Divorce Lawyer Shares Why He Still Believes Trying To Find True Love Is Worthwhile
Lasting relationships make being alive less awful — and he has some sage advice on how to create them.
Dean Drobot | Shutterstock There are certainly lots of reasons to believe that finding true love isn't worth the effort. Just dip a toe into the online dating pool for 15 minutes and you'll come away convinced love is dead.
And when it comes to people who have soured on the very notion of lasting love and soulmates and all the most romantic flights of fancy we all, at one time or another, can't help but succumb to, you'd expect divorce lawyers to be the most negative. Not so, at least in the case of one.
Divorce lawyer James Sexton still believes in true love despite his knowledge of its rarity.
Sexton has been a divorce attorney for over 20 years and frequently shares his perspectives on his work on social media, in podcasts, and in other media. He's got a fascinating perspective on the whole thing (we've featured him here several times), a potent mix of heartfelt empathy, and unvarnished realism about how rare a lasting marriage really is.
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We are, of course, living in something of a golden era of divorce. Anecdotally, at least, the divorce rate seems to have skyrocketed since the pandemic, especially among women fed up with the unequal burden of household and child-rearing work.
Divorces seem to be spiking again since the election, too.
Given all that, Sexton — who once said that the institution of marriage is so unlikely to arrive at a happy ending that it "literally fits the legal definition of negligence" — is about the last person you'd expect to believe in true love.
But in a recent appearance on Steven Bartlett's "The Diary of a CEO" podcast, Sexton says that while finding true, lasting love may be more akin to winning the lottery than the near-universal experience we all hope it to be, it's still worth looking for.
Sexton believes true love gives meaning and beauty to the inherent darkness of life, making it a 'worthwhile investment.'
"If you've ever met someone who is happily married over a long period of time," Sexton told Bartlett, "[they've] won the lottery. Their lives are just so much better."
In his characteristically blunt way, Sexton went on to tell the simple truth about life that so many of us are so afraid to acknowledge.
"Life is terrifying, and it's brutal — and it ends. It invariably ends. We're all gonna die! Everyone we love's gonna die," he told Bartlett. "We're playing a game you can't win to the utmost."
Finding love and a partner to navigate those slings and arrows with, he said, is one of the most beautiful things he can think of about this difficult experience of being alive despite how often it doesn't last.
"To have a partner in that, someone who you can hold their hand and go, 'you know, when you're scared, I'll be here for you, and when I'm scared, you'll be here for me,'" he said. "What a gorgeous thought that is. What a beautiful thought that is. What a worthy pursuit that is."
Sexton said the secret to finding true love all comes down to one thing: Being willing to be uncomfortable.
Sexton is uniquely positioned, of course, to speak on what makes a relationship last — or at least what makes one crash and burn. The main thing, he told Bartlett, is partners who are willing to honestly and candidly face their own and each other's faults. As he put it, "You'll help me see my blind spots, and I'll help you see yours."
But that requires something most of us try to avoid at all costs: "You gotta be uncomfortable once in a while," he said. And being avoidant about that vulnerability, as so many of us are, is often the death knell of a relationship.
"You gotta tell each other something other than what the other person wants to hear once in a while," Sexton went on to say. But that often terrifying honesty and vulnerability leads to the key to a resilient relationship.
"The payoff is real connection, keeping real intimacy, keeping your partner happy and satisfied with you," Sexton said, "so that the thought of splitting up or running off with somebody else is just a fleeting thought" rather than feeling like it's a solution.
None of this is easy work, of course — but basically nothing good in life is. As Sexton sagely put it to Bartlett, "I think the core truth I've learned in my life is that the hard thing to do and the right thing to do are usually the same thing."
That's one of the best pieces of advice any of us could get, really, but Sexton better be careful about doling it out so generously. If we all start implementing it, he'll be out of business within a week!
John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.