I hear that in my sleep, by the way. All right, Jim. I really do. All right, Jim. I actually feel like if I could have my alarm clock go, 'All right, Jim,' and that would be the thing that wakes me up in the morning, it would really—I mean, I wouldn't be opposed to it. Just I'm always in your head. You're always thinking about the show. What's next?
All right, Jim. Today, we're talking about the effects Ozempic is having in the marriage and more particularly the divorce world. There's been a spike in divorce that correlates along with GLP-1s and Ozempics and the weight loss.
It's a sexier courthouse, by the way.
I bet. I mean, sexier world.
The lawyers have never looked better. I have to tell you, there's a lot of very—there's a lot of—what's funny about lawyers, though, as a profession, I do have to shout out my profession. We are—we are very self-effacing, man. Like, like other professions, you're like, 'Wow, you look great,' and they're like, 'Oh, thanks so much. I've been doing Pilates.' Like you say to lawyers, like, 'Man, you look great.' They're like, 'Yeah, dude. I'm on drugs. It's great.' I'm like, 'Get in the shot. Get in the jab. It's awesome.' You're like, 'Really?' Like, 'Oh, yeah. I'm on all of it. I'm on all of them.' You know, like it's—they're so candid about it. But it's a sexier courthouse. I got to tell you, everybody's—there's got to be some tailor in New York City who are making a lot of money redoing everybody's suits.
I—I do feel like in general, though, people are a little more quick to admit—admit to the GLP-1s and other things. So many people are—everyone's doing it. There's no shame. Undeniable because it's people that, like, for years and years and years had weight issues and now they've just, like, lost all of that weight. And also it's changed the manner in which people engage with food. Like there's just—people are just—you don't see as many people out to lunch eating these gigantic lunches or out to dinner eating these gigantic dinners. Like it's become much more, you know, acceptable for people to just eat, like, smaller portions. There was a big spread of food at Coachella for influencers and they said none of it was getting touched. It's like—I remember one time I went to, uh, the Electric Daisy Festival and I—I'm—I'm just drinking beer. I'm not really a raver, right? So the Bud Light line—the Bud Light, Molly, like, you know, like love—that was everybody was doing that and I had the Bud Light tent to myself. I was like you and Shane Gillis just hitting Bud Lights all day, you know. Um, but yeah, so, you know, obviously you can kind of connect the dots. People are getting sexier, hotter, losing weight, and that leads to, you know, maybe people wanting to get—wanting to get divorced.
Uh, is this something that you've kind of factored into your practice? Like the—the Ozempic bump?
Yeah. I mean, I think it's—it's hard to isolate what the trend is because rarely would someone say, 'Hey, I got hotter and my options got broader, so therefore I'm leaving.' People have a tendency, and I've talked about this on prior episodes, to recreate the history of the marriage. 'Well, we were disconnected for years,' and it's like you guys actually were—you wouldn't say you were disconnected for years until you started sleeping with your secretary. Like, that's when you suddenly decided you hadn't been unhappy for a really long time. But if you go in your camera roll in your phone six months ago, you guys, like, seemed pretty goddamn happy. So I think that—that's one of those things that, you know, there—people will very often not admit even to themselves, much less to anybody else, that, yeah, like, I got more attractive and I got more attention from potential, you know, mates and, uh, suddenly I felt like my range of options was broader. I mean, you know, the—the GLP-1 drugs have definitely, um—look at the number of people that had lifelong struggles with their weight. Oprah, uh, Lizzo. I mean, there's so many people out there that had lifelong weight—Jim Gaffigan, like, there's a ton of people that had lifelong weight issues that, you know, admit, 'Yeah, I got on a GLP-1 and it—like, I could handle this. Like, my body reacted well to this and it created, you know, it turned down the volume on the food noise. It changed things that were happening in my metabolism and, you know, I feel better, I look better, whatever.' Okay. I mean, like, so it's undeniable it's had a significant impact on people's psychology, their relationship with food, their relationship with their own body, their level of confidence. So I get it, you know, I get it. I think that—that those are all part of the ecosystem of divorce. Do I think that there are, like, happily married people that are satisfied in their marriage and then they go on a GLP-1 drug and they lose weight and then suddenly they're like, 'Now I'm going to go cheat on my spouse'? No. I—I think there's actually some anecdotal evidence out there that says that it diminishes people's cravings for a lot of things, including things like sex. So, um, but again, I—I do think most people will acknowledge that when you are feeling good in your body, you tend to often be more sexual, like, you tend to be more confident in your sexuality. Like, most people who take up an exercise habit who weren't big exercisers and they get into really good shape will often say, 'Yeah, I started, like, feeling a lot more sexual. I started feeling more comfortable in my body. It increased my body confidence and that increased my receptivity to sexuality and my desire for sex.' So again, these are all things that influence what's happening in divorce trends. But how do you study that in a vacuum? You going to ask people, 'Is this why you're divorcing?' They're not going to honestly answer. That's like, is social media influencing the way you perceive your relationship? All these things are happening at once. None of this stuff is happening in a vacuum. So, we're seeing an increase in the GLP-1 use. We're seeing an increase in social media proliferation and the refining of the algorithm in terms of it showing us information that will be appealing to us individually. Like, we're seeing a rise in AI. At the same time, we're seeing tremendous economic unrest and job insecurity. We're saying, like, there's so many things happening at once. How would you be able to say, 'Oh, this is the cause'?
Well, so that's kind of where we're headed, though, because if you look at kind of a theme or trends of what we've been talking about for almost a year now, uh, it's the rise of non-monogamy. It's people airing out, um, their—their dissatisfaction with spouses. It's the AI. It's the digital cheating. People quick rebounds after getting a divorce, having a baby, which feels to me like it's all kind of pointing towards the idea of, like, do you stay in a relationship because you're obligated anymore, or are people kind of re-evaluating all of these different things that are impacting whether I should stay or be single?
Yeah, I think—I think it's a broader trend. And the broader trend is it's very cool to kill your idols now. Like, it's really no longer cool to hold on to a thing for a really long time. Like, what's the newest thing? What's the latest thing? That's really what the algorithm is constantly feeding us. And by the way, I—I do think that's a function of advertising culture and late capitalism. Like, I think it really is consumption will fill the void. You don't want to convince people, hey, buy one car and stick with that car forever. It has to be buy a car and then in three years buy another car because this car is so much better than the other car. Buy an iPhone, then in a couple years get the new iPhone because it's even better. We're—planned obsolescence has become the business model overwhelming everything. And it's really no longer—like, how many people take out a 30-year mortgage and keep their house for 30 years? It just doesn't happen. So, the reality is, like, people lease cars. People buy the maintenance plan from the car dealership. And the car dealership, by the way, wants them to do it because they know they're going to get that car back when it goes off lease because this person's going to want a new car because we're—planned obsolescence is the name of the game. That is not compatible with the concept of long-term monogamy. Long-term monogamy is the opposite of that. What—what long-term monogamy is is I have picked one and that's my one. And there are going to be days where I'm super excited about this relationship and there's going to be days where I'm not as excited about this relationship. And there's going to be days where I'm damn near dissatisfied with this relationship, but long-term I really want to be in this relationship for the long haul because I see value in that. I think there are fewer and fewer voices out there saying to people there is value in staying in a long-term relationship. I think now what you're hearing a lot of voices of is you should be happy. You deserve to be happy.
