1127: Chaotic Kin Has You Rethinking Children | Feedback Friday

Welcome to Feedback Friday. I'm your host Jordan Harbinger.
As always, I'm here with Feedback Friday producer Gabriel Mizrahi. Old Fifty Shades of Gabe over here.
Nice. I like that one.
Not that you don't know what that's a reference to, but maybe you don't know why I'm saying it now. I don't actually.
What is this? So a bunch of people in the subreddit are like, oh, Gabe should narrate er novels okay got it yeah it's something to consider if the whole podcasting thing doesn't work out you know it's hard to make a living podcasting i'm gonna add that to my linkedin looking for work yeah just not specified w-e-r-k that's right i don't even know why it's funny to say w-e-r-k but it just is Everybody knows what I mean And everybody knows I don't understand Everybody knows but me And I'm the one that said it On the Jordan Harbinger Show We decode the stories, secrets, and skills Of the world's most fascinating people And turn their wisdom into practical advice That you can use to impact your own life And those around you And our mission is to help you become A better informed, more critical thinker. During the week, we have long form conversations with a variety of amazing folks, former cult

members, astronauts, cold case homicide investigators, Russian spies. This week, we had

Richard Reeves, president of the American Institute for Boys and Men on the struggles that men are

having these days. I know a lot of people are probably going to say, what are you talking about?

What about women? Turns out there's a massive gender gap. It's just actually the other way

around, which I found surprising. We also had a skeptical Sunday on bananas.
Yes, the fruit. On Fridays, though, we take listener letters, offer advice, and cannonball right into this warm pool of do's and drums.
Gabe, what's the first thing out of the mailbag? Hey, guys, I'm getting married this fall and am beyond excited about it. I really love my fiance.
And while our relationship is far from perfect, we've come out of our struggles stronger than before. We're starting premarital counseling as well, which we both agree is something that we need to make sure our marriage starts on the strongest foot possible.
Yeah, that's a good idea. I like it.
However, there's a growing issue with my fiancé's grandparents, who live 20 minutes away from us.

For background, my fiancé's mother passed away 10 years ago.

She was the glue that held the family together, and when she passed, things started going downhill.

Her father, my fiancé's grandpa, abused his children while they were growing up.

I've heard stories of the police being called because grandpa held the family at gunpoint.

Oh yeah, that's totally reasonable. What the, that's psycho.
That's not what I expected at all. Wow.
He's never been violent toward us, but he's also quite up there in age and can barely get around his house without falling, so we're dealing with a different guy now. One of their sons, Steve, has lived with my fiance's grandparents for many years to help care for them.
He's the reason his parents are not in an assisted living facility, but he also has what appears to be undiagnosed bipolar disorder with quite apparent manic and depressive episodes, and he was never able to hold down a solid job. Since becoming their caretaker, he's caused many unsettling events to occur.
He's physically abused his dog, verbally threatened his father, and yelled at neighbors on multiple occasions. Then, about two months ago, he ran out in front of their house with a chainsaw, attempting to attack a transgender child in their neighborhood.
Steve then retreated back into their house and found the best vantage point to set up a defense line with multiple firearms at his disposal. Luckily, no one was hurt.
The police were never called about the incident. Steve also apparently created a hit list of people he plans to kill.
And my fiance's name was on it because he quote, makes too much money and doesn't spend time with him. Unquote.
Oh my God. This is terrifying.
So this guy's legitimately out of his mind and dangerous. Legitimately.
Wow. Yeah.
Needless to say, this freaked out my fiance, who's very level-headed. So he invested in a security system for our house and wanted to buy a shotgun for home defense.
I can relate. Yeah, I can relate.
Same headspace as Jordan after what happened two weeks ago. He's an army veteran and owns multiple firearms, as do I.
We both have our concealed carry permits, and while we're not the types to seek out violence and hope to never have to defend ourselves, we do carry firearms in certain circumstances due to the area we live in and recent events. After all that, we didn't go over to his grandparents' house for quite some time.
We only went over again because my fiancé made sure that Steve was mentally stable by having Steve's brother, Bob, who also occasionally lives with the grandparents, send us daily reports on him. Recently, my fiancé brought over a new cowboy hat he had bought and gifted it to Steve as a peace offering so that Steve would hopefully take his name off of his hit list.
I was quite upset that he didn't tell me about this plan beforehand, giving away his very nice and quite expensive hat to his unstable uncle and the fact that my fiance felt he had to do that in order to keep us safe. Yeah, at least he didn't give him a rifle.
This is so tense. This is like a John Wayne movie or something like, howdy, partner.
I come in peace. Here's the finest hat west of the Mississippi.
As you can tell, I've never seen a John Wayne movie. Or at least the finest hat I could find on Etsy.
Yes, exactly. I kindly ask you to take me off your little hit list there, friendo.
As he revs his chainsaw in the dining room. Right, exactly.
You know what this reminds me of, Gabe? You remember Billy Madison? This is more my speed. John Wayne, eh, Billy Madison.
There's this scene where Adam Sandler calls Steve Buscemi to apologize for bullying him in high school. And he's like, hey, man, I just did a lot of things that, you know, weren't funny.
And Steve Buscemi was like, oh, yeah, no problem. All good.
Just super chill about it. And then once they hang up, the camera zooms out and you see this paper tape to the wall that says people to kill and he just crosses billy madison's name off the list and applies lipstick and lays down on the couch oh my god yeah this uncle is definitely steve yes in this situation 100 oh thanks for the hat oh that hit list oh gee you know how it is no big deal yeah yeah all right so she goes on but ever since then, Steve has been friendly to us.
This is literally what happened. Literally what happened.
So it worked. Never underestimate the power of a well-delivered Stetson.
You know, Gabe, with your growing collection of hats, you could bribe a lot of crazy uncles. Yeah.
Why do you think I bought them? For the aesthetic? No. This is uncle appeasing headgear over here.
I'm just picturing you talking to crazy cousin off the ledge by handing him a K Bonito hat. Like, hey man, chill bro.
It's just vibes. It's just vibes.
And also maybe take some lithium. Just a thought.
Yes. The hat is lined with a lithium that is transdermal.
That's the hat that solves that problem. Transdermal lithium is something you should consider patented.
So she goes on, I want to have kids in the next few years, and we plan to stay in the area for the foreseeable future. But I worry that Steve is too unstable and violent to bring any children around.
Yeah. Like the one he attacked with a chainsaw? Yeah, I might skip their house at Christmas.
Jeez. And I'm not sure how to protect them without completely cutting out the extended family.
My fiance's younger sister has a child, but she and her husband live eight hours away. They visit the grandparents' house while Steve is there and have had no issues.
But these visits only happen maybe twice a year, and she has distance to separate her from the chaos. How would you all handle this situation? If we have children, should we just keep them away from Steve completely, or set firm boundaries around visits? I wouldn't trust Steve around my dogs.
How am I supposed to trust him around our kids? Signed, Protecting Our Offspring, when Steve belongs in a psych wing. My God, what a situation this is.
This is just bananas. Not just that you have an unstable and apparently violent person in the family, but also this whole thing with the dog accosting the neighbors, the assault slash attempted murder of a child with a chainsaw, the literal hit list.
This is a nightmare. This person belongs in prison.
Gabe, I have to assume that Steve is seriously traumatized, maybe by his father holding him and his family at gunpoint when they were kids. I don't know.
Just a theory. Just a random theory.
I don't know if it holds any water. So grandpa, his dad was out of his tree.
This kind of violence leaves a real mark. Maybe Steve has some mental illness apart from that because it sounds like Bob is relatively normal, maybe, but their father clearly did a number on them.
On the upside, he does have a bitchin' new hat. He does have a bitchin' new hat.
That's true. So things aren't all bad.
The chainsaw, though, that worries me a little bit. Maybe.
Just a little, yeah. Yeah.
Maybe don't ask him to carve the ice sculpture at your wedding. You're going to want to hire a vendor for that.
Yeah. I mean, look, we're having a laugh, but this is actually quite terrifying.
It is legitimately terrifying. This guy, the fact that he has a vantage point in his house and he's like, don't worry, I have access to multiple firearms.
This is a tragedy waiting to happen, whether he just kills himself. That's almost like the best case scenario of a use of a firearm in this situation is this guy's going to shoot somebody.
He wants to. I'm pretty stunned that the police were not called after he attacked that kid in the neighborhood.
Why didn't the kid's parents call or a neighbor call or why didn't Bob call? I don't know. How do you just move on from something like that? That's not just like, oh, that was a weird thing that happened.
Yeah, super weird that he attacked my son with a chainsaw. Man, somebody should do something about that guy.
But, you know, it's lunchtime and they're probably not going to answer the phone. I mean, how do you not immediately dial 911 and have this person? He didn't have a good hat.
He didn't have a hat. He didn't have a hat.
I'm really at a loss here. Like, OK, the family's obviously protecting him.
She did say that Steve is the reason the parents are still able to live at home, which, OK, I'm happy for them. I'm glad he's good for something.
But he's also kicking his dog. He's going after children in the neighborhood with a chainsaw.
He's barricading himself in the house with an arsenal of guns. He's threatening to kill multiple people, including his nephew, because he makes too much money, which is totally ridiculous.
Understatement. Is it really worth protecting that guy so Mima and Pop Pop don't have to eat frickin' mashed potatoes in a nursing home? I don't think so, Bob.
I don't think so. So look, just to cut to the

chase, if it's true that you wouldn't trust Steve around your dogs, you absolutely should not trust

him around your children. End of story.
The guy's mentally ill and dangerous. He's untreated.
He's

unstable. He has weapons in the house.
He has a kill list. Your fiance was on it.
Why? Again,

because he makes too money. He doesn't spend time with me.
The guy is a lunatic. Okay.
If I had a family member like this, I would never go over there. It's too risky.
You don't owe this person anything. This is somebody you notify the police about.
In fact, if I was your fiance, I would do just that. Not just for your benefit, but for all the other people and animals this guy might hurt.
He could have killed that kid easily. It's a miracle he didn't.
And what if he had? A child would be seriously injured or dead or maimed. He'd be in prison probably.
Now, I know things have cooled down a bit. The cowboy hat did the trick, but that doesn't mean Steve's not going to have another episode, isn't going to come up with some new imagined grievance, or wake up one day and decide that he's mad you guys didn't visit him on Easter or that you're making too much money again.
This could happen without you guys even knowing it. That's the thing.
You're lucky you knew about the kill list at all. The next time, you just might not.
And you might find out when you walk in the door and get shotgun blasted by this psychopath. So yeah, I'm pretty adamant about this.
That house is not safe for you. It's not safe for your fiancé.
It's certainly not safe for your future children. Even if it is, it's not even worth the risk.
Why would you roll the dice on this? And if that ruffles some feathers in your fiance's family, tough Kishka. This is so beyond the pale.
It's insane that you're even debating whether to go over there. I mean, Dark Jordan's just like, burn the house down.
I'm a little confused why they want to go over there at all. No kidding.
The grandfather is a lunatic abuser, even if he is old now and harmless. Steve is Steve.
The grandma is doing apparently nothing about any of this. Bob, he sounds all right, actually.
Maybe he's cool. But I can't imagine that these are super rewarding visits.
These don't sound like incredibly fulfilling relationships that they need to tend. Not a fun vibe over at Chainsaw Manor, is what I'm trying to say.
Good point. Why is it so important they go over there? I can't really tell.
It's not like he's normal 95% of the time, but when he's sick, it's really bad and everybody has to do it. This is like he's always pretty much always bad or he's manically high and happy because we bribed him.
Oh, and also abusive grandpa's there with a house full of guns. Where's the upside? I'm assuming that they're visiting largely out of obligation because the grandparents are getting up there and they don't know how much longer they have.
I'm just guessing. Fine, but if that is the only reason they're going over there, that's even less reason to put themselves at risk.
There's no upside. Also, I'm not sure I agree that you have to completely cut out the extended family if you don't go over there anymore.
You might not be able to get a ton of one-on-one time with the grandfather if Steve's always around. Although, again, why you'd want to spend a ton of time with that guy who held his family at gunpoint, unclear to me.
Maybe we're missing something. Unless the whole family is firmly behind Steve, which maybe they are, maybe that's why no one's calling the cops or intervening here.
But I can't imagine that anyone in their right mind would be on Team Steve, so I don't see why you'd need to cut them all off. You can still have dinner with these grandparents at a restaurant.
You can invite them over to your house. Just make sure you install a metal detector at the front door.
You can plan get-togethers without Steve, and if everyone is on Team Steve, if you can't stay away from him without alienating everyone else, again, I am not sure that that's such a big loss. If your entire family is ludatics that don't find this to be problematic, then they are also ludatics who are problematic.
That's my take. Maybe your fiance's family handles things differently.
Maybe they have a higher threshold for violence and dysfunction. I don't think you should though, especially not if you become a parent.
Also, you mentioned that you're starting premarital counseling. I would run this by your counselor.
See what they say about it. I'm just curious.
Maybe they have another perspective or they have more detail on your family. But yeah, get another opinion here.
See what a third party thinks. Yeah, that's a good idea.
Hopefully that person has an objective opinion. If they know the family or they're involved in the community, that might bias them a bit.
But honestly, I cannot imagine that any counselor worth their salt would advise soon to be parents to bring a child into an environment like this. Stay away.
That's my advice. You have so little to gain by having contact with any of these people and so much to lose.
Yeah, you might have to give up another hat. That's right.
How many hats are you going to give to this guy just to stay alive? Take care of yourselves. Stay strapped.
Now I'm going to take a chainsaw to the prices on the fine products and services that support this show. We'll be right back.
This episode is sponsored in part by BetterHelp. Nobody I know has it together all the time.
Society glorifies this whole I can do it all myself mentality. But every great leader, every successful person you admire, they've had mentors, coaches, support systems.
They know when to ask for help. Even my five-year-old has a hard time with this.
But we're teaching him that leaning on people is not a sign of weakness. It's one of the smartest things you can do.
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This episode is also sponsored by SimpliSafe. First of all, thank you so much if you sent us a kind message of concern about the home break-in we experienced a few weeks ago.
Some of you joked about how we made up the story to sell SimpliSafe. It's all true, folks.
I even have video footage, which, by the way, I tried to post and it wouldn't let me on Instagram because it's too long. Yada, yada.
I'm going to have to figure that out. We find it honestly hard to believe that it even happened to us.
And I think a lot of us don't think that something like this would ever happen.

We live in one of those safe neighborhoods, the kind of place you don't worry about security

beyond locking the doors at night.

If you haven't heard, a few weeks ago, three masked intruders shattered that illusion literally

by kicking in the glass door of the room I was in trying to force their way into the

house.

So glad that we had SimpliSafe installed because in the chaos of me screaming for Jen

to call the police and rushing these guys like some sort of psychopathic bear, she couldn't find her phone, but she remembered that we had panic buttons installed around the house. She hit one instantly, sirens blurring, emergency response dispatched.
The guys took off. We were left shaken, obviously, but safe standing outside of my underwear.
It was a much needed wake up call on what we need to reinforce. So more glass break sensors, lock in the outdoor gates, the things you don't think about until something like this happens.
It's easy to feel safe until you are not. And bottom line, SimpliSafe had our back when it mattered most.
If you want 24-7 professional monitoring in an easy no contract setup, check them out. It's not just about peace of mind.
It's about actual security. Get started today at SimpliSafe.com slash Jordan for 50% off your news system with

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All right, back to Feedback Friday. Okay, next up.

Hey Jordan and Gabe, I'm struggling with my 27-year-old daughter. She's an adult with a master's degree, but she won't move out of our house.
She also has no interest in dating or being with people, and she's a bit of a hoarder and OCD personality. The lack of alone time, connection, and intimacy with my wife as a result is now driving a wedge between us.
I've tried to talk to my daughter about this in the past, but our conversations have sometimes been heated. Her feeling is that this is her safe place, the only place she's ever lived.
That she has her bedroom and her older sister's room as an office. Her older, married, self-sufficient sister, by the way.
That all her deceased pets are buried in the backyard and her current cat wouldn't or couldn't live somewhere else. And that she's the quote-unquote caretaker of the house when my wife and I leave.
She's a sweet person who struggles with her emotions. Nightly, she sits on the end of our bed and just emotes, talking about the good and the bad.
Her life, work, her cat. We've always had this openness and connection, but the nightly conversations have ramped up recently, and they can be lengthy.
She doesn't cry on a regular basis, but there's sadness in her demeanor. This is not the life she wants.
It's not all suffering. She does have good times too, but it definitely pulls on my heart when she cries and I realize that we are not only her parents, but also the closest thing she has to friends.
Oh man, that's sad. Yeah.
And hard for you to hear as well. I'm sure.
She won't see a counselor and is smart enough to see the psychology coming when we try to use it. My wife and I have talked openly about going to therapy ourselves, how it's been a big help in our lives.
She has a stigma around mental health issues and believes that someday she might work in law enforcement. She's currently in a related field.
I don't know if this is true, because I certainly know plenty of cops using antidepressants, which is another conversation we've had. Meaning she's afraid if she goes to therapy, she won't be able to be a cop.
That seems to be what he's saying, which not necessarily true from my understanding. Yeah, my understanding is that it depends on what the condition is.
If somebody is 5150, which is involuntarily hospitalized, sure, that might show up on a criminal history check or something similar. But if you just have OCD or some other condition where you're not institutionalized, probably not going to show up.
And I don't believe police departments request medical records from candidates. I'm not sure.
I don't think they're allowed to, but they do usually make candidates do a psych evaluation. So any issues might be visible to the psychiatrist during the interview.
For me, man, I got to say, if you're disqualified from the police department because you have a mental health issue, maybe you should be disqualified from the police department because of your mental health issue. That might be a controversial take, but I don't know, man.
Yeah, I also wonder if maybe that would come up in a polygraph or something when they interview you. Maybe they ask you certain questions like, have you ever had to be hospitalized? That's another way it could maybe come up, but it really does sound like she's using this as a reason to not go to therapy, which is very interesting.
I'm also wondering how real this goal actually is for her. What did he say? She believes that someday she might work in law enforcement.
Yeah, that's a funny way to put it. Is he implying she's a little delusional about this, maybe? I don't know.
I can't tell. I don't know if he's saying she's delusional or if it just doesn't sound like she's actively working on her application of the police academy or whatever.
So this dream of hers, yeah, is it just a way to avoid having to work on her mental health? Sounds like it. That's the vibe I'm getting.
It's an easy way to just go, yeah, no, that's not an option for me. But it's hard to kick her out.
I regret not putting her in student housing for school, even though she spent four years in the marching band and went to bowl games and traveled extensively. My wife will be on a trip for the next three weeks, and it's going to be just my daughter and me.
I'm wondering if I should start a discussion slash war without my wife here, or just ignore it. Any thoughts on how to push her out without breaking her? Should we spend more time bonding, and then I can use persistent persuasion? Signed, a hamstrung dad who wouldn't be mad to see an overgrown daughter leave the family pad.
Man, this is a tough one. I really feel for all of you here.
I'm sorry that your daughter struggles in some big ways, that she's clinging to the family nest. I'm sorry that you and your wife feel stuck and that you don't have a way of really talking to her about this.
So just to state the obvious here, your daughter has some very challenging mental health stuff, perhaps debilitating. And my heart goes out to her for that.
It really does. It also sounds like she's failed to individuate.
And that's a real issue. Now, whether the OCD, the hoarding, the emotional stuff, whether that's caused her to stay at home and keep her life small, or whether failing to separate in a healthy way is contributing to all that.
That's an interesting question. I'm guessing it's kind of a feedback loop.
It also sounds in look, man, I say this with love that you and your wife have in some ways participated in this dynamic with your daughter. You've helped create the conditions for her to not have to separate.
Like you said, by not encouraging her to live on campus, for example, by allowing her to stay home for another five years, by cramping around certain topics when she doesn't want to talk about them, like therapy, by having these nightly unloading sessions. I gotta say, fascinating ritual.
Yes, it is fascinating. Look, on the one hand, it's sweet, right? They're close.
She opens up to her parents. There's a real bond there.
I'm glad she has them at least. On the other hand, this nightly routine raises a lot of alarm bells for me.
It does for me as well. I'm hearing a grown woman who's relying emotionally on her parents way too much.
She's dumping on them a lot and more and more. How did he put it? Nightly, she sits at the end of their bed and she just emotes.
Emotes. Yeah, that's quite a picture, isn't it? It is.
And again, I have compassion for their daughter because she's clearly struggling. She's very isolated.
She doesn't have any friends. Her parents are her whole world, her parents and her cat.
But this is something you kind of might expect from like a 15 year old girl. Not even a lot of 15 year olds don't want to talk to their parents this much.
I'm just picturing mom and dad sitting up against the pillows in awkward silence while their daughter goes on a 90-minute rant about how lonely she is, about her boss at work, about how cute her cat is, what steroid the cat's on for his IBS or whatever. And they're just thinking, man, this is bad, but we can't talk about what's really going on here.
Look, I don't mean to sound like I'm making light of any of this. These are all legitimate things to talk about.
She obviously deserves support. But when you're 27 years old, and you're doing this with your parents every night for a while, and she's clearly sad, this is not the life she wants.
Yeah, something is very wrong with this picture. And as you said, this is not fair to you or your wife either.
It's very important for a child to individuate, but it's also very important for parents to complete the cycle of caring for their children, seeing them off into the world, entering a new phase of their own where, yeah, they get to be together, enjoy their freedom, and turn their attention to new goals and other relationships. You guys are stuck here too.
The thing is, your daughter is making that very difficult. She's throwing up defenses, smokescreens, really, left and right.
You talk about moving out and she's like, oh, this is my safe space. I have my room.
Fluffy and Trixie are buried in the backyard. I'm actually doing you guys a favor by taking care of the house when you guys are gone.
You talk about going to therapy and she says, no way. I want to work for the sheriff's department one day.
This is going to ruin my career, which again, not necessarily true. If that even is a real dream of hers, we're not even sure about that.
Gabe, I'm kind of marveling at all the ways this young woman has found of not having to face her life and not having to work on herself. From the outside, it's so obvious.
I just wonder how much she knows the corner that she's backed herself into. It's an interesting question.
We can't know for sure. But yeah, she might totally know what she's doing and have her parents wrapped around her finger, right? Or maybe she's blind to these defenses and rationalizations.
It's probably a bit of both, I would imagine, but it's obvious that the reason she's doing all this is that she is embarrassed. That's the thing, right? She's ashamed of how much she's struggling and how isolated she is.
Like our friend here said, she feels this stigma around mental health. So on some level, she must know that something isn't right.
But until she's willing to sit with that shame, or her parents are willing to call it out, I don't see how this situation is going to change. They need to stop tap dancing around this.
But how do you do that? I feel for these parents, it's a scary conversation to have. Oh, very scary.
Like you said, things have gotten heated when they've tried to go near this in the past. And I'm sure it's even scarier after years of colluding with their daughter in various ways to keep her safe, to say, actually, something is not right here.
And we actually feel differently. Let's talk about some other ways we could deal with this.
I imagine that would feel like pulling the rug out from under their daughter, maybe provoking her kind of like kicking the hornet's nest. What are we going to get back? It might even feel like they're being a little cruel to her by doing that.
But it's not. I get it.
It's going to suck for her to hear, but they're also being cruel to her by playing along, even though I get why they're doing it. Right.
No, totally. I agree with that.
My fear is that they're enabling her. They have been enabling her for years for reasons I can absolutely understand.
But like five more years go by. Ten.
She's 37. She still lives in her childhood bedroom because the fridge is always stocked and she doesn't want to live more than 10 yards from where her childhood cat is buried.
At what point does this become regressed and is frankly tragic? Because I worry that that's where this is heading. So this conversation is coming one way or another.
That's right. And what you're really getting at is in a way, are they prioritizing themselves by trying to protect her because they don't want to, as he put it, go to war? I thought it was telling when he said it definitely pulls on my heart when she cries.
And I realized that we're not only her parents, but the closest thing she has to friends. That is objectively sad.
Yeah, that really, that kind of killed me that line. And I get it.
I do not envy them for having to confront this. I also have so much empathy for a woman who is struggling with OCD.
He said she has some hoarding tendencies. We don't know the full story there, but generally that does speak to some theme of control, feeling like you need to control your surroundings.
So I'm guessing she's very scared, very anxious. But it's an interesting question.
Is their daughter actively tugging at their heartstrings or are they allowing their heartstrings to be tugged by her? Whoever's doing the tugging, it almost doesn't matter. What matters is, can you guys allow yourselves to be sad, anxious, scared, whatever your daughter brings up for you, in order to help her grow? And my sense is that right now they can't actually do that.
This conversation only becomes possible once they're willing to tolerate that discomfort, right? That discomfort of acknowledging the reality of their daughter's situation with her and saying, honey, I hear you that you don't want to move out. I hear you that you don't want to talk to somebody, but here's what we are seeing.
And we're very concerned about you and we love you and we want you to flourish. And we don't think that living here and avoiding all of this stuff is serving you very well anymore.
That's basically the message. But then the question is, what happens if she refuses to engage? Because I could see their daughter having a meltdown about this or lashing out at them or locking herself in her childhood bedroom and refusing to come out for a week.
Yeah, she might. She might do that.
Exactly. Which might mean not doing very much at all for a little while.
Just again, bearing the discomfort of rewriting this script and allowing their daughters to have whatever feelings she's going to have. But in this conversation and ongoingly, I would tell your daughter, look, we love you.
We are here for you. We believe in you.
But part of loving you is helping you see certain things that might be a little hard to see sometimes. And I know that this might be hard to hear.
Trust me, it's hard for us to say. But what we're seeing is that you're suffering quite a bit in these ways.
You're clinging to what's familiar, which we can understand. You're very isolated, which worries us.
The OCD, the hoarding, they are becoming real challenges. You're making it impossible to explore any of this and get better.
And until you're willing to at least talk about some of this stuff, starting with us if you want to, and just be open to trying things in a new way, we just don't see how things are going to get better. And that is all we want for you to chart your own course, chase your goals, be happy.
Right. And if she throws up the usual smoke screens, you got to have some responses ready.
Maybe you tell her that talking to a therapist won't disqualify her from a career in law enforcement, not on its own anyway. And if she's like, I'm not going to therapy, I'm not that bad.
Maybe say, honey, I think you're struggling in some profound ways. And that's OK.
We understand. But it's very clear to us that you're dodging this because it's scary or embarrassing or just too overwhelming.
And maybe you literally ask her, how do you want to handle all of this? Do you want to handle this? How do you see your life unfolding from here on out? Because I'm not sure this is it. Yeah, these are all great questions.
And yes, probably very scary questions. And so while you ask them, I would definitely encourage you to keep making it safer to talk.
Don't move too quickly or be too intense, but these are precisely the questions that I would ask. And really, it's this balance of offering love to your daughter and also challenging her, which is probably a new language for you.
But look, daring to have this conversation at all also means daring to fail, right? Your daughter might reject everything you say, or she might take it in and then not really do anything with it. So the point of having this conversation with her might not necessarily be to convince her of your opinion.
It might actually be to just go on record as saying, hey, we're concerned. We're not willing to play along in the way we have in the past.
We're ready to support you in a different way. And then to live in that reality, whatever that is.
Yeah. The reality where she's not doing a total 180 and throwing herself into getting better, but they're no longer colluding with her.
Yes. I think even that would be a powerful step forward for them.
At which point they might need to consider taking a stronger tack here. I do think there's a timeline where they lovingly push their daughter out of the nest.
If six months go by, a year, and nothing has changed, I think there's a point where they're allowed to say, hey, look, honey, we love you, but it's time for both of us. Let's find you an apartment.
Let's find you a therapist and a psychiatrist. Let's see what it's like for you to become a little more independent.
And maybe she takes to that. Maybe she doesn't, but that's not on you.
She's 27 years old. This might be a situation where she's mad at you for a while.
And then one day she wakes up in her own apartment and feeds her cat and looks around and goes, oh, got it. I'm responsible for me.
If I want to have friends, I got to work on that. If I want to make a career change, I have to get on top of my mental health.
I'm going to have to start applying to jobs. And that might be the beginning of a very profound process for her.
And to be clear, I'm not saying you should jump straight to kicking her out. I actually think it's crucial she feels loved and supported, even while you're giving her some tough news.
I just want you to see that your love can take a few different forms here. Love isn't just sitting on the bed while your child emotes.
Sometimes love means being firm, saying the uncomfortable thing, appropriately holding your child's feet to the fire, staying connected with them even when they're angry at you. And if you're unsuccessful, remembering that you and your wife are adults too with your own goals and needs and at her age, you're allowed to factor in your own interests too.
Let's not lose sight of the fact that your marriage is now suffering as a result of all this, which is an equally important symptom here and something that you and your wife need to acknowledge as well. So I wish you and your wife the courage to have these conversations with your daughter.
And I hope your daughter taps into her own courage and vulnerability to take it all in. This won't be easy, but it is obviously very necessary.
And it could be one of the best things to ever happen to all of you. And good luck.
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All right, what's next? Hi, Gabe and Jordan. My fiancé and I have been friends with another couple for approximately two years.
Let's call them Mark and Mia. Mark is 30 years old and from Europe, and Mia is 21 years old and from the US.
Mia goes back and forth to Europe to be with Mark, and we all live in the same city here in Europe. After a few months of knowing them, we came to learn that they met online when Mia was 14, and waited until she was 18 to meet in real life.
A while later, they told us that they met once in the US when she was 17. Then recently we found out that they met in real life when she was actually 14.
Okay. That's concerning.
You're making me do math. I don't like it.
All right. How old was Mark when she was 14? So he's nine years older.
So he was 23. Yeah.
She was 14. That's gross.
Flying across the world to meet up with a 14 year old girl you met online. That dude is lucky.
Chris Hansen wasn't waiting for him. Like, why don't you have a seat over there? This is bad.
That is creepy, illegal behavior. Oh, boy.
A friend of me is back then called the cops and Mark was deported from the US. Yeah.
OK, so it sounds like Homeland Security agreed that this was creepy, too. And they were like, hey, go back to Amsterdam, bro.
Yeah, sounds like it. I've tried to talk with Mia about the age difference, but she just tries to convince me it's fine and that she was the one who made the first move on him.
OK, just to state the obvious, even if that's true, that doesn't make it okay. He's the adult, she was a child, she can't consent, she can't make moves on you.
End of story. But man, it's so interesting that Mia pushes back on this.
So either she genuinely does not experience this as problematic, which this is creepy, whether she feels it was or not, or she knows it was dodgy and she's just doubling down because she doesn't want to face it or get him into trouble. The dilemma for my fiance and me now is whether we should continue being friends with them.
Our relationship with them has been quite good, mostly, and we don't really have any other couple to hang out with. It's also quite hard to find friends who are couples in general.
But we both feel a bit weird about him probably grooming her since she was 14. What should we do? Signed, Seeking the Right Response to this probable nonce.
This is uncomfortable. So Mark almost certainly groomed Mia when she was 14.
I honestly can't imagine another explanation if they met online and he flew out to visit her at that age. It's not like they just happened to meet through mutual friends or family or whatever, and then years later they took their relationship in a different direction.
This is not Celine Dion, right, and her husband, although I don't know all the details there, so maybe it is. Although even that would raise eyebrows for me.
This is very sus, and the fact that they told you guys a different version of events at first and that Mark got deported, come on. It tells me they know this all sounds so bad.
In fact, it probably was. But as you're finding out, I'm not exactly sure what you're supposed to do about it.
Mia's an adult now, legally speaking. Anyway, she's choosing to be with this guy.
She might be kind of messed up by all this. We don't know what her experience is, what's going through her head, but on some level, she is choosing to stay with this guy now that she's 21, and I don't think anybody can stop her.
As for your friendship with them, look, if you have real concerns about Mark based on what he did with Mia back then or how he's behaving now, and that doesn't feel like something you guys can talk about openly if you're not getting any indication that this is something he's worked through or is open to discussing with you and if that doesn't sit well with you which it clearly doesn't I would not stay in this friendship just because you don't have any other couples to hang out with I hear you that it's hard to make couple friends but it is not impossible and I personally would not remain friends with a probable child predator just because it's slim pickings out there, especially because I'm not getting the sense that you and your fiance are head over heels with Mark and Mia. Maybe you are, and you just didn't include that in your letter.
It's not like you guys are family, and you got to have some kind of relationship with them and figure it all out. I'm not hearing that Mark is this really amazing friend who did this questionable thing a really long time ago, or that Mia is your best friend.
It sounds like you kind of could take him or leave him. And if that's the case, you have two reasons to reconsider this friendship.
Yeah, I agree. My thoughts exactly.
Also, he said our friendship with them has mostly been great, which makes me wonder what else has come up. Was there some other problem or are there other red flags that are coming up in the relationship? But yeah, overall, I just cannot tell how deep

their friendship with Mark and Mia actually is. There's a huge elephant in the room, a very

disturbing criminal elephant. And when you try to go near it with Mia, it sounds like she pretty

much shuts it down, either because it is really painful for her or because she knows that people

will judge them for this and she just doesn't want to deal with that. It's hard, man.
I don't know.

Part of me feels like Mia deserves a safe friend she can talk to about this. So I want you guys

So, let's the thing. Then the conversation isn't even possible.
I guess I would want to know how you've tried to broach this with Mia. Have you approached her in a way that made her feel okay about opening up to you about how she met Mark and how their relationship is now these days? I don't know.
I can't really tell. It does sound like you've genuinely tried.
And at a certain point, you can't make somebody talk about something they don't want to talk about. So either way, I guess I'm back to my question.
Is this actually a meaningful friendship or is this just company to pass the time and not feel lonely? If it's the latter and the friendship doesn't have the potential to become something more than that, then that's even less reason to stay close with these people in my view. Exactly.
I think that's what this letter about, too. Not just what to do about Mark and Mia, but really how they choose their friends, what they look for in people, what kind of relationships they want to have.
My feeling is, if you're spending time with people because you feel you can't do better, or because it's too hard to make other friends, or you just want another couple to drink wine and play Cards Against Humanity with, or whatever, that's not the best reason to stay close. This might be a sign that it's time to branch out, get invested in some hobbies, communities that put you in touch with other people, and maybe they don't need to be other couples.
Maybe that's another criterion to look at. Maybe you're missing out on other great friends who are single, something else to consider.
As for Mark and Mia, it's up to you to decide whether you want to stay close with them. I'm not hearing that there's something super compelling about them.
I am hearing that there's one potentially very worrisome thing about them. Although how worrisome? It's a complicated question.
I think that comes down to how Mark and Mia make sense of this unusual part of their story and how they share it with other people. Look, even if you pull away, I would definitely try to keep the door open to Mia because if she ever decides that she needs a friend to talk to, I'd love for her to be able to reach out.
I mean, she might eventually realize how weird this all is and have to process it, and you don't want her to be alone for that. Weird story.
I hope Mia's okay, and good luck. You know what you won't get deported for putting your hands on? The fine products and services that support this show.
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All right, back to Feedback Friday. Okay, what's next? Dear Jordan and Gabe, I'm a 51-year-old single mom of a 15-year-old daughter.
Let's call her Jane. Jane is a freshman in high school.
We live in Arizona, and her father, Bob, lives in California. Bob and I dated for a year and a half before I discovered that he was married with two kids.
Around the same time, I found out I was pregnant. Damn, that is a lot to happen all at once.
Jeez, living a double life for a year and a half? Crazy. I could never handle the stress of this.
I'll never understand these guys. No, me either.
What a mental emotional burden that would be. Right.
And lying on top of it. They've got to be wired in such a way where they just don't care.
They just don't care about getting caught because I would be nervous the whole time. I would preclude any enjoyment I would get out of something weird like this.
Do you have to be wired a certain way in order to enjoy the relationship knowing you're deceiving the person so profoundly? And your family and your kids. I mean, yeah.
And you're putting so much at risk. Yeah, it's crazy.
I think so. When I told Bob, he offered to take care of it, meaning pay for an abortion, which I refused.
I cut off contact and my pregnancy ended up being high risk. Jane was born and spent two weeks in the NICU.
Bob's then-wife didn't allow him to have any contact with Jane, so he didn't meet her until she was eight, even though he had fought my move to Arizona. He's a textbook narcissist.
He's called me names in court, referred to my parents as racist despite having barely met them, and sent me abusive texts, which is why I cut off all communication with him except for the necessary logistics. Custody and child support are still handled through the California courts.
Jane began traveling as an unaccompanied minor to visit Bob at age 8, per the court order. Jane doesn't like him much, and their relationship has been strained, though she loves her half-brothers and other members of his family.
But I've always said that Jane is better off knowing Bob than not, especially because he's black, and there are cultural aspects of her identity that I can't fully contribute to. But now that Jane is in high school and becoming more independent, she wants more control over where and how she spends her time.
She's extremely mature for her age. She's been managing theater stage crews of 60 plus kids for three years.
She's involved in professional theater, and she's in all honors and AP classes with straight A's. She knows what she wants, and right now she doesn't want to spend the 75 court order days per year with her dad, especially not 90% of her summer, which she wants to spend working a job and volunteering.
He's extremely controlling. He doesn't support her taking online summer school, which she wants to do, and won't let her go out alone.
He's been known to take away her phone or restrict internet access, preventing her from contacting me or her friends while she's with him. I support Jane in deciding how much time to spend with her dad.
Some have suggested letting her make the choice, and if Bob takes us back to court, a judge would likely rule in her favor. But if we follow her wishes, I will be in contempt of court, and I can't afford to hire a lawyer in California to change the order.
I hate that this causes Jane stress. While I know Bob loves her, his actions, like withholding flight information, not paying child support on time, and ignoring her extracurricular needs, are often aimed at hurting me, not her.
Unfortunately, she interprets this as him not caring about her as much as he does his other kids. On another note, your show has encouraged me to seek out therapy to work through all of these emotions.
I'm the stereotypical overachieving single mom who does everything for her kid and puts herself on the back burner. This past year has been especially difficult, as my elderly parents are in decline with dementia, and we just moved them into an independent living facility.
On top of that, I have a challenging job with a lot of travel and seven pets to care for, and I'm exhausted. I'm trying to minimize my emotional churn, but I haven't been able to find the balance and I'm hopeful that therapy will help with that.
So thank you for encouraging that aspect of self-care. All right, pause.
That is a lot to handle, my friend. I'm tempted to say maybe a little too much, but anyway, I'm so glad you're looking at how you've been handling all this, carving out time for yourself.
I'm glad we could play a role in that. Therapy is so key, especially when your life is as full as yours and brings up a lot of intense feelings.
So proud of you for that. Am I crazy for allowing my daughter to choose how much time she spends with her dad? Or should I stick with the official court agreement, even though it seems to be doing more harm than good? Signed, tempting the court to thwart and cut short this excessive support for all this transport to to a parent who only distorts and falls short.
Oh, man, what a challenging co-parent. Bob sounds like a tricky person, to put it lightly.
I'm sorry he lied to you when you were together, that he's been hurtful in all these ways. I'm also sorry that he hasn't been the most loving father to Jane, although I also hear you that he probably does love her.
He just might not know how to show that. And if he's actually a narcissist, he has all kinds of other mental issues that he's dealing with.
It's a challenging situation all around. I'm not sure there's a perfect answer here.
So look, I share your view that Jane is old enough now to start asserting herself more and deciding where she spends her time. She's 15.
She's very mature. I absolutely agree she should have a say in how often she sees her dad and what the rules are when she's at his house.
But my fear is that if you guys ignore the custody agreement, Bob is going to make things really difficult for you. You said, again, he's a narcissist.
He's controlling. He's been aggressive and abusive in court.
I said he's a tricky person. It really sounds like he's a trashy a-hole, and I'm going to imagine that he's going to do all this stuff all over again just to make your life harder.
He has no problem hurting your daughter to get to you also. And now, look, it might be harder for him to drag you back to court given that you guys live in different states.
The court system, at least here in California, is pretty backed up. Who knows? It could be months, a year, or more before you finally get a date.
In the meantime, Jane could enjoy more freedom and pursue all these awesome things that she wants to do. And when you guys do have that hearing, Jane will be 16, even older, even more equipped to advocate for herself.
That could help. But that doesn't mean you won't face legal consequences for violating a custody agreement.
See, you do have to consider the cost. My understanding is that could include fines, loss of custody rights, being required to attend counseling or parenting classes in extreme cases could result in jail time, although I think that's probably very unlikely.
So this is a very real risk here. On the other hand, my understanding is that the court tries to prioritize a child's best interest in these hearings.
They often take a child's wishes into account, especially when that child is 15, 16 years old. So if they hear from you and Bob and maybe even Jane, they might modify the custody arrangement, reduce Bob's visitation time, give Jane more of a say in all this.
Now, that probably means you're going to need to hire a lawyer. And I know you said you can't afford it right now.
I also don't know if you can avoid it. Not if you plan to deliberately ignore the custody agreement and definitely not if you plan to actively revisit it.
My feeling there is you just have to find a way to pay for an attorney, period. It might not be as expensive as you think.
The heavy lifting of the custody order is already done. I wonder if a lawyer might help you modify it or plan ahead for not a huge amount of money.
And if you need to do a GoFundMe or ask for family support, I think it's worth it. There are also pro bono, low cost, sliding scale legal services out there, and I would definitely look into that.
At a minimum, I would book a consultation with a family attorney and talk to them about your options. Ask them what would happen if you ignored the custody agreement.
Ask them what it would take to modify it. How much Jane's preferences

would play a role in the court's decision. I would not make big decisions like this without

a lawyer's guidance. You do have some other options, though.
You could work with Jane to

get her dad to reconsider how much time he demands with her, how he treats her when she's there,

what he allows her to do. Maybe there's no reasonable conversation to be had with Bob.
Maybe that's why you feel your only choice is

just to ignore the custody agreement. But if Jane sits down with him, looks him in the eye,

this super mature, thoughtful, driven 15-year-old person, and she's like,

Dad, I'm glad we have a relationship. I appreciate that you want to spend time with me.

I know our situation is complicated, but I also have some big goals that I want to achieve.

Summer school, a job, volunteer work, and I just can't achieve them with this schedule. I either need to spend more time at home or I need you to ease up when I'm under your roof.
I know you love me. I know you want to see me succeed.
So can we talk about what that would look like? And I might even throw in a little sugar here. If he's really a narcissist, you can explain to him how this is going to make him look like such a great dad, how she's going to have a summer that puts her ahead of everybody else.
Thanks to him. And I'm guessing that hearing this from her, as opposed to you would be more impactful.
Although he might fight you guys either way, who knows, but it's worth a shot. And maybe she tries first and then you call and gently back her up.
So he knows this isn't just you pulling the strings and putting words in her mouth. Although I realized I literally just put words in her mouth by giving you that script.
But you know, we like giving you some language to work with. The point is this should come from Jane in her own words based on what she really wants.
And if Bob absolutely refuses to budge, which unfortunately, I guess that is a strong possibility. And there's really no way to ignore the court order without getting into trouble.
Then I would work with Jane to come up with a plan to make it through the next two years, two and a half years, whatever it is, of this agreement until she's 18. At which point, she'll be free, and she can decide how much she wants to see Bob herself.
Your daughter has so much going for her. She has such a bright future.
The stakes, very thankfully, are high here. So she needs to find clever ways to work around her dad's crazy rules.
She needs to keep fighting for as much autonomy as possible. She cannot let the schedule get in the way of her future.
So if she needs to sneak an iPad to Arizona so she can do online summer school under the covers at night, great, do that. If she needs a burner phone to stay in touch with you and her friends when he takes her phone away, fine.
If she can get creative and find a job or maybe a volunteer position in Arizona near her dad, I would look into that. I think she might need to get creative here so that her dad doesn't inadvertently hold her back.
Although now that I'm saying this, I wonder if she should make that clear to her dad when she talks to him, kind of like in the way Jordan was just pitching. And if he's like, no way, you're a kid.
You're my kid. You do what I say when you're under my roof or whatever.
Then I would encourage Jane to tell him what that actually means for her. She could say, dad, if you keep treating me this way, you're going to start getting in the way of my dreams.
And it's going to be really hard to keep up my grades. I might not get into the colleges that I want to go to.
I'm not going to be able to do theater, which I love. Is that really what you want? Is that what you want from me as my dad? And put it back on him and press the issue.
Again, Bob might be so narcissistic and controlling, and yeah, who knows, maybe determined to get back at you that he's not going to be swayed by that. But at least you guys will be forcing him to go on record as saying, yes, it is more important to me that I make you play by my rules than that you're happy and successful.
And that will tell you a lot about whether Bob deserves his relationship with Jane. It might also give you guys more ammunition in any custody hearing down the line.
You know, this could be potentially compelling evidence for why Jane should have more time with you. Agreed all around.
So no, you're not crazy for wanting to allow Jane to choose how much time she spends with her dad. Any rational, healthy parent would start to listen to a mature 15 year old's wishes.
But that doesn't mean there aren't some good reasons to stick with the court order, even if it's doing some harm. But that's why you guys need to get creative and explore every other option here.
Talk to a lawyer. I would also run all of this by your therapist, see what they say.
They might have some great ideas for how to help Jane cope with her dad, assert herself. They might also know certain things about how much you can push the law and definitely keep going to therapy.
It sounds like a really important space for you personally in all of this. Yeah.
And on that note, I just want to say, I love that you recognize how much responsibility you tend to take on and apparently how that often comes at your expense. That's a very important insight.
I'm so glad you're working on it, but I also can't stop thinking about the seven pets in your house. Yeah.
That's a lot of dogs and cats. Look, I hope there's some fish in there, a hamster, just lighten the load a little bit.
Something tells me that this is six rescue dogs and an agoraphobic cat that lives in fear of everyone else 24 seven.

But that's a lot, especially when you're caring for elderly parents with dementia and a teenage daughter and you're working your ass off.

I guess I just want to know, like, how do you end up with seven pets when you're dealing with all of that?

She must have chosen them, right?

They weren't just strays who wandered in the house and stuck around.

I'm guessing she went to the shelter.

Yeah, clearly she's already onto this, so I'm not trying to pile on here.

But I'm just wondering if she might be going out of her way a little bit to take on so much responsibility.

And I guess I wonder what function that impulse to care for so many other people's lives, apparently animals' lives as well, what that is serving for her. Whether it's just because she has a lot of love to give, which I do believe, or whether there might be a pattern here of giving a lot, maybe a little too much, to others for a reason that would be very important for her to know.
Because it seems to me that part of your job as a great mom to Jane is being very disciplined about where else you spend your time and your energy. And just to be clear, I'm not saying you should go take four of the pets back to the shelter or anything.
I love that you have animals in your life, that you want animals in your house. It's beautiful.
But if there are other areas where you might be tempted to take on more responsibility, just maybe keep an eye on that. And yeah, definitely keep bringing it into therapy because this quality might also show up in how you care for Jane, how you balance Bob's wishes and all this, and also just this whole decision about whether to actually follow the custody agreement.
Yeah, good point. I'm sure this responsibility thing comes from a good place, but even she knows that it might be a bit of a fatal flaw, which again is why I'm glad that you're talking about it.
Whatever you do, make sure it's in service of empowering Jane and setting her up for as much success as possible. She sounds like an extraordinary kid.
She's going places. She deserves as many advantages and as much love as possible.
Sending you guys a big hug and wishing you all the best. It's concerning Gabriel.
I get it. He's controlling.
He doesn't let her go out at night. Maybe he's a product of his environment when he was growing up.
Not wanting her to do extra school online from home, something about that sits very poorly with me because the disadvantages are none, and the advantages are she gets ahead in her education, and it's like, okay, now I'm not convinced that you have your daughter's best wishes in mind at all. I feel like you just want to say no to things.
Either you just want to say no to things or you resent that's going to be time she doesn't spend with you. Oh, interesting.
But then doing what? Like, how are you spending that time? Is it meaningful time? Are you supporting her dreams? Is she excited to hang out with you? And if not, why? Yeah, that whole thing just does not sit right with me. It would be different if she wanted to go away to camp for two out of the two and a half months.
Okay, then you're not going to see your dad. But if my kid says, hey, I got to spend three or four hours a day on the iPad doing homework, I'm thrilled that I have a go-getter kid, not whining about how you're not paying attention to me.
He maybe really is like a actual narcissist to the point where he's only looking at what she does for him and her source of narcissistic supply for her dad, which is not a good situation for a child to be in at all. All right.
Time for the recommendation of the week. I am addicted to lit filler.
My recommendation this week is a documentary called Instruments of a Beating Heart. So this is one of the most moving and fascinating things I've seen this year.
It was directed by Emma Ryan Yamazaki, who is a very talented British-Japanese director. I don't want to give too much away.
I want you guys to go watch this. But this short doc is basically about a young girl.
I think she's seven years old and she gets chosen in her Japanese school to do this group performance of a Beethoven piece. And this project ends up pushing this little girl to the brink.
And she basically has to figure out how to nail her part in the performance while serving the larger class and leaning on her friends and teachers and working through all of these big emotions that this performance brings up for her. The film is only about 20 minutes, but you go on a huge moving journey with this little girl.
And in the process, the film really captures the beauty and also the darkness of Japanese culture and their education system. And just how it like teaches kids to be super responsible and thoughtful and dedicated, but also how it can push them in ways that are honestly heartbreaking to watch.
This film was nominated for Best Documentary Short Film at the Academy Awards this year. I see why.
It's brilliant. I went to a screening of it this week, and I was in the audience.
I laughed. I cried.
I thought it was fantastic. I can't stop thinking about it.
I think you'll enjoy it too. And you can find a link to it in the show notes.
In case you don't know, there's a subreddit for our show. If you want to jump into discussions with other listeners about specific things here on the show, like you want to tell Gabriel to stop recommending Netflix series that are 12 hours long and recommend more 20 minute films.
I can get behind that. I will upvote that.
You can find that on Reddit in the Jordan Harbinger subreddit. Yeah, Gabe, it's like, I'm like, hey, buy this UV detector to keep from getting a sunburn.
And you're like, watch 27 hours about the history of Japanese flower arranging on Netflix. And I'm just like, okay, just buy the UV thing.
Literally never recommended that. This is blasphemous.
This is libel, actually, is what this is. It this is slander but some of my wrecks are they're dank wrecks but they sometimes they take a little bit of an investment this one you can watch it on your lunch break are you single and unemployed take gabriel's recommendations and binge all of those things you have nothing else to do you know what this is by the way jordan i just want to point out these are from the people who want me to narrate a 14-hour erotic novel.
I think they have the time. Are erotic novels that long? I mean, get to the point, for God's sake.
Jeez. Oh, maybe that's what I'm doing wrong.
Well, when I narrate them, they will be. All right.
Speaking of narration, what's next out of the mailbag? Dear Jordan and Gabe, I've been working at my current job for six months, and overall, I enjoy the work I'm doing and the people I work with. But the workload has steadily increased over time with no support for my ever-growing task list, and now I can't manage.
I consistently feel like I'm set up to fail. Still, I've been able to get by working late and powering through.
But almost two years ago, one of my best friends, Raquel, got diagnosed with breast cancer. She underwent aggressive treatments, receiving top-notch care, and it worked.
She announced that she was cancer-free later that year. We're all relieved, and she and her fiancé were ready to put that chapter behind them.
They had their wedding in October 2024, and it was such a celebration of life and hope. Everyone came together to celebrate her and her husband after all they'd been through.
That was the last time I saw her, looking so beautiful and so full of life. On January 8th, four days before her 31st birthday, I got the message telling me the news of her passing.
It was shocking, and it broke me. I immediately took off of work and made arrangements to go to her services.
Oh, man. I am so sorry, friend.
That is truly awful. 31 years old.
Three months after you get married? It's so sad, man. Cancer is just brutal.
Evil. My boss was nice early on when everything happened.
No pushback on me taking off to go to the funeral, even though friends don't technically qualify for bereavement leave. But that was just two weeks ago.
Now it's back to business as usual, back to normal, but I don't feel normal. I'm still grieving the loss of my friend.
I've had trouble focusing on work. Everything I'm doing seems so trivial and unimportant, and my list of responsibilities only continues to grow.
Of course. Yeah, I get that.
What could be more normal? I'd feel the same way. Since the start of the year, my workplace has cracked down on working from home and reiterated our old school rigid rules.
Hey kids, don't forget you can only take lunch between these times. Stuff like that.
I feel suffocated by this lack of flexibility. I dread going to work and I'm so drained by the end of the day, even though I've stopped working late.
I feel like I have no freedom and just have to phone it in and muddle through, even when a wave of grief hits and I'm unproductive and unfocused. I've been looking for new jobs with more flexibility and hybrid roles, but haven't had much success yet.
I'm just not sure how to proceed. I feel stuck, frustrated, helpless.
I just want to quit and go get any other job. Is there any way to talk to my boss about this in a way that doesn't put a target on my back? What should I do? How do I work through this grief? Signed, going through the motions while treading water in this ocean.
Oh man, this is a really sad letter. Damn.
Yeah. Like I said, I'm so very sorry that you had to say goodbye to Raquel.
Losing a best friend, especially so young, especially after fighting a battle like that, after her wedding, just devastating. There's no other word for it.
What you're going through right now, what her husband must be going through, that poor guy, it's extremely intense and it might be intense for a while. So honestly, it makes sense that you're feeling drained.
It makes sense that you're struggling to focus, finding work annoying and meaningless. These are all classic symptoms of grief.
And you were already feeling demoralized before all of this happened. So my first thought for you, and I know this sounds obvious, but it's important.
Give yourself some grace here and be patient. You're in a role that's demanding a lot of you.
You say you don't have a lot of support, that you're set up to fail, and now you're grieving a huge loss on top of it. And I think any work is probably going to feel pretty meaningless in light of what you just went through.
And I would argue that it should feel a little meaningless in a way, because one of the functions of loss is to remind us what really matters. And 90% of the stuff we have to deal with in this modern world just does not matter.
It matters in terms of getting a paycheck and keeping a roof over your head, sure, but it doesn't matter philosophically or existentially. I'm sure Raquel's death is bringing up a lot of things for you.
One of them might be a new awareness of how precious life is, how nothing is guaranteed, which in a way that's terrifying and in a way, right, it's beautiful, it's profound. Grief brings a certain clarity to certain things.
And that clarity is a gift. It can be really enlivening.
It can also feel super frustrating and burdensome when it butts up against a to-do list that's a mile long or some dumb 45 minute lunch break. And that's part of the process of healing from grief, keeping a foot in those two realities that so much of our lives is trivial and ridiculous and that we have to take care of that stuff and play along to some degree.
And over time, as the grief settles, I promise it will become easier to integrate these two perspectives, to participate in the two halves of life. But that's going to take a little time.
And you just have to kind of allow that process to unfold on its own. But on a practical level, yeah, you got to give yourself permission to feel the waves of morning when they come on or just that persistent, low-grade meh feeling.
Also, you have to accept that work's just going to feel different for a while. You might perform differently for a while, and that is normal.
And in two, five, ten years, whatever the minutiae or minutiae of what you're dealing with at work right now, you probably won't even remember them. Yeah, I totally agree with that.
Now about your boss, you mentioned that they were supportive when you needed time off to go to the funeral. That's really cool.
It's a great sign. It sounds like your boss gets it and has their priorities largely in the right place.
I'm curious to know what specifically you want to talk to them about. Is it accommodations you need right now while you go through this? Is it about these larger frustrations with corporate policies? It sounds like maybe both.
My advice there, first of all, maybe take a beat and see if you really do need to talk to them because you're still in the very early stages of this grief. So all of this is probably way more intense right now than it will be in even a month or two months.
You're still settling into this weird new reality. Maybe just see how that goes before you start asking for too much.
But also you might jump ship to another job really soon and all of this will just be moot. But if you do feel the need to talk to your boss, my advice is frame that conversation around your productivity as much as possible.
So maybe you tell them, look, I want to do my best work, but as you know, I am struggling right now to be as effective as I usually am. I'm still reeling from my friend.
It's doing a real number on me. I know it's going to get better, but I could use a little more flexibility while I get back to my normal level of performance.
So is there any way we could find some adjustments? Can I maybe do an occasional work from home day here and there? Can I have a little more flexibility in my schedule? Can I get some support for these projects that you're asking me to tackle? Because just a few of these small changes would really help me be at my best for you. For sure.
I like that. I think it's smart to keep the conversation focused on solutions rather than your emotions and feelings, because even though your feelings are legit,

it can be hard for a company to make exceptions based on them. And it's your job to take care

of yourself. But performance, productivity, effectiveness, that's a language your boss

definitely speaks. I would also find ways to create a few habits and systems that will allow

you to do your job well, even when you don't feel emotionally invested. Routines, email templates, standing meetings, shortcuts, daily check-ins with people, little work sprints you do with yourself.
These things really do make a job a lot more doable, even if you aren't mourning a loss. And I also find it's easier to service the architecture of a job, these routines,

the systems and commitments, when the substance isn't doing much for you. Powering through the

meaninglessness, that's hard. But if you're just feeding the system, I'm not saying it's going to

be super fulfilling, but it can be doable. And it can prevent you from falling below a certain level

of performance, which is key. On a related note, when it's hard to get invested in what you're

doing, I find it helpful to focus on really small things. So what's one thing you could do well

Thank you. They really will keep you in the game.
And while you do that, I'd keep looking for jobs. I'd keep scheduling conversations.
It can take a while to find a job you're really excited about. So you have to play the long game.
You got to keep applying. You got to keep doing the six minute networking stuff.
Keep looking for opportunities to connect with people in your industry. Just keep putting dots on the board and you can connect them backward later on.
Yeah, I agree with all of that. But also just given where you are right now, like Jordan said, it's possible that no work is going to be very meaningful to you in this period.
And who knows how this loss might affect how you show up in interviews or how excited you're able to get about these goals. I know you feel stuck.
And if there's a way out of it, great, go take it. I'm all for it.
But it's also possible that you need to just be in this stage for a little while before you land a new job. In addition to everything we've been talking about, please also just give yourself some time and space to really grieve your friend.
Your main job right now might just be to cry and think about Raquel and journal and talk about her. And yeah, that might be more important than writing cover letters.
Maybe you need to go to yoga and sleep a couple extra hours every night and honor the weird rhythms of grief more than you need to be booking coffee meetings with people. And I am not saying you can't do both.
If you're up for it, if you feel like you can handle it, if you need to get out of this job, go for it. And who knows? Look, for some people, grief can be really galvanizing.
It might even end up fueling your job search in some way. But I think what Jordan was getting at earlier is losing someone close to you.
It reminds you that you're a human being first and you're a professional second. Reorients the whole universe as it should.
So do what feels right, but also don't miss this crucial stage that you're in because it is profound. And it's also a way to take care of yourself and to honor Raquel.
And I think that is really important as well. Yeah, good point.
This might be a parallel process, but also it might not be. And that's OK.
But whatever you do, invite the grief in. There are no shortcuts here.
This phase you're in at work, whether you stay or leave, it won't be forever. Everything evolves.
Everything shifts. Until then, the best thing you can do is be intentional about your grief, about what you need from your boss, about how you spend your time, what kind of job you look for next.
And like I said, that's the one big gift of a loss this big. It really does have a way of making us realize what matters.
So take this time to get clear on what that means to you. Talk about it with friends, with a therapist, with family, journal about it, whatever that looks like.
I promise it'll all start to make sense. Hang in there, my friend.
We're sending you a huge hug, thinking about Raquel, and we're rooting for you as you chart your next move. Go back and check out Richard Reeves, as well as our Skeptical Sunday on bananas.
I mentioned it before. I'll say it again, 6minutenetworking.com.
It is a relationship development course. It takes a few minutes a day.
Dig the well before you get thirsty. Build relationships before you need them in non- cringy, non-gross ways.
6minutenetworking.com. The course is free.
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All at jordanharbinger.com slash deals. I'm at jordanharbinger on Twitter and Instagram.
You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. Gabe's over 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, Tata Sidlowskis, and of course, Gabriel Mizrahi.
Our advice and opinions are our own, and I might be a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer, so do your own research before implementing anything you hear on the show. Remember, we rise by lifting others.
Share the show with those you love, and 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. You're about to hear a preview of the Jordan Harbinger show about how hormonal birth control can affect a woman's personality and even influence who they pick as a partner.
Hormones affect the way that our brain does its daily business. And that includes things like attraction.
You know, there's a lot of research that shows that for both men and women, it's like the cues that we tend to find as sexy and beautiful in women are cues that are related to estrogen presence and fertility. Our sex hormones are part of what creates the experience of being who we are.
And all of it is helping to guide our behavior in ways that are actually really adaptive and functional. Estrogen loves testosterone.
And that's, you know, just kind of the way that it is. How does taking the pill change women's sexual psychology? And how does that change their sexual behavior? And I also think that there is a tendency to trivialize the types of side effects that we have from the pill.
Because, you know, when you look at some of the most frequently occurring side effects, it's things like depression, like a complete absence of sex drive. I mean, it can really change behavior in ways that can not always be necessarily what we want.
They're not one size fits all and everybody's going to respond a little bit differently. And so it's just important that you know that these things are possible so you know what to look out for them.
There is nothing that will derail a person's life more than an unplanned pregnancy. And this is particularly true in our current environment where women aren't able to get safe legal abortions in many states.
I am for you having all the information that you need to be able to make the decision that's right for you, because what is the right decision for you might not be the same decision that's right for me. To hear more from Dr.
Sarah Hill about the problems with taking birth control,

check out episode 280 of The ensure you're getting paid what you're worth. Side effects may include a new job, increased confidence,

and a brighter future. Consult Monster.com today and take the first step towards your new career.