My guest today is Raymond Hekmat. Raymond is a family law and marriage planning attorney in Beverly Hills. His practice is focused on couples successfully entering their marriages with well-planned and cooperative prenuptial agreements. When marriage doesn’t work out, he assists his clients move on with their lives through divorce consulting and mediation services.

You can find Raymond on the web at:
www.hekmatfamilylaw.com
TikTok: @theprenupguy
IG: @hekmatfamilylaw

Transcript

[Jon Dabach] 00:00

On today’s show I have a guest on named Raymond Hekmat Raymond is a family and marriage planning attorney in Beverly Hills. His practice is focused on couples successfully entering their marriages with well-planned and cooperative Prenuptial agreements.

[Jon Dabach] 00:19

 And when marriage doesn’t work out, as it sometimes doesn’t, he assists his clients move on with their lives through divorce consulting and mediation services. He’s super fun. He’s very funny, and he’s very sharp, and I am sure that you’re going to love hearing his approach to prenuptial as well as divorce mediation.

[Jon Dabach] 00:39

 In this episode, you’re listening to the relationship revival podcast with Jon Dabach, also known as Mr. Spirituality. That’s me. I’m your host giving you insights and guidance from over 10 years in the field of this amazing journey we call romance on this show, I go over everything you need to know about how to get into a relationship, how to get the most out of a relationship, and sometimes even how to gracefully end a relationship without pulling your hair out and going crazy.

[Jon Dabach] 01:08

And occasionally, I’m even joined by new and old friends who are also relationship experts to bring you guidance and wisdom with new perspectives.

[Jon Dabach] 01:17

 Thanks for stopping by the whole point of this podcast series where I’m interviewing divorce or family law attorneys is to kind of get a peek under the rug, see what it really is like for people who might be considering a divorce or considering going into marriage and what they need to know legally, to protect their rights.

[Jon Dabach] 01:36

 And I loved when I went to your website, and when we discussed kind of before interviewing, you have a different approach than your classic divorce lawyer, you have a kind of a one of your emphases is on Prenuptial agreements.

[Jon Dabach] 01:50

And you also do Divorce mediation. Why don’t you go ahead and kind of tell us and everybody who’s listening, what your practice is comprised of, and why you decided to structure it this way? Because it isn’t your classic, you know, divorce attorney, you know, firm?

[Raymond Hekmat] 02:06

Yeah, so I, after I passed the bar, and I went into family law, I worked for a couple different firms that were focused on divorce litigation. And for about, I want to say, seven or eight years, my practice, all I was doing was litigation, fight, fight, fight, go into court almost three, four times a week.

[Raymond Hekmat] 02:29

 And, and when I started my own practice, I did it for the first year or two. And I just realized that I didn’t realize two things, honestly, one was, it wasn’t who I was as a person, I was finding that I was becoming someone that I didn’t want to be.

[Raymond Hekmat] 02:45

I’m not that Bulldog attorney that wants to ruin people’s lives that many family law attorneys are. And, and on the SEC, and I saw the second part, I saw all the collateral damage that was happening through divorce litigation.

[Raymond Hekmat] 03:02

And what I mean by that is when two people are getting divorced, and they’re going through a really tough time, and they’re fighting and they’re litigating. The damage that is caused is not only between the two of them, but the family as a whole, most importantly, the children.

[Raymond Hekmat] 03:21

And I saw how litigation could negatively impact the kids of divorce. And honestly, I didn’t want to play a part in that. And I saw that there were better options out there.

[Raymond Hekmat] 03:32

And and look, there are some cases that require that litigation. But yeah, but so many times, things could be settled things can be resolved with communication, and two attorneys trusting each other and working collaboratively to help people just move on with their lives and things were like attorneys make mountains out of molehills honestly, to make money.

[Raymond Hekmat] 03:56

 I mean, I found that in litigation, there’s a true conflict of interest because as a litigation attorney, the more I fight, the more I make money, and I didn’t want to be a part of that. So about I want to say now it’s about six years ago, I decided to shift my practice to divorce consulting, mediation and Prenuptial agreements.

[Raymond Hekmat] 04:19

And the divorce consulting and mediation go kind of hand in hand where when parties are in mediation, I work with one of the parties as a consultant, divorce consultant where I help them strategize, settlement, strategize for the mediation, give them the knowledge they need to knowingly enter into the mediations, let them know what their legal rights are their obligations, sometimes even talking them off the ledge of making unreasonable demands that can kind of take the mediation off the right path.

[Raymond Hekmat] 04:55

 And I found a lot of value in that because you’re truly just helping people get country through all of their own lives, and through the mediation process. As a mediator, I do the same thing. I just work as an unbiased third party facilitating those conversations. And I find there’s meaning in that.

[Raymond Hekmat] 05:13

 Because when you’re going through a divorce, it’s important for couples to have that control in their lives, rather than, as my old mentor said, giving the power to a stranger in a black MooMoo to make decisions about your life and your family’s life. Right. It’s important for you to make those decisions on your own.

[Jon Dabach] 05:32

So, what when you’re a mediator, you’re not representing either party, representing

[Raymond Hekmat] 05:38

vital represent anyone, I don’t represent anyone, I’m an unbiased third party, that helps the two of them facilitate conversations and come to a resolution on the issues of their case, I’ll point out what issues need to be resolved. I may tell them what the law provides, how things would be calculated, what other professionals we may need to come in to do accounting or appraisals or valuations. And I, and I kind of walk them through that process and help them make those decisions.

[Jon Dabach] 06:12

Now, we had someone on the show recently, who is a therapist, by trade, and she also does Divorce mediation. So I guess my question is, do you know what the difference is? I mean, you know, to me, as a relationship counselor, it’s like the divorce attorney, being a mediator seems like a natural solution. Have you ever dealt with a therapist who is also a divorce mediator? Is that like a new concept to you as well?

[Raymond Hekmat] 06:39

That’s a new concept to me. I mean, I’ve, I’ve worked with many divorce coaches. So, there are divorce coaches out there that help with the emotional side of divorce. And to help you through that process. There are some mediators that don’t have any legal experience, or aren’t lawyers that I guess can help mediate? Sure. But as a lawyer, I know what the law is, I know what the issues are.

[Jon Dabach] 07:07

And either way, that kind of fall into the purview of being legal and binding.

[Raymond Hekmat] 07:12

Well, sure. It’s a legal process, and I’m helping people through that legal process. I would be wary of anyone without a legal degree. I mean, as a mediator, I’m not necessarily practicing law, but there are legal issues. It’s a legal process that I’m helping people go through. Yeah. So

[Jon Dabach] 07:29

very interesting. And I’m sure the line gets blurred with you, as well as the mediator where you kind of act as a therapist at times to almost work because it’s an emotional experience.

[Raymond Hekmat] 07:39

Well, absolutely. I mean, I, I tell people all the time that I would say about as a consultant as a mediator, or even as a litigation attorney, family law attorneys, I would say about 60 to 70% of our job is being a therapist, I’m not trained to be a therapist, I don’t have a license in therapy. But based on my experiences, and who I am as a person, 60 to 70% of what I do is therapy, the other 30% is legal.

[Raymond Hekmat] 08:08

 We’re helping people through a really, really tough time in their lives. And it’s a huge transition. And there’s a lot going on. And as attorneys, were there as a helping hand as support in any way, in any way we can I get phone calls where we’ll talk for an hour and maybe 10 minutes of it has to do with legal issues. And the rest of it is just about life, and about how things are going to look like at the end of the road at the end. Where’s that light at the end of the tunnel?

[Jon Dabach] 08:39

Yeah, yeah. So, you have to have, if you have an approach that you have, where you’re not a litigator, and you’re not this Bulldog fighting, you kind of have a much different emotional role. Because you’re not just kind of gearing them up for a fight. Yeah, there’s

[Raymond Hekmat] 08:54

a lot of there’s a lot of Bulldog attorneys that don’t have the time to talk about the therapy stuff and talk about feelings and emotions, you know, they really are focused on the case. And they’re focused on winning, and they’re focused on the facts and the evidence, and they want to get to that.

[Raymond Hekmat] 09:08

And that’s that’s their job, and that’s what they should be doing. But I found that a lot of times, clients, that’s all fine and dandy, but clients need that emotional support as well. And I fully support my clients going to therapy or having a divorce coach, because that shared professional support is very necessary. But I think they go hand in hand many, many times.

[Jon Dabach] 09:33

Yeah, especially if you have the mentality that you’re there as supportive of even if they do go to a coach or a therapist, you’re another year that they can bend another kind of voice of reason for sure.

[Jon Dabach] 09:44

So let me ask you this, what kind of clients because it’s a different type of person that would seek a mediator versus a litigant, you know, litigation attorney, who do you find to be really good kind of candidates for seeking mediation because the people who Listen to this show, they might be in a in a tough spot.

[Jon Dabach] 10:03

 And I believe that not every relationship can be saved. You know, if you put all your work in and you’re the best partner in the world and your other partners checked out at the end of the day, you can’t control them. So it’s like, sometimes it’s inevitable that you do have to split up. When do they what’s the sign? What’s the what are the like the the good criteria of like mediation is a good way to go versus litigation.

[Raymond Hekmat] 10:25

So I think the first thing is that two people have realized that their relationship is no longer working. But they continue to communicate well, and they respect each other. And they are their understanding of the situation, and they both want to move on, they both understand the value of moving on, you know, I tell my clients all the time, when we’re getting divorced, we do a community property balance sheet, we’re dealing with a lot of financial issues.

[Raymond Hekmat] 10:56

 But there’s a lot of valuable assets that aren’t on that community property balance sheet, and one of them is the value of moving on with your life. And a good good candidates for mediation, communicate with each other have that understanding of what that value is want to work together to move on, respect each other and their family and, and want to avoid that damage that could occur from a litigation.

[Raymond Hekmat] 11:25

I really think that’s the most important issue because again, mediation is totally voluntary. It requires two people to voluntarily decide that they want to work together to kind of dissolve this marriage and deal with those financial issues.

[Jon Dabach] 11:42

Yeah, and I’m assuming because it’s voluntary, and because it’s, you know, the two people are on the same page, that it’s probably a shorter process as well, and probably even more affordable, right?

[Raymond Hekmat] 11:54

Absolutely, absolutely. Because when you’re litigating, you’re dealing with not only your attorneys calendar in juggling so many cases and trials and court hearings, and this and that. But you’re also dealing with the courts calendar. So if issues need to be resolved, and you file a motion in court, it’s not going to be heard for another three to four months. Right? Right. And that’s only on one issue.

[Raymond Hekmat] 12:18

And then if you, God forbid, you have to go to trial trials aren’t set for another year, you know, and and they’re working on getting that system faster and dedicating courtrooms for long term trials, but but it’s a long process. On the other hand, mediation, you have more control and moving things forward, moving things at your own pace as you want.

[Raymond Hekmat] 12:40

If you have resolution, and you know what you guys are going to agree on, you can move a lot faster in the mediation process. And yeah, it is a lot cheaper, because you’re paying, you’re paying a mediator, their hourly rate for those mediation sessions and any work that’s done outside of mediation.

[Raymond Hekmat] 12:57

And I always advise my clients to hire those consulting attorneys. But again, those consulting attorneys are not filing motions. They’re not doing discovery, they’re not writing letters, they’re not calling the attorneys, you know, I find that a lot of litigation.

[Raymond Hekmat] 13:12

A lot of clients that are going through litigation, they’ll get a bill at the end of the month, and they’re and they’re like, wait a minute, when did you do all of this work? I haven’t seen any of the work product. You talk to the other attorney for an hour and a half.

[Raymond Hekmat] 13:27

 What did you guys talk about for an hour and a half? You know, so but but as a consultant, or attorney, or mediator, as a mediator, when you get the bill at the end of the month, you you know what that time was spent on? Because you asked for that work to be done? And that’s it. There’s

[Jon Dabach] 13:42

a lot more clarity. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Is there a typical timeline for mediation? Is it like it normally lasts two months, six months? Or is it all over the map? Because it depends on couple.

[Raymond Hekmat] 13:55

It’s all over the map? Because it depends on the couple. I’ve had certain people that hire me, and we have one water two-hour session, and we’re done. Like they already agreed on everything even as complicated as having like three to four pieces of property and some big accounts and cars and kids.

[Raymond Hekmat] 14:12

 But they know what they wanted to do. And we were done in within two hours. And that’s it. And we’re drafting up a judgment and we’re moving on.

[Raymond Hekmat] 14:19

There are others that things are a little bit more intricate. We have to get appraisals, there’s differences of opinion of what a business might be valued at or, or we have issues in co-parenting, we have different styles of co-parenting, how do we resolve our differences with an agreement that we’re both okay with and that we’re willing to move on with?

[Jon Dabach] 14:38

How often would you say, you know, to a couple that comes in thinking that they can do mediation takes a hard turn in the middle of a mediation session and says maybe we should be considering litigation.

[Raymond Hekmat] 14:51

Yeah, it happens once in a while and and Okay, and that’s okay. Because I mean, you’ve given it a shot. You’ve tried to work things out right now. But it happens once in a while where maybe new information comes up, maybe certain things happen while we’re in mediation.

[Raymond Hekmat] 15:08

 Maybe you learn that you don’t really trust your partner as much as you thought you did. And, and trust is a huge part of mediation, because we’re not here to do discover your find out secrets, right? Everyone is supposed to be on their best behavior, present all of the information that they’re asked to present and do it properly.

[Raymond Hekmat] 15:30

And, and accurately. So, if someone says that their income is 5000 a month, but you really think that it’s closer to 20, and they’re really sticking to that five? Well, at that point, there’s not much for me to do as a mediator.

[Raymond Hekmat] 15:46

We could maybe hire a joint forensic accountant to evaluate that, but they would have to both agree to that. But when I find that when people are in mediation, that they really just stick to their guns, and they’re focused on winning. That’s when things can go awry.

[Jon Dabach] 16:03

So that’s the red flag if someone has that competitions type of mentality, and it’s about me versus you, and I’m winning or right.

[Raymond Hekmat] 16:11

Yeah, right. Mediation is not about winning. Mediation is about coming to an agreement and moving on. And, and some of the best settlement officers we work with always say that, at any negotiation, if both parties walk away unhappy, it probably means we came to a good resolution.

[Jon Dabach] 16:29

Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard that too. I’ve heard that in the past. Well, you know what, I think this is a good a good point, because you talked about how it’s not about winning, which is, which is something I tell all my kind of relationship clients is like, if you have this idea that I was right, and you were wrong, that’s kind of a recipe for disaster within the relationship. And I think this is a good point, kind of to talk about Prenuptial agreements and what, you know, what a prenuptial agreement can do to help a married couple kind of enter into a marriage the right way.

[Raymond Hekmat] 17:07

Absolutely. So, we’ll start from the start. When, when you get married, it’s a legal contract. And you’re, you’re succumb to the laws of California, the laws of California and I practice in California, so I can only speak to California but the laws of California are is your prenup.

[Raymond Hekmat] 17:27

 So, whether you like it or not, you’re going to have a prenup. So, what happens is that when you get married, it’s actually your first, as I know, your only opportunity to really create your own laws of your life in your marriage. And what you’re able to do with a prenuptial agreement is to rewrite those laws in a way that works for your they both of you in your relationship, and they work best for your relationship.

[Raymond Hekmat] 17:53

 Because community property laws don’t really work for everyone. They’re just boilerplate laws that have certain values, and they apply those values to everyone as a boilerplate. But every relationship is different. Every relationship dynamic is different. And, and it’s an opportunity to reevaluate that relationship dynamic.

[Raymond Hekmat] 18:12

 So, what a prenuptial, the way I do Prenuptial agreements, I actually see it as an opportunity to build a really strong foundation in your marriage. And what I mean by that is, when I see people getting divorced, a large reason, a big reason why people get divorced is about money.

[Raymond Hekmat] 18:30

And it may be differences in opinion about how money should be spent saved. What does money mean to you? Expectations and roles and responsibilities in the marriage?

[Raymond Hekmat] 18:44

 And these are all things that should absolutely be discussed before you get married. And people avoid that because they say, oh, that’s not romantic, or what if we find out that we don’t align with it? And you know what? That’s okay. That’s a good thing.

[Raymond Hekmat] 19:01

 You know, I tell people, and we’ve I’ve done Prenuptial agreements where we go through that process, and they realize they’re not right for each other. And that’s a waste situation. Yeah, absolutely. You know, you either go through that process and you align and you realize, like, this is how we’re going to live our marital life and our finances during our marriage, or you realize we’re on completely separate opposite ends, and we’re not right for each other.

[Raymond Hekmat] 19:23

 And that’s yeah, they’re both win win situations. For sure. So, I encourage my clients to talk to their partners about the prenuptial agreement.

[Jon Dabach] 19:34

What is those conversations sound like? What do you actually talk about during prenuptial conversations?

[Raymond Hekmat] 19:40

So, on my website, I have a I have a conversation, a conversation starter package that kind of goes through questions and conversation starters about money.

[Raymond Hekmat] 19:51

So, I think the first thing to do is to talk about money talk about not even about the prenup, but about what you guys think your life is going to look like to Other What are your roles and responsibilities? What are your expectations of each other? How much values? What are your values?

[Raymond Hekmat] 20:05

 How much money do you make? How much money do I make? Do we want to live in a house? Are we okay to condo? Were we planning to have kids? How many private schools? What are? What do all of those things look like?

[Jon Dabach] 20:16

Right and a debt you’re coming into the marriage with? Right?

[Raymond Hekmat] 20:18

Absolutely. You know, what is your credit score? You know, things like that. Do you get what what is your involvement of money with your family? Do you get gifts on a regular basis? Are those gifts going to be ours? Or are they going to be yours? What are you going to do with that money?

[Raymond Hekmat] 20:33

What do you plan on investing? What do you what are your goals in your life and your financial goals in your life? Right? Yeah, so the first thing is to talk about that kind of stuff, and try to understand where each of you is coming from. Now, once you have those conversations, a prenuptial agreement can really only deal with financial matters in terms of income assets.

[Raymond Hekmat] 20:55

 And so, it’s the conversations are okay, we have certain assets that we’re coming in with, what do we want to do with those assets? Do we want to keep them separate? Do we want the community to be able to gain an interest in them? How are we going to manage these assets that were coming into the marriage with right, then there is okay, well, now that we have that, what about the assets we acquired during marriage? How is that going to look?

[Raymond Hekmat] 21:23

 Are those going to be separate? Are they going to be community? Is there going to be a hybrid situation where we consciously decide to create community property rather than things being automatically created, like California law? And right. And so that’s the asset and debt conversation.

[Raymond Hekmat] 21:40

And then there’s the conversation about income, right? These days, people have income from many different sources, whether it’s passive income from prior to marriage, or active income from employment during marriage, how do we want our income to be characterized?

[Raymond Hekmat] 21:56

 Do we want it all to be community property? Do we want it to just be my money, your money? What’s yours is yours? What’s mine is mine. Do we want a hybrid situation again, where you make your money, I make my money, but we’ll put somebody in a joint pot, and then we’ll do stuff with that. Right?

[Raymond Hekmat] 22:11

So those are kind of the questions we go through in terms of assets, income, and then we sometimes talk about, okay, if we buy a house together, what is that going to look like? If we invest together? We start a business together? What are those things going to look like? You know,

[Jon Dabach] 22:27

every month? Yeah.

[Raymond Hekmat] 22:28

And those conversations are so

[Jon Dabach] 22:31

I tell people, you know, because this comes up in dating, it comes up in marriages all the time with me too. And you’re right. People say this isn’t romantic. I don’t like talking about it’s uncomfortable.

[Jon Dabach] 22:40

And I always tell people clarity, and transparency is the most romantic thing you can be. Because if you know your partner, that’s everything.

[Raymond Hekmat] 22:50

Well, I mean, look, first of all, I think that having these create these conversations creates intimacy, right? Getting married is a very intimate relationship apps, and you’re getting intimate, in every possible way to leave money on the table and say, hi, we’re not going to get intimate about money, I think is a huge mistake.

[Raymond Hekmat] 23:10

 Because whether you like it or not, at some point in your marriage, you’re going to talk about money. If not every month, maybe even every day, it’s gonna happen. You can’t avoid it. And, and look, and you’re married on it, like, marriage can be uncomfortable.

[Raymond Hekmat] 23:27

That’s just real life. That’s called Real Life. Marriage is not a beautiful wedding. We’re in love, and everything is perfect. That’s not marriage. Marriage involves a lot of changes. It involves children, it involves illnesses. It involves deaths, it involves ups and downs in your career and income and relying on each other and ebbs and flows that that are maybe expected or unexpected, right?

[Raymond Hekmat] 23:56

 And it’s having these conversations from the beginning, that kind of act as a training tool on how you’re going to resolve it during the marriage. I see it as like working on your car, right? You buy a new car, it’s absolutely perfect in every possible way.

[Raymond Hekmat] 24:14

 But if you don’t work on it, you don’t service it, you don’t change the oil, it’s going to die down. And it’s going to stop working. Right? Yep. So, these conversations are, are a training tool to be open about those conversations, even during your marriage and to approach when conflict arises during your marriage.

[Raymond Hekmat] 24:35

You’re able to approach those conflicts with from a place of understanding rather than conflict and defensiveness because now you understand where your partner is coming from what is their relationship with money? What does money mean to them?

[Raymond Hekmat] 24:50

 And and as Esther Perell has always said, fights about money are never about money. It’s not about them. money. It’s about your values on the money. It’s about what it means to you. What, how did you grow up with it? Right. And if you have that real true understanding about your partner, you’re able to have these conversations in a much more fruitful manner.

[Jon Dabach] 25:14

That’s great. That’s great. I love the approach, I think it’s totally in line with, with everything that I tell my clients all the time, I think that, you know, I’ll probably be referring some people to you at this point, because it’s like, if I, if I could back up the way I teach people how to have relationships with someone who can kind of make it kind of in a legal framework for them.

[Jon Dabach] 25:33

So, they understand this, you know, if they take that mentality into every aspect of their marriage, it’s just a great way to, to kind of go through and make sure that that the conflicts are avoided, because there’s an openness, there’s a willingness to talk about these things,

[Raymond Hekmat] 25:47

it’s important to note the conflicts won’t be avoided. They’ll just be approached proactively, and and there’ll be more fruitful, right? There’ll be more, they’re going to be more productive. Yeah. Rather than conflict. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah,

[Jon Dabach] 26:05

for sure. For sure. What, since you’ve been sent, it’s so interesting, because you see people at the beginning and at the end stages of their marriage, what what’s some of the most surprising things that you’ve seen or learned about marriage through your divorce consulting?

[Raymond Hekmat] 26:24

I mean, going back to it not sound like a broken record. But the most surprising thing I’ve learned is that people really did it know what they were getting themselves into. They didn’t have those conversations about money with their partner, so they didn’t understand what to expect.

[Raymond Hekmat] 26:39

 They had certain expectations in their head, that they were going to live a certain life because my spouse is a doctor or a lawyer or owns his big company, or has family money, or this and that, and they have these expectations of how their marriage is going to look.

[Raymond Hekmat] 26:54

And then it doesn’t look that way. And they’re like, Wait a minute. But you can’t blame. You can’t blame the other side. It’s like you never asked for that. You never talked about it. You never said this is what I expected my life. Right? So, it’s really surprising to me, that people enter marriages without those conversations without that understanding.

[Jon Dabach] 27:16

It’s like walking in, it’s like walking into a relationship blindfolded.

[Raymond Hekmat] 27:20

Absolutely. And they just rely on love. And look, you should love your partner, you should absolutely share that love. But But in many ways,

[Jon Dabach] 27:31

marriage is making sure it’s secure making what are their marriages.

[Raymond Hekmat] 27:34

Also, it’s also look, whether you like it or not getting married is a business partnership. It is.

[Jon Dabach] 27:41

And I tell him the kind of joke I tell people is, you know, if you’re married with kids, it’ll feel like a nonprofit that you’re not getting paid to work. And

[Raymond Hekmat] 27:49

absolutely, you know, that creates his own stresses. And, and you’re you have to manage through those, and you have to have an understanding of how you’re going to deal with them. Right. So, I think that’s the that’s one thing. It’s also I don’t comes down to communication.

[Raymond Hekmat] 28:09

I think people people are surprised when their sexual intimacy is not the way that they expected, or, or that the family relationships aren’t what they expected. Yeah, and it all comes down to the fact that you never talked about it to begin with. And dating is very different from being engaged.

[Raymond Hekmat] 28:33

And being engaged is extremely different than being married. And that being married with children is very different than just being married single, right? Yeah. And we go through these stages in life. At every single stage, that communication needs to continue happening.

[Raymond Hekmat] 28:49

 And people just expect that the person I married at 25 is going to be the same person that I buried, that I bury to at 40. With children, right, right. That’s not going to happen.

[Jon Dabach] 29:01

Never. We

[Raymond Hekmat] 29:02

all change. We all have new lives. You know, I mean, my wife and I were talking about it last night. This is the longest relationship heard I have ever been in.

[Raymond Hekmat] 29:12

We’ve been married for almost eight or nine years, eight years. It’s the longest relationship we’ve ever been in. We, we haven’t. We’ve never been in a relationship this long. We don’t know what that means. This is the first time I met I’m with someone that I have children with.

[Raymond Hekmat] 29:28

 So, I don’t know how to navigate that. We’re learning as we go and to have the expectation that your spouse is going to be the same person they were when you married them in the first place. That’s also surprising to me, because you have to have that understanding that things do change.

[Jon Dabach] 29:46

And people just assume that they’re that it’ll just happen by osmosis. You wake up next to your partner and you’ll just understand who they are but they require conversations. They require the communication,

[Raymond Hekmat] 29:57

and that’s why I kind of questioned some of the people that say we grew out of love. I questioned it, but also understand it, I questioned it, because that just means that you didn’t try to communicate and try to get on the same level and try to understand where the other person is coming from to try to one of our bed tours you say you got to give a shit about what your spouse gives a shit about. Sorry, yeah, if I’m allowed to cuss here,

[Jon Dabach] 30:24

that’s okay. Yeah, no, no. So many kids are listening to this. There

[Raymond Hekmat] 30:28

you go. And that’s really important. Some people just choose to stop giving a shit about what their spouse gives a shit about what it’s something new or different. Right?

[Raymond Hekmat] 30:37

And, and so I question it because you’re not growing together, and you’re not growing separately. And I believe that that’s important too. But I also understand it because as we grow up, our needs, change our expectations, change our lives, change, your values, change everything about everything changes. So if you’re no longer on that same page, I can understand it as well.

[Jon Dabach] 31:03

There’s no such thing as stagnation in relationship. You’re either growing or shrinking in your intimacy, you have to work towards the growth otherwise things start to collapse. There’s no such thing as just status quo. apps every day is a new thing. Oh, absolutely. Raymond it’s been an unbelievable pleasure.

[Jon Dabach] 31:20

I love your perspective on this I love that you’re an attorney who cares and that you clearly like just want to help people have great relationships it’s a breath of fresh air. I’m talking to a lot of attorneys so I’m sure I’ll hear some who kind of share your mentality but if you want to if you want to reach out to Raman you can go to heck Matt family law.com That’s hekmatfamilylaw.com

[Jon Dabach] 31:45

He has a social media links there and his end is really useful kind of how to talk about money guide that you that he mentioned that I’m going to take a look at and probably keep in my arsenal for clients as well.