Eva Mendes says the number one reason for divorce is sweatpants. That got a lot of pushback on social media but I think I know what she meant. Sweatpants is just a symbol for a way of life.

In the sixties, some men grew their hair long. Others objected to that. But it wasn’t really the long hair they were objecting to. They were really objecting to the hippie lifestyle and liberal belief system that long hair represented.

Think of a complicated set of beliefs as a suitcase. Then use another word as a handle to carry that suitcase around. For example, lawyers use the handle res ipsa loquitur meaning “the thing speaks for itself”. This is a presumption that helps prove something by circumstantial evidence. An example is if you see a broken flower pot on the sidewalk and a ledge above with flower pots, you can presume the flower pot fell off the ledge even though you didn’t see it happen. But that’s too complicated to explain to the judge every time, so a lawyer might just say “res ipsa” and the judge knows what the lawyer means.

I think that Ms. Mendes was using sweatpants as a shortcut to say that you have to work at a marriage. She meant you can’t just have an I-don’t-care sweatpants attitude about your relationship. You have to bring a yoga pants attitude to your marriage. That means you need to care about your spouse and your marriage. And that means doing things like saying “I love you”, showing affection, talking, and being interested in their life.

My son and I watched The Walking Dead together last weekend. We both looked at each other after it was over because we were still trying to figure out the ending. We rewound and rewatched it several times. Then we discussed it and put the clues together. Aha! So that’s what it meant.

I told my son I liked stories like that. The author doesn’t tell you what happens but leaves enough clues for you to figure it out yourself after you close the book and think about if for a while. John le Carre writes his spy novels that way.

I like to use this in my law practice. I find it much more persuasive when I write a letter to opposing counsel where he comes to the right conclusion himself rather than me telling him. The same goes for argument to the judge or jury and briefs to the appeals court. Don’t hit them over the head with the answer. Leave enough clues for the reader to figure it out on their own.