that spouse.
It's not even about marriage. It's about meaningful connection. That's something I learn over and over and over. Ask most people to name the two top reasons for divorce, and they'll almost always guess correctly: cheating and ruinous money issues. But those are never the reasons for divorce—rather, they're the symptoms of a bad marriage. Lack of meaningful connection and proper attention and enduring affection led to those lapses, not the fact that someone in Accounts Payable happened to be wearing an incredible outfit one day when the weather turned warm.
It won't surprise you that, in the long run, the arrival of a second beautiful baby, Anthony, did zero to make the big problems go away. Now, with a six-year-old and a one-year-old, Cynthia was in my office to begin divorce proceedings. When there's one child in a divorce, the custodial parent receives child support equal to 17 percent of the other parent's gross income. If there are two children, the amount is 25 percent. Technically, that second child is worth 8 percent more in gross income. "The Ocho," as we call him or her. Eight percent more child support. That's what a lack of candor gets you.

Chapter 1

No matter how much you love love, if you want to stay in a marriage or long-term commitment and, more important, if you want to keep it vital, you're strongly advised to acknowledge that the relationship solves certain problems while causing others. What problems does it inadvertently create? Lots of people, including many of my clients, were or are reluctant even to ask this question. Or maybe they asked it but, confronted with the answer, failed to do anything about it.
Marriage is tricky; any long-lasting relationship between two partners is tricky; maintaining romantic love can be tricky. I have learned, over and over, that marriages and other committed relationships fail for two fundamental reasons. 1. You don't know what you want. 2. You can't express what you want.
You're dishonest with yourself. You're dishonest with your partner. Expectations are out of whack. There's passivity or lack of appreciation. The dynamic between what one wants, needs, and feels entitled to is strained, strange, and ever-changing. The list of specific possible problems is long, but most of them fall into the two broad categories above.
In handling so many finished marriages, maybe the number one thing I have learned is this: From the outside, no one knows anything about anyone. No one. Nothing. It doesn't matter who's giggling and holding hands or who's arguing too loudly at Starbucks. It doesn't matter who's loaded (with money, I mean) or who always struggles to pay the bills. (My experience has taught me that money, like any tool or technology, is an improved means to an unimproved end: It offers real solutions to imaginary problems and imaginary solutions to real problems.)

Chapter 2

I find divorce law exciting because it is the closest thing to "law without a net": The emotions are so raw, the personal stakes so high. It really, truly matters how you navigate each interaction, from how confrontational you are with opposing counsel to how gentle you are with the client. You aren't just a cog in a giant machine serving a client you will never meet. You are a key player in a chess match where every move impacts the available options you have and the other side has—and there are real-world consequences, things like where people live and when they see their children.
Everyone's got a story. People going through divorce, however, tend to have more dramatic stories than most, or at least they're obliged, for the sake of their own best (or less bad) future, to share their saga in graphic detail so that their lawyer can understand their new reality. (That's part of the reason I wrote this book: Everyone kept telling me that the cases I dealt with every day were, though quite often painful, too compelling not to share.) As my client's advocate, I have to tell the judge a good story about my client's life, so that we can get the best possible settlement. I tell the judge the tale of a marriage from the perspective that most favors my client, blurring and obfuscating aspects that are less flattering to her. (How to explain the undeniably unflattering aspects of my client's situation? There's lots of "She's only human, Your Honor, like you and me.…") Like a novelist or screenwriter, a divorce attorney looks for the moments that compel. I often feel that getting the more favorable deal comes down to this: Whoever tells the best story, wins.
When everyone was seated, I set the picture on the conference room table for all to see. "Look, before we begin," I said, "I just want to say one thing. There's going to be a wedding someday, and it's going to go one of two ways. It's either going to be the wedding where Mom and Dad have to be kept on opposite sides of the reception hall because if they pass each other by the shrimp boat one of them is going to mutter something to the other, and soon they'll be bickering and silverware will be flying, on their daughter's supposedly happiest day. We've all been to that wedding. It's not a fun place to be. "Or it's going to be the other kind of wedding. Where everybody stands there smiling for the pictures, and maybe at some point during the wedding, Mom and Dad even find themselves standing next to each other, and one says to the other, 'You know what? We screwed up the marriage, but we did a pretty good job with the kids.' And maybe they have a toast. And maybe they even have a dance. But their daughter has a lovely wedding and a lovely start to a new chapter in her life—because her parents loved her more than they hated each other." Pause for effect. "So before we begin, let's just keep in mind that what we do, right now, here at this table, is going to determine what that wedding looks like for Eva. We'll be able to draw a straight line from this table to that day. It's up to you two what that looks like."

Chapter 3

They lie about how they've behaved as a parent. They lie about how they've behaved toward their spouse. They lie about what they're capable of doing in the future, and about what plan makes sense for the day-to-day reality of their lives. They lie about what their financial prospects are and what obligations they will or won't be able to handle. They lie about what was said to them (or at least, they remember it in a self-serving way) and they lie about what they said (and did) in response. Sometimes they lie even when confronted with a recording. Their recollection of their past behavior is often partially accurate, which is a kind way of saying that it's inaccurate.
Still, lack of honesty hurts more than it helps. It creates new, usually bigger problems. I'd estimate that what exes argue about, 90 percent of the time, is not directly what they're arguing about. Hit Send Now is designed not to keep arguments from happening but to make sure that you're actually arguing about what you're arguing about.