How to Stay in Love: A Divorce Lawyer's Guide to Staying Together

When is the last time you and your spouse discussed what it specifically means to be “happy” and how you each define that term? When was the last time you discussed, in specific terms, what a “satisfying” sex life is for each of you? These should be conversations you look forward to! They’re about being happy and about fucking, for fuck’s sake!

To win an argument, regardless of the time, preparation, and passion I’ve invested in it, is much harder when the person receiving it is disinclined to respond favorably—or, worse, bristles at what I’m saying regardless of the merits. I try to aim my message at whoever the hearer thinks they are or aspire to be—or, in pop psychology–speak, the pers

Most of my professional efforts are spent figuring out what “victory” looks like for my clients. Where does she want to be five, ten, twenty years from now?

When you talk to your partner, who exactly are you talking to? Who you think he is? Who you want him to be? Who she thinks she is? Who she wants to be?

“Frame,” by the way, is not a euphemism for “manipulate.” It’s not “spin,” or dishonesty. It means accessing another way to look at things—hopefully, a constructive, aspirational way.

Often when we speak to people, we speak far too candidly to who they are, not who they want to be. Want to persuade someone? Speak to who they aspire or imagine themselves to be, not to who they actually are.

If I’m to be the most effective communicator I can be as a divorce attorney, it’s imperative that I know my audience. Who is this person? What are her goals in this interaction? What does she really need from me at this moment? Those are three distinct questions whose answers help me to effectively communicate, so let’s look at each one individuall

well. If you’re arguing about something that’s happened and can’t be undone without the aid of a time machine, really make sure it’s worth having the argument.

Don’t lie. Or if you’re going to lie, don’t lie to yourself. The most dangerous lies are the ones we tell ourselves. We don’t want to look at the role our own behaviors play in our failings (in our successes, sure), so we tend, by my observation, to claim responsibility for our wins and blame the losses on conditions beyond our control or on the fa