1165: False Accusations Lead to Custody Frustrations | Feedback Friday

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Welcome to Feedback Friday.

I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger.

Quick heads up before we get into the episode.

Gabriel, by the way, if you are listening to this, skip ahead one minute, 20 seconds.

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Now that it's just us,

Gabriel warning you, do not listen to the next one minute, 20 seconds.

Okay.

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Wow,

I don't want any more complaints about my long sign-offs after that.

Yeah, fine.

Now you see two can play at this game.

Two can play at this game.

That was inspired, by the way.

Thank you for that.

Anyway, on the Jordan Harbinger Show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turned their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you.

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We talked a lot about parenting, really insightful conversation on human behavior, especially parenting, but even if you don't have kids, you'll love this one.

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Check those out if you haven't done so yet.

On Fridays, though, we share stories, take listener letters, offer advice, play obnoxious soundbites, and mercilessly exact revenge on Gabe for his increasingly lengthy and convoluted sign-offs.

I love that at night you're dreaming about how to just savagely roast me with the intros.

That's right.

Like, not have any dreams that would be good for analysis, but there's a killer opening for Feedback Friday in there.

My nocturnal emissions are productive.

By the way, I know I dragged Alaska Airlines, I don't know, years ago.

Some of you remember, and a few of you wrote in.

You're like, I'm a pilot and we have the best safety record ever.

And I felt really bad about that.

So recently I've been flying Alaska more and more as part of my penance, actually, and because it's a great airline.

But really, I am blown away by it.

This is going to sound like a show sponsored thing.

I swear it's not.

They are amazing.

Their lounges are all kind of new.

They're clean.

They're not crowded.

A lounge that's not crowded in 2025, what is going on?

I love it.

They have food.

The service is good.

You know how some flight attendants on Southwest, for example, they're cheerful and they're fun.

Alaska Airlines has that.

They also have really good seats that are super comfy.

They've got really good, like really good food, shockingly good airline food that I can't even believe it.

Actually, the stuff I had yesterday was so good.

And it's really a glow up because it's not like I'd never flown Alaska Airlines before, but they were kind of like Frontier Spirit meets Delta or something.

And that was the image I had of them.

And I flew it like 20 years ago.

Is that what they went through, like some turnaround or something?

I don't know if they just got a bunch of investment or if they were acquired or if they acquired somebody else.

I humbly revise my earlier opinion.

And I flew to NYC and back on them.

And it was just awesome.

This is actually music to my ears because I'm flying them down to Costa Rica.

I got a really random flight at like midnight, and I never fly Alaska.

I don't even know anything about the airline.

So this is great.

I'm excited.

Might actually get some sleep.

They're great.

They need to rebrand as something that doesn't sound like it only flies to and from Alaska.

That's what they need to do because that's kind of what it sounds.

It sounds like a place where people are carrying, I don't know, a cooler full of fish and putting it in the overhead compartment.

And it's just not that at all.

Yeah.

They went from Alaska Cant to Alaska.

Oh.

Wow.

Okay.

As always, we've got some fun ones and some 100% real, not at all made up doozies.

and that's not sarcastic by the way a lot of you have been like oh I heard that somewhere yeah our fans post this on Reddit but then they write to us for real advice and a lot of this stuff is more universal than you might think especially some of the scammy ones Gabe what's the first thing out of the mailbag dear Jordan and Gabe my ex-husband and I have been separated for over three years and we settled our divorce last summer We started having a high conflict co-parenting relationship when his girlfriend at the time, who's now his wife, entered the picture.

He moved into our house with my two daughters when I willingly gave him emergency temporary custody after I suffered a head injury in a domestic violence incident with my boyfriend

where I jumped out of a car to save my life.

Oh my goodness.

It took more than a year and a half for me to get my kids every other weekend.

We finally reached an agreement with a parenting time schedule set, but my ex and his wife have been defying the court order by refusing me my time.

I haven't had my children for about six months, which has caused me to miss both of their birthdays and all of the holidays.

Oh man.

I currently live six hours away.

I only get to talk to them on the phone about once a week on average.

And their stepmother regularly disrupts our phone calls, talks inappropriately to me in front of my children, and even tries to end the phone calls, which she has no right or authority to do.

No, that is not okay at all.

She used to access our co-parenting app on my ex's phone to send me incoherent messages while she was drunk.

She has harassed me by calling me in the middle of the night to yell at me, threatened to take my kids away from me, and even calls me on my little girl's emergency flip phone to catch me off guard.

When she can't find a way to contact me, she will find ways to contact the people around me, usually my mother.

She tells lies about me to people I know and the school my children attend and makes false statements to police to try to get me in trouble, which has worked in the past.

This is a nightmare.

Jeez.

A couple years ago, she blindsided me when she obtained two harassment restraining orders against me that cover her, my ex, and the children.

She filed a petition and had an ex parte hearing where she lied and made false allegations about me, and because I wasn't there to defend myself, these orders were granted.

I requested a hearing in defense, and my attorney's approach was to negotiate and make amendments to the restraining orders so that they were workable for me.

We did this because if the judge denied our request to have them thrown out, they would be granted for two years, and I risked not being able to see my kids at all for that time.

I honored the orders, and I was careful to never do anything that could be considered a violation.

Okay, wow, this is rough.

I do wonder about everything that happened leading up to this.

I'm a little confused about what caused her ex and the wife to turn on her and become so aggressive.

I mean, there's divorces and there's breakups, but I mean, it's just curious to me.

It's like, I feel like I'm missing something or didn't pick up something.

I don't know.

I know, you mean, it's hard to know what she might not be telling us or what was the history, but she said a high-conflict co-parenting relationship, but she said it was only when the ex entered the picture.

Yeah.

She does sound like a piece of work, but it is sort of curious.

But late last year, I walked into a trap.

I was bringing my girls back after having them for the weekend, and I contacted their father about meeting at a local park where we would do the exchange.

He had a long day, and it was getting dark, so he asked me to just bring them by their house to drop them off.

We had been getting along at the time, so I didn't think anything of it.

I dropped them off without incident and left.

I then stopped at a gas station and noticed that my daughter left her cellphone and a pair of shoes in the car.

I messaged my ex and said I was gonna turn around and leave them on his front porch.

I parked in front of the house, walked up the steps, set down the phone and the shoes, and left.

I didn't think anything of it until two weeks later when I was back in town getting ready for my next weekend visit with the girls, and a friend of mine asked me what I planned to do about the warrant for my arrest.

Oh, yeah, because she violated the restraining order by going back and dropping off the stuff.

But how does the friend know there's a warrant for her arrest?

That's weird.

I'm also wondering though.

Does her friend have a Google alert for her and she found it on one of those websites?

I don't know.

The friend's a cop.

I had no idea what she was talking about.

I looked into it and I indeed had an active arrest warrant for a restraining order violation.

Oh man.

I asked my ex what was going on and he said they reported me because I went back to the house when I dropped off the phone, which was all captured on their doorbell camera.

They also lied to the police and said that I had called my ex 15 times that day.

I absolutely did not do that and can prove that with my records.

I spoke to both of my attorneys and because it was later on Friday afternoon before a holiday weekend, if I turned myself in, I could have potentially been held in jail for up to six days because I wouldn't see a judge until Tuesday morning.

They said I could try to pick up my kids, but if they had me arrested when I picked them up or if I was arrested with my kids, the county would open a CHIPS case against me.

That's a child in need of protection case.

After weighing the risks, I felt it was best to cancel my visit, which broke my heart and my wallet.

because I had already spent about $1,000 on a rental car and a hotel for me and the girls.

I ended up turning myself in a few weeks later and was released a couple hours later on my own recognizance.

I have a hearing for that next month.

After my ex started refusing to let me have the kids, I reached out to my attorney in law enforcement.

My attorney basically told me I would have to rehire her with a new retainer because we ended our relationship after mediation, and law enforcement told me they don't intervene in family court matters, and they advised me to use the family court and file a motion.

I filed a motion asking the court to compel my ex to follow our court order from last year, and I had my ex served by mail on December 24th.

He and his wife then called the police and tried to have me charged again for the restraining order violation, saying that it was contact by mail.

They also told the officer that I had called my ex and the girl's emergency phone and was verbally threatening to come and take the children.

I spoke to the officer and told her they were lying and offered to provide my phone records to show that I never contacted them.

The officer told me that it looked like it could be a violation and her hands were tied.

but that it would be up to the county attorney to decide whether to move forward with charges.

I haven't heard anything from anyone, so I don't think they are filing another charge, but I do check regularly to see if I have any warrants, which is not something a normal person has to do.

My ex and especially his wife are very good at painting a picture of me as the unhinged and erratic problem parent that they had to get restraining orders against because they were so frightened of me.

My attorney pointed out that someone who's so frightened of me also happens to find a lot of ways to continue contacting me.

Yeah, no kidding.

Including my ex's wife attempting to break into my house last year.

I have this on video, and she was charged with disorderly conduct and property damage.

Dude, this is so crazy.

What a story.

This is really a matter of they have better lawyers.

This is insane.

Well, this is about to explain everything.

But she used to work for the sheriff's office

and was head of security for the Mayo Clinic Hospital in our city, so she worked closely with law enforcement.

She's calling in favors.

Yeah.

Her influence and use of the legal system has put me at a huge disadvantage.

I have to work twice as hard to get half as far because it's difficult to even be heard.

And there's so much more to this story, including an incident where my ex's best friend, in a fit of rage, dislocated my daughter's front tooth when he tried to force feed her.

That guy then killed himself during the investigation after I reported it to the police, which only brought up more questions.

What more questions?

That is...

Well, actually, I have questions.

We all have questions.

What is happening over there?

That's the scariest thing I've heard in this letter.

Should I tell you why?

Should we go down this road?

Sure.

So if he accidentally dislocated a girl's front tooth, they investigate and they say this is negligent or not an accident.

That's bad.

But he was so afraid of the investigation.

Finding something?

Oh, man.

If the worst thing they find is, yeah, he was trying to feed her and it looks like he may have negligently knocked out her tooth.

Do you kill yourself over that?

Maybe if you're mentally unstable, you do.

But I think he's worried about them finding something else.

Let's not freak our friend here out because I don't know if she needs something else to worry about.

Also, there's no evidence.

No, he could have just killed himself because he's under investigation for dislocating a tooth, or he could have been a total piece of crap that did something wrong.

I mean, he could also be, yeah, unstable, like you said.

That's true.

This whole crew is a giant mess.

There's something going on, just one too many damn things, right?

Look, whoever's fault this is, whoever the main villain is here, and I'm sorry to say I'm not clear on that.

This is a toxic situation for these kids.

That's my point.

Yeah, why is there so much chaos?

So she goes on, My biggest fear is that my ex and his wife are turning my kids against me.

I was their primary parent before the divorce, so we're very close and I've worked so hard to maintain a positive, loving relationship with them.

It breaks my heart because they call me crying and ask me when they can see me again and when they'll get to come to my house.

My little one told me just last night that I'm her favorite mommy and that her stepmom is her second favorite.

And as much as I reveled in hearing that, I told her that, quote, it's not a competition and that we both love her so much, unquote, because I refuse to stoop to their level.

My approach has been to keep my cool, play by the rules, and know that I'm playing the long game, where I'm going to lose a lot of chess pieces along the way, but in the end, I will win by showing over time that I'm not everything they say I am, that I am not the problematic parent.

I'm not even trying to take custody from them.

All I want is the parenting time that we agreed to, and that I have a right to have.

I speak to my therapist regularly about all of this.

I try to keep in contact with the girls therapist who was a former colleague of mine, and I have a reunification therapist who knows the truth about this whole situation.

I try to keep as many eyes on our case as possible, and I'm trying my best to protect my girls from the harm that this can have on them.

I have a court date soon to talk to the judge who might tell my ex to follow the order, but I feel like I've exhausted my resources.

I'm getting tired, and I don't know how much longer I can stay standing while I keep taking hit after hit.

I want to take a more offensive approach to this and stop only playing defense.

Do you have any ideas, Dark Jordan or otherwise, for how I can return with some hits of my own that are appropriate and don't expose me to criminal liability?

Dark Jordan's not the guy for that, but we have other ideas.

Any strategies to make myself the biggest thorn that can't be removed from my opponent's side?

Are there any resources you can think of that would be useful for me?

Signed, trying to turn the tables when my ex has always been able to paint me as the one who's unstable without making a mistake that's fatal.

Oh man, this is a saga.

The things you've been through, I'm kind of speechless.

Okay, this is very very intense.

It's very sad.

And I am very sorry that you and your kids are going through all of this.

This abusive relationship, this custody battle, these law enforcement shenanigans.

I'm kind of gobsmacked here.

It's really hard to get restraining orders, but once you told me like, and get them enforced in such a way all the time for all this little stuff, it didn't make sense until you told me she used to work for the sheriff's office.

She's calling in favors here.

Otherwise, it's like the cops have a lot of other things to do.

I'm also getting the sense that your story is complicated.

There are probably so many angles to this situation.

So let's try to get to as many of them as we can.

We wanted to talk all of this out with an expert, so we reached out to attorney and friend of the show, Corbin Payne.

The first thing Corbin said to us was that your story sounds unfortunately familiar.

In his experience, the court system is an absolute maze.

Attorneys learn how to navigate it, and many people who work in and around it, like your ex's wife, they can get familiar enough with it that they can manipulate it and everyone within it to a certain extent in a way that people who are unfamiliar with the system would really have difficulty countering.

So that's what you're kind of running into here.

Corbin said he was also very glad that you know you're playing the long game.

In his view, that's good, because just short of an act of God, that's what it's going to take to win here.

To quote Corbin, court cases are marathons.

In fact, he describes a court battle as a war between two competing stories.

And those stories are being evaluated and essentially voted upon by a decision maker, in your case, a judge.

So it's not enough to just have a good and compelling story.

It also has to be good and compelling to that judge.

In Corbyn's view, just based on the facts you've shared, at this moment, you have several things going for you and many things going against you.

Right now, his sense was that your history, it would show that you walked into an abusive relationship that resulted in a serious injury, that you have restraining orders against you, that you've been accused of violating those orders.

This might not all be true, but that's how it could easily look from the court's perspective.

Also, we don't know what state you live in, but Corbyn said the laws around orders of protection and restraining orders, they're pretty draconian.

No contact.

It doesn't matter if the person supposedly being protected by the orders initiates that contact.

There can be no contact.

And the reason for this is that a restraining order is a court order, and it is the court that enforces it.

It's not up to your ex.

So if it comes out that you did violate the court's orders, there are likely to be consequences.

And yeah, it doesn't matter if he was like, ah, just drop by.

It's not up to him.

On the brighter side, though, you also have a decent amount of documentation that your ex has not always engaged with you in good faith, lying about phone calls, any other details that you can document as lies, Corbin said that is pretty critical.

Any evidence you can produce to show that your ex gave you permission to swing by the house with the kids that night, that is going to be very helpful.

Despite what we just said about restraining orders, Corbin's view was that very few judges are going to appreciate your ex and his new wife for acting in such bad faith or for generally trying to manipulate the court.

Look, if he had said drop by and then you had gotten randomly caught by the police violating your restraining order, which wouldn't happen, that's one thing.

But the fact that they were like, she's harassing us and this is after he told you, yeah, sure, drop this stuff off.

I mean, that's no good.

And if it comes out that your ex baited you into this violation by acting in bad faith, like we just discussed, that carries a certain level of consequences for him.

Not least of those consequences is a loss of the court's trust, which is the highest currency that you have with a judge.

So in Corbin's view, there's enough here that you can begin to tell a story of a woman deliberately lied about, wronged, and alienated from her children.

And he also has a feeling the story will become progressively easy to prove as time goes on.

Because to put it bluntly, your ex sounds like a piece of crap.

And his wife, what is a delicate word to use here?

She is an unhinged.

See you next Tuesday.

Corbin used more colorful language.

Terms of art, of course.

We have our own here for the show.

In Corbin's experience, there's a point at which a serial liar's lies, they just begin to accumulate and overwhelm them.

The lies multiply, they become convoluted, they contradict one another, and they eventually out the liar.

Same with your ex and his wife.

There's a point which she will have done done so much crazy stuff, like trying to break into your house and being charged for it, that the craziness simply becomes undeniable.

The trick in Corbin's experience is to outlast them, to be there when they finally go down.

And that's why you playing the long game is so crucial here.

So the top three things Corbin said you need to focus on are one, and you've heard me say this a lot on the show, document, document, document.

Corbin said you will absolutely 100% lose a he said, she said fight.

You aren't psychopathic or dishonest enough to win against your ex and his wife.

It's the documentation that's going to do them in.

And when you do have court dates, Corbin said you need to print out your documentation and bring it into court for any hearings.

Have it organized.

Have it ready to go when you get there.

Think overachiever in high school, right?

It's tabbed.

It's got a table of contents, right?

A judge is not going to give any consideration to claims that you have the evidence on your phone or it's on your computer.

You know, it's fine.

Let me just tell you what happened last Saturday, Your Honor.

Not going to happen.

These people are busy.

They're not going to look through your phone and question what they're looking at.

Be able to hand something physical to the judge.

These guys are often 100 years old anyways, and be ready to explain its significance and how it supports your case or undermines your ex's case.

The second thing you got to do going forward, absolutely zero communication with your ex outside of the court-ordered app.

And I mean zero.

He tries to take the conversation to text or email or phone.

You tell him he has lied so much, he's lost the privilege to talk to you.

That'll piss him off, but then's the breaks.

And every time he refuses to honor the court orders, call him on it inside the parenting app.

For people who don't know, these parenting apps, they are logged.

You can't delete messages.

You can't make it look like, I didn't say that.

You can do that with texts.

You can do that with phone calls.

I never said that.

Oh, this phone call was a mistake.

Three, honor the letter of any court order.

And I mean to that letter.

Corbin said he doesn't care how inconvenient it is to your ex.

He's tired.

Oh, freaking well.

He doesn't care if he's at home with his shoes and his pants off with his, you know, what in his hand.

He's got to come to a neutral location.

He's lost the right to ask you to risk violating the court order by his behavior.

And if he's late, document that in the parenting app too.

Hey, we were supposed to meet at eight.

It's 8.15.

What are you doing?

I know what you're doing.

Well, I'm not going to go there, but put that in the parenting app.

Corbin also said, you might want to hire a private investigator to look into your ex-wife's past.

He felt that her manipulation of the legal system is really smooth.

Corbin said he wouldn't be surprised if she's pulled something like this before.

And if there's evidence of that, maybe she screwed over the last partner's ex or whatever, it's going to make proving her manipulation and lies so much more straightforward.

And she sounds nuts.

Like people who are unhinged like this, they do stupid stuff.

Find that stuff.

Call you drunk, trying to besmirch your reputation.

Yeah, all of this is very solid advice.

I do think, Jordan, that we need to just touch on something we got into in the letter, which is we're only hearing one side of the story here.

And even though I find a lot of these details compelling and so many of them speak for themselves, and I am largely on our friend here's side, what are we missing?

Is there anything happening between the lines here?

Again, I have some questions about all this.

This is just too messy for one side to be blameless and one side to be entirely culpable.

Look, I can't imagine how our friend here's ex and the wife would justify doing all of this crazy stuff to setting her up and getting in the way of the girl's relationship with her and calling her drunk and all of this stuff.

I mean, the facts are disturbing.

So I'm not suggesting that she's made anything up or that she's entirely the problem, but I am curious to know how she has shown up generally in this co-parenting relationship, what led to their divorce in the first place, whether she's given them any cause for concern along the way, whether everything was totally fine before the new wife entered the picture.

I know that she might not like to hear us say that.

I'm kind of with you, Jordan.

Life is complicated.

There's always another side of the story.

And there is one detail in particular that worries me.

Corbin alluded to it as well.

This scary domestic violence incident with her boyfriend where she jumped out of the car to save her life.

That's what kicked off this whole situation.

She willingly gave her ex emergency temporary custody because she had a head injury, which I'm not saying that was not a good idea.

I mean, 2020 hindsight, of course, maybe it wasn't, but that's not her fault.

She did the right thing.

She had a head injury, for God's sake.

Of course.

That was severe.

And did she cause that guy to attack her?

No.

Did she deserve it?

Of course not.

Does it mean she shouldn't be able to see her daughters?

No.

I don't feel that way.

But did that maybe raise some questions in her ex's mind about whether the kids were safe with her?

Maybe even in her mind?

I see.

And safe around people she dates?

Maybe.

We can't know for sure, but that's not out of the realm of possibility and it's not completely unreasonable.

Apparently, even she felt they were better off with her ex for a period of time, so there is that.

Exactly.

And so I just want to make some room for the idea that she might have some important work to do here as well.

I believe her that she is primarily the victim of some really heinous stuff.

I'm also hearing that she might have chosen to date a man who is violent.

And I can already hear the emails from people going, you know, like, you're blaming her for getting a TBI from some lunatic and having to jump out of a car.

What are you talking about?

No, we don't know all the facts there.

I think we've heard enough to know that it was a horrible event and my heart goes out to her, but we would be remiss if we did not acknowledge that fairly or unfairly, she has to meet a very high bar right now in order to get her kids back.

And part of meeting that bar and being a good mother in general is making sure that she is surrounding herself with healthy, safe, high-functioning people, among other things.

So while you strategize about how to fight back, how to work the system, how to get your kids back, I would also try to understand how you ended up in that relationship with that guy and any other situations that might have played a role in this custody drama so that you can take care of your side of the street too.

It's a very fair point, Gabe.

I share your view.

She has been screwed here.

And I am, of course, largely on her side, but life is not black and white.

And there's always work for us to do, even when we are objectively the victims.

So I'm glad that you made room for that too, and you did so in a sensitive way, better than I could have done for sure.

But look, I'm very sorry you've been through all this.

This is a truly heartbreaking story.

If I lost my kids like this, I would be devastated.

I would be heartsick sick and I'd be freaking furious.

And you better believe I'd be tapping into the dark side.

I don't know if I'd have the patience to do everything by the book because I'm an impulsive a-hole, but all you can do is take this one day at a time, one hearing at a time, and just keep showing up and doing these practices and trust that one day something's got to give.

But that also includes taking care of yourself in the way that we just described.

Sending you and your girls a big hug.

Sending your ex and his wife something different, a hard fall on the icy front steps of their house, maybe caught on the ring doorbell or something for you to enjoy.

I don't know.

I just, I want your kids to have both parents in their lives and ideally operating in a healthy co-parenting relationship eventually.

Good luck.

Now, open wide, because we're going to force feed you some deals and discounts on the fine products and services that support this show.

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Now, back to Feedback Friday.

Okay, what's next?

Dear Jordan and Gabe, I'm a 62-year-old, openly gay man.

My husband and I have been married for four years, and we've been together for a total of 20.

We have a good life together.

We get along well, live in a comfortable house in a nice area, and really want for nothing.

Our sex life and physical connection are a completely different matter.

Truth be told, these were never great to begin with.

My husband's weight has always been an issue for me.

We both entered into our relationship knowing this.

I initially found him attractive, although I had never dated a husky man before, and I hoped my love for him would help me get over my aversion to his weight.

It did not.

Early in our relationship, I learned the hard way that people don't change unless they want to, no matter how much you try to support and inspire them.

So I tried to change myself.

Everyone absolutely loves my husband, my friends, my family, my colleagues.

So I told myself that I had to be wrong about this.

Hypnosis did not work.

I tried telling myself that I was the problem and was just being petty.

I gave into the notion that sex and a physical connection wasn't important because that typically wanes over time anyway, right?

If you'd rather stay in and watch TV every weekend, I could still go outdoors on my own with friends, ride my bike, enjoy walking the dogs, and tend to the yard by myself.

But these didn't work.

Even when health concerns loomed on the horizon, it still wasn't enough to get him to change.

A diagnosis of pre-diabetes resulted in him running toward becoming diabetic like a running back making the winning touchdown in the Super Bowl.

No lie.

As a former healthcare provider, I was astonished that he was unable to hear any amount of warning or advice from me or his doctor about the real potential for adverse events if he didn't change his diet and exercise habits.

He gained about 100 pounds over the years.

Oh, wow.

To be fair, he's recently lost 75 pounds since starting a diabetes medication similar to Ozempic.

But my attraction to him has not returned.

On top of all that, we're mismatched sexually.

I'm a side.

He's a bottom.

Okay.

I've lived in Hollywood.

I've heard of tops and bottoms.

Many of us have.

Side, though, what is that?

Yeah, this was a new word for me, too.

So a side is a man who finds fulfillment in every kind of sexual act except penetration.

I can't relate.

Okay, interesting.

So not a top or a bottom.

Aside.

Got it.

Okay, now it makes sense, I guess.

Sorry to all the parents listening right now in the car now have to explain what tops and bottoms are to their kids on the way to school.

I was not thinking about that.

Oh, I'm sorry.

So he goes on, after my husband's bout with prostate cancer, he was left with a rectile dysfunction that is not relieved by the little blue pill.

And now the parents have to explain what the little blue pill is.

Okay.

And a rectile dysfunction.

They grow up so fast, don't they?

They do grow up fast when they listen to this podcast.

They sure do.

So what was barely present to begin with has has been completely absent for over a decade.

In all seriousness, that sucks.

I'm sorry to hear that he had cancer, of course.

I mean, he's been through it, hasn't he?

My husband and I have both been secretly on Grindr over the years looking for what we're not getting at home.

We've both seen each other on the app, but haven't spoken about it.

Oh, what's Grinder, Gabe?

You want to take that one?

So Grindr is a...

It's a gay dating app.

It's a gay dating app, but there's no controversial thing we've talked about on today's episode, actually.

Let's say the dates are generally really short.

You kind of skip dinner.

I think that's the idea, is you skip the dinner party.

That exactly hinges.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm confused, though, because you're secretly on the app and you've seen each other on the app and you know he's seen you, but he didn't say anything.

All right, so you're both semi-openly cheating on each other and just not talking about it.

Slash are in an open relationship that they haven't fully discussed?

Yeah, thin line there.

Thin line.

Then, recently, I met someone else.

I'll call him TC.

What was supposed to be a harmless hookup on Grindr turned into an all-consuming, red-hot love affair.

The sex with TC was unbelievable and unlike anything I've ever had before.

The emotional connection was overwhelming at times.

After two months, though, TC called things off because things were getting way too heated, and he was becoming too attached to someone who isn't available.

His parting words to me were, this is a love and a connection of a lifetime, but it's too painful to not have you at my side.

Yeah, I can understand that, man.

It's a tough place for him to be.

I can't just brush this off.

I have powerful feelings for TC, who would be open to starting a relationship if I were actually available.

He's floated the idea of a modified thrupple where I split my time between him and my husband.

I've just started therapy, which in the long term will be very helpful.

Glad to hear that.

Yeah, and hopefully they're kind of like sex positive, because a lot of therapists can be super judgy about anything like this.

I'm sure he's found one who's compatible.

Seems like he would have to, yeah.

In the meantime, I'm a wreck.

I want to be with TC, but I haven't mustered the courage to initiate a conversation with my husband.

Despite everything, I do love him and don't want to hurt him.

Complicating matters is that I depend on my husband for health insurance.

I work for myself and am not able to purchase insurance on my own right now.

I'm looking for full-time work to remedy that.

Do I stay in a relationship that's comfortable, but without physical connection?

Or start anew, where the connection promises to be amazing, but there's no guarantee that it will last.

Or do I entertain the idea of a modified thrupple where my husband and I acknowledge our longtime roommate status and I move forward with a romantic relationship with TC?

Signed a conflicted side trying to confide that he's in love with this other guy when his hands are tied about having to hide because his claims, romantic, insurance, and otherwise, might be denied.

Okay, tricky situation, even trickier sign-off.

First of all, thank you for teaching us the word side.

I'm still a little, I don't know, embarrassed that I didn't know that.

I'm going to have to talk to my gay buddies who, by the way, I got a story for you, but I got to focus.

I got to talk to them about why they're holding out on me.

Of course there are sides.

That makes perfect sense.

So my first thought is, man, your husband is going through it.

Health problems, lifestyle changes, this bout with cancer, it's left him with erectile dysfunction.

I mean, that's not easy.

I feel for him.

I really do.

And I'm sure.

That creates some really confusing problems for you guys.

It sounds like he's a sweet, solid guy.

Otherwise, I assume you wouldn't have married him in the first place, especially if you guys aren't really compatible in this one very big way.

But the reality is you and your husband are facing a number of challenges.

Your physical chemistry, your sex life, apparently those were never really aligned, it sounds like.

And your husband, I'll just be blunt here.

He has not taken very good care of himself.

You're not attracted to him, which I just want to point out.

It's not just an aesthetic thing for you.

He's not taking care of his health either.

To find out you're pre-diabetic and then just run headlong into diabetes because YOLO and refuse to make any changes.

I mean, you want to guarantee you're going to be diabetic and have this for life, among other things.

It's just dangerous.

It's irresponsible.

I do not blame you for being frustrated about that.

Now, to be fair, he has lost a lot of his excess weight, which is great.

Although doing it with whatever's similar to Ozempic, obviously everyone and their mother is using that stuff now.

So yeah, definitely one way to do it.

But they're still getting through the long-term effects of what this stuff is.

And Ozempic essentially just kills your hunger, right?

And I hear that when people go off it, they often gain the weight back or they really struggle.

And if you haven't put good habits into place, it's just kind of a short-term fix.

Also, apparently, and this is something that I've seen a lot of, you're going to want to look into this, Ozempic can do a number on your hormones and on your bone density.

So there's that.

You really have to be like exercising and managing your nutrition, which a lot of people who are obese have not been doing, right?

And they aren't doing, even when they're on this drug.

And then there's this relationship with TC, obviously profound.

Let's come back to that.

The biggest challenge you guys are facing right now is how you communicate or rather, don't communicate, because WTF, man.

A lot has gone unsaid in this relationship.

It's tough.

For a long time.

For a long time.

Yeah.

You guys struggle to talk about your true feelings, your wants, your needs, what's missing, what you'd need to do to work on things.

Now, I agree with you.

Sex isn't everything in a marriage, but it is a big slash real component of it.

And it obviously matters to you.

If that dimension of the relationship isn't working, it's clearly an issue.

Because then there's this whole grinder thing.

You've both seen each other on the app, but you haven't talked about it.

That is wild.

If those are the rules of your relationship and it's all in the up and up, cool.

No judgment there.

If you got an open thing going and it's sort of like, don't ask, don't tell, but it's been explicitly clarified, fine.

But as we touched on before, it sounds like you guys are both acknowledging that this is essentially an open relationship or...

you're both mutually cheating on each other, depending on how you look at it, and just refusing to have the intense but necessary conversation.

That's got to put a lot of distance between you two.

And it must make it more and more awkward to finally sit down and be like, okay, we need to talk about some things.

It's an interesting arrangement that they landed on, isn't it?

They're giving themselves and each other permission to play, get their needs met elsewhere, which is a tacit acknowledgement that part of their marriage doesn't work and maybe this is the solution in some way.

And at the same time, they seem to be letting themselves off the hook for having some potentially difficult conversations about why that's the case and what they should do about it, what the actual rules are.

But they seem to have done this rather seamlessly without having to even acknowledge that they're not acknowledging it.

It's like their avoidances are perfectly in sync.

Yes, perfectly compatible on that dimension.

Right.

But I do get this avoidance the most.

It's really hard to risk hurting somebody you care about.

You've been married to for 20 years who's a wonderful person.

Of course, but they're also avoiding confronting the ultimate question, which is, does this relationship work?

Does it still make sense?

But if they aren't willing to risk hurting the other person and trust that they can eventually work through it, then they're never going to talk about anything.

Risking hurting someone, risking being hurt, that's a lot of what a relationship is.

So true.

And I would argue that they're hurting each other already in a way by not talking about this stuff.

Good point.

Well, I think we have to talk about this, the new guy, TC.

Let's, yeah.

So obviously, TC has only laid bare the problems that were already in the relationship.

That's how a lot of this stuff works.

But it does sound like you and TC have a special connection, and that's very hard to ignore.

How you guys met is messy, to put it mildly, but I can't help but feel for two people who are a great fit and can't really be together.

It's like a gay Jane Austen novel or something.

Side and prejudice.

The period piece with no periods.

Gabe, go write that.

I mean, considering I just learned what a side is, I might have to do some more research, but yeah, good idea.

I'm going to write that down.

Appreciate it.

Now, this arrangement, he's proposed a modified thruple, fun to say.

Who knows?

Maybe that's the answer, but only if your husband is on board with that and it's all on the the table.

Come on.

Which will require you to talk to him, which will require you guys to acknowledge these difficult things.

Which will require you to risk hurting his feelings and getting into some difficult territory that you've hitherto been avoiding.

Oh, sorry, hitherto?

Really?

You're going to hit me?

Damn right.

You like that?

You like that?

It's a weird flex, but okay.

Yeah, it sounds like a word you're going to have to work into your queer Jane Austen screenplay.

You're welcome.

Yeah.

He was hitherto a stranger.

Now he's bewitched me, body and soul.

There you go.

Also, he had killer health insurance, which was a plus.

A 400-pound deductible and a barouche.

What is a barouche?

It's like bread.

It's like

those old-timey carriages.

Oh, I wasn't even close.

What did you think it was?

Bread.

Some kind of bread.

You thought that my pitch was that he has a 400-pound health insurance deductible and a loaf of bread.

A lot of bread.

I thought it was like a euphemism for something.

A preponderance of yeast.

Yucky.

No, that's not what he has.

It's like those with the shade on top.

That was the carriages that were drawn by the horses.

Okay.

All right.

Look, either way, this thing is basically writing itself.

I think this is what TC is forcing you to confront.

Whether it's more important for you to cramp around your husband, have him cramp around you, or whether you're willing to have some intense conversations that would either allow you to fairly explore other relationships that would fulfill you.

or tell you that it's time for you and your husband to separate or at least redefine your relationship.

And if your husband's like, no way, I'm not sharing you with someone else, then I don't know, then you you have a decision to make, my friend.

Although, candidly, I don't know how this thruple thing is worse than knowing your partner's regularly having encounters outside the marriage.

Fair enough.

But maybe that's the straight in me talking.

I don't know.

I guess a real relationship with feelings involved is more threatening than some random hookup.

I actually think that might be the case.

I know we were joking a moment ago about the health insurance, but that is actually an interesting layer to all this.

I find that interesting.

Yeah, welcome to the world of most people who are married, especially like stay-at-home moms and stuff.

I can't leave.

I don't have insurance.

I don't have a job, right?

I mean, this this is a real issue in America.

He depends on his husband financially.

This always complicates matters.

I find it interesting that in the beginning of his letter, he said, we have a good life together.

We get along well.

We live in this comfortable house in a nice area.

We really want for nothing.

So in two different parts of the letter, money, lifestyle, their general comfortable situation, these things are clearly playing a very big role in his decision, how he feels about his husband.

Crazy how these practicals play such a big role, huh?

It's kind of hard to acknowledge, but it's a real thing.

I don't know what to say about that, except, yeah, definitely look for full-time work and get your insurance if you need more power and more freedom to make the most authentic choices, or at least make them without putting yourself at actual risk here.

But more importantly, I think you need to get clear on what matters more to you, your lifestyle and financial situation, being in the right relationship.

I mean, you can have both.

You should have both, but right now you can't.

And there might be a time where you need to decide between the two, which is stressful, but it's also clarifying because you have to get clear with yourself about what really matters to you.

Also, to answer your question, you're right.

There is no guarantee that your connection with TC will last.

If you decide to completely shake up your life at this stage to explore that relationship, I do think you're going to have to make peace with that.

So here, too, there's a question for you to consider.

What is more important, the comfortable marriage and life you have right now with a guy you really love in a lot of ways, or your ability to explore a compelling relationship whose future is unclear?

We can't answer that for you.

Only you can, but that's a big one.

I do think you have enough data to know that there's something powerful between you and this guy.

Now, if that's just sexual, if it doesn't translate to your conversations or the way you treat each other in general, I would probably put that into perspective a little bit.

But if you guys have like a real soul connection, then it might be worth risking the uncertainty.

But that uncertainty, as we talk about constantly on the show, will never go away.

We're always making decisions without having all the information.

And the stakes in your case with a 20-year marriage are fairly high.

So really, you only have your own needs and values and feelings and goals at the moment to go on.

That's right.

And that's one of the insane things about relationships.

It's always a leap of things.

And it doesn't always work out.

But then that doesn't necessarily mean it isn't worth it.

Also, let's just keep in mind that his husband is also on Grindr, looking for something that he apparently is not getting in the marriage either.

Yeah, that's right.

I almost forgot about that.

So would this conversation really be as bad as he thinks?

Is exploring things with this guy TC fair game?

Because maybe they're at a point in their marriage where they're ready to create a new arrangement that allows them to stay together and love each other and stay close if that's possible while also getting their needs met elsewhere, which is already kind of happening in some form.

Yeah, I think it's possible.

I also know that all's fine and dandy until somebody falls in love.

And he's half in love with this TC guy already.

So I could also see that getting complicated.

It might not change where they're heading.

Look, I'm really sorry that you guys are at this painful crossroads.

It must be so stressful and sad and confusing and strange.

I don't entirely blame you for not not wanting to confront it, which is another reason I'm very glad that you're in therapy, by the way.

And I definitely encourage you to stick with it, dig into all this stuff, because there's a lot for you to learn and explore here.

Candidly, what I'm hearing is that you and your husband don't quite work together on a dimension that clearly matters to you.

I'm not telling you to get divorced, but you would need to do some deep work together and individually to find your way back to each other.

But that still might not solve the attraction piece.

Whatever you do, do it kindly, do it respectfully, do it courageously, trust that these conversations can be very hard, but not fatal.

And know that you can't go wrong acknowledging reality, only avoiding it.

Good luck.

By the way, before I forget, Gabe, I have a very funny grinder anecdote.

So what is this?

What happened?

So I didn't know what grinder was, and I was out with a buddy and another buddy, one of them is gay, and his phone kept dinging.

He was recently single.

And his phone kept dinging.

And I was like, what is that?

He's like, it's a dating app.

And it just kept going bing, bing, bing, bing, bing.

I'm like, you're getting matches?

Like, you are on fire.

He's like, yeah.

And it's got this very specific sound that it makes when you get a match or you get a message or whatever.

And I was like, well, you're not going to be single for very long or you're going to have a hell of a time.

And we were laughing about it.

We were kind of talking about how easy it is for dudes to hook up versus if I got single, it would be, you know, how the apps are.

It's tough, man.

It's an uphill battle.

When you're gay, apparently it just falls in your lap, literally.

And so we finish dinner and we get in an Uber and his phone is still ding, dinging.

And the Uber driver turns around and goes, oh, you know what?

My husband loves that game.

And we were like, what game?

Oh my God.

Oh no, that's not good.

He thinks his husband is playing some version of Candy Crush.

Yeah, she was just like, oh, my husband loves that game because it's very specific.

And we were like, we're looking at each other like, oh, that's fun.

How much longer is this ride?

How much longer is this?

Please don't ask anything about whatever game you think this is.

It was just so funny.

Grinder is a bit of a game from what I hear.

Well, we spent the rest of the night being like, should we have told her?

Should we have told her?

Oh, it's a woman.

Yes.

I thought it was a guy.

No, it was a woman.

Husband, what does that guy not know about Grinder?

Is he living under a rock and he's in a game area?

What the?

What is happening?

No, his phone probably dings and she's like, oh, your game is ringing.

And he's like, yeah, my game is ringing.

Oh, wow.

That just got even better.

Is it a moral dilemma we had for the rest of that ride?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure.

Do you think she ever found out or what?

I don't know.

Good question.

I do think about it from time to time whenever anybody mentions Grinder because it's absolutely hysterical in some levels.

Something tells me your Uber driver and her husband are in mediation.

Possibly.

Yes.

Anyway, you can reach us Friday at jordanharbinger.com.

That's my grinder email.

That's Cage's grinder email.

Please keep your emails concise.

Try to use a descriptive subject line that makes our job a whole lot easier.

If you're paralyzed by a professional fork in the road, you're racked with grief because your children have left the nest against your will, or you're a trans Machiavellian sex worker longing for true intimacy.

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Whatever's got you staying up at night lately, hit us up Friday at jordanharbinger.com.

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All right, what's next?

Hi, Jordi and Gabe.

I've worked in the music industry for six years, and my career has been built through relentless hard work, strategic choices, and a women empowerment company I created from the ground up.

That company became my launchpad.

It helped me network, gain recognition, and open doors I once only dreamed of walking through.

For two years, I worked at music company A and loved it.

The work was creative, consistent, and fulfilling.

I hit my stride and felt truly content.

Then I was approached by music company B, a direct competitor with a division focused on women empowerment.

And not just by anyone, but by the head of the division, someone I had admired since 2019.

She told me she'd been following my work for years and wanted me to join her team.

I had the chance to choose my title, negotiate a competitive salary, and step into a part of the business I had always dreamed of exploring, all while working remotely.

She promised that I would learn directly from her and dive into a number of exciting, high-impact projects.

I spent seven months carefully considering the decision.

It felt like the ultimate I've made it moment.

But a year and three months into this new job, I am completely disheartened.

None of the work I was promised has been delivered.

I'm lucky if I manage to get my boss's attention more than once a month.

I'm kept out of major conversations and meaningful work, constantly told that I'll be looped in soon.

I've raised my concerns multiple times, only to be met with defensiveness, and even the dismissive line, check yourself.

To make matters worse, my direct manager is an extreme micromanager.

Every email must go through her for approval.

She nitpicks every word and makes mountains out of molehills, and it's clear she's looking for someone to be a carbon copy of herself.

It's demoralizing, stifling, and honestly, bizarre.

In this economy, I'm grateful to have a job, but it's crushing to realize that someone I looked up to made promises she never intended to keep.

Returning to my old company is not an option since I left for a competitor.

I've been keeping an eye on opportunities, but the options have been limited.

I still use my own company as an outlet, but it doesn't generate enough income to support me full-time just yet.

I love working in this industry, and I know I have so much to offer, but I feel stuck, and it's hard to see which path will lead me to a place where I can truly thrive again.

What should I do?

Signed, Settling for Crumbs Under One Boss's Thumb, When the Other Hired Me With a Plum, but is now keeping mum about why this job is so humdrum.

Oh man, this sucks.

I'm sorry things played out this way.

It's just awful to take so long to carefully consider your move and then you get there and you're like, wait, this is not what they promised me.

They'll bait and switch.

And I know it hurts extra hard coming from somebody who promised you so much, whose values you genuinely admired.

So it definitely sounds like it's time to leave this place and start somewhere new.

You tried to talk to them about this.

They don't sound interested.

Plus, your direct manager also is a bit difficult.

So there's several good reasons to leave.

But yeah, this might take a while.

So you do have to play the long game and just keep putting in the time.

And that is not rocket science.

It's really just focusing on a few key points, namely, investing in your relationships.

You already know about that.

Staying close with peers, colleagues, friends, people in your industry, all that six-minute networking stuff, sixminitenetworking.com, you know the plug.

You have one huge asset here, which is your own company.

It sounds like that's still alive, and it's a great excuse to reach out and meet people that you want to know.

Also, widening your net.

I'm not sure if you're dead set on staying in music, but it might be cool to think about a few related industries where your skills would transfer well.

Live events, creative agencies, artist management.

nonprofits focused on women's empowerment, just a few that come to mind.

I'm also curious to know what it would take for your own company to support you full-time.

I know the music industry is tough, but I also wonder if this is maybe an opportunity to take a new look at your company and just really set it up to succeed.

Really, what does it need to grow?

A clear product, a team, a consulting contract, a strategic partnership, a campaign, more consistent investment of time or money?

Or if it'll never be able to generate enough revenue on its own to replace a full-time job, maybe it could plug into your main job better.

serve your strategy overall.

Like, for example, helping you build the relationships that you need right now.

I'd spend a little bit of time digging into that, talking to some close friends and peers about it.

Hell, talk with chat GPT about it.

See if you can breathe some new life into that venture.

Tactically speaking, what you need to do right now is just, again, it's not rocket science.

There's no hidden answer or magic bullet.

It's just about consistently putting in the work.

and breathing life into all these different areas and being super vigilant for the unexpected opportunities that life serves up when you do that.

Yeah, well said.

I totally agree.

My sense is that she's actually asking a couple other questions between the lines here.

And one of them is, how do I just deal with my anger?

How do I tolerate this confusion, this uncertainty?

Yeah, a bit of a theme on Feedback Friday lately.

That's right.

Good point.

Being stuck in a job that's crushing you is really hard.

Being stuck in a job that's crushing you and then you don't know how to change things, that's really hard because not only do you feel stuck, but you feel probably disempowered and frustrated and just like unresolved.

But we don't get to the aha moments, you know, where you go like, oh, yes, of course, this was leading to that.

And this person introduced me to that one.

And now everything is unfolding unfolding as I knew it should.

You know, you don't get there without going through these periods of uncertainty.

So you do have to make peace with not knowing your next move, learning to embrace the tension of all of that while you do the work that Jordan was just talking about, generating these new dots that you are going to connect without knowing how they're going to connect yet.

And that is one of the greatest qualities you can develop.

I also think it's great that she still loves working in her industry.

She still feels she has so much to offer.

Because if she were like, oh, I hate this industry, I'm so over music.

I'm ready for something else.

That's a different problem.

But that passion can sustain you during these long stretches of confusion.

Absolutely.

It can also make the frustration worse, though, sometimes when you still love your field, but you don't know how to make a meaningful contribution to it.

Sure.

So it can cut both ways, but it does raise the stakes on everything.

I've been there so many times with writing, so I feel for her there.

But then that would be a great frustration to channel into her side hustle.

You know, how does she want to contribute?

What does she have to offer that she isn't allowed to do in this job?

It sounds like there's a lot she's not allowed to do in this job.

If she can find a way to offer that through her own company, even if it's just one piece of it, I bet that would change her whole experience of her career, honestly.

And that's kind of the best way to find something you can monetize.

Super short story, Gabe.

I know, don't kill me.

There's a guy I heard about years ago.

He was at a conference.

He was working at some yacht company and the yacht owners kept asking for support for, I can't remember what it was.

It was like their engines and like the, these things in the yacht and only the company could answer it.

And they had terrible customer support.

So what this kid did is he created a side hustle where it was like a message board and you could sign up for the message board and he would charge you, I don't know, it was like 30 bucks a month, $100 a month.

What do I know?

And he would answer the questions in there on his own because he was the guy who could actually help with it.

There was just no process for this inside the company.

And eventually, funnily enough, the company found out he was doing that and I believe they fired him.

Oh, wow.

So he was like, fine.

And he did this message board thing full time.

And yacht owners have a ton of money.

So if you got to charge somebody $1,000 a year to have access to customer support, they're just going to pay it because whatever.

That's like the price of a faucet on a boat.

So he did that.

And the company was like, oh, turns out all of our customers are getting support through this company.

We want to buy it.

Oh, my God.

And he was like, not for sale, but you can retain my services for, you know, whatever, 150 grandi or whatever it was.

So they ended up hiring him back essentially through his company.

And that's how he makes money.

And I think he's making like 10 times what he was making when he was on the payroll.

Amazing.

What a great story.

Yeah.

That's brilliant.

I love that.

So this kind of stuff happens when you have your eyes open for the opportunities.

I'm not saying this is the same situation.

It just reminded me of of that.

I also can't help but think about that from the company's perspective.

What a limited way to respond to that discovery.

Like, we're going to fire you for going behind our back and creating this solution.

And then two years later, they have to pay more to actually enjoy it instead of just giving him a raise and making him head of customer service and like incubate that inside the company.

It's so ridiculous.

I think they were like, you're moonlighting.

That's against our company manual policy number 7A, page 36.

And he was like, okay, bye.

Way to shoot yourself in the foot, though, or in the yacht engine, as the case may be.

Yeah, that's a put a hole in that hull torpedo.

The only other thing I want to touch on is why this job has turned out so different from what she expected.

I'm a little puzzled by why it played out this way.

Yeah, that's really strange.

Something isn't quite adding up there.

Yeah, I mean, look, maybe her boss exaggerated how great the job would be.

A boss would never do that.

Come on.

Never heard of that happening.

But, you know, yeah, she's a terrible manager, doesn't know how to allocate her time or empower her team.

And I don't know.

These are all possibilities.

And our friend obviously did not know she would be working under this other micromanaging boss.

But I'm confused.

Like, why chase her for seven months?

Tell her that she admired her work for so long.

Why pay her a competitive salary?

Just to bring her in and then shut her out of conversations and meaningful work that doesn't serve either of them.

If they don't think she's a fit or they don't have anything for her to do, just let her go.

Right.

And so I can't help but wonder if there's just anything else that would explain why this shift happened.

Like your direct manager, is she on top of you because she's annoying and insecure?

Or is she on top of you because she needs something and you haven't learned how to work in the way that she wants?

I get that it's demoralizing and stifling.

I would feel the exact same way, but to be fair, maybe what she's looking for is someone she can fully trust to just be an extension of herself.

And the big boss who hired you, is she keeping you out of conversations because she's kind of hiding or controlling you?

Or does she have some concerns about looping you in?

The reason I'm harping on all of this is you said that you've raised your concern several times about being kept out of conversations, but I can't tell if you frame that as a request for feedback.

And I'm not suggesting anything.

For all we know, you've done nothing wrong and your your bosses are just really bad managers.

But if I were in your shoes, I would really want to have a good handle on why things played out this way.

Either so you can try to fix it or so that you can feel totally confident about leaving.

The problem is when she's like, hey, why are you keeping me on the sidelines?

Her boss gets defensive and is like, check yourself.

So where my mind goes is, is her boss saying that because she doesn't want to have a real conversation and she's pulling rank to dodge the question?

Or is she saying that because our friend here is sort of inadvertently being disrespectful or coming across as entitled somehow?

Right.

It's a good question, and we don't know, but it's something she should explore.

Either way, she could approach this conversation by saying, okay, look, I'm getting the sense that you don't want to tell me where the disconnect is.

I'm asking you to clarify because I want to contribute to the team in a meaningful way.

And I'm just not able to do that right now.

But then when I ask how I can improve, how I fit in here, why I'm being kept on the outside of these meetings, I seem to be getting the message that I'm being disrespectful, like.

that I'm out of line somehow, which is a little hard for me to hear because it's not my intention.

It's quite the opposite.

I just want to be a great colleague.

You know, I want to earn my keep.

So if I've done something wrong or there's something I could do better, please tell me.

I genuinely want to know.

I am listening and I'm eager to work on it.

But, you know, like, can we try this in a new way?

Can you help me understand where we are?

Because I'm a little confused over here.

I like that.

If your boss still stonewalls you after that, then she's not engaging with you in good faith and she's probably just a bad boss.

And yeah, definitely time to start looking for another job then.

I mean, I would do both in parallel.

She needs to be exploring every avenue because there's no guarantee her boss is going to be like, you're right.

And do a 180.

And even if she does, it still might not be the right place for her.

So I think there might be a way forward here if you have some work to do, if your boss is willing to hit the reset button and engage with you.

But I also think that it's been a year and three months.

And if you're not being meaningfully included in things, this might just not be the place for you.

So give it a real shot, but don't stick around longer than you have to.

Find ways of letting this stuff roll off your back while you plot your next move.

You do that.

You take the lessons you need to take, you apply them forward, you're going to land somewhere somewhere great.

Good luck.

And if you do end up leaving, you know it's a great use of that severance check, the fine products and services that support this show.

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If you like this episode of Feedback Friday and you find our advice valuable, I invite you to do what other smart and considerate listeners do, which is take a moment and support our amazing sponsors.

All of the deals, discount codes, and ways to support the show are searchable and clickable on the website at jordanharbinger.com slash deals.

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We're happy to dig up codes for you.

It is that important that you support those who support the show.

Now, back to Feedback Friday.

And now for the recommendation of the week.

I am addicted to Lit Villa.

So I was never that into food or cooking in my life.

Just wasn't that person.

There were probably five or six years when I was really busy and quite poor, to be honest, when I just like ate a salad and protein shakes every single day because I just did not care.

Then during the pandemic, I started cooking at home like so many people did, and I stumbled across this guy named Yotam Otolengi.

You might have heard about him.

He's this Israeli-British chef who makes these insanely good dishes that pull together flavors from the Middle East and the Mediterranean and Asia and North Africa.

Just a super interesting, creative dude.

He was also on Anthony Bourdain's show, so maybe some of you have seen him at some point.

I think he might have been on the Israel-Palestine episode, which is one of the more interesting ones.

Anyway, I started following this guy's recipes, and that's largely how I learned to cook, you know, know, which flavors to pair and how to make amazing stuff really quickly.

So my recommendation of the week is Yotam Oto Lengi's cookbooks.

My favorite ones are called Plenty, Flavor, and then there's this one called Simple.

And Simple is a really great place to start because it only has recipes that have, I want to say, less than eight or 10 ingredients.

So everything in there is super easy to make and it's still incredible.

So if you want to experiment with some fun new flavors and broaden your horizons a bit and have a lot of fun in the kitchen, highly recommend these books.

They are awesome.

Is this where you learned how to make that coconut curry lentil soup thing you made when you visited a couple years ago?

Yes.

Jen and I still talk about that soup.

I think she gave some to her parents and they were like, what restaurant is this from?

It was so good.

It's so good.

His recipes are next level.

Also, a lot of them are vegetarian and they can be adapted easily to be vegan.

So there's something for everyone in there.

Anyway, we'll link to his books and his Instagram in the show notes.

He's fantastic.

I hope you like him.

Have fun.

Also, in case y'all don't know, there's a subreddit for our show.

If you want to jump into discussions with other listeners about specific episodes, a lot of feedback Friday questions go in there or come from there.

If there was an episode you liked, an episode you don't like, you want to share some thoughts, there's fun memes in there that are really just a good time.

So if you're on Reddit, check out the Jordan Harbinger subreddit.

Okay, next up.

Dear Jordan and Gabe, my little brother is 21 years old with a need for speed and attention.

He's been talking about buying a street bike because he likes the thrill of riding, and other people his age think it's cool.

But my family and I see it as a death sentence.

We've heard nothing but horror stories from people who've owned one and lived to tell the tale.

On top of that, he's particularly reckless when it comes to driving in general.

He's already gotten a handful of speeding tickets just this year.

How can we help change his mind before he buys a street bike?

Signed, hitting my brother's brakes before we attend his wake.

Oof, yeah, this is worrisome.

There's a reason ER doctors call motorcycles donor cycles.

Of course they're fun, but if you ride around on a bike, I feel like you're just asking for a disaster.

Every friend of mine who's had a motorcycle, and I don't even just mean like a crazy street bike, any kind of motorcycle, and is over 40 has had a wreck.

They've almost died.

They've traded it for a car.

I mean, even another good friend of mine, he fell off, just didn't get hit by anything.

It was kind of no fault of his own.

He just hit black ice or something, slammed into a guardrail, couldn't move, couldn't talk, and cars were passing by him for like 40 minutes while he just laid on the road in the winter.

And then finally someone was like, wait, there's a guy in that mess of parts.

And then he went to the hospital and he just almost died.

I mean, it's just terrible.

So yeah, I feel for you and your family.

It is so hard to watch someone you love, a younger sibling no less, do something you know will endanger their life.

If I had a sibling who wanted a bike, I'd probably be losing my shit.

So I'm not sure whether you've tried to talk to your brother about this or how, but here's what I'm thinking.

It sounds to me like your brother is really digging his heels in.

Sitting him down and going, you're being an idiot, don't do this.

That's probably only going to make him more defiant.

So I think you got to lead with curiosity rather than confrontation, at least at first.

Maybe you need to start by asking him why the bike appeals to him.

You said he likes the thrill.

His friends think it's cool.

But what's underneath that?

Why the need for adrenaline?

Why is the admiration and the status so important to him?

Is this about freedom?

Is it about rebellion?

Is it about asserting himself?

Is it about getting girls?

Because that's for sure part of it.

If you really take an interest in what's drawing him to the bike, set aside your opinion, your impulse to tell him not to be an idiot.

I think you might get a lot further.

Whenever we're dead set on something like this, my experience is that we want to feel heard and understood before we can entertain the idea that we might be wrong.

Because when somebody tells you what to do, your first reaction is probably, screw you, you don't even understand why this matters to me.

You just want me to do what you want.

So taking the time to understand his motivations, what's at stake for him here, that's going to be very useful.

I would also ask him, hey, how are you thinking about the risk here?

Because I know you're smart.

I know you know that tons of motorcyclists get seriously injured.

So I'm just curious, how are you factoring that into your decision?

Is that just less important than the upside?

Or are you trying not to think about that too much?

Again, don't lead him too much.

Don't judge him.

Just ask and listen.

Yeah, I like that.

And if he opens up to you some more, then I would work up to saying something like, okay, cool.

I'm starting to understand why the bike matters so much to you.

I can understand why having fun and enjoying your friend's validation and, you know, maybe meeting girls, whatever his reasons are, why those things are important to you.

And if I were you, yeah, maybe they'd be important to me too.

And I want to ask you a few questions about it.

If you ever did get in a serious accident, and I want you to really think about this.

Imagine, you know, like lying in a hospital room with broken bones or a head injury or God forbid worse.

You know, imagine mom and dad and me having to see you go through that.

If that ever did happen, would your feelings about the bike change?

Would you regret getting it?

Or would you be going, well, I knew this could happen and that's just the price I pay for having my fun?

You know, again, try to be gentle, try to be open.

You know, you don't want to be like too school marmish about this because you don't want him to shut down.

You might also want to tell him about some of those horror stories that you mentioned because those are powerful.

They're even more powerful if you could hear them firsthand.

Like if you could put him in touch with people you know who have been T-boned by a car at 50 miles per hour, I think that would make quite an impact on him.

Or maybe he's heard it and he doesn't care.

But if you can't do that, hearing them from you would probably still be pretty impactful.

Also, you can read in the stats on motorcycle accidents.

They are not pretty.

Here's a sneak preview.

Motorcyclists are about 24 times more likely to die in a crash than occupants of passenger cars per mile traveled.

Also, about 80% of reported motorcycle crashes result in injury or death compared to about 20% for passenger vehicles.

So these things are crazy, crazy dangerous.

Again, in the spirit of giving him as many perspectives as possible, like, can we make room for these stories alongside your excitement rather than just, you know, don't do it.

I'm getting the feeling that your brother values his freedom quite a bit.

He's 21, which still, honestly, makes him kind of an idiot.

I mean, his brain is still very much developing.

He thinks he's invincible, but he's at an age where being told what he can and can't do probably doesn't sit very well with him.

It's funny.

This is kind of like when my mom told me not to go to North Korea again, and it only made me want to go more, except this with the bike is turned up to 11.

Although getting a bike and going back to North Korea, apparently both can send you home brain dead.

So, I mean, maybe they're not so different.

I know that's dark.

I know my mom listens to the show, right?

I mean, I'm not even trying to make a joke.

I mean, now it's just, it's clear now as I'm maybe just because I'm older.

That was incredibly dark of what you just said, but yeah.

But it's so dangerous.

Retroactive nightmare.

Sorry, mom.

But yeah, not entirely wrong.

I mean, that guy stole a poster.

So there's that.

But you're right.

That does happen.

Referring to the guy who went to North Korea, stole a poster, and came back brain dead.

I didn't even mean that as a joke, honestly.

It's just, it's horrible.

No, I know.

It's incredibly tragic.

But look, as you work up to making your plea to him, maybe you need to appeal to a sense of autonomy, right?

You're an idiot.

If you buy that bike, that's not speaking to him as a peer, as an adult, but saying, look, you're an adult.

It's your right to buy this bike.

It's your right to live your life however you want.

I can't make you do anything.

But as an adult, you also have a responsibility to make smart choices.

This bike could easily have massive ripple effects for mom, for dad, for me, for your friends, for everybody who loves you.

So what you choose to do here is going to impact all of us.

I will love you no matter what, but part of loving you is telling you, I am genuinely terrified about you getting this bike because I know how much you love to drive fast and because if I ever lost you, it would break my heart.

So your decision, but I know that my brother would want to make the best possible choice.

So, you know, from where I'm sitting, this is not the best possible choice.

Maybe you try something like that and see what he says.

Maybe that'll shake him enough to decide that, eh, maybe not worth it.

And if he is open to reconsidering, then maybe you can pitch some other ways of meeting these needs of his.

If he wants the thrill, maybe you can encourage him to, I don't know, race motorcycles on a track with a trained, high-performance driving instructor or something.

Maybe you can make skill and discipline and control as cool as the pure adrenaline and danger of riding a Kawasaki around town.

If what he actually wants is status and admiration, maybe you can help him find more meaningful ways of being awesome, like developing a cool talent or a useful skill.

Maybe you can help him see that being validated for who he is, what he can achieve, what he has to offer, as opposed to just riding around on a cool toy, the bike will become less interesting to him.

And I really hope you get through to him on this.

But the tough reality is that you can't control your brother.

All you can do is influence him as best you can and just pray that he's lucky.

But I hope these give you some seeds to plant.

Over time, your brother might rethink things or he'll get the bike, get it out of his system, and then sell it.

Or he'll have a minor accident that'll make him realize how vulnerable he actually is.

And if none of that happens, at least you'll know that you did everything you could in a way that honored your love for him and respected his autonomy.

Your brother's lucky to have you looking out for him.

Good luck.

All right, everybody.

Go back and check out the episodes we did with Dr.

Becky Kennedy of Good Inside and Julian Fisher Think Like a Spy.

Make sure you have a listen to those as well if you haven't done so yet.

Show notes and transcripts are on the website at jordanharbinger.com.

Advertisers, discounts, ways to support the show, all searchable and clickable at jordanharbinger.com slash deals.

I'm at JordanHarbinger on Twitter and Instagram.

You can also connect with me on LinkedIn.

Gabe's on Instagram at Gabriel Mizrahi or on Twitter at Gabe Mizrahi.

This show is created in association with Podcast One.

My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Ian Baird, Tatus Sidlauskis, and of course, Gabriel Mizrahi.

Our advice and opinions are our own, and I am a lawyer, but I am not your lawyer.

Do your own research before implementing anything you hear on the show.

Ditto Corbin Payne.

Remember, we rise by lifting others.

Share the show with those you love.

If you found the episode useful, please share it with somebody else who could use the advice we gave here today.

In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn.

And we'll see you next time.

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