April 21, 2025 • 31 mins
Welcome back to your favorite podcast, Chiquis and Chill! Today, we’re diving into pretty big topics: marriage, divorce and pre-nups. I’m bringing on seasoned divorce attorney Kristina Royce, the Los Angeles Co-Chair of the Matrimonial and Family Practice at the law firm BLANKROME. We’ll talk about everything from what you should know before tying the knot, what a pre-nup actually is, and we’ll even hear some real-life examples.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hello, everyone, Thanks for tuning in to Cheeky's and Chill,
your favorite podcast, and I just wanted to start off
by saying, I know that there are a lot of
other podcasts out there, so I really appreciate you guys
choosing to listen to mine.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
I love you guys very much. Okay, so today's episode is.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Going to be a really interesting one because we're going
to be talking about marriage, divorce, and prenups, which I
know are super controversial, and I'm bringing on a seasoned
divorce attorney.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Her name is Christina Royce.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
She's the Los Angeles co chair of the matrimonial and
family practice at the law firm Blank Rome. She's also
one of Hollywood's go to divorce lawyers, so you know
she has seen it all. And just a REMINDERR, this
is not legal advice and you should consult with a
qualified professional if you have any questions related to this episode.
So with that being said, Hi Christina, thank you so
(00:54):
much for being here.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
I'm so excited to speak to you. How are you.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
I'm doing well? How are you?
Speaker 2 (00:59):
I'm good, I'm happy, a good day.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
I am so I have so many questions because I've
been divorced before and I'm now remarried and thank goodness,
happily married. But you just never know what can happen,
you know. Okay, So what is the biggest misconception about
divorce you think?
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Well, I think, you know, for I think for a
lot of people, it could feel like really scary, and
it can feel overwhelming, and it can feel like daunting,
and they feel like it's like the end of their life.
And I think that a lot of people realize that
sometimes that marriage is not the right situation, and then
later on they signed a real true happiness being outside
(01:42):
of a bad relationship. Like, look, you got remarried. You know,
you've found a different love in your life. But it's scary.
It's a scary process to go through it. Right, there's
a lot of unknowns relating to it.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Yeah, I mean I feel like divorce can bring out
the worst in people.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
That's definitely true.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Right.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
I give a lot of people. I tell everybody, like
put post its everywhere, like be your best self through
this process. Be your best self through this process, because
it's really hard. People get gas lit, they're nervous, they're
financially scared. Right, it's really an overwhelming process.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
It is.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
I know my sister's going through it right now, and
even when I want to give her advice, I don't
even know what to say. I mean, because I feel
like they have children together, so they should have the
peace amongst themselves. But things are just getting so out
of hand, and all you can do as a big
sister is just step back and say, okay, like hopefully
let the attorneys that the professionals do you know, guide
(02:46):
you because it's difficult, Like they say, you know, you've
been with this person for so many years, but you
don't really know who they are until you're getting divorced.
I mean, have you seen really that there could be
a divorce that's like amicable, like really or does it
always have a very like nasty ending to it.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
I would say that the majority of my cases have
a more amicable approach to their divorce.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Oh okay.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
I think they realize that they have kids together and
are going to be in each other's lives. A lot
of them realize that the marriage may not be the
right you know, it may not be their right union.
But for the most part, and I maybe it's kind
of the clients that I get or the kind of
approach I take. We really try to take a more
amicable approach to the to the situation and work more collaboratively,
(03:34):
which I think it reduces fear. You know, there's not
a lot of surprises during the divorce case. We do
things in an orderly fashion so everyone feels comfortable through
the process. And I do think that that how we
approach the divorce case really helps them launch later on
as co parents.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
I love that and I appreciate that, and also I
think it also saves the client money, right because it
could get expensive, especially how expensive can a divorce be.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
It can be expensive. I mean, it depends on the issue. Sometimes.
You know, I'm really good at I'm a big believer
in throwing money to a situation. If it gets certainty,
if it gets peace of mind, if it makes the
kids situation better, if it makes like getting rid of
the lawyers, if it means moving on, I think there's
value to that. And you know, obviously with degrees, but
(04:27):
I think there's value to paying money to the other
side as opposed to paying all this money to the
lawyers if you can get it done right. And there's
some gray areas in the family law. So it's nice
to just being able to like solve those differences by
you know, with having some financial resources being paid.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
So do you feel now that you you know, you
said that you've been practicing for twenty plus years, do
you feel that a divorce is on the rise.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
I think that I'll say this. I think my business
is definitely recession proof. It depends, you know, when I
think certain things are difficult. I think that really shines
in whether a marriage is the strong marriage or something
that maybe needs to move on. I think it's been
pretty consistent, you know. I think there's times where a
(05:18):
lot of people get divorced after their kids launch and
go to college, because maybe that's an easier time for
people to move on. I think there's times where people
get married and are married only for short periods and
it turned out it's not the right thing. Maybe they
have different views about children or things like that. So
I don't I can't tell you it's really on the
rise or not.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
You know.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
I also look and here here's my situation, and we
can talk about this that I've been married almost thirty years.
I very much believe in the in the concept of
marriage and the union of a marriage. I just look
at it maybe a little differently. Look, I believe marriage
really involves three different buckets, right. I think we need
(05:57):
our sexual intimacy and need connect and sexually, I think
we need to feel connected emotionally, right and have that
emotional connection. But I also think there needs to be
what I call financial intimacy, or I feel like people
need to feel like they can have these conversations about
finances that are sometimes difficult to have, Like, you know,
(06:19):
there's a lot of people come to me and they
don't know anything about like I don't know how much
we make, I don't know how much is in the bank.
I don't know what kind of like support I would get.
I don't know what kind of circumstances we live. I
know we live X, Y and Z, and we do
all these things, and that's a really like that's a
lack of partnership, right, And so I think having that
financial intimacy means that we're we need to be more
(06:42):
partners with one another as much as we need to
have like the sexual intimacy and the emotional intimacy, but
we need to have that connection financially.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
I agree, And that's something that I learned this time around,
that it's not seeing it as yours in mine, it's ours.
We're a team, and it just changes everything again. Also,
couple's therapy has helped quite a bit, you know, because
it's two different people coming together and we have to
understand we're not going to think the same, we're not
(07:13):
going to have always the same opinion, and we have
to be okay with that. But how can we work
through it? You know, especially that the financial part and
aspect of marriage, it could be, like you said, very
very uncomfortable sometimes conversation, but very necessary.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
And look, there's a lot of people who I think
I think there is a lot of people who get
married later in life now, right, and they have already
have established businesses or assets, and they may be coming
into a marriage and not everything's going to be equal, right,
and because they already built up there a lot of
their net worth, and so they need to have those
conversations that not everything that I own as of the
(07:50):
data marriage becomes ours. Like maybe there's things that do
become ours, and there's things that are mine because I
either inherited assets or I really worked hard before marriage
to get that. But those are the things that people
need to have these conversations of. So so there's an understanding,
right yeah. My husband gets mad at me because I say,
your marriage is a lot like a business, right, Like
(08:12):
you know, we wouldn't you and I wouldn't go into
business together without saying, Okay, you know, what are you
going to contribute to the business? What am I going
to contribute to the business? How are we going to
handle that? And like the same should be true with
a marriage, like how are we going to handle all
these finances? And I think there's a there's a business
aspect of it. My husband's like, you're always a unromantic Chris.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
You know, it's so funny that you say that because
I just watched I came across a video on social
media last night about a man speaking about his marriage
and he's he seems to be very successful man and
he's been married for fifteen plus years and he said
that his secret is approaching his marriage like his businesses,
sitting down on a weekly basis and talking about Okay,
(08:56):
what happened this weekend and what can you do?
Speaker 2 (08:58):
What will I do?
Speaker 1 (08:59):
And it's how would you go into a business meeting
do that in your marriage, and I had never seen
it like that, And now in this confirmation, now that
you're saying it, I'm like, Okay, that makes sense.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
Yeah, there's definitely some truth to that. Yeah, you know,
like you just have to have those but those are
some of its hard conversations and it's not easy, you know.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Yeah, And you have to be open and able and
willing to have those uncomfortable conversations. And that's what I
learned before. It was like, it should just be easy,
it shouldn't be so hard. The thing is is communication
is key. And I always tell you guys here on
the pod communication, especially in your relationship, in any relationship,
romantic business, et cetera. And Christina, do you have any
(09:46):
tips or advice on how to reduce the chance of
getting divorced?
Speaker 3 (09:49):
Well, I think it goes back to something what we're
talking about. I think that it is really important that
we get better at communicating, that we understand that. I
think people come in with different needs, Like I may
be much more of a sensitive person. My husband may
be more of a reactive person. Like I have to
understand that he can be like that and I can
be different, Like we're genetically made up differently, right, And
(10:13):
so I think having those communications and talking about it
is important. I think it's really important not to be
reactive to things and to be more responsive to things.
I think therapy is a really helpful thing that if
people need really help and guidance on how to communicate,
I think that's helpful. I think sharing information, you know,
(10:35):
even if someone comes and says, let's assume they came
into the marriage with fifty million dollars, right, and they
had all this money before marriage, it's sometimes important to
share with the other side. Look, look, I came into
this marriage with these these assets. This is what I
came into. Like, that doesn't mean it's all going to
be ours, and I want us to understand that, right, Like,
(10:57):
that doesn't mean we can't do things and enjoy certain
things together. But as there's more transparency and accountability and conversation,
I think it really helps marriages.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Yeah, I think you're right.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
I mean, in which brings me to my next question,
which is about prenups. Do you believe do you recommend
highly recommend prenups?
Speaker 3 (11:19):
So I hate the word prenup because I think everybody
has such a bad connotation about it. I wish we'all
called them partnership agreements because I think it as I stop,
a softer way of like we're entering into a partnership
with one another. Yeah. I think some are very necessary
because there are some really gray areas when it comes
to family law. And I think some people approach a
(11:42):
marriage like a business and they want to make sure
that if this business didn't work or this marriage didn't work,
that there's clear understanding of what's ours and what's going
to be shared and what's not ours. Right. So like,
for example, if I were to get married, if the
listim I was not married, and I got married to right,
I have built twenty eight years of building my law
(12:04):
practice right and building my reputation right. And then during
the marriage, I don't want there to be messiness about
whether the community got an interest in my law practice
or not. You know, I've worked really hard to get
to this point. Up to this point, So I may
want an agreement that says, look, during the marriage or
I may share all my income and all my income
(12:24):
can be community, but I want to make sure my
law practice will always be separate property and not and
have clear rules on it.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Right.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
Yeah, So there's people who feel that way, and I
think an agreement can really be helpful that way. I
can also see there's a lot of times where I
will get people to come to me that are part
of a family enterprise. Like you know, their family has
built these big businesses for generations and they want to
make sure that those businesses stay separate property right, And
(12:54):
so there's these things in agreements that we can protect
on that. You know, in family law, we have what's
called alimony. You know, if you get separated, there's alimony
after a divorce. And California is very big on alimony.
It's a high high state, Okay. And some people are like, look,
I've been married before. I payin rat alimony to my
(13:15):
ex wife. I don't want to have to be in
a situation where I'm paying all this money again. And
they may want limitations on that right, and they may
want protections on that and those are things that are
common in agreements. Similarly, I have also done a number
of agreements where we are building more community for the
(13:35):
parties than there would be. So there can be a
big benefit to having an agreement. And so like, for example,
I'll give you an example, let's assim come someone comes
in and they're worth one hundred million dollars and they're
a big trust fund kid, right, and they're not working
during the marriage. They're just worth one hundred million dollars. Right.
They a marriage. And we've done a lot of agreements
where we've built some of that taken some of that money,
(13:57):
and we've created more community or wealth from it. Right.
And we've done more where we've can like build more
partnerships during the marriage. And what we do is we
call we transmute or we change the character of the money.
So there's a lot of different things that we can
do in the agreement. Some can be very beneficial to
the other spouse, some can be less beneficial. I don't
(14:19):
really get involved in my colleagues, don't get involved in
agreements that are like so incided that it would be
a disaster and divorce. I mean, I just won't get
involved in those kinds of things.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Yeah, I think I think just being fair and keeping
that in mind, I think that is a huge thing.
And I feel like I'm getting that sense from you,
and I love that where you're just fair and you're like, hey,
I want everything to just be peaceful.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
There's no need to argue and.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
Take away the gray area, like let's have it clean
and simple. And you know, I'm not somebody if like,
you know, you have to understand, if you're forty years
old and you're marrying a sixty year old who's already
established themselves and already gone through a divorce, they may
want something really simple, easy and clean. They may not
want another big, protracted divorce case. And you're forty years old.
(15:06):
That's something you have to understand with the person that
you're marrying at that point, right, And that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
I agree, I completely agree, because I just feel the
partnership agreements, you know, definitely bring a peace of mind.
I mean, for me, I have one, and he had
no issue. He said, that's totally fine. I get it,
didn't give me any issues. I made sure he got
his own attorney because obviously he had to. But I
wanted him to understand everything. And we are building together
(15:34):
and we have that very clear. In my past, I
did have, you know, someone that wasn't very happy about
that and felt like, oh, you don't trust me, and
why you know, what do you think I would take
something from you? And it's like, no, it's not that
it's just I learned from my mother, you know. She
was one that said, you you want to go into
a marriage with peace of mind and know that this
(15:56):
person is with you for the right reasons. And I
understood it right away, but there are some people that don't.
And also Christina, and if you could tell us a little
bit more about postnups.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
So, post ups are agreements done during the marriage where
you're not getting divorced and you still want to stay married,
but you want to change the law or change what
your prenup is. Right. So there's times where people will
enter into a prenup and then they're like, you know,
over time, we've done this, or we've done this, or
we want to change this, and they can enter into
post nuptial agreements to modify it. There are times where
(16:28):
people enter in post nups because they sometimes don't like
how the marriage is feeling and they want more certainty
with respect to their finances. So I had a really
interesting case one time where the wife wanted very conservative investments.
She was more conservative, she was more fear based, she
was more scared, and a husband was like as risky
(16:49):
investments as you can imagine, Like I want to invest
in like coffees in Brazil, right, And so what we
did was we created a post up because this they
loved each other and they wanted to like stay married,
but they had these like fights about their investment decisions, right,
And so what we did was we created a pot
(17:12):
of community, a pot of separate for him, a pot
of separate for her. She was going to keep hers in.
You know, I don't want treasuries and you know, do
something really easy. He could do whatever he wanted. We
had our community that was still paying all the community
bills in their community lifestyles. And it was a situation
that we looked at the marriage both from me. They
(17:34):
loved each other and wanted to stay married, and they
had a you know, strong romantic relationship, but we looked
at it from a business standpoint. What made sense for
them both financially, And it cut out all this fighting
because now she's like, if everything goes to Helen and
Hadden Basket for him, that's on him, right, I don't
have to worry about that. And if something happened to me,
(17:55):
I have my little pot of money and I'm going
to be safe and I'm going to be secure with it.
So it works for them.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
Right, and again I go back to as mad as
my husband can get it. If there's still a business
aspect of.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
This, definitely, no, not now I could.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
I see it completely and like it makes so much sense,
and I agree. I think that whatever's going to give
the other person a peace of mind and in that
way they'll be able. She's now, she's like, Okay, well
he has X amount of money in his little pot
and I'll do He could do as he pleases, and
I'm still gonna be able to love him totally.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
And she didn't have to be freaking out at night
and roorring and.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Holding resentment r Yeah. Now, A cool question in regards
to it to the post up? Do you have to
have a prenup in order to have a post up
or con For instance, you could be married for ten
years and just say you know what, I want a
post up? Now?
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Can you do that?
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Yeah? Now, it takes two people to agree to it,
just like a pre nup, but you can absolutely do it.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Is there anything else that you think that we should
talk about that we did in touch.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
That would be interesting for the listeners?
Speaker 3 (19:04):
I mean I think, look, I'm a big believer that
also even before marriage, I think people should be educated
about what the law is in the state that you
have right. So to me, again this goes into like
a marriage has so many rights and obligations and so
many responsibilities, and I think before people enter into marriage,
(19:26):
it's really important for people to at least even talk
to a family lawyer and just understand like what happens
in a marriage. Right. We're not taught that in school. Right.
There's no books like what to expect when you're expecting, right, So,
so you know, you don't have your like pediatrician that
you're talking to like my baby's doing X, Y and Z,
what does this mean?
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Right?
Speaker 3 (19:46):
And so so to me, I think it's really important
that people get educated. Like so, for example, I met
a client yesterday, a young, beautiful, amazing person who is
marrying somebody who is you know, has far more superior
means than she does. And the question is is she
(20:06):
going to give up her marriage, give up her work
because she's in the entertainment world, and is she going
to give up her work? And he's going to pay
for everything? Right, And you know, we have these conversations
like you know, if you're twenty six, twenty seven, twenty
eight years old, twenty nine years old, and you give
up your job, and let's assume even without an agreement,
you're only married for ten years in California, Okay, you're
(20:30):
only going to get support for one half the length
of the marriage. So you're only gonnat alimony for five years.
So if I'm twenty nine years old, and I'm really
like at the thrust, like the beginning is of my career, right,
like when I'm really starting to get my feet wet
and I'm moving and I'm getting like good connections and
I'm making some money, and all of a sudden, you're
(20:50):
now twenty nine years old and you're married for ten years,
and you now give up your job during that period
of time. So now you're thirty nine years old, you're
going to get five years of right, that's it. That's
all you're going to get. In family law, you're going
to get half of whatever's community whatever that is. That
could be nothing, it could be a lot, right, depends
on what the lifestyle is at that point. That person
(21:11):
has to make sure that she becomes self supporting. It's
forty four years old, right, and that's really hard when
you've given up your thirties and you've given up all
of this time where you get to like build your
career and work and really enhance your income, and now
all of a sudden, you've given all of that up
and you get five years of support. That's scary, and
(21:34):
it's really scary for clients who come to me and
they're like, well, I didn't know I shouldn't give up
my job, right, No one ever told me not to
give up or a job, or no one ever told
me like that I'm only going to get five years
of support. Maybe I should have come up with a
post up or an agreement that says, you know, if
we get divorced, I'm going to get support longer, because
you want me to give up my job, right, you
want me to travel the world with you, you want
(21:54):
me to take care of the kids, whatever it is, right,
And so I really believe that people should learn what
the law is and whatever jurisdiction there is right and
understand what it means for these type of big decisions,
whether it's like moving out of the state of California,
whether it's you know, if you give up your job,
(22:16):
or what happens if you inherit money, or what happens
if you go un title to a house, like you know,
I have people come to me like, oh, well, I'm
on title to house. They own half the house. And
I'm like, well, okay, when did you go on title
to house and they're like last year. I'm like, no, no, no, no,
we don't own half the house. We only own half
the appreciation from that time forward, right, so it's not
owning half the house. So it's These are important things
(22:39):
like before marriage, to understand what the rights and responsibilities are.
You know, maybe with the example I told you about
the woman who's twenty nine giving up her job, maybe
she doesn't give up her job fully and she still
stays in the workforce and maybe she works not as hard,
but she still stays in the workforce and keeps her
connection and keeps her networking. So if God forbid, I'm
(23:02):
knocking on wood, then anything happens, she can like resume
back into the workforce, right, you know, and going back
in there. Or maybe she comes up with an agreement
that says, if you want me to give up my job,
I'll do that, but you have to protect me on
the financial side of this, right and maybe that's an
agreement that we need to have a conversation about. But
(23:23):
I think people really need to understand the rights and
obligations in a marriage before before doing it. Like I
have clients who come to me and they're like, well,
we lived in New York and he wanted to move
to California and now I have two kids, but we
said we were only going to live here for a
few months, and now I want to move back. And
they're like, you don't get to move back. You're here
(23:44):
with like the kids are in California now, like California
is their home state. You know, if you're here for
six months, boom, this is your home state. And they're like, wait,
but he told me it was only temporary, and I'm like,
oh my gosh. Yeah, so it's like, you know, these
are things that are I know a lot of my
clients will say to me like, I wish I knew
(24:04):
this before I got married, right, I wish I had
known this before I got married.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Yeah, No, I completely agree.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
I always tell my listeners knowledge is power and totally
just need to be completely educated and read on things
and ask questions and if you're thinking about getting married
any type of question is not a dumb question, and
that's something that yeah, just ask an attorney and know
what you're what you're getting yourself into.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
In other words, you know.
Speaker 3 (24:29):
But it has some big sacrifices, right, big consequences. So to me,
it's really like you said, getting educated, and again I'm
like giving you all this scary stuff. I really believe
in a marriage. I really believe, like saying, yourriage is
an amazing union, you know, I just believe in it
(24:49):
that you have to understand what it means absolutely.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
I yep, I couldn't agree more. And I me too.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
I just thought it was important to have this conversation
because I so many questions. Because also I want to
see what I can do personally to avoid and what
I can do better. And I feel like I'm on
the right track. I think I learned from the first
time around. Were you married for the first time? Oh
my goodness, not even here. We started having issues maybe
(25:17):
six months in. But you know what, I knew.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
I knew it wasn't the right thing for me to do.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
I just I thought maybe I can change him, you know,
and and I take responsibility.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
But it did hurt.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
It was the most difficult thing I went through, but
I learned from it, and like, I do believe in
love and I believe in marriage, and I believe.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
In in in change.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
And I definitely am a different person now because of
that situation and I'm able to be a good wife
now because I learned from it.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
You know.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
So it is what it is, but I do I
did tell myself that I'm like, I wish I would
have known more, you know, And now I'm like, uh,
I'm going to read into everything, research it all.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
Yep. I think it's important, you know. And and it's
so easy to talk to a lawyer, like I know,
it's scary that you thought, like, oh, I'm calling a
divorced lawyer, but if you think about it, like, you know,
help me tell people call me and they're like, look,
I'm getting married. Can you just walk me through quickly,
like what happens and what I need to be thinking
about and what can I can do and what it means.
(26:18):
And I spend a little bit on the phone with them,
and it's it's easy. It's a privileged conversation. No one
knows about it. It's private, and there's nothing to lose.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
There's nothing to lose exactly.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
I see a lot of people like, you don't need
an agreement, like, if this is your goals in a marriage,
here's what to do and here's how you protect yourself.
Then there's other people I'm like, well, if this is
your goal, then you do need an agreement to modify
the law and you need to start thinking about having
to have a conversation with your fiance about it. Right,
But at least that person's informed now.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
Yeah, And I have.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
A question if a couple doesn't want to necessarily go
through attorneys or something like that and create an agreement,
can they do it like on a video and say, Hi,
my name is blah blah blah, and I agree to this.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Does that is that valid in court?
Speaker 3 (27:08):
No, you need to have like a written agreement. There's
certain like rules.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
I mean, look, there's a lot of times we can
you know, people can work as a mediator too, helping
people navigate prenups. But it's really important to have like
your own representation, your own advice. Like it's an important contract.
It's like really one of the biggest financial decisions people make.
So I would definitely do it with independent lawyers, do
(27:33):
it legally guys.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
Okay, so my last question, it's a little bit of
a nosy one, but I was very curious about this
because and I'm just using them as an example, but
I did hear in their prenup that, you know, jay
Z and Beyonce.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
I don't know if this is true, guys.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
I got the information just like everyone else on social media,
but that they had in their prenup that if he
were to ever be in faithful that he would have
to pay X amount of money or something like that.
Is that Can you do that in a prenup? Okay,
I'm like, there's no way. I mean, I'm like, I
have to ask her because when I heard that, I'm like,
that sounds kind of crazy.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
No. I mean, look, in California. I can't tell you
about every other jurisdiction, but in California we have been
what's called a no FLT state policy, So people can
get divorced and it makes no difference if you've had
an affair or done you know, yeah, certain things, and
so you can't do a prenup that says you have
to pay more money if you're unfaithful or anything like that.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Okay, Okay, yeah, just wondering because I have a friend
that is getting divorced and she was unfaithful, and he
was going to try to use that. But I'm like,
oh wait, you're in California, I heard. But then that's
why I was like, let me ask Christina to see
if that's valid.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
Now, the only thing you can do is if let's
assume you and I were married and I spent a
significant amount of money on somebody else, right like hotel rooms, restaurants, gifts, vacations,
you would have the right to ask me to reimburse
the community for those expenses because it's a misappropriation of
(29:05):
community money. But it doesn't other than a reimbursement to
the community. There's no penalty in California for having an affair.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Okay, Okay, got it. Thank you for cleaning that up.
I appreciate that. Okay, I mean, Christine, I've had an
amazing conversation. I'm sure the listeners are going to learn
a lot and very and enjoy the episode very much.
I don't know if you have if you'd like to
share your website where people can find you if they
have any other questions.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
I think it would just look at my name. I meant.
You know, I'm a co chair of the matrimonial group
at Blank Rome, so I think that would be the best.
And it's like, I really, you know, it's I have
to come off of this balance because I so believe
in the concept of marriage. I think it's such an
amazing partnership. Yeah, but I also think people need to
(29:51):
be a little scared and be knowledgeable about it, you know,
like you sometimes when you kind of put a little
fear in people, they're like, oh wait, maybe I need
to think about that, right, and maybe I need to
understand that. And to me, that may motivate them to learn,
and the more learning they have, the better it is.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
Yes, I completely agree, and there you guys, do you
have it. If you're thinking about getting married, definitely ask questions.
Do your research, speak to an attorney so that you
know exactly what you're walking into, you know, Zachly, Yeah,
you guys, thank you so much for listening. Thank you
Christina again for your time and for your knowledge. I
(30:30):
appreciate it. And I will catch you guys on the
next episode of Cheeky's and Chill. I hope you guys
enjoyed this one. This is a production of iHeartRadio and
the Micaeldura podcast Network. Follow us on Instagram at Michael
Doura Podcasts and follow me Cheeky's That's c h i
q u i s. For more podcasts from iHeart, visit
(30:51):
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite podcast
Hello, everyone, Thanks for tuning in to Cheeky's and Chill,
your favorite podcast, and I just wanted to start off
by saying, I know that there are a lot of
other podcasts out there, so I really appreciate you guys
choosing to listen to mine.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
I love you guys very much. Okay, so today's episode is.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Going to be a really interesting one because we're going
to be talking about marriage, divorce, and prenups, which I
know are super controversial, and I'm bringing on a seasoned
divorce attorney.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Her name is Christina Royce.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
She's the Los Angeles co chair of the matrimonial and
family practice at the law firm Blank Rome. She's also
one of Hollywood's go to divorce lawyers, so you know
she has seen it all. And just a REMINDERR, this
is not legal advice and you should consult with a
qualified professional if you have any questions related to this episode.
So with that being said, Hi Christina, thank you so
(00:54):
much for being here.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
I'm so excited to speak to you. How are you.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
I'm doing well? How are you?
Speaker 2 (00:59):
I'm good, I'm happy, a good day.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
I am so I have so many questions because I've
been divorced before and I'm now remarried and thank goodness,
happily married. But you just never know what can happen,
you know. Okay, So what is the biggest misconception about
divorce you think?
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Well, I think, you know, for I think for a
lot of people, it could feel like really scary, and
it can feel overwhelming, and it can feel like daunting,
and they feel like it's like the end of their life.
And I think that a lot of people realize that
sometimes that marriage is not the right situation, and then
later on they signed a real true happiness being outside
(01:42):
of a bad relationship. Like, look, you got remarried. You know,
you've found a different love in your life. But it's scary.
It's a scary process to go through it. Right, there's
a lot of unknowns relating to it.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Yeah, I mean I feel like divorce can bring out
the worst in people.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
That's definitely true.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Right.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
I give a lot of people. I tell everybody, like
put post its everywhere, like be your best self through
this process. Be your best self through this process, because
it's really hard. People get gas lit, they're nervous, they're
financially scared. Right, it's really an overwhelming process.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
It is.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
I know my sister's going through it right now, and
even when I want to give her advice, I don't
even know what to say. I mean, because I feel
like they have children together, so they should have the
peace amongst themselves. But things are just getting so out
of hand, and all you can do as a big
sister is just step back and say, okay, like hopefully
let the attorneys that the professionals do you know, guide
(02:46):
you because it's difficult, Like they say, you know, you've
been with this person for so many years, but you
don't really know who they are until you're getting divorced.
I mean, have you seen really that there could be
a divorce that's like amicable, like really or does it
always have a very like nasty ending to it.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
I would say that the majority of my cases have
a more amicable approach to their divorce.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Oh okay.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
I think they realize that they have kids together and
are going to be in each other's lives. A lot
of them realize that the marriage may not be the
right you know, it may not be their right union.
But for the most part, and I maybe it's kind
of the clients that I get or the kind of
approach I take. We really try to take a more
amicable approach to the to the situation and work more collaboratively,
(03:34):
which I think it reduces fear. You know, there's not
a lot of surprises during the divorce case. We do
things in an orderly fashion so everyone feels comfortable through
the process. And I do think that that how we
approach the divorce case really helps them launch later on
as co parents.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
I love that and I appreciate that, and also I
think it also saves the client money, right because it
could get expensive, especially how expensive can a divorce be.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
It can be expensive. I mean, it depends on the issue. Sometimes.
You know, I'm really good at I'm a big believer
in throwing money to a situation. If it gets certainty,
if it gets peace of mind, if it makes the
kids situation better, if it makes like getting rid of
the lawyers, if it means moving on, I think there's
value to that. And you know, obviously with degrees, but
(04:27):
I think there's value to paying money to the other
side as opposed to paying all this money to the
lawyers if you can get it done right. And there's
some gray areas in the family law. So it's nice
to just being able to like solve those differences by
you know, with having some financial resources being paid.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
So do you feel now that you you know, you
said that you've been practicing for twenty plus years, do
you feel that a divorce is on the rise.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
I think that I'll say this. I think my business
is definitely recession proof. It depends, you know, when I
think certain things are difficult. I think that really shines
in whether a marriage is the strong marriage or something
that maybe needs to move on. I think it's been
pretty consistent, you know. I think there's times where a
(05:18):
lot of people get divorced after their kids launch and
go to college, because maybe that's an easier time for
people to move on. I think there's times where people
get married and are married only for short periods and
it turned out it's not the right thing. Maybe they
have different views about children or things like that. So
I don't I can't tell you it's really on the
rise or not.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
You know.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
I also look and here here's my situation, and we
can talk about this that I've been married almost thirty years.
I very much believe in the in the concept of
marriage and the union of a marriage. I just look
at it maybe a little differently. Look, I believe marriage
really involves three different buckets, right. I think we need
(05:57):
our sexual intimacy and need connect and sexually, I think
we need to feel connected emotionally, right and have that
emotional connection. But I also think there needs to be
what I call financial intimacy, or I feel like people
need to feel like they can have these conversations about
finances that are sometimes difficult to have, Like, you know,
(06:19):
there's a lot of people come to me and they
don't know anything about like I don't know how much
we make, I don't know how much is in the bank.
I don't know what kind of like support I would get.
I don't know what kind of circumstances we live. I
know we live X, Y and Z, and we do
all these things, and that's a really like that's a
lack of partnership, right, And so I think having that
financial intimacy means that we're we need to be more
(06:42):
partners with one another as much as we need to
have like the sexual intimacy and the emotional intimacy, but
we need to have that connection financially.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
I agree, And that's something that I learned this time around,
that it's not seeing it as yours in mine, it's ours.
We're a team, and it just changes everything again. Also,
couple's therapy has helped quite a bit, you know, because
it's two different people coming together and we have to
understand we're not going to think the same, we're not
(07:13):
going to have always the same opinion, and we have
to be okay with that. But how can we work
through it? You know, especially that the financial part and
aspect of marriage, it could be, like you said, very
very uncomfortable sometimes conversation, but very necessary.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
And look, there's a lot of people who I think
I think there is a lot of people who get
married later in life now, right, and they have already
have established businesses or assets, and they may be coming
into a marriage and not everything's going to be equal, right,
and because they already built up there a lot of
their net worth, and so they need to have those
conversations that not everything that I own as of the
(07:50):
data marriage becomes ours. Like maybe there's things that do
become ours, and there's things that are mine because I
either inherited assets or I really worked hard before marriage
to get that. But those are the things that people
need to have these conversations of. So so there's an understanding,
right yeah. My husband gets mad at me because I say,
your marriage is a lot like a business, right, Like
(08:12):
you know, we wouldn't you and I wouldn't go into
business together without saying, Okay, you know, what are you
going to contribute to the business? What am I going
to contribute to the business? How are we going to
handle that? And like the same should be true with
a marriage, like how are we going to handle all
these finances? And I think there's a there's a business
aspect of it. My husband's like, you're always a unromantic Chris.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
You know, it's so funny that you say that because
I just watched I came across a video on social
media last night about a man speaking about his marriage
and he's he seems to be very successful man and
he's been married for fifteen plus years and he said
that his secret is approaching his marriage like his businesses,
sitting down on a weekly basis and talking about Okay,
(08:56):
what happened this weekend and what can you do?
Speaker 2 (08:58):
What will I do?
Speaker 1 (08:59):
And it's how would you go into a business meeting
do that in your marriage, and I had never seen
it like that, And now in this confirmation, now that
you're saying it, I'm like, Okay, that makes sense.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
Yeah, there's definitely some truth to that. Yeah, you know,
like you just have to have those but those are
some of its hard conversations and it's not easy, you know.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Yeah, And you have to be open and able and
willing to have those uncomfortable conversations. And that's what I
learned before. It was like, it should just be easy,
it shouldn't be so hard. The thing is is communication
is key. And I always tell you guys here on
the pod communication, especially in your relationship, in any relationship,
romantic business, et cetera. And Christina, do you have any
(09:46):
tips or advice on how to reduce the chance of
getting divorced?
Speaker 3 (09:49):
Well, I think it goes back to something what we're
talking about. I think that it is really important that
we get better at communicating, that we understand that. I
think people come in with different needs, Like I may
be much more of a sensitive person. My husband may
be more of a reactive person. Like I have to
understand that he can be like that and I can
be different, Like we're genetically made up differently, right, And
(10:13):
so I think having those communications and talking about it
is important. I think it's really important not to be
reactive to things and to be more responsive to things.
I think therapy is a really helpful thing that if
people need really help and guidance on how to communicate,
I think that's helpful. I think sharing information, you know,
(10:35):
even if someone comes and says, let's assume they came
into the marriage with fifty million dollars, right, and they
had all this money before marriage, it's sometimes important to
share with the other side. Look, look, I came into
this marriage with these these assets. This is what I
came into. Like, that doesn't mean it's all going to
be ours, and I want us to understand that, right, Like,
(10:57):
that doesn't mean we can't do things and enjoy certain
things together. But as there's more transparency and accountability and conversation,
I think it really helps marriages.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Yeah, I think you're right.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
I mean, in which brings me to my next question,
which is about prenups. Do you believe do you recommend
highly recommend prenups?
Speaker 3 (11:19):
So I hate the word prenup because I think everybody
has such a bad connotation about it. I wish we'all
called them partnership agreements because I think it as I stop,
a softer way of like we're entering into a partnership
with one another. Yeah. I think some are very necessary
because there are some really gray areas when it comes
to family law. And I think some people approach a
(11:42):
marriage like a business and they want to make sure
that if this business didn't work or this marriage didn't work,
that there's clear understanding of what's ours and what's going
to be shared and what's not ours. Right. So like,
for example, if I were to get married, if the
listim I was not married, and I got married to right,
I have built twenty eight years of building my law
(12:04):
practice right and building my reputation right. And then during
the marriage, I don't want there to be messiness about
whether the community got an interest in my law practice
or not. You know, I've worked really hard to get
to this point. Up to this point, So I may
want an agreement that says, look, during the marriage or
I may share all my income and all my income
(12:24):
can be community, but I want to make sure my
law practice will always be separate property and not and
have clear rules on it.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Right.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
Yeah, So there's people who feel that way, and I
think an agreement can really be helpful that way. I
can also see there's a lot of times where I
will get people to come to me that are part
of a family enterprise. Like you know, their family has
built these big businesses for generations and they want to
make sure that those businesses stay separate property right, And
(12:54):
so there's these things in agreements that we can protect
on that. You know, in family law, we have what's
called alimony. You know, if you get separated, there's alimony
after a divorce. And California is very big on alimony.
It's a high high state, Okay. And some people are like, look,
I've been married before. I payin rat alimony to my
(13:15):
ex wife. I don't want to have to be in
a situation where I'm paying all this money again. And
they may want limitations on that right, and they may
want protections on that and those are things that are
common in agreements. Similarly, I have also done a number
of agreements where we are building more community for the
(13:35):
parties than there would be. So there can be a
big benefit to having an agreement. And so like, for example,
I'll give you an example, let's assim come someone comes
in and they're worth one hundred million dollars and they're
a big trust fund kid, right, and they're not working
during the marriage. They're just worth one hundred million dollars. Right.
They a marriage. And we've done a lot of agreements
where we've built some of that taken some of that money,
(13:57):
and we've created more community or wealth from it. Right.
And we've done more where we've can like build more
partnerships during the marriage. And what we do is we
call we transmute or we change the character of the money.
So there's a lot of different things that we can
do in the agreement. Some can be very beneficial to
the other spouse, some can be less beneficial. I don't
(14:19):
really get involved in my colleagues, don't get involved in
agreements that are like so incided that it would be
a disaster and divorce. I mean, I just won't get
involved in those kinds of things.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Yeah, I think I think just being fair and keeping
that in mind, I think that is a huge thing.
And I feel like I'm getting that sense from you,
and I love that where you're just fair and you're like, hey,
I want everything to just be peaceful.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
There's no need to argue and.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
Take away the gray area, like let's have it clean
and simple. And you know, I'm not somebody if like,
you know, you have to understand, if you're forty years
old and you're marrying a sixty year old who's already
established themselves and already gone through a divorce, they may
want something really simple, easy and clean. They may not
want another big, protracted divorce case. And you're forty years old.
(15:06):
That's something you have to understand with the person that
you're marrying at that point, right, And that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
I agree, I completely agree, because I just feel the
partnership agreements, you know, definitely bring a peace of mind.
I mean, for me, I have one, and he had
no issue. He said, that's totally fine. I get it,
didn't give me any issues. I made sure he got
his own attorney because obviously he had to. But I
wanted him to understand everything. And we are building together
(15:34):
and we have that very clear. In my past, I
did have, you know, someone that wasn't very happy about
that and felt like, oh, you don't trust me, and
why you know, what do you think I would take
something from you? And it's like, no, it's not that
it's just I learned from my mother, you know. She
was one that said, you you want to go into
a marriage with peace of mind and know that this
(15:56):
person is with you for the right reasons. And I
understood it right away, but there are some people that don't.
And also Christina, and if you could tell us a little
bit more about postnups.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
So, post ups are agreements done during the marriage where
you're not getting divorced and you still want to stay married,
but you want to change the law or change what
your prenup is. Right. So there's times where people will
enter into a prenup and then they're like, you know,
over time, we've done this, or we've done this, or
we want to change this, and they can enter into
post nuptial agreements to modify it. There are times where
(16:28):
people enter in post nups because they sometimes don't like
how the marriage is feeling and they want more certainty
with respect to their finances. So I had a really
interesting case one time where the wife wanted very conservative investments.
She was more conservative, she was more fear based, she
was more scared, and a husband was like as risky
(16:49):
investments as you can imagine, Like I want to invest
in like coffees in Brazil, right, And so what we
did was we created a post up because this they
loved each other and they wanted to like stay married,
but they had these like fights about their investment decisions, right,
And so what we did was we created a pot
(17:12):
of community, a pot of separate for him, a pot
of separate for her. She was going to keep hers in.
You know, I don't want treasuries and you know, do
something really easy. He could do whatever he wanted. We
had our community that was still paying all the community
bills in their community lifestyles. And it was a situation
that we looked at the marriage both from me. They
(17:34):
loved each other and wanted to stay married, and they
had a you know, strong romantic relationship, but we looked
at it from a business standpoint. What made sense for
them both financially, And it cut out all this fighting
because now she's like, if everything goes to Helen and
Hadden Basket for him, that's on him, right, I don't
have to worry about that. And if something happened to me,
(17:55):
I have my little pot of money and I'm going
to be safe and I'm going to be secure with it.
So it works for them.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
Right, and again I go back to as mad as
my husband can get it. If there's still a business
aspect of.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
This, definitely, no, not now I could.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
I see it completely and like it makes so much sense,
and I agree. I think that whatever's going to give
the other person a peace of mind and in that
way they'll be able. She's now, she's like, Okay, well
he has X amount of money in his little pot
and I'll do He could do as he pleases, and
I'm still gonna be able to love him totally.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
And she didn't have to be freaking out at night
and roorring and.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Holding resentment r Yeah. Now, A cool question in regards
to it to the post up? Do you have to
have a prenup in order to have a post up
or con For instance, you could be married for ten
years and just say you know what, I want a
post up? Now?
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Can you do that?
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Yeah? Now, it takes two people to agree to it,
just like a pre nup, but you can absolutely do it.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Is there anything else that you think that we should
talk about that we did in touch.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
That would be interesting for the listeners?
Speaker 3 (19:04):
I mean I think, look, I'm a big believer that
also even before marriage, I think people should be educated
about what the law is in the state that you
have right. So to me, again this goes into like
a marriage has so many rights and obligations and so
many responsibilities, and I think before people enter into marriage,
(19:26):
it's really important for people to at least even talk
to a family lawyer and just understand like what happens
in a marriage. Right. We're not taught that in school. Right.
There's no books like what to expect when you're expecting, right, So,
so you know, you don't have your like pediatrician that
you're talking to like my baby's doing X, Y and Z,
what does this mean?
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Right?
Speaker 3 (19:46):
And so so to me, I think it's really important
that people get educated. Like so, for example, I met
a client yesterday, a young, beautiful, amazing person who is
marrying somebody who is you know, has far more superior
means than she does. And the question is is she
(20:06):
going to give up her marriage, give up her work
because she's in the entertainment world, and is she going
to give up her work? And he's going to pay
for everything? Right, And you know, we have these conversations
like you know, if you're twenty six, twenty seven, twenty
eight years old, twenty nine years old, and you give
up your job, and let's assume even without an agreement,
you're only married for ten years in California, Okay, you're
(20:30):
only going to get support for one half the length
of the marriage. So you're only gonnat alimony for five years.
So if I'm twenty nine years old, and I'm really
like at the thrust, like the beginning is of my career, right,
like when I'm really starting to get my feet wet
and I'm moving and I'm getting like good connections and
I'm making some money, and all of a sudden, you're
(20:50):
now twenty nine years old and you're married for ten years,
and you now give up your job during that period
of time. So now you're thirty nine years old, you're
going to get five years of right, that's it. That's
all you're going to get. In family law, you're going
to get half of whatever's community whatever that is. That
could be nothing, it could be a lot, right, depends
on what the lifestyle is at that point. That person
(21:11):
has to make sure that she becomes self supporting. It's
forty four years old, right, and that's really hard when
you've given up your thirties and you've given up all
of this time where you get to like build your
career and work and really enhance your income, and now
all of a sudden, you've given all of that up
and you get five years of support. That's scary, and
(21:34):
it's really scary for clients who come to me and
they're like, well, I didn't know I shouldn't give up
my job, right, No one ever told me not to
give up or a job, or no one ever told
me like that I'm only going to get five years
of support. Maybe I should have come up with a
post up or an agreement that says, you know, if
we get divorced, I'm going to get support longer, because
you want me to give up my job, right, you
want me to travel the world with you, you want
(21:54):
me to take care of the kids, whatever it is, right,
And so I really believe that people should learn what
the law is and whatever jurisdiction there is right and
understand what it means for these type of big decisions,
whether it's like moving out of the state of California,
whether it's you know, if you give up your job,
(22:16):
or what happens if you inherit money, or what happens
if you go un title to a house, like you know,
I have people come to me like, oh, well, I'm
on title to house. They own half the house. And
I'm like, well, okay, when did you go on title
to house and they're like last year. I'm like, no, no, no, no,
we don't own half the house. We only own half
the appreciation from that time forward, right, so it's not
owning half the house. So it's These are important things
(22:39):
like before marriage, to understand what the rights and responsibilities are.
You know, maybe with the example I told you about
the woman who's twenty nine giving up her job, maybe
she doesn't give up her job fully and she still
stays in the workforce and maybe she works not as hard,
but she still stays in the workforce and keeps her
connection and keeps her networking. So if God forbid, I'm
(23:02):
knocking on wood, then anything happens, she can like resume
back into the workforce, right, you know, and going back
in there. Or maybe she comes up with an agreement
that says, if you want me to give up my job,
I'll do that, but you have to protect me on
the financial side of this, right and maybe that's an
agreement that we need to have a conversation about. But
(23:23):
I think people really need to understand the rights and
obligations in a marriage before before doing it. Like I
have clients who come to me and they're like, well,
we lived in New York and he wanted to move
to California and now I have two kids, but we
said we were only going to live here for a
few months, and now I want to move back. And
they're like, you don't get to move back. You're here
(23:44):
with like the kids are in California now, like California
is their home state. You know, if you're here for
six months, boom, this is your home state. And they're like, wait,
but he told me it was only temporary, and I'm like,
oh my gosh. Yeah, so it's like, you know, these
are things that are I know a lot of my
clients will say to me like, I wish I knew
(24:04):
this before I got married, right, I wish I had
known this before I got married.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Yeah, No, I completely agree.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
I always tell my listeners knowledge is power and totally
just need to be completely educated and read on things
and ask questions and if you're thinking about getting married
any type of question is not a dumb question, and
that's something that yeah, just ask an attorney and know
what you're what you're getting yourself into.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
In other words, you know.
Speaker 3 (24:29):
But it has some big sacrifices, right, big consequences. So to me,
it's really like you said, getting educated, and again I'm
like giving you all this scary stuff. I really believe
in a marriage. I really believe, like saying, yourriage is
an amazing union, you know, I just believe in it
(24:49):
that you have to understand what it means absolutely.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
I yep, I couldn't agree more. And I me too.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
I just thought it was important to have this conversation
because I so many questions. Because also I want to
see what I can do personally to avoid and what
I can do better. And I feel like I'm on
the right track. I think I learned from the first
time around. Were you married for the first time? Oh
my goodness, not even here. We started having issues maybe
(25:17):
six months in. But you know what, I knew.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
I knew it wasn't the right thing for me to do.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
I just I thought maybe I can change him, you know,
and and I take responsibility.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
But it did hurt.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
It was the most difficult thing I went through, but
I learned from it, and like, I do believe in
love and I believe in marriage, and I believe.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
In in in change.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
And I definitely am a different person now because of
that situation and I'm able to be a good wife
now because I learned from it.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
You know.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
So it is what it is, but I do I
did tell myself that I'm like, I wish I would
have known more, you know, And now I'm like, uh,
I'm going to read into everything, research it all.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
Yep. I think it's important, you know. And and it's
so easy to talk to a lawyer, like I know,
it's scary that you thought, like, oh, I'm calling a
divorced lawyer, but if you think about it, like, you know,
help me tell people call me and they're like, look,
I'm getting married. Can you just walk me through quickly,
like what happens and what I need to be thinking
about and what can I can do and what it means.
(26:18):
And I spend a little bit on the phone with them,
and it's it's easy. It's a privileged conversation. No one
knows about it. It's private, and there's nothing to lose.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
There's nothing to lose exactly.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
I see a lot of people like, you don't need
an agreement, like, if this is your goals in a marriage,
here's what to do and here's how you protect yourself.
Then there's other people I'm like, well, if this is
your goal, then you do need an agreement to modify
the law and you need to start thinking about having
to have a conversation with your fiance about it. Right,
But at least that person's informed now.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
Yeah, And I have.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
A question if a couple doesn't want to necessarily go
through attorneys or something like that and create an agreement,
can they do it like on a video and say, Hi,
my name is blah blah blah, and I agree to this.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Does that is that valid in court?
Speaker 3 (27:08):
No, you need to have like a written agreement. There's
certain like rules.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
I mean, look, there's a lot of times we can
you know, people can work as a mediator too, helping
people navigate prenups. But it's really important to have like
your own representation, your own advice. Like it's an important contract.
It's like really one of the biggest financial decisions people make.
So I would definitely do it with independent lawyers, do
(27:33):
it legally guys.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
Okay, so my last question, it's a little bit of
a nosy one, but I was very curious about this
because and I'm just using them as an example, but
I did hear in their prenup that, you know, jay
Z and Beyonce.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
I don't know if this is true, guys.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
I got the information just like everyone else on social media,
but that they had in their prenup that if he
were to ever be in faithful that he would have
to pay X amount of money or something like that.
Is that Can you do that in a prenup? Okay,
I'm like, there's no way. I mean, I'm like, I
have to ask her because when I heard that, I'm like,
that sounds kind of crazy.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
No. I mean, look, in California. I can't tell you
about every other jurisdiction, but in California we have been
what's called a no FLT state policy, So people can
get divorced and it makes no difference if you've had
an affair or done you know, yeah, certain things, and
so you can't do a prenup that says you have
to pay more money if you're unfaithful or anything like that.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Okay, Okay, yeah, just wondering because I have a friend
that is getting divorced and she was unfaithful, and he
was going to try to use that. But I'm like,
oh wait, you're in California, I heard. But then that's
why I was like, let me ask Christina to see
if that's valid.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
Now, the only thing you can do is if let's
assume you and I were married and I spent a
significant amount of money on somebody else, right like hotel rooms, restaurants, gifts, vacations,
you would have the right to ask me to reimburse
the community for those expenses because it's a misappropriation of
(29:05):
community money. But it doesn't other than a reimbursement to
the community. There's no penalty in California for having an affair.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Okay, Okay, got it. Thank you for cleaning that up.
I appreciate that. Okay, I mean, Christine, I've had an
amazing conversation. I'm sure the listeners are going to learn
a lot and very and enjoy the episode very much.
I don't know if you have if you'd like to
share your website where people can find you if they
have any other questions.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
I think it would just look at my name. I meant.
You know, I'm a co chair of the matrimonial group
at Blank Rome, so I think that would be the best.
And it's like, I really, you know, it's I have
to come off of this balance because I so believe
in the concept of marriage. I think it's such an
amazing partnership. Yeah, but I also think people need to
(29:51):
be a little scared and be knowledgeable about it, you know,
like you sometimes when you kind of put a little
fear in people, they're like, oh wait, maybe I need
to think about that, right, and maybe I need to
understand that. And to me, that may motivate them to learn,
and the more learning they have, the better it is.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
Yes, I completely agree, and there you guys, do you
have it. If you're thinking about getting married, definitely ask questions.
Do your research, speak to an attorney so that you
know exactly what you're walking into, you know, Zachly, Yeah,
you guys, thank you so much for listening. Thank you
Christina again for your time and for your knowledge. I
(30:30):
appreciate it. And I will catch you guys on the
next episode of Cheeky's and Chill. I hope you guys
enjoyed this one. This is a production of iHeartRadio and
the Micaeldura podcast Network. Follow us on Instagram at Michael
Doura Podcasts and follow me Cheeky's That's c h i
q u i s. For more podcasts from iHeart, visit
(30:51):
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite podcast
Host
Chiquis
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