1284: Husband Hid His DUI — Is It Time to Say Goodbye? | Feedback Friday

1284: Husband Hid His DUI — Is It Time to Say Goodbye? | Feedback Friday

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Jordan Harbinger: [00:00:00] Welcome to Feedback Friday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. As always, I'm here with Feedback Friday producer, the tuning fork helping me achieve the perfect frequency to tune this mandolin of life drama, Gabriel Mizrahi. 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.

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, astronauts, Russian spies, undercover agents, former jihadi tech luminaries. This week we had Eva LaRue and Kaya McKenna Callahan, mother and daughter, who had a crazy psycho stalker.

This guy chased them for years. He sent them threatening letters. He called her school, generally terrorized these poor women for a really, really long time, and it, it's a tale of survival, resilience, and sadly how powerless we can sometimes be in the face of truly disturbed individuals. Also, we had a [00:01:00] skeptical Sunday, last Sunday on the vagina just to balance out all those episodes we did about dicks.

On Fridays though, we share stories, take listener letters, offer advice, play obnoxious sound bites, and compare Gabe to obscure precision acoustic apparati.

What is that supposed to be?

Gabriel Mizrahi: How did you forget that? That's the deliverance banjo. Remember the little weird kid on the porch? Is it? Yeah,

Jordan Harbinger: that one.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: Okay.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. Are you quibbling with my pitch?

Jordan Harbinger: I just, you know, it wasn't immediately recognizable. I don't know.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I'm not, uh, musically gifted. So before we dive into the letters today, a few months back, we took a letter from a guy who got into a serious relationship with a divorced woman and her two kids, Jordan.

Do you remember this guy? Yeah. Who? He got together with a girl, her ex, and her dad both warned him against getting involved with her.

Jordan Harbinger: Oh yeah.

Gabriel Mizrahi: And eventually they got engaged and that's when she started escalating into like emotional [00:02:00] instability control. It got very messy. That was episode 1240, by the way.

Jordan Harbinger: Right. So this is the one where she's like, if you leave. I will kill you.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yes. And this is the guy, I don't know if you remember this, but you called him Captain Ava Ho.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. I stand by that.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Anyway, eventually he did leave, but he's still entangled with her through a house that he paid for. And last we heard she was staying there with the kids while he continued to pay the mortgage even after losing his job.

So he was going through a lot.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Which I was like, me and the entire audience of this show was like, come on dude. Not fair. I'm sorry. Look. I'm sorry for this woman and her kids, but this is a disaster. She's just squatting in your house while you pay and you can't afford rent. Like, oh God, okay.

Gabriel Mizrahi: But he felt guilty about leaving the kids and he had a really great relationship with them, and he was also plotting some new, it was a sad situation.

So he wrote us last week, and basically the update is he served his ex. She dodged being served by his lawyer. Not entirely surprising. She did take it [00:03:00] upon herself to push for a quick sale of the house, but there continues to be some drama around how to split the proceeds, although they seem to be coming to some reasonable agreement about that, which is good.

Bottom line is the house and the finances are slowly being resolved.

Jordan Harbinger: I'm glad, I mean, I, how do you dodge service when you live At the place that I'm paying for? Like, I know where you live. I don't, you don't have to answer the door. I will nail this to my own door. It's my house.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Cut to

Jordan Harbinger: her

Gabriel Mizrahi: running through the backyard and over the back fence while the guy is trying to

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, exactly.

I mean, she just must be like, I, no, I didn't see anything and I've, you know, I'm hiding and I'm, I, I hate that he has to lose money to this woman who treated him so poorly. Didn't, didn't she? This is the one who was he proposed and she's like, oh, okay, great. Yeah. And then, and then later threatens him in all these different ways.

That's the one, I mean, sounds, that's the one extremely troubled and entitled af and I hate that he has to hand over even more money to her, but I'm glad it'll all be behind him soon. Geez.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah, same here. And he's in the running for some pretty great jobs as well. So things are looking up for him. [00:04:00] And he said that he's keeping in touch with his therapist and the pastor at his church.

And they have been very helpful through all of this. But the reason I bring this up, and my favorite part of his letter was this. He wrote, I appreciate your and Jordan's attention to my matter and your continued follow up. My therapist heard the episode and now jokingly calls me Captain Ava Ho. I'll continue to keep you posted on developments.

Cheers.

Jordan Harbinger: That's awesome. Your therapist is in on it.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Therapist is calling him that. It's so funny to me.

Jordan Harbinger: It already kind of blows my mind that you guys play Feedback Friday for your therapist. We've heard that a few times over the years, but just the fact that your shrink is calling you Captain Ava Ho now is so extra special.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I had a feeling you would like that. I don't know why that made me laugh so hard when I read it.

Jordan Harbinger: There's something funny about when therapists let their hair down like that. Don't get me wrong sometimes. I mean, I've had therapists let their hair down a little too much.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I mean, we hear that.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. We've heard that on Feedback Friday too.

Yeah. But I love when they actually have a sense of humor about this.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Too funny. I'm also honored that you guys spend part of your 50 precious minutes playing two [00:05:00] other people's advice, right? Yeah. As far as we know, your therapists are not annoyed or threatened by that, but that Yeah, that's a choice.

Jordan Harbinger: To be fair, they have nothing to be threatened by.

They have licenses and initials after their name, and we're two dude, bro Lydia's mouthing off about what we think they should do after a 10 minute, not even five minute. Email.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Should they really be threatened by a guy who pronounces a ops? I think not.

Jordan Harbinger: That's why I pronounce it that way. Some of y'all, okay.

It's so that all y'all's shrinks don't get intimidated by my perspicacious vocabulary. By the way, I don't think that's how you, I don't think that's what that word means. That's not how you use that.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Nice try though. Yeah. Still if I were a therapist though, and my client were like, so. I really want you to hear what these two dudes on a podcast said about what I've been talking to you about for the past year.

I wonder how I would feel about that.

Jordan Harbinger: Lucky that these two jabon who aren't completely outta their tree are actually telling their client what to do when they have, they themselves can't give advice. I don't know.

Gabriel Mizrahi: You know what? Good point. Maybe they're like, thank God we can, we just skipped six months of talking.

Now I can get to help with the healing.

Jordan Harbinger: Exactly. All that money you would've spent talking that out for [00:06:00] six months, you can use that to support our sponsors. Everybody wins.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Shameless, shameless

place.

Jordan Harbinger: Yes. Great update. Great way to kick off. You're happy for you, my friend. Hope you continue to thrive from here on out.

Good luck on those job interviews now. This is your other captain speaking, the captain of the dues crews, and it's time to leave the harbor and set sail. Gabe, what's the first thing out of the mailbag?

Gabriel Mizrahi: Hi, Jordan and Gabe. This week I picked up the mail and saw an unusual letter addressed to my 34-year-old husband.

It had the logo of our provincially run equivalent of the DMV, but his name and our address was handwritten in my husband's writing. I thought this was very, very strange. When I was on the phone with him, I asked him why he had sent himself a letter from the license issuer. He said he lost his license and I immediately jumped to the conclusion that he had been drinking and driving.

I was in shock and exclaimed. What? And you didn't tell me. He explained that he had to go get a new license, had received a temporary one, and had to fill out a form for it. I immediately calmed down and said, oh, you misplaced it and had to get a new one. [00:07:00] I even apologized and said, sorry, I thought you meant that it was legally taken away from you.

I don't know why I thought that. I still thought it was weird though because A, you only ever have to renew your license in your birth month, and B, I've misplaced a license before and never had to fill out a form. To give you some context here, I grew up with an alcoholic mother. She couldn't hold down a job.

She'd show up intoxicated. I hosted a party in high school once, and she stole my friend's liquor. When we were in elementary school, kids wouldn't be allowed to come over to my house because their parents didn't want their children exposed to her. My dad was present, but very much an enabler. They never saved money.

It went to booze and I basically avoided being home and lived at friends' houses growing up.

Jordan Harbinger: Oh man, that's so sad. Yeah. I'm sorry to hear that. That sounds like you had quite a childhood. So her reaction to her husband makes more sense. Now,

Gabriel Mizrahi: don't get me wrong, I'm not completely against alcohol. I do believe people can be responsible and drink in moderation and [00:08:00] it's fine.

Not everyone is. My mom. Also, I've turned out pretty successful and independent in my life. I'm a project manager with an engineering degree, so I feel like I've turned out okay despite all this. So back to my dilemma. After our call, I send a text to my husband saying, I still think it's weird that you had to mail yourself a form.

When? At the issuer office?

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Okay. Oh boy.

Gabriel Mizrahi: He phones me immediately and admits that while he was dirt biking and cleaning dirt bikes with a friend. Recently he had two light beers. He got a message from a buyer of an A TV he was selling, saying that they would send an extra a hundred dollars if he delivered that day.

He jumped on it. He told me he had just started doing keto and hadn't eaten that day, but felt fine. Lo and behold, there was a DUI checkpoint and he blew the legal limit. Exactly. So they took away his license and he had to phone someone to pick him up. He phoned his dad. His dad came to the rescue and they finished the delivery.

My husband had to take a weekend course on drinking and driving, which cost [00:09:00] $170, and at the end, they make the participants write a letter about how they plan to separate their drinking from their driving. Then they mail out the letters in the future.

Jordan Harbinger: Ooh. Okay,

Gabriel Mizrahi: so guess what? Right. Finally showed up seven months later.

Jordan Harbinger: Interesting. Never heard of this, by the way, that tell me that's not designed so that your wife gets it. That is, that is. So obviously what that's for. That's so funny.

Gabriel Mizrahi: What's the perfect number of months where you forget that you had to do this?

Jordan Harbinger: You think you're off the hook. Exactly.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. They must have done some research on like people relapse after six

Jordan Harbinger: months, no months.

No, it's you people stop trying to check the mail before their wife gets home after six months. That's what it is.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Good point. Well, you know what, this is Canada for you.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. It sounds like he didn't have to go to jail or maybe she just left that detail out, or He did go to jail, but she was outta town, so he got away with it.

I don't know.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I'm a little confused. It sounds like they just confiscated his license right then and there, and then his dad picked him up. But here in the States, I assume in Canada you have to go to jail, but here in the States you're definitely going to jail. Is it because he blew the legal limit?

[00:10:00] Exactly. I don't know.

Jordan Harbinger: I don't know, man. Maybe. Or they did book him and his dad picked him up and bailed him and promised not to tell. And they're efficient about it in Canada, or he is? Yeah. I'm gonna be working on ATVs at Rob's house. Ah, my phone was off. Sorry. You know, dude spends the weekend in jail and somehow pulls it off.

Who knows?

Gabriel Mizrahi: The fact that they were able to complete the delivery that same day though, was wild.

Jordan Harbinger: If any of that's even true at all. And there was even an a TV sale at all? I don't know, man.

Gabriel Mizrahi: That's an interesting theory.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Presumably his vehicle would be impounded. That makes it hard to deliver an A TV, right?

Unless the dad drove.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Unless the cops are like, go ahead and detach the trailer and hook it up to your dad's car. 'cause we're impounding the other vehicle. I don't know how understanding

Gabriel Mizrahi: I have heard about that though. That's possible.

Jordan Harbinger: Look, I'm just picturing a super nice Canadian cop hearing this story and being like, oh, you gotta deliver an a TV for an extra hundred.

Okay, let's get you on your way, sir. Uh, well not you, you can't drive. Hey.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. Get your dad down here. Wouldn't want to inconvenience your Facebook marketplace buyer.

Jordan Harbinger: Exactly. Wasn't that a couple molsons While delivering a quality,

Gabriel Mizrahi: our friend is on the other end of this cringing at our, she's like, we [00:11:00] don't talk like this.

Jordan Harbinger: Like this is not how Canadians talk. Actually it is in certain parts of Canada. Sorry.

Gabriel Mizrahi: It is. She's like, we're not all like the people in Fargo. Bros. Move on. So she goes on. Livid was an understatement. He had been keeping this a secret from me for seven months. We had a lengthy discussion. He said that he felt so bad and realized he was using alcohol as a crutch and he's gonna promise to be better.

All things that would've been great to hear had I not heard them from him before.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, I was gonna say, is this the first time any of this has happened because No. Right. So there's a history of all this

Gabriel Mizrahi: using alcohol as a crutch. I mean, maybe that's what he's doing, but that might also be vastly understating an addiction.

Jordan Harbinger: Gabriel, something tells me he didn't just stop drinking seven months ago and then this thing shows up and he is like, here's the thing, I haven't had a drink since then.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Well, no, there's the A TV incident.

Jordan Harbinger: Well, that's what I'm saying is like this whole thing. It's not that he stopped drinking after that and learned his lesson.

'cause he would've just said that. Yeah, I stopped drinking after that. I haven't had a drink since. No, I've been drinking the whole time.

Gabriel Mizrahi: It's also interesting that alcohol is something you can [00:12:00] say you use as a crutch, but you wouldn't say that about anything else.

Jordan Harbinger: No, I mean I, for this show, when I'm tired, I'm using cocaine as a crutch, guys.

It's fine. It's just a crutch.

Gabriel Mizrahi: What is this PCPI found in your glove compartment? That's my crutch.

Jordan Harbinger: It's it just a crutch.

Gabriel Mizrahi: That's my p my crutch. PCP.

Jordan Harbinger: Yes. I'm using marijuana as a crutch. For what? What is it helping you with? Nothing relaxing, I suppose. You don't need a crutch to relax. You need the opposite.

Anyway, I'm using it as a lounge chair

Gabriel Mizrahi: A year into our marriage. He had begun quietly taking marijuana edibles. Four months.

Jordan Harbinger: Okay. Well, as a crutch

Gabriel Mizrahi: in our 400 square foot apartment. I didn't know the entire time. I just thought he was being lazy, boring.

Jordan Harbinger: God, I don't know. That should not be funny.

Gabriel Mizrahi: That's why are we laughing?

I just, I don't know. Just the way she's saying that. I didn't know the entire time. I just thought he was being lazy, lazy, and

Jordan Harbinger: boring

Gabriel Mizrahi: and boring, and wanted to watch YouTube or Netflix every night until I found the edible wrappers stuffed into an empty granola bar box he had left out.

Jordan Harbinger: You know, you're a stoner when you're too lazy to hide the evidence of being [00:13:00] a stoner.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I mean, that is him hiding the evidence. But man,

Jordan Harbinger: hey man, she's gonna know no man. I'm putting it in this granola box, man. And then I put the box back in the pantry. She's never gonna find it.

Gabriel Mizrahi: She'll never fight it. She hates Nature's Valley.

Jordan Harbinger: She meanwhile, she's like, why is this beat up granola bar box that's been in there for three years? This has gotta be expired. Oh, it's loaded with edible wrappers that somebody just didn't put in a pocket and throw out at work, didn't throw them out directly in the trash outside, shoves them back in.

This is peak stoner behavior. Seriously,

Gabriel Mizrahi: my heart sank. I thought I was very clear about my values around weed and how that affected me. I'm pretty opposed to marijuana. I almost wrote him off early on because his last girlfriend was a very open weed smoker. I was choked up and immediately drove off to clear my head.

I also put my phone on airplane mode so I wouldn't have to answer his calls. I thought about running away, staying in a hotel for a while, asking to stay with mutual [00:14:00] friends of ours for the night, so I had time to think. In the end. I went back home after a few hours because I knew I had to face it all.

Eventually, that's the first time he gave me the spiel about I thought I was gonna lose you. I've realized the error of my ways. I promised to never take marijuana again, et cetera, et cetera. He also said he didn't try to hide it from me, which I find very hard to believe since I never saw rappers anywhere, and he is notorious for leaving things out, nor did he ever offer me any or take it in front of me, and this was during COVID.

When we were together constantly, I decided to try to get over it, but this really hurt. Fast forward to a few months ago after he had had his license taken away. I come home after spending the evening with friends and my husband's truck lights are on. Weird. I'll let him know when I get inside. He's not anywhere in the house.

Also weird. I had to make another trip back to my car to bring things in, and I realize he slumped over in the truck.

Jordan Harbinger: Oh, shoot.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I panic and think, oh my gosh, is he [00:15:00] okay? I open the door and he's lying over the center console, puke everywhere, bottle of vodka, mostly empty on the passenger seat. My heart is pounding with both rage and fear, and I can't believe he's done this.

He knows about my upbringing. I don't expect him to heal my traumas, but he's certainly adding to them and really twisting the knife.

Jordan Harbinger: Okay. So he's driving without a license while drinking a bottle of vodka in the front seat. So drunk that he pukes all over the car.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I didn't even think about that. Does he not have a license after

Jordan Harbinger: that or No, she said away forward after his license.

So he is driving because of his suspended license or revoked or whatever. Missed. Yeah. And then he's just projectile vomiting in the car

Gabriel Mizrahi: and drinking a handle while he is driving. This is so reckless.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, this is, he's gonna kill someone.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: So he's an addict. There's a long pattern of addiction here and it's very intense and he's lying about it.

I mean, all the same addict nonsense. It's COVID and what, you know, what are you doing in the bathroom? Just eating a Nature Valley granola bar. No, no big deal. You, uh, you want one? Oh, sorry, it's the [00:16:00] last one. I mean, what do you, come on? Of course he's hiding it from you. That's ridiculous. I never tried to hide it from you that all that means is it was really easy and I never had to lie about it because you never asked.

Because I never showed you. I mean, it's just, it's nonsense. It's addict nonsense.

Gabriel Mizrahi: There have been a couple other times like this too. Once I woke up and he was passed out on the couch, one hand in his pants, the other hand on his phone, which had images of women, which fine except for the fact that he told me he didn't watch porn and thought it was kind of gross.

I took a video of him in that state and sent it to him. That's intense.

Jordan Harbinger: That's prime.

Gabriel Mizrahi: And he said he drank too much. Didn't realize he had gotten to that state and doesn't remember. I don't mind moderation and not being addicted to something, just don't lie to me. He also gets overly touchy feely and sexual and phony about it.

But I addressed that with him and he corrected that. But he also pushed for sex in the mornings as opposed to evenings, I suspect, so that he can have alcohol in the evenings and not have me turned off by the smell [00:17:00] and assume the advances are alcohol fueled. Another time he came home after drinking with the guys at work, and he was just mean.

He belittled me when I shrieked, when the cat climbed up my back and scratched me saying I was being dramatic and asking if I was PMSing, because I was being colder and shorter with him. Ugh, this relationship.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Read the room my guy, you're a mess.

Gabriel Mizrahi: He also keeps using my words against me, which feels manipulative.

When we started dating, I told him I didn't believe in divorce and that I didn't want to get married to the wrong person. So now he brings that up every time he screws up. When I said that, I thought we would be working through jealousy issues like I did with my first boyfriend or in-law problems, or him spending too many hours at work or differences in political views.

Not him lying to me and then keeping me in this relationship. I don't know what to do about,

Jordan Harbinger: he's not keeping you in this relationship.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Good point.

Jordan Harbinger: You're staying in this relationship, but I understand what you mean.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I also haven't enjoyed sex with him [00:18:00] in well over a year. I can't wait for it to be over because I don't feel connected to him and I have no desire or attraction to be with him physically.

I'm not sure I will ever find this man attractive again. It would take one hell of a therapist for both of us. Now that I know he actually lost his license and lied about it for months. I am really considering divorce here. Thankfully, we have no children, just fur babies and a mortgage. Do I try to make this work and give this man a third, fourth, fifth, whatever number this is, chance and stick to my word or am I insane and just need to leave this situation signed.

Wondering how long to doddle while my husband hits the bottle?

Jordan Harbinger: Oh boy. What a cluster. This is a tough story. So before I jump in and share my thoughts, I just wanna say again, I'm sorry you're going through this. This is a painful spouse to be married to. It's sad, troubling, definitely. Really concerning being in a relationship with somebody in severe addiction.

Whether he sees it as an addiction or not, [00:19:00] it sounds like he kind of does, but in another way, he's in denial. Being with somebody like this is extremely challenging. To put it mildly, the dependency itself, all the lying around it, the way it impacts every other aspect of your relationship. From communication to money, to sex, to your mood.

You know better than anyone, how chaotic it is. How crazy making, how anxiety provoking, how hurtful, and that must be even more upsetting given the mother you had. So my heart really goes out to you. I'm not gonna mince words here. Your husband, he's got a serious addiction, he's an addict. You know this. And unless he shows meaningful signs of working on this addiction, not wanting to work on it, not promising to work on it, but actually working on it.

He's gotta attend a program, he's gotta see a therapist. He's gotta change his habits, his behavior, probably even some of his friends. He needs to share all of that with you. Whatever that recovery looks like. Unless he shows meaningful signs of doing all that stuff, nothing is gonna change here and you're just gonna remain in this very difficult marriage.

It sounds to me like you have a number of data [00:20:00] points. The lost license, the night in the truck, which is really serious. The edibles, the secret porn that suggests your husband hasn't really come to terms with his addictions and or is not interested in making some changes and he's fully okay lying to you about all this.

Obviously, and by the way, what makes this stuff problematic as opposed to just, you know, a relatively innocent vice or three. It's really the secrecy, like it's the hiding things from you and the frequency and intensity. He's not tying one on with his buddies once a month and taking an Uber home. He's not watching porn and then admitting it to you when you ask or whatever.

He is not taking an edible before you guys watch Blue Planet and offering you half of it because it makes the underwater footage pop. Okay. Gabriel, I know you're not much of a drinker man. Um, I spent my twenties in a bit of a haze, unfortunately. But do you know how drunk you have to be to projectile vomit all over your steering column and then pass out a lot?

That is a seriously dangerous level of drinking and he's just fine operating a motor [00:21:00] vehicle in that condition. I mean, this is just, I'm choosing my words carefully, but he's gonna kill someone and go to prison for life and deserve it. That's what I'm saying.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Once we got in and stopped to think about that, that night could have gone very differently.

Yeah. The fact that it ended with him passed out is a miracle. It's a blessing. Yeah. Yes. And he knows also that you have such strong feelings about substances and he's still doing all of this stuff and he's hitting this stuff hard. This is no bueno.

Jordan Harbinger: So all of that elevates these activities, almost certainly to true addictions, although we also know addiction's a spectrum.

So there's that. But I'm not a doctor, but I don't think we need one to know that the guy with a handle of vodka on the passenger seat is passed out in his car with vomit everywhere, was too drunk to drive. Candidly, I don't have high hopes for your marriage. Is your husband beyond help? Is your marriage definitely doomed?

Is there no way back? I can't know for sure. I obviously believe in people's ability to change. I would love for your husband to work on this and and become a better man if he did. Maybe there's a way forward here, but based on everything you've [00:22:00] shared, I don't think it's likely.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Well, I also don't think he feels any motivation to change because of her stance on divorce and the fact that she's sticking around through all of this.

I thought it was interesting when she said he keeps using my words against me. I told him I didn't believe in divorce, so now he brings that up every time he screws up and that feels manipulative.

Jordan Harbinger: I can see how that might be manipulative. He gets hammered, he comes home, he acts like an idiot. He pugs all over the F-150, and then he is like, well, you don't believe in divorce.

Mm-hmm. And what are you gonna do about it? Mm-hmm. On the other hand. This is her stated belief. She doesn't believe in divorce. Fine. She's allowed to hold that belief, but now she's stuck with an addict who doesn't seem to wanna get better and is like, well, checkmate, you said you don't believe in divorce.

Gabriel Mizrahi: So is that manipulative or is he just reminding her that she refuses to leave?

Jordan Harbinger: That's a little bit of both, right? Reminding her of that is how he avoids having to deal with his problems and how he spreads out the blame. And I'm sure when he's drinking and he's like, I might get caught, he's probably going, but she doesn't believe in divorce.

Gulp, gulp, gulp. I mean, come on. You know it's his ace in the hole.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Right?

Jordan Harbinger: But it's also kind of fair game, right? I mean, [00:23:00] look, she gave him that ace. She continues to give him that ace by having this stance and refusing to leave. So to state the obvious here, what your husband's addiction is really pushing you to confront is your part in all of this.

There's a concept in Al-Anon, we've talked about this many times before, this concept of taking care of your side of the street. I think this latest escalation, it's an opportunity to come back to your side of the street. Yeah. Your husband's drinking too much. Yes. He's causing a lot of chaos and uncertainty.

Yes, he's acting recklessly and hurtfully, but you alone cannot change him. You can't control him. You can't make him a different person overnight. What you can do is encourage him, support him, help him understand the stakes if he doesn't change, but he's gotta make that choice. What is under your control and what's ultimately your responsibility is you.

Your beliefs about divorce, about your agency, about what you deserve, your history, your trauma, and how that intersects with your husbands, your childhood, your mom, all the life [00:24:00] experiences that led you to this point, your communication, your patterns, why you've put up with this behavior for so long, how you've talked to your husband about all this, or haven't talked to him, how you're making sense of his behavior and everything it brings up for you.

Gabriel Mizrahi: It's true that your husband is the primary problem here in the sense that he is the obvious source of this dysfunction, but it's equally true that you continue to create the situation with him by marrying him, by staying married to him when he's doing all of this.

Jordan Harbinger: Yes, and you have to take accountability for that.

You have to recognize your role in all of this, because that's, it's the only way that you're gonna make progress here. Because it's the honest and right thing to do.

Gabriel Mizrahi: And by the way, I already see you doing that by writing us this letter, by being open to the idea that it might be time to leave. So kudos to you for getting there.

That is a huge step.

Jordan Harbinger: Agreed. So that side of the street, that's where you need to spend most of your time. And a great way to do that would be to start attending Al-Anon. Seriously, just go. You can do it in person. I think you can attend on Zoom. It's so easy. I think you're gonna find some incredible resources there and a community of people who are [00:25:00] wrestling with the exact same challenges that you are.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I also suspect that there are parts of her history that are playing a huge role in this marriage, and this might also be an opportunity for her to take more of an interest in that.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Her childhood you mean?

Gabriel Mizrahi: I mean, it can't be a coincidence that she grew up with an addicted mother, later married an addicted man, despite the fact that she knows that this childhood was very traumatic for her.

What she might not fully appreciate is why having a parent like this makes you more susceptible to recreating the same dynamic with a partner. Oftentimes, it's not just, this feels familiar or I know how to function in an environment like this, or This is all I deserve in many cases. It's If I recreate this situation this time, I can fix it, I can resolve it, I can be chosen, I can be loved, and maybe that will rewrite the original wound.

Jordan Harbinger: This is repetition compulsion in a nutshell, right?

Gabriel Mizrahi: I think so. I think so.

Jordan Harbinger: She couldn't fix her mom's alcoholism, like maybe she can fix her husband's kind of,

Gabriel Mizrahi: yeah. Although, to be even more accurate, it's not just about the [00:26:00] alcoholism itself, that's a big part of it, but I think it's about what fuels the alcoholism, what deeper wounds the alcoholism creates, the chaos, the instability, oftentimes emotional unavailability, an early experience of love, mixed with anxiety, mixed with fear.

The shame that she felt around her mom because of her behavior, how the other kids saw her. Those are all traumas, and it's those traumas. That repetition compulsion tries to master and rewrite.

Jordan Harbinger: I also just have to point out that she said her dad was present, but very much an enabler.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Good point. Totally forgot about that detail.

Jordan Harbinger: So I know it's a little bit of an obvious take, but I really can't help but feel that she's her dad and she just married her mom.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah, good point. That is sadly how this stuff works. And so to your point, yes, she can rage at her husband and she certainly has a right to, and she can and should consider all of her options here, including separation.

But the real work for her is gonna be figuring out how she ended up here and yeah, why she married her mother.

Jordan Harbinger: Man that really cast this one line in her letter in [00:27:00] a new light. When she said, I've turned out pretty successful and independent in my life. I'm a project manager with an engineering degree, so I feel like I've turned out okay despite all of this.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yes, so interesting.

Jordan Harbinger: I don't wanna take that victory away from her. The fact that she's successful and stable and sober and pretty high functioning herself after the childhood she had. That's incredible. Okay. Remarkable. Yeah. She should be very proud of that, but I'm not entirely convinced that she turned out okay.

Despite all this. I think she's done a lot right in her life, but I also get the feeling that she has not, not fully come to terms with the impact of this childhood, because if she had, I'm guessing she wouldn't have chosen this guy as her partner or she wouldn't have stayed with him.

Gabriel Mizrahi: It's a really good point.

I also think the whole, I've turned out pretty successful and independent thing is also meaningful. Yes, being independent is a virtue in a lot of ways, but it's also probably an adaptation to this very challenging childhood in which I assume no one really had her back. Mom was primarily in service to her addiction.

Dad was primarily in service to mom. So the [00:28:00] message she might've received or the meaning she might've made from all that might've been, you gotta figure this out on your own. You gotta take care of yourself. I imagine that that has been a very useful idea to her throughout her life, because it allowed her to survive.

But it's also another idea that might have led her to choose a partner who, because of his addiction and everything underlying, the addiction also is not particularly attuned to her. Who also probably does not fully have her back and then let her to stick around and keep trying to figure this out on her own because again, she's so independent.

Jordan Harbinger: Damn. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So I think you can tell where we stand here. If you're serious about protecting yourself and motivating your husband to address his addiction, you have to at least be willing to entertain the idea of protecting yourself. If I were in your shoes at the point you are now where so much damage has been done and there might not be any coming back, I'd probably leave.

That's just me. But I do think it's worth having one big come to Jesus conversation with your husband about all this, which is basically clean up your acting and get into recovery, or, I'm out.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I [00:29:00] agree, but sadly, I don't know. I do wonder if it might be too late for that. She seems to have turned a corner with him.

Jordan Harbinger: She did say that she can't imagine being attracted to him at all at this point. It would take one hell of a therapist. So there's that. And hey, if that ship has sailed, that ship has sailed. The question behind your question is about you, and that's the question I'd start making room for now. The best place to do that, of course, is therapy, and I would strongly encourage you to get there.

Between that and Al-Anon, I think you're, you're gonna get a ton of insight and a ton of growth, and that's why this situation with your husband had to play out this way. Sending you a big hug and wishing you all the best. Alright, now it's time for us to projectile vomit some deals and discounts on the fine products and services that support this show.

We'll be right back.

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Gabriel Mizrahi: Hi, Gabe and Jordan.

I'm a 41-year-old woman, and about a month ago, my stepmom died. Shortly afterward, my dad, who's 65, started dating again. I wasn't surprised because they didn't have the greatest relationship. I also understand that he's probably grieving and wants companionship. I was supportive and gave him tips and encouragement for online dating, which I have a lot of experience with as I live in LA and was on Hinge, and we all know how that goes.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, I'm guessing not well. Yeah.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I'm guessing she means matching with one too many guys who work in FinTech and. Make, taking lion's mane their entire personality.

Jordan Harbinger: Yes, exactly. Matching with brand ambassadors slash DJs who don't want anything serious, even though they're 46 and about to be evicted

Gabriel Mizrahi: even though they're her dad's age.

Yeah, correct.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I even got him some nice cologne and some hairstyling products because I thought he legitimately wanted to meet a [00:33:00] nice age appropriate woman and have a genuine relationship with one and was encouraging him to do so. That's really sweet. That's adorable. Giving your dad some, uh, L'Oreal and a little, little glow up.

That's right. Some keels products and get out there, dad.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, some Kiehls. Here's a bath bomb and some Jean Paul goer cologne and that little bottle that's shaped like a man's body. Oh man.

Gabriel Mizrahi: But my dad has been acting like a gross horny teenager and putting himself at risk, seemingly knowingly by engaging in these scammy romance slash dating apps and hot singles near you scams.

Jordan Harbinger: No,

Gabriel Mizrahi: despite the fact that he is 100% mentally with it,

Jordan Harbinger: eh? Okay, well you hate to see it, but. Yikes.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Then recently he met this woman on a website named Dora. He was supposed to go on a breakfast date with her three towns over. And why is that a red flag? Three towns over.

Jordan Harbinger: Well, just like, Hey, come meet me in a an hour's drive away.

Like, you're right. That's not necessarily a red flag unless you're [00:34:00] thinking, gosh, it wouldn't even meet me halfway. That's very self-centered of her. I don't know, maybe there were red flags she didn't mention here. I'm not sure.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. Maybe what she meant by that is meet me at the Denny's around the corner from the scam compound that I live in, or something like that.

That was the red flag.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Okay. Can you make it to PanAm Pen? I, that's the nearest major city for me,

Gabriel Mizrahi: just for lunch. Yikes. And of course she never showed up. I'm pretty confident this was a scam. Here's where it gets complicated. My dad recently posted sexually suggestive pictures of women from what appears to be one of those horny mills in your area sites.

Jordan Harbinger: Okay?

Gabriel Mizrahi: On his own Facebook. Oh

Jordan Harbinger: no, dad, what are you doing

Gabriel Mizrahi: To make things worse, he left comments above their photos like You look yummy. Then there are comments on his posts from what appear to be other scam site women saying, you're handsome, we should chat. This caused outrage within the family friend group, and now he's telling everyone he got hacked and that's why there are gross posts of him commenting on half naked, clearly scam [00:35:00] women, quote unquote.

Jordan Harbinger: Oh God, sure. Jan, come on, man.

Jen Harbinger: Yes, it's

Jordan Harbinger: catchy.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I don't believe for a second he was actually hacked and he's just trying to cover up what he did. He also told me not to tell my half-sister, who's 24, about the fact that he was dating again, which I didn't. I thought it was because she would be heard about him moving on from her mom so quickly.

She's tried to set him up on legitimate dating sites like Bumble, but he doesn't want to go through the process of actually talking to someone. And says he wants to meet her right now.

Jordan Harbinger: Okay.

Gabriel Mizrahi: He's also said some off-putting things to me about dating like that he doesn't care what she wants to do. He wants to meet a woman who wants what he wants and wants to meet someone now,

Jordan Harbinger: okay, he's super lonely and it speaks to that, but there's something more going on here.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Lonely and scared. I'm guessing.

Jordan Harbinger: He's basically saying, I don't care if she wants to take advantage of me, and I don't care if she wants a relationship. I just don't want to be alone.

Gabriel Mizrahi: So there's a part of him that knows that he's putting himself at risk.

Jordan Harbinger: It [00:36:00] sounds like it, but he, he, he's not quite coming out and saying that maybe he's not even admitting it to himself.

The urgency, though, how badly he wants this to happen. Now. Also on his own terms, you know, where you can meet women that put their entire needs aside and only really want what you want and will show up on a moment's notice. What are those women called again?

Gabriel Mizrahi: I know this.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

Gabriel Mizrahi: He's been warned by family that he's gonna be scammed, but he doesn't seem to care.

He refuses to go to any sort of grief counseling and denies that he's grieving. It's possible that he might not be grieving because his relationship with my stepmom was very rocky and she wasn't exactly the kindest woman. But it's still a loss and a major change in his life

Jordan Harbinger: for sure. Even if he doesn't miss her at all yet.

This is still a major transition. It's, it's just gotta be bringing up a lot for your dad,

Gabriel Mizrahi: his vulnerability for starters,

Jordan Harbinger: his vulnerability, his desire not to be alone, his sense of mortality, all of that.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah, and I'm sure he does miss her on some level. Even if their relationship wasn't perfect,

Jordan Harbinger: well, it can't be coming outta nowhere.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I [00:37:00] thought about taking a radical acceptance approach and just encouraging him to go through a legitimate escort service, since that seems to be essentially what he wants, rather than getting scammed by some dude sitting in a cubicle in China or Russia or whatever and taking way more than a few hundred dollars or whatever escorts cost.

Jordan Harbinger: It depends on the tier, so I've heard anyway. Unconventional for sure, but clever. Okay. I get the logic.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Can you actually prevent your boomer dad from falling for these scams? Is there a way to get through to him or do we let him fall on his own sword here? Is this crazy for me to suggest an escort? And how do I help my sister who actually is grieving the loss of her mom while our dad is acting like he's on some crazed Boomer rum Springer.

Signed managing the hysteria around my dad sending funds to maybe Nigeria. 'cause there are some horny mills in his area.

Jordan Harbinger: What a bizarre situation. This really is. I totally get why you're so worried, why you're grossed out. This is, it's an incredibly awkward situation to navigate.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Dude, being [00:38:00] friends with this guy on Facebook must be wild.

Jordan Harbinger: Yes.

Gabriel Mizrahi: That timeline, bro.

Jordan Harbinger: We've all seen people who do that and don't realize other people can see it, but someone's gotta help your dad out because this could get real bad. We hear about it all the time,

Gabriel Mizrahi: dude. Remember that guy who gave away like his whole retirement portfolio to a romance scammer? That was so sad.

Jordan Harbinger: Exactly. And then they're screwed and their families are screwed because you know, you gotta take care of this person. So you have to do everything you can do to put an end to this before it escalates. So like we just said, there's clearly something big going on with your dad. Either he's grief stricken, which can do a number on anyone's cognition and or judgment.

Or he's just lacking in some basic healthy shame slash self-consciousness that would keep this stuff in check, or he's just very naive and he just doesn't realize it.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Or he is in fact experiencing some cognitive decline. Despite what she said about him being totally with it,

Jordan Harbinger: I don't think we can rule that out.

He's 65. It's not unheard of for it to start around now.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I mean, even if he's not, you know, like obviously demented, he [00:39:00] might be declining in subtler ways. He might be losing track of things. He might be overly trusting. He might even forget certain details about what he discussed with people. He could be hiding some of that from you.

I mean, all of these things could contribute

Jordan Harbinger: something to consider, and maybe at some point she wants to take him to a doctor, get him evaluated. But look, if you're sure he's totally with it, I'm not. Then it's one of these other things, and that's equally well, maybe even more concerning. So as you can probably tell, I think you're gonna need to have a conversation with your dad about what's going on with him.

You've already tried to talk to him directly about being scammed. He said he doesn't care. So weird. But I, I, I wouldn't take that tack again. I think this conversation needs to be more like Dad. I can see how hard you're trying to meet someone. You know, I support you in that. I'm the one who encouraged you to get on dating sites.

I got you the cologne. I got to the hair Gelt. I'd love for you to meet a great woman. I also know you've gotten involved with some questionable ladies along the way. Air quotes. Ladies, I'm not here to lecture you. I'm not here to make you feel bad. I just want to talk to you about how you're feeling about all this.

The other [00:40:00] day you said that you wanna meet someone. Right now you told me you don't care what the women you meet wanna do. You just wanna meet a woman who wants what you want. You wanna meet her right now. Can you tell me more about that? Do you wanna tell me why this feels so urgent? Does it have anything to do with losing my stepmom?

What qualities are you looking for in your next partner? How are you filtering for those? I'm on your team, dad. I just wanna be there for you and understand you better. Hopefully he engages with you. Hopefully he opens up. Maybe you can draw him out and get him to acknowledge whatever's going on beneath this urgency, this lack of discernment, whether it's fear or vulnerability or loneliness, whatever.

Gabriel Mizrahi: And if it is fear, fear of what exactly Is it being alone? Is it missing out on life? Is it standing up to strangers online and really sussing them out?

Jordan Harbinger: Good point. She has to drill down there if she's really gonna help him and, and hopefully from there you can help him see that these feelings, which are perfectly normal, of course, they're making him vulnerable to people who do not have the same interests as him.

Gabriel Mizrahi: You don't even have to frame this [00:41:00] as these people wanna scam you, dad. You can frame it as, I really feel that they don't care about you the way you care about them, or they don't want the same kind of partnership you want, or they don't want the same life that you want. That might help you navigate around the shame he probably feels when somebody tells him that he's acting like a horny teenager in public.

Potentially draining his bank account for a guy sitting in a scam center in Malaysia is cranking out AI photos of women all day long.

Jordan Harbinger: Good thought. But look, if you can't get through to him, I don't think it's game over. My next step would be some kind of intervention. You, your half sister, friends, family members, anybody who has some sort of influence in his life and who he trusts.

You guys have to sit down with him and get him to stop. If you guys can kindly and compassionately communicate that he's being reckless, inappropriate, willfully naive, and he needs to stop that could send a powerful message. Now, look, this could push him to hide this even more because it's embarrassing, but it could also have the opposite effect.

It could wake him up. Maybe he'll go, oh wow. 13 people I love are telling me I'm being an idiot and compromising my [00:42:00] family. Maybe I need to actually accept their help. Even if he does, though, I wouldn't take your dad at his word just yet. I think you need to verify and keep a close eye on him, and definitely if he rejects your advice.

What I would do is keep an eye on his bank balances, his credit card statements, his Venmo history. Oh,

Gabriel Mizrahi: you think? You think your dad's a Venmo guy. The guy posting scam pics to his own Facebook and commenting on them is on Venmo.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. No, this is a Western Union guy.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: That's my guess. That

Gabriel Mizrahi: sounds more like it.

$75 wires that to four days to arrive to Dora.

Jordan Harbinger: Well, it does take a while to send money to Cambodia. Myanmar or whatever. Yeah. Dora, who doesn't show up to their eggs Benedict date at the greasy spoon an hour and a half away, they're gonna ask for Zelle. There's no protection on these things. Keep an eye on all that stuff.

That's

Gabriel Mizrahi: right. Keep an on Zelle

Jordan Harbinger: look for suspicious transactions. Money that goes missing. Tons of small payments. Maybe a few large ones, whatever seems out of the ordinary, and then flag it with your dad. Like, Hey, why did you send $300 to somebody in Kuala Lumpur? Do you know where that is? [00:43:00] Uh oh yeah. It's my friend.

She needed surgery, emergency surgery, stuff like that. I mean, unfortunately that's just reactive. You also want to be proactive, and that's what these conversations and this intervention are actually about. Gabe, what else? Grief counseling.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I mean, if he'll go, it sounds like he won't,

Jordan Harbinger: something tells me he won't.

'cause he's refused so far. Right.

Gabriel Mizrahi: It would be great if he did, but man, their dad sounds like a tough nut to crack.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. If you build some trust, maybe you can suggest it or if maybe you can go go with him. Is that of. Possibility

Gabriel Mizrahi: or Yeah, make it a family thing. Maybe like Rebecca and I thought it would be nice to talk to somebody after Holly died, you know, as a family.

Would you come with us please?

Jordan Harbinger: Clever yield, boomer bait and switch.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I don't know how practical that is. It's an investment you have to be willing to put in some time and I don't know if you can go as a family and then one day be like, actually Rebecca and I are good. We're gonna, we're gonna go to lunch, but you should definitely go, go enjoy therapy.

Jordan Harbinger: Maybe they don't actually ditch him, but they get him in there and at least he has some time to talk about his dating life.

Gabriel Mizrahi: It's better than nothing. I guess his dating life is part of how they are all mourning. It [00:44:00] affects all of them. So yeah, that's fair game for family therapy.

Jordan Harbinger: I also don't hate the idea of going the legit route with an escort

Gabriel Mizrahi: dark Jordan piping in air.

Okay.

Jordan Harbinger: I know I this, I hate that I'm saying this in some way, but I also. Look, a, a lot of escorts will hustle their clients. Too many won't. I mean, it's one of those sex work kind of things. Like a lot of them are just not scammers. They just provide the service. They advertise. But if they realize he's a cash cow, they might string him along.

They might rip him off. The problem is you are looking, you're, he's basically filtering in scammers the way he's doing things now.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Mm-hmm.

Jordan Harbinger: I don't know. You gotta be careful. I'm not sure it's necessarily better, but there is, you do get some clarity after you've scratched that itch. And maybe he needs to do that a few times and then be like, oh, you know, maybe finding women on scam websites is not the best way to do this.

Gabriel Mizrahi: That would be the harm reduction approach to this.

Jordan Harbinger: Yes. That's the harm reduction approach. Yes.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. That's the hamsterdam of getting your dead laid. Mm-hmm. Um, that if you've watched the Wire, if you know, you know, I'm guessing it's too soon to get power of attorney or conservatorship [00:45:00] too, legally speaking, that's gonna be tough.

Right.

Jordan Harbinger: I was just thinking that for a conservatorship, that's gonna be hard if he's mentally with it or at least presents that way. That's gonna be an uphill battle and it's gonna become a fight power of attorney. Much more doable. But I think he has to agree to that too. And I'm just not getting the sense that her dad is gonna be super psyched about the prospect of his family reviewing his Chase account for payments to hookers and scammers.

Um, but listen, we quickly ran your story by my friend Javier Leiva, Emmy award-winning producer and writer, host of the Pretend Podcast and the Criminal Conduct podcast. He was also a guest on the show. Earlier we talked about ways to fight back against romance scam tactics.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Episode 1185, by the way.

Jordan Harbinger: Yes. And Javier agreed.

Your dad is almost certainly in grief and in his experience, that is the perfect state for a scammer to exploit. But Javier's approach was slightly different from ours. He felt that you probably can't prevent your dad from getting scammed. He's an adult. He should know. These sites are sketchy. He just doesn't care, which is odd to me.

But to quote Javier here. [00:46:00] I would tell her not to nag her dad about this. Warn him once and drop it. Then actually stop because repeated warnings, they just become background noise. The only thing you can do in Javier's view is protect yourself and your half sister, and that means untangling yourself from any financial stuff you guys share with him, joint accounts, a mortgage, any cosigned loans you might have gotten for him.

Now look, I get where Javier's coming from. I think he's recognizing how hard it is to convince somebody who's this hardheaded, but he has seen this a bunch. However, for me, I personally would not give up quite so easily. As we just said, this is less about nagging and more about getting to the root of his behavior and then trying to fix it.

Also, even if your dad isn't compromising you financially, this could still impact you. For example, if he ends up giving away his life savings or his retirement, who's gonna take care of him and with what resources? If his scammer gets access to all of his assets. That's your inheritance one day.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. So this does affect them, even if their credit scores don't drop or whatever,

Jordan Harbinger: and that is [00:47:00] worth getting way out in front of.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Agreed.

Jordan Harbinger: Javier also said that he wasn't totally convinced that your dad is not experiencing some decline. I definitely agree with him on that one. He's not a psychiatrist, neither am I, of course. But he would also encourage your dad to see his doctor for a general checkup, and at a minimum it'll give you a baseline for his cognitive state.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I also think that grief symptoms can mimic some dementia symptoms.

Jordan Harbinger: That's a good point.

Gabriel Mizrahi: The fogginess, the disorientation, the hopelessness, the panic, maybe trusting the wrong people, just exercising questionable judgment. They can all look very similar,

Jordan Harbinger: so he might be totally with it, but he's still diminished by this loss,

Gabriel Mizrahi: or he might be experiencing both, which would do a real number on anybody.

Jordan Harbinger: All the more reason to see his PCP at a minimum, maybe a neurologist as well, if you can get him in there.

Gabriel Mizrahi: As for your sister, helping her with her grief after her mom passed away, that is a really sweet question. I think you know the answer. Stay close with her. Check in on her. Make time for her. Ask her how she's doing what she needs.

Just be a good friend and sister to her and make lots of space for her feelings. But you [00:48:00] might also be asking. How do I apologize for my dad and his horny milk cades and not let that affect her too much? And I think the answer there is, first of all, I would hope that your sister could separate you from your dad in all of this.

And if she can't, maybe you say something like, look, I'm really sorry about the way my dad is acting. I wish I could make him stop. Trust me. I'm trying. But I just want you to know that that is not a reflection of how I feel about your mom or even really fully how my dad feels about her.

Jordan Harbinger: Or maybe you just ask her point blank, when you see my dad do that stuff, is it hard for you?

Does it feel personal? Does it impact your feelings about your mom at all?

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah, I like that. Those are really nice questions. 'cause I do, I bet that would open up a good chat for them while also separating her from her father a little bit more.

Jordan Harbinger: So keep the door open, keep making it safe for him to be open with you.

You don't want his shame and his pride to make him pull away even more. Then you don't have any access to him whatsoever. That's crucial, but also keep holding him to a higher standard and keep taking steps to protect him and yourself from more shenanigans. [00:49:00] Very sorry this is happening. I hope you can get through to him, and good luck.

Big thanks to Javier Leiva for his insight here. You can connect with Javier on Instagram, Javier underscore on the air, and you can find his podcasts, Pretend and Criminal Conduct, wherever you get your podcasts. And you can reach us at friday@jordanharbinger.com. Please keep your emails concise. Try to use descriptive subject lines.

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Highly practical. Come check it out. Jordan harbinger.com/news is where you can find it. Alright, what's next?

Gabriel Mizrahi: Dear Jordan and Gabe, until recently, I was working for [00:50:00] some very rich and I assume powerful people. My benefits package was the only thing keeping me happy. Specifically two fully covered IVF cycles a year.

I'm talking a $50,000 gold standard benefit. Then two months before the end of the year, they hit us with a surprise. We're changing insurance. They gave us 30 days notice but refused to show us what the new plan actually covered until we signed. It was like a corporate version of deal or no deal, but the prize was my medical future.

When I found out that they stripped the fertility coverage, I figured they have money. Let me just explain that this insurance has zero fertility coverage and I was in the middle of a cycle. Their fix, a $15,000 fund. Mind you, a single round of IVF is $25,000. For two and a half months, HR ghosted me. I was chasing them like a toxic ex.

They couldn't tell me how the fund worked, how to get the money, or how I was supposed to pay for my $4,000 meds. Meanwhile, I was [00:51:00] missing my scheduled cycles in a transfer I had planned before Christmas, I was in a total mental health crisis because your girl is getting older every day that passes and my life plans were being deleted by people who spend $15,000 on a weekend in the Hamptons.

I finally snapped, told them their incompetence, caused me a medical and mental health breakdown, gave a professional 10 day notice, and am now looking for a company that actually values me between the two and a half months of HR playing hide and seek with my benefits and the loss of my medical window.

Do I have a case against my former employer? Signed debating whether to hit back publicly at my company for treating my offspring like a nullity, compromising my fecundity, and then making up for it grudgingly with an impossibly tiny subsidy.

Jordan Harbinger: Oof. This is brutal. I'm very sorry you went through all this.

It's really awful. We wanted to run all of this by an expert. So we reached out to Joanna Tate, friend of the show and HR professional for over 20 years. And Joanna's take was, yeah, [00:52:00] unfortunately this was not handled well at all by your employer. We got that, but Joanna's got more, trust me. In her view, it was unfair to you and emotionally messy.

This is not just, you know, whether you annual checkup or a trip to the ER is covered. This is your life, your future offspring. And the hard part though is that it, it wasn't necessarily an illegal move by your employer. Joanna explained to us that if your health plan is covered by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, erisa, that's a federal law that sets minimum standards for health plans as most private company health plans are.

Then companies can add, change or remove benefits at the start of a new plan year, regardless of individual employee circumstances. As long as the changes apply only in the future year, all employees are notified. 30 days notice is legally sufficient and the changes are applied to everyone who enrolls in the employer's benefit plans, not specific employee groups.

Since fertility benefits are usually considered non-essential or optional benefits under the law, many employers do not cover fertility treatments. They're just so expensive. [00:53:00] Joanna said the fact you had fertility benefits for a while is actually pretty impressive. Now, there are some states that require employer sponsored plans to cover for fertility treatment, including your state, but only for very specific reasons.

And by the way, we've left the state outta the letter. But the type of coverage that'll just vary from state to state. So if you work for a large employer that's self-funded, meaning the company pays the full cost of all medical claims, they can avoid those state coverage requirements because they're usually exempt from state mandates.

Employers will, self-funded plans are also not required to maintain continuity year over year of the same coverage. So if you had what's known as a fully insured insurance plan, that means the company pays a fixed, generally pretty high monthly premium, and the insurance company is responsible for the full cost of claims.

Then Joanna said they have to follow state law, so that's the bad news. There's probably no legal requirement for your old company to continue coverage for your full cycle, regardless of the plan year. Joanna said that if the team in charge of your health benefits wanted to be good [00:54:00] and thorough stewards and they knew they wanted to eliminate fertility coverage, they probably should have reviewed which employees were currently on fertility treatment and didn't, you know, notify them in advance.

And that's apparently possible with employers who have self-funded plans because they usually have access to claim details, they can see who's on what treatment, which was a actually kind of a big surprise to me. I'm surprised they could just look at that. Although some large employers might choose not to view the names on those claims.

But if you were on a fully insured plan, depending on the size of the company, Joanna said they do not have access to how much is paid to any claim. Which employees had the larger claims, who's on fertility treatments and stuff like that. I know this is all sort of tedious insurance nuance, but I love that Joanna goes into the weeds on this stuff because that might help you know, what your company was actually capable of, how they made this decision, and just how uncaring or reckless they actually were or weren't.

But yeah, unfortunately Joanna said that companies are not responsible for covering a full cycle of fertility treatment if it crosses a plan year. Let's say that your company's plan [00:55:00] is under contract from January one to December 31st. As many are. You start a cycle of fertility treatment on November 1st, you fill your shots prescription, then you get a refill on January 15th.

That's a different prescription. It's a different date of service. It's happening after the start of a new plan. So yeah, on January 15th, the new plan will handle that claim very differently under the new insurance plan contract. That's just how it works in our absolutely bonkers healthcare system, which makes no sense and basically serves nobody.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Uh, yeah. So infuriating. That said, though, Joanna felt that the fact that they offered you a $15,000 consolation prize, that is somewhat generous, although she recognized that it doesn't cover even half the costs. And she would also feel caught off guard and horrified to use her words about the out-of-pocket costs at this point in the whole fertility process.

The fact that you weren't even sure how to access the funds, that didn't make sense to her either. And now that you've left. We're not sure if you can still access them. I'm guessing that was for current employees only, but that might be what you're hoping to sort out with a claim. So Joanna's [00:56:00] advice is call your old employer, email, text carrier, pigeon pony Express, whatever you have to, to talk to the person in charge of HR or whomever HR reports to.

But when you do, Joanna recommends you contact them without emotionally charged requests. Keep it to the facts. Stay cool. Make them your partners in this. Keep looking for solutions together. Also, if it's not too late to do this, make a written request to get a copy of the summary plan description. Joanna said that they have to provide this to you.

Save the documentation of all your insurance benefits, employer notices, anything in email or writing about the fund that was offered to you, proof of your fertility cycle, timing, and costs, all of that. If you decide to hire a lawyer, you're gonna need all of that documentation. About the potential case though Joanna said that HR incompetence on its own probably is not enough for a legal claim, but there might be something else here.

So as always, you're gonna want to talk to an employment attorney and just get clear on your goals here. [00:57:00] Is it to sue for the funds to complete your fertility treatments? Is it for some other claim? I do hope that your old employer takes some steps to make this right, and who knows, maybe a scary letter from a lawyer will make them do that.

But if there isn't a clear claim with a good shot at winning and they haven't legally done anything wrong, honestly, it's really painful. But I might consider moving on. It could be more costly and time consuming to fight for this when your company might not have done anything wrong, legally speaking, even if ethically this was a nightmare,

Jordan Harbinger: right?

So if there's any takeaway here, for everyone listening, it might be this fertility coverage in this country and many others is a privilege, not a guarantee. So if you wanna be totally safe, try to secure other financial backing for your fertility journey. Benefit plans can change for budget reasons. It's not personal if they do.

Find out if your employer is self-insured or fully funded. Also, consider the timing of your treatments against the plan year so you don't end up in this position that the listener did. I have to imagine tons of people have gone through this, which sucks. Maybe [00:58:00] the answer is to make sure you start fertility treatments before, I don't know, September or whatever.

So you're not doing this over Christmas, and then your plan changes on January 1st. Again, I'm so sorry this happened to you, friend. It's a tough blow. It's very frustrating. But this might be a situation where you just have to accept the laws, find a new employer, hopefully one that offers these benefits too, and try again.

And it sucks, but it might be the only option. Sending you a big hug and wishing you all the best. Big thanks to Joanna Tate for her insight. Here. You can connect with Joanna directly on LinkedIn. We'll link to that in the show notes. Now we wanna inject you with some deals and discounts on the fine products and services that support this show.

Just the tip, just to see how it feels. We'll be right back.

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Jordan Harbinger: If you liked this episode of Feedback Friday and found our advice valuable, I invite you to do what other smart and considerate listeners do. Take a moment, support the amazing sponsors who keep the lights on.

Everything is searchable and clickable on the website at Jordan harbinger.com/deals. And if you can't find code, something's not working for you, email usJordan@jordanharbinger.com. We'll dig up the code for you. It is that important that you support those who support the show. [01:02:00] Alright, now for the recommendation of the week, and I'm finally, I've licensed this, so here it goes.

Lip Filler Clip: I am addicted to lit filler.

Jordan Harbinger: Ah, it's nice to have that back. All right. I recently found out about this company called Rolling Square, and they make a Bluetooth tracking device that's totally flat. It's the size of a credit card, maybe it thick as two credit cards, but it's called the air card. It works with both Apple and Android devices.

It shows up just like an air tag. Would I use it to track my wallet? It's given me a lot of peace of mind. I also threw one in my snowboard bag with all my gear. I had an air tag in there, but it's just kind of floating around. It would fall out and I wouldn't notice it. The air card fits inside a luggage tag.

It just fits wherever a business card would go, so you can actually put it in a wallet, a bag, a purse. It doesn't add bulk. It's not a weird shape. And the air card is also wirelessly chargeable, and the charge lasts for a year almost. The range is a little bit longer than an air tag as well, supposedly.

And what I really like about this thing, it has a QR code on it. So anybody who finds your item, they can scan [01:03:00] that. It goes to a website and they can see your preferred contact method to return it, which is such a great feature. If somebody finds your thing with an air tag in it, you can't contact them.

You can't tell them to mail it back. They can't find out who you are. You just have to track them down, which is not gonna happen if you're far away. They're just stuck with your thing and you gotta figure out how to find 'em. This is the same price as an air tag, by the way, as well. I'm a big fan of this product.

I've been gifting these to people and they're all like, whoa, this is amazing. I didn't know this existed, or, thank you. I find I didn't know that these work for Android, so we'll link to those in the show notes as well. And it's a small business. They come up with a lot of really interesting ideas, really cool gear.

Also, in case you don't know, there's a subreddit for the show. I'm banned from it, but I lurked there. And Gabriel, you're in there. Bob's in there. If there's an episode you like, something you didn't like, you wanna discuss an episode, you wanna discuss a sponsor, you can go ahead and post it on the Jordan Harbinger subreddit.

Okay, before we guide the DOS crews back into the harbor, I just wanted to share something going on in my life with all you guys. My mom, Bev, I've mentioned her on the show a bunch of times. She and my dad, they've recently moved from [01:04:00] Michigan to live across the street from us. She listens to every show every week, which means a lot to me.

So shout out to mom. Shout out to Bev for that. My mom's been struggling with her memory for a while now, I wanna say we started to notice some casual forgetfulness, I don't know, 6, 7, 8 years ago. Small stuff. Short-term memory stuff. Obviously very common when you get older. My mom's gonna be 85 this year, so it comes with the territory.

But recently it started to get a lot worse. And I'd be like, what'd you think of lunch today? And she'd be like, well, I can't remember. And it's like, what do you mean? You know, she don't remember going to lunch. Or I'd be like, I'm packing for a trip. And she'd say, where are you going? And I'd say, Phoenix.

And I'd roll my suitcase out 20 minutes later and she goes, oh, where are you going? You know, it's that kind of stuff. So. We went to see a neurologist. They did a bunch of tests and you can probably guess where this is going. She has Alzheimer's.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Oh man. Yeah, you've been sharing this with me along the way, but I'm so sorry, man.

And so sorry, Bev, whom I adore. This must be very intense for all of you guys.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, well, 2020 hindsight, she's [01:05:00] had this for ages. No getting around it, but it took me finally pointing out a lot of things she was missing or forgetting to finally get her to go get screened. It also didn't help, my dad's a funny communicator and not a great listener.

So he'd be like, mom's losing it. And I'd be like, what do you mean? And he is like, well, I did this and this and this. And me and Jen would be like, yeah, but mm, that doesn't really, eh, it doesn't make a lot of sense, and I can see why somebody would be confused. So that didn't help either. We really had to see it for ourselves over a longer period of time.

Anyway, my mom is also dealing with some depression. Uh, nothing too bad, but that's in the mix as well. It's hard to say if it's related to the memory stuff or if it's a totally separate thing. Candidly, most of her friends have died in the last like, I don't know, two years. Oh, wow. So that's obviously a big part of it,

Gabriel Mizrahi: dude, that's gotta be one of the hardest parts of getting older.

Jordan Harbinger: Well, yeah. I think she had something like four of her best friends die in the same year.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Oh, it sucks.

Jordan Harbinger: Some of them were kind of fine beforehand. Mm-hmm. Right. So watching your friends die if you're relatively healthy, like my mom is, you often outlive everyone. So in a way that's great. Right. [01:06:00] You know, hang out with the grandkids and family, but in another way you're left with a lot of grief and it's really sad.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: So a heavy piece of news obviously not easy for her. Not easy for my dad, not easy for me. It's scary. There's a lot of unknowns. Researchers have come a long way in understanding this stuff better over the last couple decades, but there's still just so much that doctors don't understand about what happens in the brain as we age.

I mean, it's, it's a mystery in many ways. When we got the news. On one hand, I was like, okay, well at least we know what this is. Now that helps. On the other hand, I was kind of spinning out like, well, I guess this is at the beginning of something really bad because obviously nobody recovers from this and you can't turn back the clock.

So as you can imagine, this whole thing is brought up a lot for everybody. To her credit, my mom actually seems to be taking the news pretty much in stride, but I'm sure it's quite scary for her. For my part, I've become more almost hypervigilant with my mom. I find myself noticing all these small things about her, the way she speaks, the things she forgets, the things she remembers, how she seems [01:07:00] overall.

It's actually kind of fascinating how she can forget what she had for lunch or that she even had lunch. But remember, I don't know, a tree house she played in 75 years ago in Detroit in just vivid detail. But then she'll forget something and I'll think, oh my God, is it getting worse now? Mm. Am I watching this happen in real time?

Did we just turn a corner? It's always kind of stuff like that. I find myself getting a little bit angry sometimes. Not at my mom, of course is not her fault, but just at the whole situation,

Gabriel Mizrahi: sure.

Jordan Harbinger: How the brain ages, how you can't stop it. There's medication, but it doesn't really, you know, all the problems and anxieties and questions that it creates.

Y'all know me when I'm in touch with my feelings, I'm usually in touch with my anger before anything else, and that's what's been coming up the most. But obviously I'm angry because I am sad. My mom is such a sweetheart. She was a teacher, she was a huge reader. She was kind of a social butterfly in many ways back in Michigan and now she's changing and we're all noticing it and it's just rough sometimes.

So there's a lot of grief in this journey for all of us as well. And she's very much with it. To be clear, she's still hanging out with us. She hangs out with the kids. She's still around. She comes [01:08:00] over every day. She still lives her life, but we're kind of saying goodbye to one stage of my mom and getting to know this other stage.

And that's a slow motion morning process. But as we talk about all the time on the show, that's true of all life. Grief is everywhere. It's constant. It's woven into every experience we have. It's just, it's more obvious with this one. Now there are some bright spots for one thing. So glad we pushed my parents to move out here when we did.

Having them across the street, it just makes everything a lot easier. I know that's not possible for everyone. I'm not saying everyone should live across the street from their parents. It, it sounds like a nightmare for some people who write into Feedback Friday to be any closer to these people. Uh, it does help in a situation like this.

It gives us all some comfort knowing that we're all close by. Also, there are tons of resources for Alzheimer's patients and family members out there way more than ever. There's also a bunch of medications, cholinesterase inhibitors, NMDA, receptor antagonists, medications that target amyloid plaques, and for the behavior and mood stuff, there's [01:09:00] antidepressants, anxiety, medications, sleep medications.

These meds don't reverse any damage, unfortunately, but they can slow symptom progression. They can preserve function for longer. They can reduce behavioral symptoms, so that's really cool. Unfortunately, in my mom's case, the medication was a little bumpy. She started taking them and then she started sleeping like 20 hours a day for a month.

That was awful. That went away, thank God. But it was a little worrisome. And then that happened every time they switched her medication around. So we're kinda like, Hey Doc, do you mind maybe putting some thought into this? Instead of just like, oh, try this now and you sleep for three weeks. But I'm trusting that they are going to help slow the symptoms.

They're gonna help her stay as sharp as possible for as long as possible. I'm grateful that all of this exists, and it's a process, man. We're learning, we're observing. Mostly we're just trying to keep living our lives and enjoying one another as much as possible. But I just wanted to share this with you guys because first of all, it's Feedback Friday.

If y'all are gonna overshare with us every week, it's only fair that I myself, overshare every once in a while.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I mean, I think you [01:10:00] did that with the Paw Patrol in your dad's car story a couple of weeks ago, but I, I am glad you're sharing those too.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, that's true. I maybe did meet my overshare quota for the month, didn't I?

Gabriel Mizrahi: For the year? I would say

Jordan Harbinger: yes. Well, here's a little more. Also, we've gotten a ton of letters over the years from people who are taking care of a parent with dementia. And whenever we take 'em on the show, I would think, man, that's such a heavy thing to deal with. These people are such angels. I wonder how I would cope with something like that.

And sure enough, here I am going through it myself like so many people do. And that's just given me way more empathy for people taking care of elderly parents, way more understanding of the challenges involved. And the other reason I wanted to talk about this was I've learned a couple important things through this whole process, and I wanted to quickly share them with you guys just in case it helps anyone.

So one big thing has been, I found with older parents, and I hear this a lot from people my own age, is it's often really hard to make them do certain things like go and see a freak at specialist and get tested for something, even if it's in their best interest because you know, they just [01:11:00] don't wanna do it.

They don't wanna face it, which I totally get. The stuff is scary. It's way easier to bury your head in the sand and pretend that it's not happening. But the fact is, no matter what you're dealing with, but especially with dementia, catching it earlier and getting on medication to slow the progression, that is key.

Part of me wishes we had caught and pushed for this eight or 10 years ago. I do wonder what would've happened if we'd been treating this thing when it was very early stage. Maybe not much, maybe nothing. Or maybe my mom's memory would be a lot better right now, although I'm sure most people catch it around this stage when it becomes really obvious.

To catch something early, you've gotta be super on top of it. You have to notice the signs. You have to be very proactive, sometimes even a little pushy to get your parents tested. And even then you go to the doctor and you say, Hey, I'm forgetting things. And they're like, oh, well you're old. Getting old sucks.

And it's like, no neurologist referral now. Thank you. It's not fun. It's not easy. You might have to be the bad guy sometimes. You might have to schedule appointments for them. Talk to the doctors with them, [01:12:00] make the case for the tests, because most people in their seventies, eighties, nineties, they're not gonna be like, yeah, I would love to go see a neurologist about whether I have plaque in my brain.

Let's totally spend weeks of my life worrying about my acetylcholine levels and picturing my inevitable decline. That sounds fun, but that friction, it's absolutely worth it if it leads to a diagnosis and treatment options that improve your quality of life. The other big thing I'm learning, and this is so obvious.

I know, but you learn it over and over again in different ways. Enjoy your parents while you have 'em. We all know where we're headed. None of us are getting out alive. Yes. They drive you crazy sometimes. Yes. The way they do things can make them harder or it's not your way of doing things and that's what drives you up the wall.

Yes. You wish they were more, I don't know. Whatever it is for you, fill in the blank. Love them anyway. Cherish your time with them, hug them. Stay close. If you're lucky enough to have parents who don't need to be tossed off the dos, cruise at a choppy waters for doing something unforgivable, which is, I think most many of us have good parents like that, but [01:13:00] you know, sample size of the show, sample pool of this show, not withstanding, these people will not be here forever.

Your parents will not be here forever. And on that note, I just want to take this opportunity to say I love you, mom. Thank you for listening to literally every single episode of the show that comes out. Thank you for trusting us to move out here. Thank you for letting us look out for you. It's not easy to see a parent go through this, but I am grateful that we have the support and the setup that we do.

And I'm gonna do my best to think of this diagnosis as a reminder to appreciate you as much as I can while I can for as long as I can. Which might include giving you pop quizzes and what you ate for lunch today and getting on you for scrolling Facebook too much. But also thank you for not scrolling horny mills in your area.

That's another big, bright spot in all this. But I'm, I'm gonna get on you about this stuff only because I care, mom. That's love too. Alright, overshare soapbox, complete. Have a great weekend everybody. Go back and check out episodes with Eva LaRue and Kaya McKenna Callahan and our Skeptical Sunday on the vagina.

If you haven't done so yet, [01:14:00] the best things that have happened in my life and business have come through my network. The circle of people I know, like, and trust. And I'm teaching you how to build the same thing for yourself and our Six Minute Networking course. I love that. People who write bad reviews for the show, they're like, he shills his success courses.

This is not a success course. This is a networking thing. It is a relationship building thing. It's free. I'm not sure if, can you shill something that's free? Isn't that, uh, not how any of that works? Anyway,

Gabriel Mizrahi: if anyone could do it. Jordan, it's you.

Jordan Harbinger: Thank you. Dig the well before you're thirsty. Build relationships before you need 'em.

You can find all of this for free. For real. Like for free at Sixminutenetworking.com Shield Dunn. Show notes and transcripts on the website, advertisers deals, discount codes, ways to support the show. Also on the website, searchable and clickable. Jordan harbinger.com/deals. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on both Twitter and Instagram.

You can connect with me on LinkedIn as well. Gabe's over on Insta at Gabriel Mizrahi. This show is created in association with PodcastOne. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jase Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Ian Baird, Tadas Sidlauskas, and of course, Gabriel Mizrahi. Our advice and opinions are our own, and yeah, I'm a lawyer, but [01:15:00] I'm not your lawyer.

Consult a qualified professional before implementing anything you hear on the show. Ditto, Javier Leiva. 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.