What Actually Predicts Divorce, and What Women Really Want in a Partner — ft. James Sexton

Divorce attorney James Sexton told Scott Galloway that the most reliable predictor of divorce isn't infidelity or a single blow-up fight. It is something far quieter: a slow, almost imperceptible disconnection. “People get divorced and the relationships fall apart the same way that I think Thomas Wolfe said people go bankrupt,” Sexton explained. “Very slowly and then all at once.” Over 25 years in the trenches, Sexton has watched marriages fail from the inside, and he argues that the lessons for keeping a relationship together come not from aspirational advice but from understanding how things actually break.

The Granola and the Blow Job: How Small Acts of Atrophy Predict Divorce

Sexton illustrated the mechanism of disconnection with a story about a client. She was a put-together woman in her 30s, divorcing a successful finance guy. Outside the courthouse, Sexton asked when she knew the marriage was over. She told him about a specific granola she used to put in her yogurt every morning, sold only at one Whole Foods. Her husband used to buy it for her without being asked, without seeking credit. “He would just do it,” Sexton recalled. “And she said it made her always feel so loved.” Then one day, the granola ran out, and he never replaced it. Sexton asked if there was anything similar on her end. Without missing a beat, she said, “Yeah, blow jobs.” She used to give them spo