Marriage Divorce & Prenups with Powerhouse Celeb Divorce Attorney Kristina Royce

My guest today, Christina Royce, is a powerhouse celebrity divorce attorney. Christina is one of Hollywood's go-to divorce attorneys and has represented several very famous celebrities such as Chanem Tatum, Elizabeth Chambers, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, as well as many high-profile female founders, entrepreneurs.
Christina is modern, very relatable, razor-sharp wit, and killer financial instincts. Despite bearing witness to some of the ugliest divorces imaginable, she still believes in love and marriage and above all, transparency between partners, which is something that I love.
She's recently been featured in so many high-end publications such as Insider, Forbes, The Cut, The Hollywood Reporter. She took time off of her very busy schedule to come all the way to West Hollywood, to our studios, to have this super important conversation about marriage, about prenups, should you sign one, the business of marriage.
And I am so, so grateful because I truly believe this is an important conversation that all of us thinking about getting married should have. So I really, really hope you guys enjoy this very, very special with the adorable, incredibly talented, incredibly intelligent Christina Rice.
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212-682-6620 for Madison and for Greenwich, 212-374-0150. Christina, welcome to Cat on the Loose.
It's such an honor to have you on the show. Thank you for having me.
I'm very happy because I think this is a super important conversation. So for everyone out there thinking about getting married, all the people out there listen up i have a million questions so let's jump right on it you are a very famous very successful divorce attorney i saw online that the hollywood reporter called you a troubleshooter and who the stars called to put out fires and prevent future disasters.
So first of all, congratulations on all your success. Well, thank you.
I appreciate that. So the most common question for us to get started, what is, in your opinion, or I don't know if there is researches about that out there, the number one cause of divorce? Because the divorce rate is really high, right, in the United States right now.
It's very high. I mean, in my experience, I think there are a lot of people who don't view marriage as a business.
And in my opinion, and this goes back to the whole, you know, one of the things we talked about before, the theory of marriage is I think the marriage is the biggest business decision that people enter into. And there's a lot of rights and obligations and responsibilities associated with that marriage.
And one of the things that people don't do or they don't appreciate is all the communications that are required to have when you have a business of a marriage, right? So like if you and I were going into a business together, we would talk about what you're going to bring to the business. We would talk about what I'm going to bring to the business.
We have, we're, we're, you know, transparent with one another. And a lot of that becomes lacking sometimes in a marriage.
And there doesn't feel like a level of partnership or equality or communication. And I think that's ultimately what causes the demise of a lot of marriages.
Now, I'm sure a lot of people out there are listening, especially girls, of course, because we have a tendency of being super romantic and we're waiting for our prince. So when we're thinking about getting married, you know, we're thinking about the fairy tale.
So I know a lot of girls say, oh my God, you know, we don't want to think of our marriage as a financial transaction. We don't want to think about it ending in divorce.
So there's a lot of stigma when it comes to prenups and divorce and all that stuff, right? So what would you say to that if somebody comes and says,

I don't want to look at my marriage,

but I want to think about the wedding and the dress

and all that beautiful stuff and to death do us part.

Well, I very much believe in the institution of marriage.

So I think there's a lot of amazing things

about looking at it like the fairy tale,

like you want to buy a home together

and you want to go vacationing together and you want to build a life together and have children. I think that's all fabulous.
But I also think it's very important that we look at it thinking about the rights and obligations that come out of a marriage. Like, for example, I'm going to give you a situation.
So let's assume there's a 28-year-old young woman who has the start of a career going and she marries someone who's maybe a little bit older who has to travel the world for work. Like maybe he's a director, right? And he makes a lot more money than her.
And he says to her, honey, give up your job. Come get married.
Let's go travel the world together. We we're gonna have the best life ever and you know he makes enough money to cover both of their expenses right so that she doesn't have to work to pay their bills and she gives up her job for the next 10 years they're married for 10 years and then they get divorced he says nope I don't want to be married anymore or she says I don't want to be married anymore.
Or she says, I don't want to be married anymore. So here's what ultimately happens in the divorce case, is if you're married only 10 years or less, you typically only get alimony for one half the length of the marriage, right? If you don't have a prenup.
Even without a prenup, you only get half. And you're talking about California law.
Correct. I'm talking about California law.
Because in a lot of states, you don't even, you get nothing. That's very true.
But in California, you would get support for half the length of the marriage. Okay.
But here's the issue. So here's a woman who was 27, 28 when she got married, had a career, maybe had a good trajectory in her career.
She now is getting divorced at 38, 39 years old. She gets five years of support, right? And she has given up her entire career during her 30s, which is a huge, huge, you know, time in people's lives where they really can build their careers and build their success.
And she's giving that up. And so to me, that's something important.
If somebody was going to do that, one of the things that I think is really important is to have that conversation like, okay, well, what happens if we get divorced and I give up my job? How is that going to hurt me? How am I going to be impacted? And those are things that I think people need to know before marriage so they understand what their rights and obligations are before they make big financial decisions like that i totally agree and i i that's similar to what happened to me because i got married super young and i had a college degree and i had a successful career fresh out of college i owned my own business i was making good money and because my husband was so much more successful and so wealthy he said exactly that oh travel with me let's have a great life you don't need and he obviously now I I see it as kind of like abusive controlling behavior he used this phrase a lot like oh I make more in an hour in a day than you make in a month.

This is so stupid. He basically convinced me to work less and less and less and less and just follow him around for a really long period of time for like well over 10 years.
Like I was married for 14 and a half years, but we did sign a prenup. So it's a long story.
But anyways, I do agree with you.

At the end of a marriage, if you barely worked for 10 years, for 14 years, it's very, very, very difficult to get back in the workplace, even if you have college degrees, such as in my case. Most people will not give you a chance.
No, it's very hard. I mean, you're very fortunate because you're such a go-getter and you were inspired and you did something during a horrible time where you had opportunities.
But it's really hard for women who are now 40 or in their 40s getting divorced. You're not going to get lifetime alimony.
And all of a sudden they have to figure out, wait, I have to like start figuring out how to be self-supporting and I wish that the young women in their 20s before they get married learn and understand that and understand what it is like if they get married and give up their careers you know and I have a lot of my women clients who when they do get divorced they'll say to me I wish I never gave up my job

I wish I never gave up my job you know they did it for the family unit at the time which is wonderful but it does have consequences to it yeah and it's sad that you know most and we're saying women women women because the truth is most of the time it's the woman that suffers because most of the time it's the woman that gives up the career, the job, everything to stay home with the kids and the guy has the money or the guy goes to work or the guy has the paycheck, right? It is more, but there are a lot of women who do make more money than their husbands in today's world, but it is more so in that world. And also, you know, I also see, you know, so my point is, I think that if people really enter into a marriage and talk about this, right, and I call it financial intimacy, right? You know, I call it like we need sexual intimacy in our marriage, we need emotional intimacy, we need to be connected to our spouse, but that connection also requires financial intimacy.
And that means we're talking about conversations that are not easy to talk about. How much money do you make? How much money do I make? How much money do we need to pay our bills? Should we make this investment or not? Should we, you know, what would happen if I give up my job? How are we going to cover the expenses? What are we going to do if we inherit money? Those are really important conversations that people have and understand.
And I think once people have those tougher conversations, they feel closer in the marriage. They feel more protected in the marriage.
They feel more like partners with one another. And I think that makes for a much stronger marriage.
I love that. And you were saying before we started the podcast that there are actually some women that get married and don't even know how much money their husbands make, or they're embarrassed when it comes to asking the husband.
We're fearful. Oh, fearful.
I cannot imagine even not being married. Like I cannot imagine like being on a committed relationship with someone if I didn't know where they stand financially.
I mean, can you imagine living like in the same home and not knowing someone's financial situation? Isn't that like a little weird? It is very, it's contrary to the policy of the law. So the law says that a marriage is a form of a partnership.

And it actually, this gets a little technical legal, but it brings in the partnership code to the family, right? So the husband and wife marriage unit is required to have the same fiduciary obligations that real partners would do, right? And I think that's a really

important message for people because it means it looks at husbands and wives as the ultimate partners in life, right? Just like any business. And so when people don't communicate about how much we have or where our money is or what investments we have or what we're doing in terms of our financial, you know, portfolio.
It's contrary to the policy of the law, but it happens all the time. Different cultures, different ages.
If sometimes there's different, you know, when there's somebody who feels more inferior than the other, and it really creates problems in the marriage. That's why I believe financial intimacy is so important.
Now, I don't necessarily believe everything has to be equal. So like if you and I got married, and I inherit $100 million, that doesn't mean you get to share in the $100 million.
I completely agree with you. But I think it means that we have to be financially transparent about those situations.
I agree. I completely agree.
Yeah, I was telling you also off camera, and I want to share with everyone because I think this is a perfect example that actually happened in my family. I have a younger sister in Florida, and she was married for 12 years, and she has a 12-year-old kid.
So when her kid was born, she stopped working. And her husband was the provider provider and he owned a real estate company whatever he was renting a parceling apart so for 12 years he's coming home blah blah she thought everything was normal right he's paying the bills and she's being a stay-at-home mom and one beautiful day a few months ago back last year in october the kid is in school and she comes home he wasn't answering the phone he shot himself in the head didn't leave a note nothing killed himself turns out he was in severe debt he was borrowing money up and right including from loan sharks how dangerous is that using her name to to also borrow money uh using her name her social And she had no idea.
She was completely in the dark because she wasn't asking any questions. She was completely trusting, well, my husband pays all our bills.
I'm taking care of my kid and that's it. So this is a perfect example why I think everybody should be more involved.
Even if you depend on your husband, you should know what's going on. You should be a little more involved in the finances.
Absolutely. And think about it like a business.
If you're in a business together, you're going to know what's going on with the books and records of the business. You're going to know how much money are we making? How much can we distribute? How much do we have to, do we have enough money to run the business? Do we have to take loans? You ask those questions, right? It's the same for a marriage.
It is a business. It is, it is, it has the same right, it has huge rights and obligations.
And so, you know, there's some people who just trust their husbands and don't ask the questions because they feel like sometimes they don't know the right questions to ask and they don't want to seem, you know, not smart about it, right? There's other situations where women are fearful about asking because their husbands have made them feel that way, right? Like, you know, that's not part of your job. You're not going to be knowing that, you know, I'll handle these aspects.
I, you know, you're not gonna, and they give them allowance and they spend their allowance and that's what they do and there's other situations where um maybe they just don't have the skill set to sit down and really have those conversations maybe the husband doesn't know that the wife is wanting to be involved maybe you know there's just the lack of intimacy. And I think having that lack of financial intimacy also really makes the other important areas of intimacy lacking.
Like if a man controls finances and he controls all the finances, oftentimes you see women not being open sexually and not wanting to be open sexually and having sex with their husbands, right? And then that creates in the relationship I completely agree but you know it's very hard like when you when you're married to someone and that person is very powerful very wealthy I know because that was my case my husband was very very rich and so it's hard to pry because they feel like let's say if you say oh how much money do you have in the bank how much money did your business make this month, they feel like, let's say if you say, oh, how much money do you have in the bank? How much money did your business make this month? They feel like, you know, oh, you're being gritty. You want more money, you know, even if you're married.
Exactly. And I know because in LA, there are a lot of these cases.
I don't know if you want to comment on a really famous one that has been in the media now for a long time, the Tomardi case with erica right now he's in jail or being tried like he was one of the most famous attorneys in la and i don't know if she was involved or not but i understand as a wife like she said how is she gonna ask questions how is she gonna ask questions how is she gonna ask questions he kept coming home and saying i'm making money i'm making money i'm making money i don't know if she knew or not i'm just saying that i totally understand that many times when you're married to powerful men you feel very intimidated when it comes to asking questions it is i mean it's interesting because there's there's something in our world called domestic violence right and we hope that people don't have to suffer through domestic violence um but you know typically people think domestic violence is is you know physical abuse right but the law has expanded to such a degree that the the law now says that forms of domestic violence include coercive control and financial coercive control interesting so that if i I'm going to control you financially, I'm going to limit you to what you can get. I'm not going to share.
I'm not going to be transparent with you. I'm going to make you feel like you can't leave this marriage because you're going to be so scared what's going to happen to you financially.
That's a form of domestic violence in our world today. That's very interesting, and probably a lot of people don't know that.
Yeah, well, because you wouldn't think about it. People think of physical abuse, but it's far more than physical abuse.
The case law talks about domestic violence as being someone who's disturbing calm, if you're disturbing someone's calm. And so when people feel like they don't have the right to to take action right yeah to me when i think about domestic violence i think verbal abuse which is what happened to me for 15 years and physical abuse i never would have taught but financial control is definitely a form of abuse because it makes you feel like you're tied and i know a lot of of people that feel like stuck in situations like, how am I going to get the hell out of this if I depend on him, if I'm stuck and everything.
Before we talk about prenups, because I think this is a very important conversation. Let me ask you, because I know a lot of people want to know, do you also think when it comes to celebrity divorces, and we are not going to talk about your clients at all because of client attorney privilege.
But in general, do you think the rate of celebrity divorces is so high for the same reasons as mere mortals? I do. I mean, I'm sure it's harder in some ways to be in the public, you know, limelight and be scrutinized in that way.
But I think, I think, I think being good communicators and being transparent about their assets and their liabilities and feeling like partners with one another transcends to lots of different marriages. Yeah, it's the same issues, right? Yeah, absolutely.
I saw something online that you are known for taking most of your cases to mediation, try to settle out of court as quickly as possible, hush hush without the media attention. And I definitely agree.
I love that approach. Because sometimes when I see certain celebrity divorces being played out in the media, especially when there's kids involved, and they drag on and on and on for years and years and years and they get really dirty and messy I cringe especially when it comes to huge sums of money like when you're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars I'm not an attorney I'm not an expert but I always wonder like is this necessary? Because it comes to the point like there is so much money that we know it's plenty for everybody else.
It makes me wonder, why are they doing that? Like, why do they keep dragging it on and off? For example, a lot of people send me that question about Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. It's been dragging on for years and years and years, and they keep going back to court, and they know it's going to be public, right?

They know people are going to be able to read it. TMZ is going to read it, whatever.
Their kids are going to know about it. And a lot of people send me these questions, and I'm not an attorney, so this is why I'm putting it here today.
Why do you feel like they don't have an attorney? Like, I say, guys, come on, just let it go. Well, I mean, look, I think, so to me, I don't think there attorney like you say guys come on just let it go well i mean look i think so to me i don't think there i think there's nothing worse than going to court in a family law case right i mean it is it is you're giving up the most important decisions whether they're financial or relating to your children to a complete stranger right um courts, some judges are exceptionally smart and some judges are very new and don't have the breadth or knowledge or experience of handling very high conflict, high level financial cases.
So I do everything I can to try to keep it out of court. I think courts create delays, their expense, their unknowns.
Now, you know, just like any negotiation, the personalities of the parties can take over. So sometimes you have people who are just, they have a hard time compromising.
They have a hard time accepting that here's the law and here's how I think it should be. They have people who are very entitled and they think somehow they're going to get a better result going to court.
So, you know, to me, I think there are some cases that have to go to court because there's some cases that just need a resolution. They're just too far apart.
And And sometimes going to court is going to get the case over with but for the most part i think most cases should be able to settle we have huge lots of resources now to help people so in our world we work with a lot of mediators who are retired judges and they have they're stronger than sometimes just regular mediators because they've been on the bench for 30 years so they have lots of good experience being on the bench and they come now help try to help us settle the cases um they're particularly helpful in you know celebrity cases because everything's very private and and confidential um and so to me i think that is a much better way of trying to navigate a resolution. But it takes, you know, sometimes when people just separate and they're so angry and they're so hurt, sometimes we just need to calm it down and get them to a place where they can now negotiate in their best self, right? Like I tell a lot of my clients, put Post-its everywhere, be your best self, be your best self, just to remind each other, like, you know, to try to keep it calm and to keep it not so emotional.
But it's hard when you're dealing with the emotions that you have. And think about it, I give everybody bad news every single day.
I'm like, you're going to have to share your kids.

We may have to sell your house.

We may have to split the estate in half.

We may have to sell assets.

We may have to go back to work.

I mean, I'm literally giving people bad news.

Nobody wants to hear that stuff, right?

No, and I'm giving people bad news all the time,

and that's emotional, and they don't want to,

they don't want to, it's hard to accept, right?

Yeah, and that's why you were saying it is a business, and a lot of people don't want to think about it when they get married. So let's talk about prenups.
In my case, I dated my, my husband before I got married for six years. I, I didn't really care about getting married on paper, but for him, it was important.
So when we decided we were going to get married on paper, he said said I want you to sign a prenup and I said great for me I had no problem signing it because I didn't care you know I didn't want his assets I didn't feel offended by it because a lot of girls funny enough maybe you can explain they feel offended like if a guy says sign a prenup why why am I gonna i i don't even there was even an episode of sex in the city remember when charlotte was gonna marry trey she was like should i do it oh my god i'm not gonna put a price on love and i think it's fair like if you're not after the the person's money sign the freaking prenup and make it fair for both of you if i had a lot of money and i'm gonna marry somebody that somebody that has less than me, I want them to sign a prenup. You know, I think it's, like you said, it's a business.
Regardless the romantic part of it, marriage is a contract. So I completely agree.
I think it's a great idea. So I signed it.
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Don't forget, send me a message. Do you think everybody getting married should sign a prenup? No, no, no.
So first of all, I wish the word prenup didn't exist because it has such a bad connotation. I wish we would call them partnership agreements.
Partnership agreements. Because that goes right back to my theme about marriage as a business.
Maybe that would dismystify. And it's less scary, right? Less scary, make it less scary.
So if someone comes to me and they said, let's assume they are young in the PR pr world okay and they're 27 years old and they're making 150 000 a year and they're really on the right trajectory and the fiance comes in and says well i have more assets i'm older i've really built my estate i'm worth 10 million dollars and I make $5 million a year. And I want a prenup that says, mine is mine.
Yours is yours. We have no community property, no joint assets together.
And I'd ask my client, well, are you going to continue to work? And she says, I don't know. I may want children.
I may go, like I said before, go travel go travel the world with him you know like I may go you know devote my time to my children in my home I would absolutely tell her not to sign a prenup because there would be it would put her at huge financial risk under that kind of prenuptial situation I believe in in creating community together, creating joint assets together, creating financial security. If someone comes to me and says, okay, my fiance's worth $100 million, he wants me to give up my job, and he wants me to help build our estate together and help him manage the estate but he's willing to put provisions for me in place that create you know me to have financial protection right i'm completely open to that kind of agreement right because we are recognizing that someone's leaving their job to help build the community and he wants to create community together and wants to provide financial security to my client, then I think it's a very acceptable agreement.
There are situations where some people are getting married in their later in life. They've both been married.
They both have kids from previous marriages. They both have financial security.
I'm very okay with those kind of agreements because they're recognizing that they both came into the marriage with assets and want to protect it. So a lot of times what I worry about, and this is what's hard for some clients, is when they come in and they say, but I love him and I'm going to have to sign this and we're not going to get divorced and I'm not worried.
I'm the bearer of bad news and being like, well, what happens if you get divorced at 40 and he now has this many assets and you now haven't worked in 10 years and you only get this much in support? How is that going to look for you? Right. And I have to be the one to look ahead and give them the scary scenarios and see if they're comfortable with it.
Right. So it's on a case by case basis.
But I think you can always negotiate. Right.
Like you can always put on an agreement. Like I said, even if one person has a lot of money and the other person doesn't have a lot of money, you can always come up with an agreement that is fair for both parties.
And that's the idea, right? Technically, that's what should happen. That sounds like a partnership agreement to me, right? I love that.
And I like that name a million times better than pre-enup. Me too.
Me too. You spread that word.
I think we should like, I don't know. How do we change the law? You have the media platform.
I don't. I don't know.
Maybe let's sign a petition or something. Now, but for the girls out there listening that have this feeling that they get offended if their fiancés ask them to sign one, what would you say? Do you think that's a deal breaker? Like if somebody tells you, sign a prenup, and they say, I don't want to sign it.
So sometimes, look, this goes back to exactly my whole theme about being transparent. I believe that people should have a conversation before marriage about what their respective assets are and how they envision their financial marriage to look, right? So let's assume, and the most common agreements I have, the most common are people just really want to protect what they're coming into the marriage with.
There's many people who are like, I'm fine creating community together and creating joint assets. I just want to protect what I'm coming into the marriage with.
And that's basically the law anyway, so we just want to codify the law and make it and memorialize it. But I believe that people should have a conversation saying, look, I think we should have a conversation about entering into an agreement and to talk about what is important for me as to the finances in our marriage and what's important to you.
My policy, and I've taught everybody in my firm who does family law, I don't just draft agreements and hand the other side a 40 or 50 page document. I won't start drafting an agreement until we all have a meeting of the minds.
The woman, the man, or whoever the two spouses are getting married, and both lawyers, and we have an agreement as to what should the contract contain, and only once we have an agreement do I draft the agreement. So I won't draft a 40-50 page document without a meeting of the minds on everything.
So I believe in having these conversations. I believe in talking about what each party's goals are.
I believe in saying what's going to happen when you're 45 years old and how is that going to look? What's going to happen if you have, you decide to give up your job and have children? What happens if you want to be a worker, but you have a child who has some special needs and you have to give up your job, right? Exactly. So I have all of those conversations.
And that day comes, ladies, because like I said, when you're engaged and you see the beautiful diamond and you're madly in love and you're buying the dress and the party, you're not thinking about 10, 14, 15 years from now, but the future comes. And I agree, you should think about all of that.
As much as it's not very very romantic it's a great idea because you don't want to make mistakes you don't want to be in the situation that my sister is now like all alone with a 12 year old you know having to start over from scratch with all those issues or even what happened to me with all the chaos that happened you know after Anthony died I definitely agree This is why it's important to ask all those questions and come up instead of, I think, this is what I say, if you're engaged to someone that is requiring you to sign a prenup, instead of feeling offended by it, think about what you would request on the agreement. Or what would work for you? What's important to you?

But just because,

and this is where I say the prenup word is so bad,

they may,

once you have those conversations,

that person may be saying,

I just want to make sure

I protect what I came

into the marriage with.

And maybe it's not offensive.

And maybe it's not something

that the other person

who is on the receiving end needs to be scared of, but it requires the conversation. Now, if the person says, hey, I want everything to be mine, and I don't want to share anything, and I'm never going to pay you any alimony, well, then they need to think about if that's a real partnership that they want to enter into.
Yeah, exactly. I agree.
Now now what do you think about when people do get married do sign a prenup and then when they go get divorced they decide to contest the famous like oops i didn't know what i was signing i made a mistake like as an attorney when you see that situation what is the vibe you get so it is many people come to me and they said i never read it i didn't understand it and i'll say okay well did you have a lawyer and then i said yeah but you have to have a lawyer right to sign a prenup right you technically don't have to but i've never entered into it without a lawyer on the other side i wouldn't sign a prenup without a lawyer on the other side or i wouldn't have my client signing it without a lawyer on the other side um but so the law very much will support prenups because the goal is the public policy is to allow people to enter into contracts and if it's easy to get out of it then you're not really upholding the law that contracts should be binding right so So it's a very tough thing. The law now says you can't have a valid agreement unless the final draft of the agreement is done within seven days to try to avoid this like duress arguments, right? Like I signed it the night before the wedding.
Now the law tries to prevent that from happening, which I think is a really good thing. The law certainly encourages both people to have lawyers and full disclosures of assets before entering into it.
But they're contracts, they're binding. It is really, really hard to get out of them.
Yeah, I think I've heard many stories like that. My husband, when I met him, he had gone through a divorce before me and she contested the prenup and she created total chaos.
So usually when I hear stories like that, I'm like, I mean, come on, you know, we're adults, you hire an attorney, you know what you're signing. I think it's about playing fair.
Don't go 10 years down the line and decide to change your mind. I just think that's like, it's really hard.
really hard i mean i look i do think the people who have signed the prenups that are there have many people who

really didn't feel like they signed it knowing all the different what could happen and i think they did feel duress but once you have a lawyer yeah and you've negotiated it and you've negotiated changes, it is really, really hard to set it aside.

Let's talk about bank accounts for a second, because this topic has been in the news a lot this past week, because what's his name from the shark tank? I love him. Kevin O'Leary was giving financial advice and he was telling couples that he thinks in general, don't put all your money together, like in one bank account, you know, keep your assets in separate bank accounts.
What is your opinion on that? Well, it all depends. So just be, if, if you and I got married and I earn a dollar tomorrow, that dollar is community property, regardless of whether it went into my individual bank account or a joint bank account.
Oh, that's important information. So wait, like without a prenup? Correct.
So like if we just go to Vegas, like a lot of people go, like la, la, la, la, let's get married. And we get married.
So if I make 500 bucks, $250 is yours? Correct. Well, you have to take off taxes and the living expenses okay guys pay attention before you get married see this is a business transaction you're giving up half of your stuff you are so so the I did not know that so bank accounts don't make a the title on the bank accounts don't make a difference so it doesn't matter even if it's in my bank account? The question is what's the character of the money? If you have a prenup, the character of that money is going to be determined by the prenup.
So if the prenup says... Let's say if you don't.
If you don't, any income earned... Because most couples do not.
Most couples in the United States do not. Right.
So any income earned during the marriage in California or in community property states is what we call community property. It doesn't make a difference if it goes in my name or a joint account.
Wow. I did not know that.
Yeah. So this story of having two bank accounts is all baloney.
Unless you have a prenup that says your income is yours and my income is mine, then you want to try to avoid commingling because it just requires a lot of unraveling of everything. But if it's simply money that's earned during the marriage and its community, it makes no difference what title bank account.
How about if you buy an asset? So there's lots of different rules. In California, without a prenup, if you buy an asset, like a house, we buy a house, and it's jointly titled, that house will be community property.
If one person used money that they had before marriage or that they inherited, so we call that separate property, for the down payment or capital improvement, you get a reimbursement right. So an easy example is to say, if you and I get married, and we buy a $5 million house, and I had a million dollars in my bank account before marriage, and I put a million dollars down on that house before, you know, during the marriage, the house is community, but I get a million dollars back for my reimbursement, and the rest would be shared equally between us.
Oh, wow. So these things are like, you really got to pay attention to what you're doing.
Well, so what I give a lot of advice is, even if people don't enter into a prenup or partnership agreement, I am a strong believer in talking to a family lawyer before you get married. So a lot of times I will have families come to me and they'll bring their kids because they'll say, oh, my kids are about to get married.
They're in their young 30s. Can you give them a tutorial about what happens during the marriage? And I'm like, of course.
So I give a lot of people some advice about here's what happens if you inherit money. Here's what happens if you buy a house.
Here's what a prenup could do. Here's what a prenup can't do.
And at least they feel like they're more educated before they get married. So they understand.
It's like before I had children, I'd read what to expect when you're expecting, right? Like I would want to know what am I supposed to expect here? The problem is, and it's funny because I have girlfriends in their late twenties and in their late thirties and all because they want to get married. They want to get married.
Of course.

They were... funny because I have girlfriends in their late 20s and in their late 30s and all because they want to get married.
They want to get married. Of course.
They repeat every single day. I want to get married.
I want to get married. I want to get married.
They don't think they're not thinking about anything else. So like, you know, it's like the horses with the side of their eyes.
So this is really important stuff. But like so and I keep saying women because I'm sorry girls it's women like your heads are up in the cloud you're thinking about the marriage and the prince and all this stuff and the babies they're not thinking straight about like really important stuff like that that can severely affect your lives and not even I'm not saying 10 years from now I'm saying like six months down the road or a year down the road when you're thinking about buying a house or if your mom passes away or if you inherit something oh I have people coming to me all the time and they're like oh well the house is jointly titled so I own half and I'll say okay well how did the down payment get made and they're like well he inherited 10 million dollars and used that inheritance to pay for the house oops and i'll say well when did you buy the house they're like oh six months ago and i'm like well there's no appreciation in the past six months so the house will all be his and they're just dumbfounded oh yeah so this is why it's so important to educate ourselves and you know i'm a huge huge advocate as i was saying to you for I don't care if you marry the richest man in the world I think women should have their own money somewhere I don't know stashed away put away hide under the mattress I don't know what you do but I think get married don't get married do whatever you want but you gotta figure out a way to have your own safety nest.
Well, and I think, you know, you can certainly feel that way. But I think the biggest safety nest is being transparent with your partner and really entering into a marriage where your spouse treats you like a full partner.
Oh, yeah, that's, that's the parts, right? That's so crucial. But we're almost running out of time and I still have like 10 million questions.
I know this is something else that people want to know that I get asked a lot and I keep saying I'm not an expert, not an attorney, so let's take advantage of you. How about, and there are millions of couples in the United States, people that are not married, but live together.
Are there any laws that protect that? Very little. So it's very hard.
So there's no, there's nothing in California called common law marriage, just because you're boyfriend, girlfriend for a long time. And even if you live together, even if you share a bank account, it doesn't mean that there's, you have the same rights as married couples do.
Okay. So it's very important to understand that.
And because the only thing that people can, can obtain in those kinds of relationships are, it's called what's called a Marvin right. Okay.
And a Marvin right is when people can sue on oral contracts. Like you and I have an oral you say Christina will you build me a deck on my house I'll pay you ten thousand for building the deck we don't have a we don't have a written contract I build the deck you owe me now ten thousand dollars right it's the same thing for two people living together I promise you if you give up your job I'll take care of you for the rest of your life.

I will provide for you. I will let you own this.
Now, the problem with that is, how do you prove it? Right? So you don't go to the family court, you have to go to a civil court, and it's very hard to prove. It's very hard to establish those kind of rights.
And so it puts people who are in these long-term relationships,

who believe that there is like trust, and we're going to share assets, and they're going to

provide for me. It puts them at huge disadvantages.
So there is no law, like you cannot go to court

and say, oh, I've been living together with my boyfriend for five years, and he's been paying my

bills, and nobody's gonna, what's the palimony that's the the palimony is the is like the marvin claim so so you but you have to sue on an oral contract and it's really hard to prove because the other person's gonna say i never promised to pay for her for the rest of her life i was boyfriend girlfriend we're living here i purposely didn't want to get married that was not my intention to get married and so i didn't i made a i made an intentional decision in that way and they're going to be in a really tough situation so you can be living together for a long time like years five six seven years and if one person decides to get up and go like even if if this person is paying for all the bills, they can leave and leave you hanging. And there is no law that protects you.
Correct. And there's no law that even if someone passes away during that relationship that you get any rights.
Wow. So it's probably not the best idea.
She's shaking her head. No.
Do not move in with someone and be completely financial dependent on them right or or you can create agreements make it in writing make it solidified right so people can enter into what we call cohabitation agreements where we define the rights and obligations of one another but you know and it, and it's sad, but being trustworthy can put you at a disadvantage, right? Yeah. You know, there are many laws that happen with a marriage and you don't get those same laws just because you're living with somebody.
So you have to decide, look, do I think it's good to live with somebody before marriage? Probably. I think there's something good about that because you learn what it's like to actually live with somebody 24-7.
But I don't think you should not rely on the fact that just living with somebody, you have rights associated with that. Fantastic information.
But it's these kind of podcasts that let people understand, oh, maybe I need to talk to a family lawyer, or maybe I need to research in what my rights are. So people don't just make assumptions.
I think if people make assumptions, well, I'm on title, so I own half the house. Or we've lived together for 10 years.
We have a joint bank account. It doesn't mean anything.
I love that. I think the most important thing is get educated.
get educated correct get educated if you have any questions if you don't know what the right step to do is yes find an attorney call an attorney listen to a podcast I don't know there's so many resources out there you even mentioned to me before we started the podcast that there are resources for abuse victims victims that are being abused financially there are resources for all kinds of of situations out there right there are and you there's google you know yeah google stuff but but there are situations like um like i'll give you an example like i have people who um they say to me they they were living in california and during the pandemic a ton of people moved away right they went to to texas they went to florida they went to different locations and i said to them make sure you know what your rights are when before you go to texas i mean texas has no alimony for a spouse oh really no and and child supports capped it like oh lovely yeah and child supports a's a nice place. So it's like before you go move somewhere.
Figure it out. Figure it out.
Or before you give up your job, figure it out. Figure out what your rights and obligations are.
It's really important. We need to be financially savvy in our world.
Totally. I completely agree.
Christina, this was so fantastic. Before I let you go, one last question.
So anybody out there listening, thinking about getting married, I mean, you've seen 10 billion

divorces in your very long, fantastic, successful career.

If you could give them one piece of advice, I don't know, anything that you want to say

that you would suggest to try to make a marriage last and be successful, what would that be?

I mean, I think it goes back to like communicate and don't just put your head in the sand about it. You know, communicate, ask questions, be knowledgeable, treat each other like partners.
You know, that doesn't mean everything has to be equal, but you have to feel that partnership level. I love that.
I think communicating is key. And like you said, if your partner is not letting you find out about his finances, if you're embarrassed of asking questions, if you're afraid of asking questions, if that's a bear, that's a big red flag.
Right. I mean, look, you're all about relationships.
You want to teach people about relationships, right? Oh, I don't know if I want to teach people. I'm learning with everyone else.
Like we're all learning together. But you're open.
You're trying to create a platform so people understand it, right? You know, relationships require levels of respect and trust and especially a marriage. It's a business.
So you've got to treat each other like partners. And I have to say one thing that I really love about you you are a divorce attorney one of the top divorce attorneys in the united states extremely successful but you're happily married by the way she has a beautiful family three kids you've been married forever so because a lot of people have this image oh divorce attorneys are this bitter nasty bitches that won bitches that want everybody to get divorced.

But that's not true. No, I strongly believe in marriage.
That's the first thing you said to me when you got here today. And I love that because I do too.
I'm an eternal believer in marriage and love and long lasting relationships. So I think that's a very beautiful message, by the way.
Right, I do. I just, I believe that it requires work and that work is getting over those big obstacles of fear and treating each other like partners.
I think, look, you know, I think if there's gonna be a situation where somebody's gonna say, you don't get to know anything, I'm gonna sign the tax returns for you. You don't get to know where the bank accounts are.
Here's how much money you get to spend on a monthly basis. To me, I just don't think that marriage is going to be long lasting.
And I think, unfortunately, the recipient of that is really going to lose his or her identity. For sure.
Yeah, it happened to me. Lesson learned.
I think that's how life is. We move forward stronger and better.
Don't let it happen to you. Let let's educate ourselves it was such a huge honor having you thank you for taking time from your busy schedule and yeah guys let you educate yourselves before you make any decisions thank you so much christina this was incredible be safe out there thank you thank you thank you thank you last but not least before i let you go those you that know Cat on the Loose know that one of my favorite places to shop for casual, cozy, everyday wear is Girly à la Molde, building a worldwide community for body positivity, self-love, and inclusion.
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