The titled number one divorce lawyer has opened up about why plenty of marriages end up failing.
James Sexton is a renowned American attorney who practices exclusively in divorce and family law in the New York area. He often discusses divorce-related issues and even has books out on how to prevent it from happening.
And it’s fair to say the legal expert has seen his fair share of shockers, having previously revealed some of the wild demands he’s come across in prenup agreements.
With over 25 years spent ‘guiding couples through heartbreak and separation’, Sexton has certainly seen both the good and the ugly of human relationships. When appearing on the Jay Shetty Podcast, he spoke about just why about nearly half of marriages tend to end in divorce.
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The lawyer said it’s a ‘frightening statistic’ and believes it ‘actually creates the legal supposition that marriage is a negligent activity’.
Sexton went on to explain: “In the law, we have this idea of negligence and recklessness. So negligence is a failure to perceive a substantial, but high, likelihood of harm.
“And recklessness is a conscious regard for a substantial and unjustifiable risk of harm.”
He pointed out that the argument could be made that if something is about half of the time ending in pain and heartbreak then ‘it’s actually reckless to do it’.
Sexton continued: “So divorce is clearly a failure of marriage to sustain.”
But if so many people are separating, then he said we have to consider: “How many people are unhappy with the decision they made to marry but stay together for the children? Or because they don’t want to give away half their belongings?”
So, as he added in the likelihood of that as well as people who may stay together because they’re conservative, it could be that there’s a failure rate of ‘70 percent or so’.
“That to me is just shocking,” Sexton added, “it’s stunning.”
He says marriage and people who remarry after divorce says a lot about our ‘need for that connection’ and how ‘important it is to us as humans’ despite it being somewhat of a ‘negligent activity’.
“But the unfortunate news is that is a very high fail rate by any regard,” he added.
However, Sexton pointed out that it’s considered ‘terribly rude’ to mention this reality when people say they’re going to get married.
“But it isn't pessimistic if you look at the numbers,” he said. And I actually think it's an interesting thought exercise for people to have – ‘Why am I getting married? What is the problem to which marriage is a solution?’”
Topics: Sex and Relationships
Jess Battison