til death do us part when we get married
we make sows to love to honor to forsake
all others or as a friend of mine put it
not to leave dirty socks all over the
house we may fall short of some of our
promises some of the time but one that
will always hold true is that first one
till death do us part
because spouses are bound together by
their decisions in marriage and in
divorce so a mentor of mine once told me
you should always marry your second
husband first
what did that mean it didn't mean that
mr. right is somehow waiting behind door
number two it meant that if you want to
understand what makes a marriage work
you should think about how a marriage
ends divorce makes extremely explicit
what the tacit rules of marriage are and
everyone should understand those rules
because doing so can help us build
better marriages from the beginning I
know it doesn't sound very romantic but
sometimes the things we do out of love
can be the very things that make it hard
for that love to last I am a family law
professor I have taught students I've
been an attorney I'm a mediator and I've
also been divorced and I'm now happily
married to my actual second husband the
reason that I think this is so important
is that I think everyone should be
having some of these very painful
conversations that divorce people
experience these are painful
conversations about what we contributed
what we owe what we are willing to give
and what we give up and also what's
important to us those conversations
should be happening in a good marriage
not after it is broken because when when
you wait until it's broken it's too late
but if you have them early on they can
actually help build a better marriage
three ideas that I want to put on the
table for you to consider one
sacrifice should be thought of as a fair
exchange - there's no such thing as free
childcare and three what's yours
probably becomes ours so let me talk
about each of these ideas the first one
sacrifice should be a fair exchange take
the example of Lisa and Andy Lisa
decides to go to medical school early in
the marriage and Andy works to support
them and Andy works night shifts in
order to do that and he also gives up a
great job in another city he does this
out of love but of course he also
understands that Lisa's degree will
benefit them both in the end but after a
few years Andy becomes neglected and
resentful and he starts drinking heavily
and Lisa looks at her life and she looks
at Andy and she thinks this is not the
bargain I wanted to make a couple of
years go by she graduates her medical
school and she files for a divorce so in
my perfect world some kind of marriage
mediator would have been able to talk to
them before Lisa went to medical school
and at that point that mediator might
have asked how exactly does fair
exchange work what does it look like in
your marriage what are you willing to
give and what are you willing to oh so
in a divorce Lisa now probably is going
to owe Andy financial support for years
and Andy no amount of financial support
is going to make him feel compensated
for what he gave up and the lost
traction in his career if the two of
them had thought about their split early
on what might have gone differently well
it's possible that Lisa would have
decided that she would take loans or
work a part-time job
in order to support her own tuition so
that Andy wouldn't have had to bear the
entire burden for that and Andy might
have decided to take that job in that
other City and maybe the two of them
would have commuted for a couple of
years while Lisa finished her degree so
let's take another couple Emily and Deb
they live in a big city they have two
children they both work Emily gets a job
in a small town and they decide to move
there together and Deb quits her job to
look after the children full-time dad
leaves behind an extended family her
friends and a job that she really liked
and in that small town Deb starts to
feel isolated and lonely and ten years
later Deb has an affair and things fall
apart now the marriage mediator who
would have come in before they moved and
before Deb put her job might have asked
them what do your choices about
childcare do to the obligations you have
to each other how do they affect your
relationship because you have to
remember that there is no such thing as
free childcare if the two of them had
thought about their split beforehand
what would have gone differently well
maybe Deb would have realized a little
better how much her family and her
friends were important to her precisely
in what she was taking on which is
full-time Parenthood
perhaps Emily in weighing the excitement
of the new job offer might have also
thought about what that would mean for
the cost to Deb and what would be odd to
Deb as a result of her taking on
full-time parenthood so let's go back to
Lisa Andy Lisa had an inheritance from
her grandmother before the marriage and
when they got married they bought a home
and Lisa put that inheritance toward
down payment on that home and then Andy
of course worked to make
the mortgage payments and all of their
premarital and marital property became
joined that inheritance is now marital
property so in a split what's gonna
happen they're gonna have to sell the
house and split the proceeds or one of
them can buy the other out so this
marriage mediator if they had talked to
them before all of this happened then
that person would have asked what do you
want to keep separate and what do you
want to keep together and how does that
choice actually support the security of
the marriage because you have to
remember that what's yours
probably will become ours unless you
actually are mindful and take steps to
do otherwise so if they had thought
about their split maybe they would have
decided differently maybe Lisa would
have thought maybe the inheritance can
stay separate and saved for a day when
they might actually need it and maybe
the mortgage that they took on wouldn't
have been as onerous and maybe Andy
wouldn't have had to work so hard to
make those payments and maybe he would
have become less resentful maybe they
would have lived in a smaller house and
been content to do that the point is if
they had had a divorce conscious
discussion about what to keep separate
their marriage might have been more
connected and more together too often in
marriage we make sacrifices and we
demand them without reckoning their
costs but there is wisdom in looking at
the price tags attached to our marital
decisions in just the way that divorce
law teaches us to do what I want is for
people to think about their marital
bargains through the lens of divorce and
to ask how is
marriage a sacrifice but in exchange of
sacrifice how do we think about our
exchange second how do we think about
childcare and deal with the fact that
there is no such thing as free childcare
how do we deal with the fact that think
some things can be separate and some
things can be together and if we don't
think about it then it will all be part
of the joint joint enterprise so
basically what I want to leave you with
is that in marriage or divorce people
should think about the way that till
death do us part marriage is forever
thank you
[Applause]
[Music]