Why Modern Marriage Fails and What Couples Can Do About It

Summary

Podcast Summary: Impact Theory with Tom Bilyeu

Episode: Why Modern Marriage Fails and What Couples Can Do About It
Release Date: January 15, 2026
Guests: James Sexton (divorce attorney, author)
Host: Tom Bilyeu

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the rising failure rates of modern marriage and asks tough questions about what couples can do to thrive, not just survive. With the insight of divorce attorney James Sexton, Tom Bilyeu dives into why love, marriage, and relationships have become so fraught—with a focus on practical solutions and honest self-inquiry.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Failure Rate of Marriage and Its Modern Context

• Marriage as a Technology with High Failure Rate

  • “We're talking about a technology that fails catastrophically 56% of the time. Staying together for the kids, even though you hate each other…that’s also a failure…now we have a technology that 76% of the time fails.”
    — James Sexton [01:10]
  • Sexton emphasizes that, beyond divorce, marriages that limp along unhappily also constitute failure.
  • The notion that marriage is a government contract, with rules written (and changeable) by the state, is stressed.

• Tradition vs. Modern Choice

  • Tradition is "the wisdom of those who came before us, but it’s also peer pressure from dead people.”
    — James Sexton [08:42]
  • Sexton encourages questioning why marriage is entered into, given higher autonomy and societal shifts.

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2. Relationships as Economies of Value Exchange

• Love and Relationship as Economy

  • “People find the term ‘economy’ describing love as an economy…profane. I don’t mean it in a negative way. It’s about a trading of value.”
    — James Sexton [02:17]
  • Relationships are about a value exchange—not always the same value, not always at the same time, but a mutual sense of contribution and satisfaction.
  • The imbalance and tallying, spoken or unspoken (“Look at what I’m doing for you”), can erode relationships.

• No Standard Recipe for “Equal” Contribution

  • Using Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak as a metaphor: Each partner brings distinct, sometimes non-overlapping value; “Together, they changed the world…which is more important?”
    — James Sexton [04:30]
  • Success is when neither partner feels shortchanged.

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3. The Dangers of Assumptions and Lack of Intentionality

• “Most couples…just wing it emotionally. If you ask ‘why are you getting married?’ it’s considered rude.”
  — James Sexton [08:42]
• Society assumes marriage without considering its foundational ‘target.’ The setup for failure comes from the lack of discussion about shared vision and expectations.

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4. Modern Shifts: Ease, Safety, and Infinite Choices

• Changing Gender Roles and Social Expectations

  • Tom Bilyeu: “I think that value used to be very clear because the world was dangerous… now the world has been safe…so women are stepping into the workforce…Men now are very confused.”
  • Modern context has removed historic incentives and clarity about roles, leading to confusion ("why exactly do I need to be in a relationship?") [24:04 – 26:11]

• Social Media’s Role

  • Amplifies gender antagonism; encourages comparison, overcorrection, and the feeling that everyone can do better or is missing out.
  • “What is Instagram other than an ad for me? Look at me, look at how great I’m doing…you’re watching when you’re living your gag reel.”
    — James Sexton [36:05]

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5. The Importance and Limitations of Ritual

• Rituals and Meaning-Making
  • “Part of the reason…divorce rate is so high is that there’s no meaningful transition between not married and married.”
    — Tom Bilyeu, referencing Joseph Campbell [45:37]
  • Tom shares his own ritual (‘painful’ wedding tattoo) as a permanent, meaningful transition.
  • Sexton agrees that ceremonies (weddings, symbols, rituals) do serve to bolster the psychological contract, yet observes that, “Getting married is beautiful…being married is the harder part.” [55:21]

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6. Simplicity vs. Complexity: Practical Skills and Ongoing Maintenance

• Biggest Mistakes in Relationships

  • Mistake 1: Assuming marriage will change someone for the better.
  • Mistake 2: Assuming someone will never change.
    — James Sexton [17:50]
  • Life and people evolve; relationships must include built-in check-ins and adaptability.

• Marriage Is About Preventative Maintenance

  • “It’s about, let’s be practical about this. Like, it’s a job, and you want to be good at this job…love’s a verb too.”
    — James Sexton [18:48]
  • Suggests weekly “walk and talk” check-ins: “What did I do this week that made you feel loved? What could I have done better?” [21:59]

• Conflict: Winning Isn’t Winning

  • “It is impossible to win an argument with your spouse. If you lose, you lost; if you win, you lost, because your spouse feels small.”
    — James Sexton [22:24]

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7. Universal Themes in Marital Failure

• Lack of Self-Knowledge and Communication

  • “We don’t always know what we want. We don’t always know how to express it… I am still a little bit of a mystery to myself…”
    — James Sexton [56:36]
  • Suggests most couples set out with “no map, no training,” making it inevitable they get lost.

• Routine and Sexual Dissatisfaction

  • “People sabotage their own happiness with the absolute best of intentions. So just saying to a couple, you got to get your sex life right…what does that mean?”
    — James Sexton [63:57]
  • Couples fall into routine; lack of novelty and communication cause drift.

• Simple, Actionable Practices

  • Regular check-ins, expressing appreciation, and “building in” rituals to maintain enthusiasm and connection.
  • “If you don't have ten minutes a week to devote to your marriage, you’ll need at least a few hours a week—if not with your spouse, with your attorney.”
    — Paraphrase of Sexton’s analogy to preventative maintenance [68:04]

• Understanding and Affirmation

  • "Nudes are for men what flowers are for women."
    — James Sexton [72:24]
  • Each partner desires different forms of recognition and affirmation—this is not controversial, just reality.

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8. Memorable Moments & Notable Quotes

On the Essence of Marriage

• “You’re my favorite person. Of all the people in the world, you’re my favorite person… what four words are more beautiful than that?”
  — James Sexton [16:17]

On Social Media

• “We’re now living and creating our own advertisements, which…still, ‘you’re not okay. You need to do something different.’ And we’re wondering why we’re also kind of miserable.”
  — James Sexton [36:05]

On Symbolism

• “God is the name we give to the blanket we put over a mystery to give it shape…and so I think, similarly, marriage is a wall we try to build around a deep connection to protect it.”
  — James Sexton [44:33]

On the Difficulty of the Task

• “We don’t talk about marriage as a skill set. We talk about it like, it’s this magical thing you should just be good at.”
  — James Sexton [58:57]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:07] – Is marriage still wise? Introduction of “marriage as catastrophic technology.”
• [02:17] – Love as economy/value exchange.
• [08:42] – Why people marry, tradition as ‘peer pressure from dead people.’
• [16:17] – Simplicity/complexity; “You’re my favorite person.”
• [21:59] – Weekly check-ins and practical relationship maintenance.
• [22:24] – Why winning arguments is losing.
• [24:04] – Evolution, incentives for marriage, and modern confusion.
• [36:05] – Impact of social media and advertising on happiness.
• [41:16 & 44:33] – Legal status of marriage, symbolism, and protection.
• [45:37] – Lack of ritual, transition, and meaning in modern marriages.
• [56:36] – Universal themes in failure, lack of self-awareness, and communication.
• [63:57] – Sex, routine, and how patterns can sabotage passion.
• [68:04 & 72:24] – Preventative maintenance and practical ways to show love.

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Flow and Tone

• The conversation is frank, occasionally irreverent, and deeply practical.
• Both Tom and James hold space for complexity—blending data, hard-won insights from divorce court, and personal anecdotes.
• The tone is challenging but not cynical, encouraging hard questions and concrete action.

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Final Takeaways

• Marriage is neither sacred magic nor outdated prison; it’s a skill—and skills require intentionality, practice, and maintenance.
• Rituals, clear communication, mutual appreciation, and regular check-ins are vital.
• Modern society’s messages—through tech, media, and culture—have muddied roles and expectations. Couples must deliberately define what ‘winning’ looks like for them.
• The failure to approach marriage as an evolving, practical partnership—one built on honest negotiation of differing needs—is the root cause of failure.

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For Listeners:

This episode delivers a bracing, actionable look at marriage’s dangers and opportunities. It encourages listeners to be honest, be intentional, stay curious—and, above all, keep showing up for the real, imperfect human across the table.

Transcript

[James Sexton]

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[Tom Bilyeu]

Yep.

[James Sexton]

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[Tom Bilyeu]

Do you think there is still wisdom in getting married?

[James Sexton]

We're talking about a technology that fails catastrophically 56% of the time. Staying together for the kids, even though you hate each other or staying together because you don't want to give away half your things, is also a failure. So what's that? Another 10%? Okay, now we have a technology that 76% of the time fails. Marriage is a legal status. It's a contract between you and the government, essentially. Like, you and Lisa have a prenup. No, no, no. You do. You do. It was written by the government. It's written by the government, and they can change it without your permission. The truth is, all marriages end. And when they end.

[Tom Bilyeu]

James Sexton, welcome to the show.

[James Sexton]

Thank you, Tom. It's good to be here. It's been a while in the making.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, it is. I'm very glad that we were able to put it together.

[James Sexton]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

The intersection that you live endlessly. Fascinating to me. You approach love marriage in a way that I find extremely unique. You've called love an economy.

[James Sexton]

Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

In the way that people are exchanging value.

[James Sexton]

Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

And I'm curious, what is it exactly that people are trading, whether they realize it or not?

[James Sexton]

It's very funny, because people find the term economy describing love as an economy or relationship with economy, like, a little profane. And I love it. Yeah. I don't. I don't mean it in a negative way. I mean it in, like, a really honorable way. That that it's about a sharing of value, like a trading of value. And we're very much now in the zeitgeist of talking about equality, you know, and that, like, women are capable of working, men are capable of working, Men should be caregiving with children, women should be caregiving with children. No one should be doing 100% of the labor in any sphere of relationship. I understand that argument, and I think it's because there was an imbalance for so long, you know, where it was like, women are. This is what you do. Women, you are at home with babies, and that's your job. Men, you. You get out there and put the women and children to bed and go out looking for dinner. This is your job. And there was no option other than that. And now we kind of did what we do, which is we treat dandruff with decapitation. We went so far in the other direction that now we said, no, everyone has to do everything. And how dare anyone suggest that you do my laundry? Or how dare you suggest that the man has to do this? And so for me, an economy, you know, how many apples is worth how many apples? Is not an interesting question. 1. That's the answer. One apple's worth one apple. How many apples is worth how many coconuts? Now we're having an interesting conversation because this comes down to what value do you put on apples and what value do you put on coconuts? Like, we have to figure out how many of these is how many of these in relationship. I've seen a lot of unsuccessful relationships in my line of work, and a lot of them, there's this tally being kept, like, unspoken or spoken of. Look at what I'm doing for you, you know, and look at how hard I have it. And look at how. And what's interesting to me is we're also now, as a society, particularly on social media, where, like, girls versus boys content is huge. Like, if we want to go viral, like, let's just say some real misogynist stuff or some real misandrist stuff, and we're just gonna. We'll get millions of views on that one. Because in this war of girls versus boys, and everybody loves being like, my team's winning, you know, but we all know that, like, a world in which, you know, men are flailing is not a world where women are thriving and vice versa. So I like to. To really look at. In relationship, we're agreeing to be together and to both bring value to this. Right. If there was no value, we just wouldn't. We Wouldn't connect. We would just keep moving. So when you say to someone, okay, I'm. I'm signing up for you, like, I'm. There's 8 billion options, and I'm picking you, that's big. Like, that's a big, big commitment. I can't really think of any commitment in life that's bigger than that, other than maybe having kids. Right? It's comparable. But really what you're saying is you. You give me something. Like, you give me something and I give you something. And ideally, it doesn't feel like much of a sacrifice to give. If anything, I take pleasure in the giving and you take pleasure in the giving. But we've made this idea that we have to give the same things. And if you look at the greatest partnerships in the world, look at Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak. Without Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak's just an engineer. And without Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs just has a lot of interesting ideas, but he didn't know how to code. He not an engineer. Together, they changed the world. What they both did is which one's more important? I don't think you can say. And why would you want to know? They're both together. They made the music. They made the thing perfectly. The chemistry of the two of them made the thing and changed the world. See also Keith Richards and Mick Jagger. Which one's more important? I don't know that you could say, because together. So that's what I mean when I say it's an economy, is that we're bringing to the table different things, maybe some of the same things. But the question is not, you know, how hard would it be to replace what you do? Like, well, how many women would sleep with me and be nice to me? Well, how many men would pay all my bills? We could do that math probably. Like, if you're young and gorgeous, there's probably a lot of men that pay your bills. If you're rich and successful, there's probably a lot of women that would sleep with you because they want. But the question really becomes, like, okay, long term, short term, any. If both people in this equation, neither one feels shortchanged, neither one feels like they're being taken advantage of. Whose business is it? The economy of a relationship is not counting the totals all the time and creating an Excel worksheet of what do we owe each other? It's more, is this working? Do we both feel like we're giving and receiving value? Do either of us feel deeply taken advantage of? And I Think that that is an economy, and that's what we need to.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Look at so very much agree. The thing that I find interesting about the economy, never thought I would think about it, never thought I'd be drawn into it. And now the vast majority of my content revolves around, like, traditional economies. What I find so powerful about it is that it is cause and effect at its core. So it is how humans work. And you can just see the nature of humans manifest in how economies work, how to incentivize what they'll say yes to, what they'll say no to, how they price themselves, how they price the things that they want, all of that stuff. So in a relationship, I think it's equally as. It's not a metaphor. It's literally just, okay, this. There are things that you make me feel I presume is a big part of what you mean by this. So how do we ground it? So if somebody right now is getting into a relationship, maybe they've had failures in the past, or maybe they're brand new. Either way, they need a way to ground around what this exchange is. So if we were going to strip away the metaphor, like, is it like, when my wife and I founded a company together, we expressly stated, these are my roles, these are your roles. This is how we will handle conflict. There's only two of us, so it's one v one. In terms of a vote, we can hit a stalemate. How do we deal with stalemates? We talk through all of it with very concrete. This is what happens when we collide. How should couples in your experience encounter that moment of agreeing? Like, beyond the love of this all, what is the exchange in a relationship?

[James Sexton]

The great presupposition in there, or the unspoken piece that I think you have to start with is we don't even get close to that analysis in modern society for most couples, because people just wing it emotionally, or it would be on tour. If you're a friend of mine and you've been in a relationship for a period of time and you say we're getting married, if I said, really? Why? That would be an incredibly rude question. Why is that a rude question? Like, we're talking about a technology that fails catastrophically 56% of the time, meaning it results in divorce, that's a catastrophic failure. I'm going to say staying together for the kids, even though you hate each other, we're staying together because you don't want to give away half your things is also a failure. So what's that, another 10%? I'm being nice. 20%, probably half. Okay. Now we have a technology that 76% of the time fails. Okay. To me, asking why is a really good question. Right? Because there are good answers, by the way. There are good answers. My religion. My religion dictates it. My parents. It would really disappoint my parents if I didn't. There's tax benefits to getting married. There's lots of answers. But we don't even start by asking the question. It's just assumed this is a thing we're going to do. And largely it's because it's what we do. Like, it's a tradition. And I've said before that tradition is in one way the wisdom of the people that came before us and the things that they've experienced and what we can learn from it. And in another way, tradition is peer pressure exerted by dead people, and we're just succumbing to it. Like, oh, well, my grandparents got married and my parents got married. My great grandparents got married and my great grand. Okay, your great great grandmother used a buggy whip. Do you use a buggy whip? Like, your great great grandmother did not have the sum total of all human wisdom accessible to her in an instant through the sky godlike knowledge in her hands. Why would you think a technology that made sense for her is automatically, unquestionably going to work for you, especially when it has a 56 to 76% failure rate? So that's a form of kind of intentional willful blindness or an ostrich approach to a real problem. Right? So I think, starting with the question of you and Lisa, when you said, okay, we're going to start a business, and we sat down and we said, okay, we're doing it this way. And it's one of one. And these are our roles. Okay, you're already starting by saying, what are we doing? Like, what's the target? What's the target? What are we trying to do? Like, I think what's the target? Before you start shooting is a really good question to ask, you know, because a pro is someone who hits a target nobody else can hit. A genius is someone who hits a target nobody else can see. You know, And I think fundamentally, when people get married who have the kind of mindset that you and Lisa have and you, you know, how you do anything is how you do everything. And I think you approach a lot of problem solving by saying, okay, first, where are we trying to go? You know, and it doesn't even have to be precise. It can just be, okay, what do we want to feel? You know, what's the vibe we want to create here? Like, it doesn't have to be like scientific, it can be right. Like I know there's a lot of people that are super analytical suited, super data driven. I'm sitting across from one of them, I think. But also I think there's some gut stuff that it's like, yeah, we want to be happy, we want to be connected.

[Tom Bilyeu]

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[James Sexton]

Just like in business, I think in marriage or in a relationship, it's this dance between simplicity and complexity. Like business is complex. You know, there's so many variables, economic forces, things beyond your control, personnel issues. There's so you could drill down forever. You could try to read every book that's ever been written on a business, but you'd fail. And yet there's also like a tremendous amount of simplicity. Identify a need, find a way to meet it. Identify a market. Find a way to, you know, get ahead of it. You know, simple, simple, simple stuff. Love is the same thing. What is marriage other than fundamentally, you're my favorite person. You're my favorite person. Of all the people in the world, you're my favorite person. Which, by the way, what, four words are more beautiful than that? Honestly. Like to say truthfully to another person and to have another person truthfully say to you, you're my favorite person. Like, saying it gets me welled up. It's like, it's such a lovely thought to feel that way, sincerely about someone and have someone feel that way about you. I can't think of anything warmer and more wonderful than that. And that's how all of this kind of starts, right? It's simple, but then there's a million pounds of complexity in it and on top of it and things that are antagonistic to it. And so if you don't start from a place of. Let's identify where it is we're trying to go. Let's start with, like, this simple piece of this fundamentally, I want to be your only person. You want to be my only person? Okay, I want to be good at this. Like, do you want to be good at this? Okay, good. We both want to be good at this. How are we going to make sure we're getting it right? Because the two biggest mistakes I think people make, and they're somewhat antagonistic to each other, is they think that if we get married, things will change, right? So, you know, he parties a lot now, but, like, if we get married, he'll stop, you know. You know, she's like, a little immature right now, but, like, if we get married, she'll. She'll mature up, you know. And, you know, he drinks a lot now, but if we get married, he'll grow up a bit. And, you know, see, also, when people have children, they're like, oh, when we have kids, he'll mature. So thinking that a person will change because you married is a bad bet. But similarly, thinking that this person won't change is also a bad bet. Because if you're going to be on a lot, you've been married 24 years, right?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Married 23, together 25.

[James Sexton]

Okay, so you've changed, both of you, tremendously. Physically, mentally, emotionally. Your points of view. Like, it changes constantly, and yet you still want to be able to say, like, you're my favorite person, I'm your favorite person, and really feel that connection. So I think that you have to have built into this some technique for. And that's really what my writing and my speaking is largely about. It's about, let's be practical about this. Like, it's a job, and you want to be good at this job. Like, the job of loving each other, you know? And I'm not saying it's like, oh, it's a job. It's a drudgery. No, I mean, like, it's a passion. It's a vocation. It's a. You sign on for this. You don't have to get married. Like, you don't have to get married. We live in a society now. A lot of things that used to require the team, like, to work the farm. We needed, you know, like, if you ever. I don't know if you're watching any of those YouTube channels where it's like baking a pie in 1800?

[Tom Bilyeu]

No, that's my nightmare.

[James Sexton]

Let me tell you something. Like, really do one of these, do a dive one day on this and watch like the, here's how we make a full dinner and it's like a whole day to make a pie.

[Tom Bilyeu]

You ever watched alone?

[James Sexton]

Yes, Similar idea, similar thing.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Jesus.

[James Sexton]

Right? And like, you know, I live in Manhattan. Like, you want a pie? I could get us six different pies from six different places delivered within a half an hour, but without getting off my couch. It's amazing. So we were no longer in a position where it's like, well, I got to work the fields and we got to have the kids, so the kids will help work the fields and you'll darn the socks. And like, the basics of our day to day life are pretty easy to meet these days. So we don't need marriage in that way now. It's like meeting an emotional need. It's meeting a different. So I think it's a different thing. And because of that, we have to have some check ins, like some techniques built into it about, hey, how am I doing at this job that I didn't have to sign on for, but I've decided to sign on for and I want to be good at. Like, you and Lisa started a story 25 years ago. I've never read a story that I didn't lose the plot at some point. So how do you know when you've lost the plot? Like, how do you know if you don't take a minute here and there and build that into the relationship that we're gonna, like, have some checks and balances. Like, you just talked about starting a business together and you're already talking about, okay, if there's an impasse, how do we deal with it? Cause only two of us and we each get a vote. You're already controlling for the inevitable. We're gonna disagree sometime. That's okay. That's natural. We know that. So what do we do? Let's now, while there's an abundance of optimism and goodwill, let's have a con conversation about when we disagree, what's that going to look like? And what does that really take, by the way, from a technique standpoint, 10 minutes a week of like, hey, what. What did I do this week that made you feel loved? What did I do this week that I could have done better at loving you? Because love is, you know, love is a feeling, but love's A verb, too. Like, love's a thing you do. So what did I do? What did I do? Well, this week, you know. And what does that cost? Cost? Nothing.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Why do people do it more than.

[James Sexton]

Because I think we've been sold a false spill of goods. We've been told that you're just supposed to be good at this. Like, how much time did you spend in school learning how to multiply fractions? I learned a bunch of that. Okay, how much time did you learn? Like, how to resolve conflict with someone you love? Like, it is impossible to win an argument with your spouse. It's impossible.

[Tom Bilyeu]

What do you mean?

[James Sexton]

If. If you lose, you lost, and if you win, you lost, your spouse feels small. They feel like, you know, they lost. Like, you asked me a really good.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Question at one point. I probably won't be able to remember it verbatim, but it was something like, why doesn't feeling connected feel as good as winning an argument? And I thought, ooh, you can be.

[James Sexton]

Right or you can be happy. That's like before.

[Tom Bilyeu]

It's really. That idea is really interesting on two levels. One, from an evolutionary standpoint, why doesn't it feel as good? If there's a survival advantage to pair bonding, then why doesn't being connected to that person in the moment where you're arguing feel like a way more interesting goal than. I'm going to prove that I'm right?

[James Sexton]

Yeah. I think we've created an environment where. And particularly in recent years, I think this has gone metastatic. I think that we've created a world where. And a culture where there is so much antagonism between the sexes.

[Tom Bilyeu]

What do you credit that to?

[James Sexton]

I mean, I know it's easy to say social media. I think social media has amplified it. I think we want to be right. We want someone to understand our pain from our perspective. Yeah. I mean, I don't know that I feel like we. You know, what is the saying? When you apply technology to an efficient system, you magnify the efficiency. When you apply it to an inefficient system, magnify the inefficiency. I think social media magnified a tension between the sexes that has been growing for many years, was present for many years, and we're largely. I think people don't. The tension is. I think people don't know what's expected of them anymore.

[Tom Bilyeu]

It's interesting. So here's my pitch. You tell me if you think this is crazy. So this goes back to what you were saying at the beginning. This is an exchange of Value. I think that value used to be very clear because the world was dangerous. And my promise to you is I'm going to keep you safe and provide resources. And so women would pick the guy that was going to actually be successful at that. And now the world has been safe Since World War II here in the west anyway. And so people have begun to think that safety is just a law of nature. And so it is what it is. And so women are stepping into the workforce. Girl boss, I don't need no man. Like that whole attitude. So men now are very confused. All of their impulses to be ambitious, to be strong, to go after that, they're not celebrated, they're not rewarded. Women can control fertility. So you can have sex without getting pregnant, you can keep yourself safe, you can monetize your own money. In many ways, women have an easier time staying focused and staying on task. And so the modern world rewards that. And so all of a sudden the incentives that we were evolutionarily primed for, they're no longer present. That has completely broken down. And so there really is a sense of why exactly do I need to be in a relationship? Guys can get at. Guys could in a single day see more nude women.

[James Sexton]

Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Than they would have seen in a lifetime 200 years ago.

[James Sexton]

100%. Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So you've got all of these crazy ass distortions that go on with the thing that would normally incentivize a male to have sex, that would normally incentivize a woman. Access to resources, safety. Those things are blown apart. And so now all of the compromises that you have to make in a relationship are like, why am I doing this? Exactly. And then you put that together with social media. Being able to compare, being able to swipe and just find the next person, just super easy. And you're now playing in a global market instead of just, well, there's only six guys here.

[James Sexton]

I got to the whole village. Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So that feels like the deranging element to me is effectively were overly safe, things were overly easy.

[James Sexton]

I totally agree. I don't think anything you've said, I can't argue with anything you've said there. But I do think that like most things, it's a function of overcorrection. Like I think the old way, the structure that was built on an evolutionary reality, the world was a hostile, antagonistic place in a very real way. Like there was a time like not talking about World War II era. Like it wasn't like they were like, you know, you walk out the streets and people are just attacking and raping each other. Like, I'm talking about, like, primal society. Like, yes, you're right. Brute force, violence, all those things. Like, it's a. It was a different kind of a world. Now, I'm not saying we don't still have those same drives. I'm not saying that there aren't still those same dangers in some way. But, you know, civilization and its discontents, like, we. We have figured out, like, okay, we're going to create laws, and we're going to create structures and societies and civilizations that are going to result in our suppression of certain drives that we have for the purpose of the greater good in civilization. So I get that. I think that created certain boxes that fit a lot of people. Like, a lot of men like to be the provider and protector, and it's a good fit. And a lot of women liked to be provided for and protected, and they liked to nurture. And there's something biological to it, and there's something social and personal to it. But it became a prison. I really think it became a prison. It became a prison where that is all you're allowed to do. Like, my mother was a product of her generation. She was the smartest math student in her public school in Brooklyn. And they said, that's so great. You can be a nurse or you can be a teacher. And she said, well, I could be a doctor. I have the absolute best math and science scores. And they went, right, sure, that's cute. You can be a nurse or you can be a teacher. Those are your two options. And then you'll be a wife and you'll be a mother, because that's what you have. Those are your options. That's it. And I'm of a generation. I'm a bit older than you. I'm of a generation that, like, you got to be Clint Eastwood or Richard Simmons. Those were your two choices. Those were your two choices. Like, growing up, you were either the stoic, like, hard guy, or you were gay. You were, like, effete. You were. And really, the truth is human emotional complexity, like, that's not how it works. Like, we all have, you know, proclivities. We all have different drives in us. But, you know, there's a lot of men that are deeply emotional and sensitive and poetic and have, like, a lot of feminine. If you want to call it that, traits. And there's a lot of women that have tremendous masculine energy, if you want to call it that are aggressive and good. So the idea that, like. But again, what did we then do we then said, okay, so anything that says it's good, that men are strong willed and capable and domineering and dominant and aggressive is bad. And anything that says that women are submissive and nurturing is bad. Because you're trying to push people in these boxes when in fact all we're doing is like observing reality. But we're making it a prison. We're making it way too tight by saying it has to be so it has to be prison or it has to be no prison. It has to be this postmodern, existential. Everything is class struggle, everything is right. And so, you know, again, we love this as a culture, this overcorrection. We've done it for a long time. But then add the amplifier of social media, add what you just said, which is, I will now not only do I get to see more women in a day than any man before me in my lineage saw in a year or in their lifetime, women get to talk to more women than they've ever talked to in their whole lives. If you're scrolling your Instagram feed, you're listening to men and to women. And by the way, the algorithm makes it even more fun because now we know what's going to infuriate you and we know what's going to like, you know, get you, like, excited and, and, and behind it. So we just start to feed that to people again because we want your attention. And it's an attention economy. It's engagement, engagement. Like I get it. But it's created this world where none of it's really about nurturing something in any of us. None of it's really about the broader societal thread. Like, what is our common dream anymore? Like the thought that it's become controversial to say, I love America, I'm an American, I love America. By the way, saying you love America but seeming to hate Americans doesn't make a lot of sense to me either. Because all America is just a bunch of Americans. Like e pluribus unum, you know, on our money. Like, you know, from many. One, like the pluribus part's easy. The pluribus part. You just get a bunch of dissimilar elements and put them in a room. Like, the unum part's the hard part. Like, how do you take all of these different people from different religions, different cultures, different places, different capabilities, different constitutions, and we have this thing in common. Well, it used to be a thing. We all stood up when the flag, you know, got raised or we all. That's gone now. It's actually almost profane to say, oh, I love America. If you say I love America, you're automatically presumed to be right wing. You're automatically presumed to be, you couldn't possibly be a progressive leftist, which, by the way, I lean more progressive left politically. But I still think, like, there is value in these common threads. We lost that. And then to say, well, we lost our touch point, our North Star, our Rosetta Stone, like, the thing that made all of it make sense, we lost that. And we're wondering why we're all wandering around like the Smurfs in the woods without Papa Smurf. Like, I don't think it's that hard to figure out that that's what happened. And the same thing happens in relationships because relationships are just a function. You know, again, it was always world, country, culture, community, family, couple. And these, these building blocks, like this basic one became very unfashionable. And that's why in the 70s, your temporary happiness became much more important than the broad social thread. The thing you're trying to do, like when you and Lisa started a business and when you started the business of your family life together, your couple, your coupling together, like, you decided to, like Jocko Willinek would say, you discipline, you trade what you want now for what you want most. So you both said, hey, what I want most is deep connection to another person for a lifetime. And so I'm going to trade the shiny things. I'm going to trade autonomy, I'm going to trade maybe some of the pleasure of solitude sometimes I'm going to trade that because I think this other thing is worth more. That's even controversial to say now, that deep connection with another person over the course of an extended period of time. And again, not to tie it to the bigger thing, again, but it's not a coincidence that around the 1970s is when TV really proliferated. My mentor in graduate school, before I went to law school, I got my master's degree and I was working on my PhD in a field called media ecology, which is the study of information environments.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Interesting.

[James Sexton]

And my mentor was Neil Postman, and he was the chair of my dissertation committee. And he was the chair of my. When I wrote my master's thesis and Neil wrote a book called Amusing Ourselves to Public Discourse at the Age of Television. And he wrote a book called the Disappearance of Childhood. He wrote a book called Technopoly, the Surrender of Culture to Technology. And he was very prescient. Like, he. He saw that technology, like our society, is an ecosystem. So when you add a salamander to an ecosystem, you don't have the old ecosystem plus a salamander. You have a whole new ecosystem. Because that salamander eats this bug, but that bug used to eat this plant. And that plant, when it dies, creates a. By the way, now you take the salamander out, you don't have the old environment you had, you have a whole new environment. Because now that salamander changed things. So what happens? In the 1970s, everybody's focusing on hormonal birth control. And I'm not suggesting that that's not a real thing, that the advent of hormonal birth control changed sex. Sex was. Now, women had a tremendous amount of control over pregnancy and whether they wanted to be pregnant or not. And it changed the constitution of women. No doubt, no doubt. A lot of really smart people have talked about that. But it's also when the proliferation of advertising began. Because remember television, just like YouTube or just like any form of social media, the purpose of television is to keep you watching the ads. It's not to entertain you, it's to entertain you enough that you stay for the ads. Like, that's the purpose of television. So advertising, I believe, is the opposite of therapy. If the purpose of therapy is to help you cultivate and maintain some sense of wellness and wholeness, then advertising is the opposite of therapy. Because the fundamental core message of advertising you will never hear in an ad. You're fine. You don't need anything. You don't need to buy anything. You don't need to do anything. You're fine. The core message of every single advertisement is the same. You're not okay. You're not okay. You're doing it wrong. Redemption is available. You'll be okay. But there's some stuff. There's some stuff you need. You need to get this, or you need to do this, or you need to be more like this. But it's all fundamentally underneath those other messages is you're not okay. If that now has become, by the way, advertisement and information has become a form of garbage. It comes at us from everywhere, all the time, with. Devoid of context. Most of the time, it's just coming at us constantly. And again, that fundamental message is, you're not okay. And we're wondering why we're all not okay. Like in the 1970s, we unleashed on society and since have continued to amplify at a steady trajectory the amount of advertising that we are. Because, by the way, what is Instagram other than an ad for me? Look at me, look at how great I'm doing. Like, look at how beautiful my life is. This is my greatest hits right here. And by the way, you're watching it when you're living your gag reel, because you're not. When you're, like, having the most wonderful time with Lisa or with friends, you're not, like, hang on, I want to check my Instagram feed. No, you're, like, having your moment. You're in it. You're having a blast. When are you looking at your Instagram? When you're on the toilet, when you're bored, when you're on the subway, when there's nothing going, you're waiting for someone. So you're in your gag reel. You're in your boring moment and you're watching everyone's curated amazing everything. They're filtered. Beautiful things, the photos that are the best photos, because that's what anyone's posting. So we're now, like, living and creating our own advertisements, which are, again, the core message is still, you're not okay. You need to do something different. You need to be better. And we're wondering why. We're also kind of miserable and lost and don't know what should be important anymore.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I don't know.

[James Sexton]

It's not that shocking to me.

[Tom Bilyeu]

We're hitting pause for a moment, but there's plenty more ahead, so don't go anywhere. Let's talk about what happens when life gets busy. Your schedule fills up. Deadlines pile on meetings run back to back, and the first thing that falls apart is taking care of yourself. You skip meals because there's no time. You grab whatever's fastest. But running on inconsistent nutrition means inconsistent energy when you need it most. That's where Huel comes in, with two products designed to keep you fueled when you're too busy to think about it. There's HU Black Edition ready to drink. It's a complete meal in a bottle. 35 grams of protein, 27 vitamins and minerals, 0 prep, 0 cleanup. And there's Huel Daily Greens, 42 vitamins and nutrients, 4 grams of fiber. Try it in apple, peach or blueberry flavors. Get 15% off your first order for new customers with code impact@hu impact. Minimum $75 purchase. That's huell.com impact and use code Impact. The solution to almost every business problem you have already exists in your data. But if that data is scattered across different systems, you're just flying blind. Netsuite by Oracle gives you access to those answers. It's the number one AI Cloud ERP, trusted by over 43,000 thousand businesses. It is a unified suite that brings your financials, inventory, commerce, HR and CRM into a single unified source of truth. It intelligently automates routine tasks and delivers actionable insights so you can make fast AI powered decisions with confidence. Now with NetSuite AI connector, you can use the AI of your choice to connect to your actual business data and ask every question you've ever had. Get our NetSuite's free business guide demystifying AI at netsuite.com theory the guide is free to you at netsuite.com theory Again, that's netsuite.com theory I want to talk about energy, one of the most important things in your life. Most high achievers run on caffeine and willpower until their body forces them to stop. But that is not a strategy. There's just a countdown to being tired all the time. Real energy comes from cellular health. And that's exactly what Nandica is built to deliver. This isn't another stimulant disguised as wellness peaks. Nandica is a ceremonial cacao nootropic built with ingredients that actually fortify your cells. Ceremonial grade cacao fermented pu erh tea from 250 year old trees. I'd heard so much about it, I tried it myself. It is fantastic. Full spectrum reishi including spore po. Every ingredient is selected for maximum bioavailability and cellular impact. The result is calm, sustained energy without the jitters or crash. Set your longevity goals in motion. Get 20% [e-mail] impact that's P I Q U E life.com impact thanks for sticking around. Let's get right back into the action. Do you think there is still wisdom in getting married?

[James Sexton]

Marriage is a legal status. It's a contract between you and the government, essentially. Like you and Lisa have a prenup. No, no, no. You do. You do. It was written by the government. It's written by the government and they can change it without your permission.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Fair.

[James Sexton]

Every marriage has a prenup. What's a prenup? A prenup is a rule set. A prenup says in the event that this marriage ends in something other than death. Because every marriage ends, it ends in divorce or death. But every single marriage ends. I hope yours ends in death. What a weird thing to say out loud to a human being, right? Like, I hope you and Lisa end in death. Like, but I mean it.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So does my wife, by the way.

[James Sexton]

Yeah, yeah, she will. Instantly. She means it differently. Yeah, yeah. Like in the same yeah, that's good. Like. Like, right when you're both having sex at the age of 95, the roof caves in and you instantly both die. That's lovely. That's a. Listen, I. You know what? I wish this for you. I hope that this happens. But the truth is, all marriages end. And when they end, there's a rule set applied. Right. So do you not have a will because you don't want to think about death? No, you have a will because you don't want the government to decide what happens to your property. You know, well, you have a prenup. You just decided the government's going to write your prenup, and that's okay. You have the right to do that. By the way, they can change it. Like, it's the most legally significant. Getting married is the most legally significant thing you're going to do in your life other than dying. It changes all of your fundamental rights. It changes your ownership rights. It opts you out of the title system. It changes your estate and inheritance rights. It changes your rights and obligations when it comes to the collection of support from the other person and economic stability. Like, it creates a whole bunch, by the way, you buy a house, you get a HUD one a lead paint. Disclosure, you get married, you get a pamphlet. Did you get anything?

[Tom Bilyeu]

No.

[James Sexton]

Anybody give you a piece of paper? Right. Most people learn legally what they did when they got married. When they're in my office, it's the first time that they learn what actually happened legally. And so, again, like, to me, and I don't say this disrespectfully, I think if you and Lisa didn't marry, I think you'd be as happy as you are now. Like, happy together. Like, I think you love each other. I think it's really amazing to love each other. Look, it's an unfalsifiable premise, I know, but I'm telling you, I only know a couple of happily married people. You're one of them. I got a friend, Chris. I got like a couple. Not many. Not many. I got to think about it. Like, I bet you do, too. If I said to you, how many people are unhappily married or divorced that, you know, it's probably a bigger number than the number of people that, like, oh, my God, they are genuinely happily married. It's true for most people. If you look at that and you go, yeah, you know, like, this is. People are not good at this. Right? But the people that are good at it, people that are genuinely happy with it. I just don't know that the legal status was required for it. I'm not saying it doesn't bolster it in some way. I'm not saying maybe it does. It adds a signifier. Like saying, oh, she's my girlfriend. It's signifying a depth of connection. Like, oh, no, this is someone to be taken seriously. This is my. This is my wife. Right? Like, it's a signifier. But again, like, you know, the best description I ever heard of God is that God is the name we give to the blanket. We put over a mystery to give it shape.

[Tom Bilyeu]

That's very interesting.

[James Sexton]

And so I think, similarly, marriage is a. Is a wall we try to build around a deep connection we have to another person to protect it, to bolster it, to prevent it from falling apart, to prevent it from the thousand natural shocks the flesh is heir to. Right? And all the. All the things that are antagonistic to our bonds and our union, we try to really bolster the thing. It doesn't work very well. It doesn't work very well. People are constantly cheating. People are constantly just taking for granted their connection to this person and letting it fall apart. People are a lot of them, incredibly miserable in their marriages. Now, again, is that in part because once we've built those walls, we go, cool. I don't have to think about that anymore. Like, it's safe now. I'm married. Like, we're married. They're with me. They're good.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I don't think that on women. I don't think you're gonna get that with guys. Let me make a pitch here. Tell me what you think. So the most important book that I've ever read that has impacted my marriage more than anything else was a book called the Power of Myth, written by Joseph Campbell. Campbell, the guy that helped George Lucas write Star Wars. And in it, he puts forward the idea that we don't have enough rituals in our lives anymore. And I can't remember if he says this expressly or this is just what I was going through. And so it landed for me this way. But my memory of it is. He was saying, part of the reason I think the divorce rate is so high is that there's no meaningful transition between not married and married. And so when I think about marriage as an artifact of evolution, like you were saying, the wisdom that's passed down, this is people that are like, okay, wait a second. We understand that the kid has a way better chance of surviving long enough to have kids. If two people come together, they stay together. We know that the human mind has a very fascinating ability to make a concept very tangible. So God is a concept, but, ooh, buddy, does it become very tangible? People will kill for it, die for it, the whole nine. And one of the ways we lock that in is by putting people through a ritual. And so he was going through all these different, like, coming of age rituals used to be a thing and all that stuff. Exactly. So I said, okay, I want to be different the day after I get married than the day before. I love that. And so I went through a ritualistic scarification. I wanted it to be painful. When I tell people it was a tattoo, they always get disappointed. But for me, it's the only tattoo I've ever gotten. It's the only tattoo I will ever get. And I specifically wanted to do something that I didn't want. I did not want a tattoo. I hated needles at the time. Not that I loved.

[James Sexton]

I was going to say if you said you hated tattoos. Yes, we're going to.

[Tom Bilyeu]

You and I are very, very different. But I certainly didn't want to do it. But I wanted to go through something painful, and I wanted a permanent reminder that I'm a different person now.

[James Sexton]

Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

And having that psychology going into it like that going in, saying, okay, listen, barring, you know, certain things, obviously, if my wife was unfaithful or was in some way cruel or abusive or whatever in a way that crosses some line, then sure, I would not stay in a loveless marriage or anything like that. But I wanted to make divorce like an absolute. Like, that is. You're burning the whole thing down. That is not the thing that you do to get rid of termites you don't decapitate. To get rid of the dandruff. Like, this really, really, really needs to be something that we protect. So that thinking in that way sure is more important than the act itself. But there was something about thinking like, okay, this. I need a transition. I need something that demarcates my life before and after. Yeah, I want to treat this as something that's ceremonial. Like, all of those things led up to just walking into the marriage, the actual act of marriage, in a way that was like, I am trying to cement something that's going to be forever. And so when I think about, I think to sum up my thesis on why men and women are going wrong, where the problem lies with modern life in general is that we're no longer living in accordance with the algorithms in our brain. And because of that, like, blank slate beliefs are, like, the biggest violation of the algorithms running in your brain, many, like anybody that is confused as to how different men and women are, need only watch how Lisa interviewed you. So she just recorded an interview with you before. Now if people watch them back to back, they will see very quickly I'm queuing on different things, recording them back to back.

[James Sexton]

I will tell you is I'm getting whiplash because it's so different.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So different.

[James Sexton]

And I just spent a bunch of hours with her in a very different conversation. And this is like the. I, I'm doing contrast therapy right now. Correct. Like, I just got out of the sauna and you are the cold plunge.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Correct.

[James Sexton]

And it's. And I love it. Like, I love it, I love that I do it all the time. But man, I feel that, that difference. Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Now, my wife has masculine traits, I have feminine traits. So we're already closer to the center than most people. So when I think about people that are much farther apart trying to blank slate their way through life, I'm just like, woo, buddy. You are going to be routinely confused because you have certain tendencies, leanings, however you want to think about it, that are pulling you through life. And if you expect the other person to be like you, you're going to be eternally confused. Lisa made no sense to me when I thought she viewed the world the same way that I did.

[James Sexton]

Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

And it was only when I was like, oh, wait, she has a different brain structure. She perceives the world differently than I do. She has slightly different value set than I do. Hormonally is wildly huge piece. So that has, that was really transformative to wake up and say she's not me, but illogical.

[James Sexton]

She just actually is experiencing a different animal.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah. In a totally different way. So I need to figure out, okay, wait a second, what are you going through right now? What is this like for you? To your point? Tell me what being a good husband actually means for you. And I like the way you say it. It's a verb. Ultimately it comes down to a thing that you do. There's no mystery in this, my love. There's only like, you want me to do a thing? What is that thing?

[James Sexton]

But that's what I said when I said there's simplicity and complexity and it's this dance. Right. So like there's so much there to unpack and all of it was really great. And it's a completely different conversation than the one I just had with your wife. But I will say, you know, I would encourage anybody watching this one to watch that one because I have to tell you, like, you're gonna see a very different thing. But what I would say first is, okay, so first to Joseph Campbell, the power of myth. Dial it back even further to what inspired that, which was Carl Jung, man, and his symbols. You know, because, you know, Jordan Peterson, a lot of his stuff is informed by Joseph Campbell. Joseph Campbell informed by Carl Jung. So when we think about Carl Jung and a lot of his theories of the collective unconscious and archetypes and all of those kinds of concepts, and the idea that that which you most need to see is often in the place you most fear looking. That's really where Jung's perspective came from. But he believed rightly. We are creatures of symbol and meaning makers. Like, we're constantly trying to make meaning. And we all know this. No one could dispute that we're meaning makers. Like, we see anything and we immediately start trying to make sense of what's going on here. We start to tell the story of, like, what is this? Like, you see me and you go, okay, he's a lawyer and he's got tattoos, and he's like, what's he trying to say? What's the story he's trying to tell? What can I extrapolate from this? You have like, the, I'm very clean shaven. You have the like, oops, I didn't know I was sexy stubble. You know, like. But we're both doing a thing. Like, we're both doing a thing. And it's a choice. And by the way, even not choosing is a choice. Like, being like, oh, I just don't like this because I don't care. Cool. That's a choice. Like, it's a story you want to tell the world. And that's great. Like, we're all telling stories. We have all these symbols and we want to either wear them or display them. Like, this suit is as much of a symbol as anything on my tattoos, right? Because what is this supposed to say? Theoretically, what a suit says is, I'm taking what I'm doing seriously, right? Like, why do you wear a suit to a wedding? Why do you wear a suit to a job interview? Why do I wear a suit to court? Because I take this seriously. That's the point. And again, I don't know if that's accurate. I don't know that you couldn't create a world where you wear something. Like, if you wear a red hat. You take this very seriously. It's just a symbol. We made it up. Even the words I'm using right now, right when you think about, like, logographic versus simographic writing. If you look at, like, you know, Julian James and, like, the origin of consciousness and the breakdown of the bicameral mind. Like, we. We had this world of. Of sort of infinite symbols, and we had to start reducing it to make meaning and sense of it. You know, And Wittgenstein said, you know, where understanding fails, a word comes to take its place. So. Because we have to try to fit things into these little symbolic boxes so we can explain them. So do I think when you say, like, I wanted to get a tattoo, I wanted to, like, I am changing. This is like a vision quest. Like, I'm going to now be a new person. I'm being. You're being baptized, you know, like, I'm being baptized into marriage. There's this symbol, this symbolic event. That's incredible. I think that's one of the most useful and primal basic things that human beings across time and across cultures do. And by the way, I think a wedding. Like, if you say to me, do I believe in marriage? Like, do I think marriage has value? I think a wedding has a tremendous amount of value. Like, you just described a wedding in the first part of your. Your discussion there. You're not talking about marriage. You're talking about a marriage ceremony, right? As a symbol of the start of a journey, which is a marriage. But a wedding ceremony. Who. Who wouldn't say a wedding ceremony isn't amazing? And I'm not talking about. Because, like, cake is good, and you like little pigs in blankets, although that's pret. And you like to do the chicken dance or whatever it might be. What you're saying is, hey, let's get everyone who was part of our journey in a room all together because they built us. And then let's stand up and say, I found my person. There's 8 billion people in the world. I found my person. I found the person that in this terrifying, dangerous world where we have very little control over a lot of things, I'm going to hold their hand, and they're going to hold mine. And we'll never be alone. We're just going to look out for each other. And you know what? Pain is coming, suffering is coming, but we'll hold each other's hand, and we'll figure it out. And the joy will be that much sweeter because we have each other to share it with. And the pain will be a little softer because we'll have each other to, like, hold on to and to shield each other from. And we'll see each other's blind spots because I can't learn everything I need to know about myself from myself. So I like need someone to help see my blind spots. Ideally someone who really has my back and who I can trust that when they say something it's less for their self interest and more for the long term benefit of our thing. So like, what a great thing to do that in a room and to say, hey guys, everybody, so this is my person. So if you see me like losing the plot, you know, get involved. And by the way, I'm going to wear this, I'm going to wear this ring and I'm going to like, that's going to be a symbol so that everybody knows, oh, I got my person. Like if you're looking for a person, you don't have to look at me because I got mine already, you know, like, these are lovely, valuable, wonderful symbols. Getting married is beautiful. It's incredible. It's fun. Being married is the harder part.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Do you think that there are universal themes as to why 70ish percent of them fail?

[James Sexton]

Yeah, yeah. And I think they're actually really, really simple and really complex. But the simplicity, I think we don't always know what we want. We don't always know how to express it. I don't know about you, but I am still a little bit of a mystery to myself. There's parts of me I don't completely understand and I don't have an unexamined life. Like I've been in therapy a long time. I really try to be reflective. I really try to be a little egoless. When I'm looking at like, hey, what could I do different? What could I do better? Why do I do what I do? Where do I get it wrong? I have no shame of like acknowledging that I have faults and flaws. Like I don't believe we have to be perfect to be perfect. But I still don't really completely understand myself. I sometimes surprise myself with like, wow, why did I do that? Why did I say that? Why do I feel that? Like, you feel how you feel? Like sheer power of will sometimes isn't going to change how you feel. You feel how you feel and you can try to talk yourself out of your feelings, but you feel how you feel. Okay, so if it's that hard to navigate myself and I'm in here with me, how am I going to navigate another person who just like me is having those same struggles figuring themselves out? Now there's a school of thought that would say, well, maybe I'll actually see you more clearly than you see me. If we're intimate enough. Like, if we're honest enough. Like, what is intimacy but the ability to be completely yourself with another person. Kind of naked. I don't mean naked naked. Although it's a piece of it. Like, naked, like, raw. Here's me, here's my good parts, my bad parts, the shit I need to work on. And, you know, we don't know. Discover water probably wasn't a fish. Like, so when you're in it, you don't see it. So maybe there's value in, like, seeing someone, you know, someone who sees you really honestly and fully. I think that would be the highest aspiration in a marriage, would be to be able to say at the end of your life, like, this person helped me become the most authentic version of myself. Like, what a blessing to say at a wedding. Like, I hope Lisa helps you become the most authentic version of yourself. I hope you help her become the most authentic, authentic version of herself.

[Tom Bilyeu]

But for some reason, people don't.

[James Sexton]

Yeah, because again, I just don't find it surprising when people, like, set off on a journey with no map, no training on how to, like, find trails, and no idea where they're actually going, because you're not really allowed to say it in very general terms. Like, and then they get lost and go, I can't believe we're lost. Like, I can't believe you didn't get. Like, that would be shocking if you didn't get lost. Like, it's like getting in a cab and saying, let's go. Where? I'm not sure. Somewhere, you know? How are we gonna get there? Not sure. I don't know. Somewhere, somehow. Like, it doesn't make. Like, we don't talk about marriage as, like, a skill set. We talk about it like, it's this magical thing that you should just be good at. And if you are not, you must be a bad person, or they're a bad person, or you pick the wrong person. They're not your soulmate, you know, Your soulmate. It'd be perfect. Be perfect all the time. And you'd never even have to work at it, you know, because that's the. The two biggest lies about marriage. I think we tell people that marriage is work. Marriage is hard work. No, it. Not necessarily. Like, it's hard work. Like, if you think paying attention is hard work. If you think checking in with a person is hard work. If you think being communicating with someone is hard work, okay, then maybe it's hard work, but, like, it's not be a heart, be a hot tar roofer. That's hard work. You know, like, be a landscape. That's hard work. Like marriage, like quantum physics, hard work, you know, but like marriage, like, I've had people say to me, you know, oh, you know, like, we just moved in together and you know, that's like, hard. That's hard. And I'm like, really? Because I. I remember it being like a lot of putting IKEA furniture together and having sex. Like, that's a lot of what early cohabitation was. So to say, like, it's hard, but also to say it should not be any work, it should be the easiest thing. It should just be effortless. That's equally ignorant. Like, what it really is is that this balance between simplicity and complexity. But again, the fundamental piece is we have a shared vision of where we want to go and we have some clarity together of like, what are the paths to get there? Like, how do we, how do we check in? How do we know, like, when we've lost the plot? Because there are so many ways in a connection with one person that you can, unintentionally, I would even say, like, the things you do to try to make each other happy very often end up destroying the happiness you were trying to create. Like, I'll give you the example of sex because so many people that are in my office, sexual dissatisfaction is a huge piece. She stopped sleeping with me. He's sleeping with his secretary. And by the way, if you get the reason why we're like, every state is now a no fault state pretty much is because the truth's at the bottom of a bottomless pit. Like, you know, we're getting divorced because he cheated on me. No, I cheated on you because you hadn't had sex with me in three years. Why didn't have sex with you in three years? Because you haven't said a kind word to me. Well, I didn't say a kind word to you because all we do is say fight when we talk to each other. I don't know. Like, we're off to the races, man. Whose fault is it then? It's everybody's fault or it's nobody's fault. I don't know. Like, we're never going to get there. But the truth is, like, sex is important. We can all agree if it's not, I don't know that you need to get married. Like, just have a roommate, that's fine. Like, there's a sexual element to marriage. Like, I don't think that should Be a hot take. Like you're saying, I'm going to. Again, even if you were, like, ethically non monogamous or polyamorous, there's a sexual component to marriage.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Is this where you would start if a couple came and said, look, we really want to make this work, but we're sort of on the edge here. Is this like, okay, tool number one, get your sex life right.

[James Sexton]

Yeah, get your sex life right. But I don't think that that means what people think it means. I think people think that means have more sex or, like, have very, like, ritualistic sex where it's, like, you know, tantric and long and make sure that, you know, guy, even though you really want to have, like, just, like, fun, dirty sex, that's a quickie that you have to, like, nurture, because women are. Women are ovens and men are microwaves. And, like, we love that stuff. Like, we love those axioms. We want to turn everything into a roomy poem. I get it. But, you know, the truth is, like, it's actually, like, the example I give about sex is this. So you start dating someone. That's how every relationship starts, right? We meet. We meet on the street. You know, I meet her, she meets me. We catch each other's eye. Whatever it might be. We secretly think, like, ooh, that might be fun. This might be someone I'd want to have sex with. Or this might be someone who looks interesting and I'd like to get to know. Whatever. Whatever. Whatever progression it is that you feel. So now we start seeing each other, whether that happens quickly or slowly. But at some point, we have sexual connection, right? A sexual connection becomes part of our relationship. Now, chances are, societally, we're not a virgin, right? We're not a virgin. We are kids today. Kids today are. Their body counts are high. Okay, Kids. Well, no, the kids know kids.

[Tom Bilyeu]

No.

[James Sexton]

Yes. Yes. I'm sorry, when you say kids, yes, I. You're absolutely, absolutely right. Generationally Galloway has talked a lot about this. A lot of good people have talked about this, and they're absolutely right. Like the current digital generation, Gen Alpha. Yeah, they are. They are not having a bunch of sex. Like, but go in the other. Go a generation back. And it was like, holy cow, millennials got a body count. Okay? So either way. And even, by the way, even if you haven't had sex, you consume pornography. That's a big. Like, the proliferation of pornography is gigantic. So you have some frame of reference, whether it's por or actual sexual experience or sexual experience inspired or educated. By porn, which is another variety. It's another animal. Because if that's your sex education is watching porn, you are going to have a really weird and distorted view of what sex is supposed to look like and be. And if you shape your sex around porn, you're going to make a very specific kind of sexual connection. But let's just step all that back and say, okay, so you get with a person, because this is an example of, I think, people sabotaging their own happiness with the absolute best of intentions. So just saying to a couple, you got to get your sex life right. What the hell does that mean? So what it means is, I think is think about what's really going on here. So you start having a sexual relationship with someone, what do you do? You use your past experience or the education that you have, wherever it came from, to try to please them. It's the purpose of sex is to please yourself and please the other person. And when you're. You want to be a good lover, so what do you do? You throw everything. You know, you throw every trick you can at the person, right? Everything Any girl you ever were with liked. You're gonna try it. Oh, she liked this, so maybe she'll like this. And then pretty quickly you figure out, okay, here's like, the six things she really likes. And here's like, she figures out pretty quickly. Here's like, the five, six things he really likes. This is easy. This is great. This is great. And then what do you do? Play the hits. Yeah, play the hits, man. Come on. Are you gonna see Bruce Springsteen? Like, I'm not here to hear, like, acoustic Ghost of Tom Joad. Like Playbourne to Run. Play Thunder Road, like Playborn in the usa like, play the hits. We had a tight schedule here. Like, let's go. Let's have. Let's do the best stuff. And by the way, such good intentions. I want to please you. You want to please me. Let's have, like, let's do the best stuff that we know the other person likes. What do we just do? We just made a routine. We just made a routine. And now if we have an environment where we've been told you're supposed to be naturally good at this, it shouldn't require preventative maintenance. You should just be good at this. Shouldn't even have to talk about it. It should just be easy. Well, now, like, you're kind of in this routine, so when you're in a routine, when you deviate from the routine, it's, like, kind of odd. And sometimes it Feels weird, or it feels a little disconcerting, right? Like, when you go to Europe, you know, you're six hours ahead. Feels a little weird. You're a little upside down for a few minutes. You know, I just came in from the East Coast. I'm a little upside down right now. It feels later. So you don't. You avoid that conflict. You just go, okay, you know what? Let's just, like, we'll leave it. You know, we'll leave it. Okay, well, now you're becoming dissatisfied with your sex life because it's become routine. Even with the best of intentions, novelty now starts to look really good. Because when you've only been eating, like, your favorite meal, if you ate it every single day for every, eventually you start to burn out on it. So I think it becomes, now, again, there's a solution to that. So when you'd say to someone, hey, you're in a relationship. You got to get your sex life right, I would say it's even broader than that. Just say, listen, why wouldn't you just check in on a regular basis? Build this into your relationship. Like, in my book, I talk a lot about really simple, basic things you could do that cost nothing. Like, once a week, sending an email to the other person or going on a walk and talk together for half an hour, where you just say, tell me three things I did this week that made you feel loved. Tell me three things this week I could have done better. Tell me three things I did this week that kind of gave you the ick. Tell me three times this week that you looked at me and you were like, I want to have sex with him. Like, what were three things I was doing? And by the way, you'd probably be surprised by the answers, because, like you said, they're a different creature.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Oh, yeah. Men will be shocked.

[James Sexton]

They'd be shocked. Like, I work in an office that has a lot of women, particularly in the front. So I have, like, a lot of administrative assistants and paralegals that are women. I feel like Margaret Mead sometime, like, looking at the Yanamomo tribe. Like, I'm sitting in the conference room eating my lunch, and I can hear them talking to each other, and stuff comes out of their mouth. I'm like, like, really? You got, like, the stuff they notice that we don't even like, the stuff they're attracted to, the stuff they're repelled by that we thought they liked. Like, it's crazy. It's a different animal. And so. And again, that's, like, not a popular thing to Say now to say men and women are different. If you even just say that sentence, men and women are different. Oh, my God. Like, it's blasphemy. It's heresy. So. And we wonder why we're having a hard time. Like, I genuinely think that if we built into our relationship some basic. My book is about preventative maintenance. That's all it's about. Like, if you're in my office, it's probably too late. Like, you know, as a person who's been in the nutrition space longer than most, it is a lot easier to maintain your health and your weight than to get really heavy and really sick and then try to fix it. I'm not saying if you've become obese and you've got type 2 diabetes, give up. You screwed up. You're done. No, there's so much you can do. The comeback stories are amazing people. The human body is so resilient. It's amazing. But we all know it's a whole lot easier to maintain than to let something fall apart and then try to build it. So with relationships, here's what's amazing about marriage. We're starting in the same place. There were 8 billion people. We chose each other. We've decided to do this specific job. We both want to be good at it. That's the story we're writing. That's the simplicity. Now, from minute one, what are we going to do to shore it up? Because again, if you don't have 10 minutes a week to devote to checking in on your marriage, then you need at least a few hours a week, right? It's like what Thich Nhat Hanh said. You know, he was talking to a CEO who said, you know, he said you should start a meditation practice. And he said, well, how would I meditate? He says, take 15 minutes a day and meditate. And he said, well, I don't have 15 minutes to meditate. He said, okay, then you need an hour. And it's true. Like, I think we need to build this in. And if you. If you can't be bothered or. Well, I'm afraid we don't have that kind of communication. Well, that's the problem, man. That's the problem. Like, the problem is that if we're in a place where we can't. Like, when I talk to people about prenups, they're like, ah, you know, like, it's a hard conversation. If you can't have hard conversations with this person, marry them, I beg you, because it's going to end poorly. Like, you have to be able to have hard conversations with this person. You have to be able to. To. To have a little, like, fearlessness, you know, I think you have to be brave to be married. Like, you have to be brave to be married. Well, and. And the mistake we make in this culture, I think, is thinking that bravery is just like a virtue that you either have or you don't have. So you're either brave or you're scared. Like, I think it's only brave if you're scared. Like, if you're not scared, it's not brave. Like, it's brave when you're scared and you do it anyway. And so I think that's what makes this harder than it needs to be, is that we've taken away any structure. We've never taught anybody very basic, practical things. Like if you left your wife a note every morning or a couple times a week on the mirror or on the table where, you know, she does that, just said, I married the prettiest girl in the world. What does this take, 10 seconds? 10 seconds, 20 seconds to do something like that? What does it cost? Nothing. Cost nothing. Who wouldn't want to get that note? Wouldn't you want to if she left you a note saying, you're the hottest guy I know? Like, who wouldn't want to get that note? Who wouldn't want to get. Like, I've jokingly said before, and I've been pilloried for it. I've said that nudes are for men. What? Flowers are for women.

[Tom Bilyeu]

You get pilloried for that.

[James Sexton]

Yeah, yeah. Because why do I have to send nudes that men are there? Well, not all men like nudes. Okay? Like, really. Like, okay, you're right. But like most men I know, I've never had a man I know, and I've never myself got a nude sent to me by someone I was at and went, oh, who's got time for this? Like, I don't. You know, this is ridiculous. Like, I don't need that right now. I'm busy. Like, I'm always happy. Correct. Like, 53 years old, I have never seen a woman take her shirt off that I didn't feel like I want to applaud. Like, it just makes me happy, you know? So we're kind of easy creatures. Like, and I don't know any woman, by the way. Like, I don't think penis pictures have the same effect on women.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I am sad to report they're not.

[James Sexton]

Yeah, they're not. And. And I can tell you because working in an Office full of women. If you send unsolicited dick photos, everyone is gonna see them. Like all of the women in the office are gonna see them. And by the way, if you send unsolicited ones, you're kind of opening yourself up to it. If a woman sends you a confidential private picture that you've solicited from her and you show it to people, you're a villain as far as I'm concerned. But if somebody sends you something unsolicited, fair game. Fair game. You know, so. But again, what, what is the female equivalent of nudes? It's attention, it's praise. It's, you know, it's something that acknowledges that you're seen, that you're valued, that you're loved, that you're important.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So how hard is any of this self evident? I'm shocked that that is controversial.

[James Sexton]

So besides the guy who's been married for 20 something years, like, yeah, it could be that you're good at a thing and maybe people didn't have to teach you it.

[Tom Bilyeu]

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