1414: Ex Cheated and Retreated, Now Custody’s Heated | Feedback Friday

1414: Ex Cheated and Retreated, Now Custody’s Heated | Feedback Friday

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Jordan Harbinger: This episode is brought to you by Xero. That's Xero with an X. Running a small business and managing your finances shouldn't make your day more complicated.

Learn more at Xero.com. Welcome to Feedback Friday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger.

As always, I'm here with Feedback Friday producer, incorrigible nomad, and unrepentant slut for stories, Gabriel Mizrahi.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Wow. Literally never felt more seen than I do at this moment, but that took me by surprise.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, I thought you'd like that. I was like, let's kick it up a notch. Now that I've got the sexy voice, I've got to use it.

Gabriel Mizrahi: It's true. I am a hoe for narrative. Yeah.

You got me there.

Jordan Harbinger: A lady of ill repute for the yarn. That's right. A daughter of the night for the parables, for sure.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Is this self-branding?

Jordan Harbinger: It sure is. Is that what we're doing? This is a masterclass in the elevator pitch.

Take notes, people. You won't find this in Six-Minute Networking. It's only in my upcoming course, Seven-Minute Networking.

On The Jordan Harbinger Show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people. 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, rocket scientists, Russian chess grandmasters.

This week, we had Attia Qureshi, author of Never Settle: Persuasion and Negotiation Skills to Get What You Want. This was an interesting one because a lot of the negotiation books, they're great, but they're a collection of theories that you memorize and then you probably maybe never do any of them. This was essentially how negotiation was a practical skill that you develop through repeated practice.

It's a great balance of new negotiation concepts and practical drills that'll make you a better negotiator, so you can actually put the stuff into action. I also sat down with Leo Mann, author of Don't Sign That: The Hidden Clauses, Legal Traps, and Fine Print That Can Cost You Thousands. So Leo's a lawyer.

He's talked about common contracts and tricky terms that we all encounter as average consumers. So car loans, rental agreements, stuff like that, things you should avoid even if you think you have no leverage. I really got into the weeds with him on some of this stuff, and it's extremely useful.

Because Gabriel, I don't know about you, but when you sign a lease agreement or a car loan, usually you think, I can't push back on this. These are the terms.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Totally.

I would never negotiate with a woman at Avis.

Jordan Harbinger: Maybe not at Avis because you're renting the car, but if you're buying the car, you have a ton of leeway with finance. If you're renting an apartment, you can push back on stuff, even when the broker's like, that's just what's in there. It's like, cool, call the person and tell them I'm not paying a whatever fee.

I've actually done this before myself. Back in my old place in Hollywood when I was running my old business, the training company, I needed more than one parking spot. And so when I went to sign the lease, I negotiated with the person and I said, I need four parking spots, not one.

And they were like, sure. And I made them write it into the contract. And I may have even done that for them, I can't remember.

And then when they had a new management company come in, they gave me one parking pass and they were like, sorry, this is what you get. And I was like, okay. And I started deducting the payment for those parking passes from my rent and they got so angry.

And all I did was show them this written addendum to the contract and they were like, crap. Their lawyer called me and was like, yeah, you're all set. You don't have to worry about this.

I just wanted to clear it up with you. I remember my business partners were like, holy crap, we just negotiated that? And I was like, even me as an attorney licensed in the state of New York, I was like, I can't believe that worked.

You think your landlord has all the cards all the time. And there's some funny stories in here as well of things that landlords have done. I don't want to spoil it too much, but there was one lady that basically had written into the contract that she rents this apartment in Manhattan.

And it was like every Tuesday she gets to do bird yoga or something like in the apartment where the guy lives.

Gabriel Mizrahi: What is bird yoga?

Jordan Harbinger: It's exactly what you think it is. They come in with birds and do yoga and it's noisy and it's annoying as hell. And it's a bunch of old ladies in this like bachelor's apartment every Tuesday night chatting and drinking tea and birds are like in the middle of the thing and it's two hours long and this guy's like, wait a minute, you can't really do this.

And she's like, you didn't read page six. So he had to buy his way out of the lease. Yeah, unbelievable.

Wow. Nothing quite says mentally ill old money. This apartment was given to me by my grandfather.

Then a clause on page six that says I get to do bird yoga in your apartment every Tuesday.

Gabriel Mizrahi: That sounds like something the woman who had Coldplay do a concert at her party would have put in. 100 percent.

Jordan Harbinger: How did you make all your money? Oh, my grandfather owned a bunch of buildings in Manhattan. It's like, oh, okay.

Yeah, we still do bird yoga every Tuesday. You should come.

Gabriel Mizrahi: What do you do with all your wealth? I do pigeon pose around literal pigeons.

Jordan Harbinger: Yes. Yeah, exactly. I harass my tenants.

I have nothing better to do. We also did a Skeptical Sunday last Sunday on banned books. On Fridays, though, we share stories, take listener letters, offer advice, play obnoxious sound bites and use borderline offensive terms to describe our love for your tales.

All right. Lots to get into today. Gabe, what is the first thing out of the mailbag?

Gabriel Mizrahi: Dear Jordan and Gabe, my wife and I were married for almost eight years and have two daughters ages eight and six. Then two years ago, my wife announced she was done and moved out. She stayed one night at the house we shared together, then went to stay at her mom's house while her mom was out of town.

I had a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach that something else was going on. I couldn't sleep. So at about two thirty a.m., I loaded both my girls up in the car and drove over there.

Jordan Harbinger: Oh, no. Oh, God.

Gabriel Mizrahi: When I arrived, I found her best friend's car parked outside.

This was the guy she had spent years assuring me I never needed to worry about. The girls had fallen asleep in the car. Against my better judgment, I went inside and found her in bed with him.

Jordan Harbinger: Oh, Lord Jesus, it's a fire!

Gabriel Mizrahi: Brutal. That's—woof. What a scene. I realize now that going in was a bad idea.

But unfortunately, the only decision I felt I could make at the time, I had to see it for myself, because my ex is extremely good at manipulating and gaslighting people. A few weeks after that, I got a Facebook message from the woman her affair partner had been dating, asking whether the two of them had ever told me about their five-year affair.

Jordan Harbinger: Whoa.

Oh, my goodness. New shit has come to light.

Soundboard's getting a workout today. Yeah, it's just that every other line in his story is the perfect setup. Also, it's so heavy and emotional that I'm like, I need to lighten this up somehow.

Gabriel Mizrahi: That's how I learned my marriage had been a lie for most of its duration. Yeah. Wow.

You must have been so pissed. What a gut punch. Terrible.

Our friend's Oura Ring must have been working extra hard that week. My God. Bro logged multiple Tabata classes discovering his wife's infidelity.

Jordan Harbinger: This is just horrible.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Bro got his steps in for the year with that one.

Jordan Harbinger: Gabe, there's a lot of infidelity on Feedback Friday lately. Just a lot of cheating wives. I'm just noticing.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. Fellas, you've got to step your game up. The ladies are making us look good.

Jordan Harbinger: That's right. Here we go. I'm going to pump those numbers up.

Those are rookie numbers in this racket.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Three months later, she got pregnant with her affair partner. She blew up our family and walked away.

Jordan Harbinger: Wait, hold on.

This is the second wife we've heard about who's had an affair and got pregnant by another dude in like the last 30 days on the show.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Correct. So she kept it, I guess. As we're about to hear, she kept it.

Yes.

Jordan Harbinger: Wow. There's so much happening here.

Gabriel Mizrahi: She has never acknowledged any of this. She insists she never had an affair, even though I literally saw them in bed together.

Jordan Harbinger: Wait, what?

Gabriel Mizrahi: She's never acknowledged any of it, even though you walked in on that. And she got pregnant.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. So she's insane or comically narcissistic. Like, wow, you're starting to show. What? I'm not pregnant.

What are you talking about? As they have this fight in a Lamaze class. She sounds totally unhinged.

Just imagine walking in on your spouse cheating and having confirmation from somebody else that it was going on for years and they're like, yep, that never happened.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Tenth degree black belt level gaslighting. I've never heard anything like it.

Jordan Harbinger: So if my math is correct, this means the baby was born on the one year anniversary of him catching her in bed with this guy.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. Strange arithmetic. But yes.

What a weird birthday party that must have been. Yeah. So much can change inside of a year.

This is bananas. But she didn't just walk away from the marriage. She walked away from the actual job of parenting, which admittedly I did most of the heavy lifting on to begin with.

On paper, we've been 50/50 since the split. But more than once, she's asked me to take the girls for an entire month so she could leave the state. Then changed her mind.

Yeah. That is sketchy slash reckless.

Jordan Harbinger: What is this woman doing in Nevada for like a month with a one year old baby? Teaching it to play Pai Gow poker? Yeah.

I mean, it's never too early to teach a baby how to play Baccarat. They love the colors. Yeah.

Gabriel Mizrahi: They do. They love it. They love the lights.

They love the stimulation. A lot of sensory play. You know what?

She's probably right. Yeah. She constantly flip-flops and it's exhausting.

Then a few weeks ago, she asked my girlfriend and me to take them every school week because she can't handle morning drop offs and was suicidal.

Jordan Harbinger: Oh, OK. We're getting the picture now. Either she's legitimately unstable or the whole I'm suicidal thing is just a way to manipulate them into taking the girls because she doesn't want to.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. Yeah. She doesn't like making oatmeal before 9 a.m. Yeah. She does have mental health issues and I feel bad that she's in a bad place, but it can't constantly be my responsibility to save her when she fails.

Jordan Harbinger: So call me a cynic and you shall and you would be right. Somebody like this, I don't even know if I believe that they're suicidal. I think they're just saying that so that you're like, oh my God, of course I'll take the girls every week.

And then she's like, great. I can sleep in now. I don't know.

This guy obviously knows his ex-wife more than I do from this simple letter, but I just can't trust anything somebody like this says. And I feel like everything is manipulative at this point. Anyway, I agree with you.

It can't be your responsibility to save her whenever she fails, especially after what she did.

Gabriel Mizrahi: What do you mean?

Jordan Harbinger: The cheating and the affair and stuff.

Gabriel Mizrahi: No idea what you're talking about. That never happened. That didn't happen.

That's right. I get it. I think you're imagining things, man.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

Gabriel Mizrahi: You should see somebody about that. Yeah. Maybe you're right.

Now she has the girls from Friday after school through Monday morning and that single Monday drop off is her entire contribution to the school year. None of this is in writing yet. It's a verbal arrangement she can pull back on whenever she likes.

And she's already hinted she might. Two years in, the divorce still isn't final. I'm working on getting a marriage settlement agreement in writing, but she's extremely difficult to work with.

She canceled mediation two hours before it was scheduled to start and decided to hire a limited scope attorney.

Jordan Harbinger: Okay. All right.

This woman's driving me up the fricking wall, just causing problems left and right.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I have an attorney advising me behind the scenes and with limited scope, who's ready to step in the moment this stops being civil. I'm trying my best to be collaborative and not have a messy divorce, but we do have credit card debt, a home that my parents rent from us and a decently large amount of stocks that I'm trying to hang on to.

In addition to that, my ex can be volatile, so I never know what the day will be like.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. You're walking on eggshells. I get it, but that's not going to get you anywhere.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Meanwhile, I'm working myself to the bone. I'm a senior security engineer at a large company, the kind of job where things go from bad to worse on a moment's notice. I make a little over $200,000 a year in salary, closer to a quarter million with stock and bonus.

I handle every filing and disclosure related to the divorce myself. I do the taxes, I manage a rental property, and with my girlfriend's help, I run the entire Monday through Friday machine, breakfasts, lunches, homework, bedtime, and the mental load of two little girls. My girlfriend didn't sign up to co-parent my ex's children five days a week, but she does it, and she does it well.

Still, my ex posts these long, rambling updates on Facebook about how hard it is to do everything on her own, how she gets no help, how she's struggling to provide.

Jordan Harbinger: Oh, she's one of those. Yeah, what is this called again? Covert narcissism, where you're the victim instead of grandiose?

Ugh, these frickin' people, man.

Gabriel Mizrahi: People who only know me on the surface assume I abandoned my kids and don't pay a dime. I have the girls five days a week, I pay her support every month, on time, without a court order making me, and I'm sitting there watching a woman who has them on weekends get sympathy comments for carrying a load she handed to me, all while being a fun weekend mom with almost zero responsibility. It's enraging, to say the least.

Jordan Harbinger: I can imagine, that is so annoying. However, I have a strong hunch that 90% of the people reading her midnight meltdowns on Facebook are like, yeah, this lady's out of her tree. I would not let the Facebook thing suck up even more of your energy, it's high school crap, you don't know the people who are agreeing with her or whatever, it's a sideshow.

You've got to keep your eyes on the prize.

Gabriel Mizrahi: But then, when something goes sideways in my ex's life, I'm the one she calls. Every one of those calls, every schedule change, every, can you just take them, all of it lands on my relationship.

I'm trying to build a life with a woman who shows up for my kids, while my ex, who doesn't, still gets a vote in how our week goes.

Jordan Harbinger: Oh, yeah.

You read a lot about this in divorce cases, right? This is ridiculous. This is not equal and responsible co-parenting.

At the same time, we need to find some ways for her chaos to not impact you and your family's life quite as much. She might get a vote in how your week goes now, but not for long, and she doesn't have veto power, that can't happen, that cannot stand.

Gabriel Mizrahi: But the part that actually breaks me is my older daughter. She adores her mom. She can't understand why her mom doesn't want more time with her.

Oh, that's really sad. This is a really tough part. When it's time to go over there, she's excited, and when it's time to leave, she breaks down in tears.

She's trauma-bonded with her mom. At my house, she's thriving, routine, stability, the same face I pick up every afternoon. I'm watching an 8-year-old grieve a parent who is alive, in the same town, and who chose this.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, complicated relationship for sure. Mom's doing some damage, and there's only so much you can do to control that.

Gabriel Mizrahi: That's tough to watch. So when their daughters go to stay with mom, she's just over there, like, nursing a newborn baby from a different dad? That's got to be so strange.

Jordan Harbinger: They must know the baby has a different father, right? Because their dad's not involved?

Gabriel Mizrahi: I assume so.

Jordan Harbinger: But, like, is the other guy even in the picture, or is this lady single, and the guy's like, oh, baby, yeah, a lot of work, you were just my side piece, I'm out. We don't even know if that guy's around.

Gabriel Mizrahi: And how does that make the girls feel? It must be so strange, I don't know, I can't imagine. Whether that guy is in the picture or not, or whatever this means, this can't be a totally healthy environment for them, can it?

Jordan Harbinger: No way. It's got to be confusing, at the very least. They might be young, but eventually, if they can't already tell, they've got to have some inkling their mother's just a dumpster fire.

Gabriel Mizrahi: In the eyes of California family law, I'm an ATM. Because I'm the high earner, the guideline formula puts me on the hook for a four-figure check every month. And that's the floor.

My lawyer said I'm lucky to only pay that much, and to try to get her to agree to that quote-unquote small amount. The court can reach into my stock vesting and my bonuses, too. I'm trying my best to keep them, but I'll likely have to pay some of them out, even though they didn't vest before she left.

Jordan Harbinger: I am never going to financially recover from this.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Thank you for bringing him into the equation. Tiger King. We needed that.

She's trained and credentialed in the medical field, and was working in it as recently as last year. She has a standing job offer in hand, and has told me she won't start until the end of this year, if ever, because the baby she had with the affair partner makes it too hard. Every hour she chooses not to work is an hour the formula bills to me.

Jordan Harbinger: I am livid right now. I want to hug this man, and I want to—not safe for the show. This ex-wife is such a mess.

Gabriel Mizrahi: So basically, I'm paying to equalize the household of the woman who betrayed me, so she can be a weekend mom in comfort. Yikes.

I feel like if a father did what my ex-wife has done, everyone would call him a deadbeat without a second thought. But because she's the mother, she gets the benefit of the doubt, and the state of California gets a standing claim on my paycheck.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, I'm just going to leave that one right there, but I hear ya. You're not the only one who feels that way, man.

Gabriel Mizrahi: You're not. I have people around who love me and care about me, but at times it feels like everyone depends on me. I'm tired of playing defense, guys.

I have a lawyer who can go on offense tomorrow if I say the word. Given her refusal to work, her refusal to parent on school days, the distress it's causing my daughter, and her complete lack of ownership, is it time to take the gloves off and go for full custody? Or is that exactly the move that turns me into the high-conflict guy in the courtroom and makes everything worse?

Signed, bankrolling this betrayal and parenting on a five-day scale as I watch my daughter have to wail every Friday without fail and wondering if full custody is the holy grail or just a faster way for all of us to fail. And shoutout to the listener for coming up with that one.

Jordan Harbinger: Not bad.

Gabriel Mizrahi: My. God. Wow.

What. A story.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. There's so much going on here. Let me try to cut to the chase.

Obviously, I'm very sorry that your ex cheated on you, lied to you, manipulated you, and she's creating all this instability and dysfunction now. That is a really tough co-parent to have. My heart really does go out to you.

Your daughters, your girlfriend, you're up against a really difficult person here. The upside is, it's probably bonding you guys in a big way, and the older the girls get, the more they're going to realize that mom is the real problem and dad is the sanctuary. You're going to be their rock.

At the same time, despite how unbelievably angry I am at your ex for everything she's done, there's a small part of me that feels sorry for her. Clearly, she needs help. If she's causing all this chaos in your life, it's only because her life is a complete freaking mess.

She's creating all that way more in her own life. That doesn't let her off the hook. I've learned over the years through exposure to Gabriel and everybody on Feedback Friday that I have some compassion for a person who's in trouble and can't seem to do better.

Let me, again, cut to the chase here. If I were you, I would go engage your attorney for real. I would go for full custody.

That would give you so many advantages. You get custody of the girls, which you already have responsibility for them. You'd actually have custody of them.

I think we can all agree that you're the one they should be living with most, if not all the time. Mom doesn't even seem to want to be their parent very much, or she's not able to live up to that obligation consistently. She's already falling off, giving up more days to you.

Plus, she has another baby at home, so her hands are literally full. She might even be relieved on some level to give you full custody, unless she fights you because it's in her interest financially or something like that. If you did get full custody, then generally speaking, in California, you would not owe her child support, even if you do earn significantly more money.

In fact, your ex would typically be the one expected to pay you child support. Now, whether you fight for that or enforce that is a separate matter. Now, there are exceptions to this in your state.

For example, if you have primary custody, but your ex has some visitation, you might still owe her something. There might also still be spousal support. That's a separate order.

But my understanding is that getting full custody would probably change the equation pretty significantly. But look, we wanted an expert's opinion here, so we reached out to Greg Hitt, divorce attorney and mediator practicing in Austin, Texas. And Greg wanted to remind you that he's not licensed in California.

This is all general information. This is not legal advice. And the first thing Greg wanted you to know is there is a persistent myth that hiring an attorney immediately turns things nasty or that divorce attorneys are just greedy agitators.

It is true that if you search for the worst, you'll get the worst. But in his view, more often, hiring an attorney to work with the other attorney or the other party and the court, that actually streamlines things. Greg said he might be biased, but he thinks anyone who goes to a divorce mediation should have an attorney representing them in that mediation.

Yes, it's expensive, period. There's no avoiding that. But it is a necessary and worthwhile expense.

So Greg's main advice for you is you need a qualified attorney to actually represent you. Move your case forward. Set hearings.

Conduct discovery if necessary. Hold the other side's feet to the fire. Not just someone behind the scenes, ready to step in the moment this stops being civil.

Greg's stance on this is this is not a binary. An attorney can help you keep things civil while still asserting your legal rights. Now, your wife might not like that.

She may perceive it to be aggressive, but Greg's feeling is that you need to get this over with. It sounds like you agree. I fully agree.

So make sure that your behind the scenes attorney is capable of being a solid advocate for you in court. And if he's not, find somebody who is.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Now, about the child support, it sounds like you're paying child support based on an informal agreement you made with your ex. In Texas, where Greg practices, the primary parent, that is, the parent with more parenting time, they almost always get child support, even if that parent makes more money than the other parent, with some exceptions. Based on what you've shared, your wife's situation sounds like what's called voluntary unemployment, which apparently a court may consider when it comes to ordering child support.

Greg actually pointed us to California's Family Code, Section 4058(b)(1)(B), which says, In a case when a parent's annual gross income is known, the court may, in its discretion, consider the earning capacity of a parent, in lieu of the parent's income, consistent with the best interests of the children, taking into consideration the overall welfare and developmental needs of the children and the time that parent spends with the children. So we're not totally convinced that this child support is going to be calculated the way you're imagining in your worst case scenario.

Jordan Harbinger: I see. Okay. I think this could go very differently, especially if you have a good lawyer who fights for what's fair.

Now, about custody, Greg's view is that the court orders should reflect the reality of the situation. Right now, your ex has all the weekends. Based on what you shared, that's not fair.

You're the primary parent. You have been for a while. You definitely are now.

His take is, this order should reflect that. Greg explained to us that one common arrangement is for the non-primary parent to have every other weekend. So in Texas, where Greg practices, it's the first, third, and fifth weekend, beginning Friday when school is dismissed and ending Monday when school resumes, plus an overnight visit every week, Wednesday or Thursday, alternating holiday periods, an extended period in the summer for each parent.

You could go with a template like that or, like I said, fight for full custody, which makes more sense to me. And to help you do that, I would be carefully documenting everything that goes down with your ex. Every time she flip-flops, every time she bails, every time she asks you to step in, every time she goes on a last-minute trip, every time she threatens suicide, dates, times, whether the girls were present, whether she was responsible for their care at the time, what steps you took, whether anyone else intervened, any observable impact on your kids, and preserve all the relevant texts and voicemails and emails. I would just have a big old Google Drive folder with all that stuff in it. One thing that really helps the record is to move as much of the communication as possible to writing, of course, okay?

So texting, emailing, that's great, but also these co-parenting apps, OurFamilyWizard is one, TalkingParents is another. They have features that create just a very clear record. That's the point of them, right?

It's for judges and social workers and whoever to review this stuff. I know it's intense to be like, hey, we're only talking on these apps from now on, but if you guys can agree to use one, it might help limit your exposure to her, and it'll create even better documentation.

Gabriel Mizrahi: It's a really clever idea, but I do wonder if she'll be on her best behavior on the app, and then he won't have as much ammunition in court one day.

Jordan Harbinger: That's also a possibility, so maybe it's better to let her melt down by text and just take a ton of screenshots. Anyway, my understanding is an attorney can absolutely use this pattern of behavior to argue for full physical custody, especially if the other parent's conduct is repeated or unpredictable or disruptive to the children's lives. If you don't know, California courts and most courts actually make custody decisions based on the best interests of the child, not what is actually fair to either parent.

Again, I think every state uses some version of that standard. Also, you're not even getting any weekends right now. Weekends are prime time, man.

Your kids deserve a relationship with you that involves more than just doing homework and giving rides to dance class and making lunch. You need pancake time. You need Candyland time.

You need late breakfast time. You need to ride bikes around the block, all that stuff. You're not getting any of that because your ex can't handle waking up before 9 a.m. and driving them to school a couple days a week. She's freaking unemployed, man. Look, she has a one-year-old, okay, but come on. You need to get some weekends.

It's not fair to you. And if mom can't balance that out in a fair way, then tough kishka. She gets what she gets.

Bottom line, in Greg's view, it is high time your attorney actually made an appearance in your case and represented you in earnest. Don't dwell in this anger. Don't tap dance around your ex to keep things on an even keel.

Just get this done. Again, asserting your rights, that doesn't mean take the gloves off and be nasty. You can protect yourself and still be civil and still be collaborative.

In fact, I think it's more likely that you're going to be lower conflict when your attorney takes the lead because when she bails on a visit and then you read some crazy shit she wrote on Facebook, you're going to want to unload on her. But if your lawyer is moving things along, you can just be like, miss me with this BS. Then you can focus on enjoying your time with the girls and let your lawyer do the work.

You're paying them. It's like your agent, right? You're paying them to do this interfacing with the other side.

You don't have to worry about it. You don't have to think about it. You don't have to deal with it.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I totally agree. And I think he's scared of her to some degree because she's very unstable and he doesn't want to deal with everything that comes with provoking her, but that's a great way to still be married to this person in five years and nothing has changed. So I think it's time.

In some ways, Jordan, the hardest part of all of this is really the girls.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, for sure. I can only imagine what their relationships with mom is going to be like in eight or ten years. It's not going to be pretty.

I'll tell you that.

Gabriel Mizrahi: No, it's not. My heart breaks for these young kids whose mom is suffering and suicidal and inconsistent and apparently pretty generally irrational and is doing things like carrying on with another guy and having another child that are probably sending them a pretty painful message or at least a confusing one. So I think you know that you're going to have to help your daughters work through this as best you can.

You and your girlfriend seem to be doing an incredible job counteracting her chaos, creating a very different environment at your house. I really commend you guys for that, but I'm sure your ex is going to leave some kind of mark on them. She's their mom.

This is a formative relationship, even if she's absent a lot of the time. So all the usual things, right? Stay connected to your daughters.

Keep a close eye on their moods, their behavior, their friendships, how they're getting on at school, their grades, whether they're still engaged with their hobbies, all of that. And if any worrisome signs start to appear, I don't know if they start lashing out or withdrawing or getting into a lot of conflict, stuff like that, I would strongly encourage you to find them a good therapist to talk to, make sure they have that support. If you can swing it, you might even want to think about starting now.

Jordan Harbinger: Could not agree more. You can do it now or they can start when they're 31 and trying to figure out why they're angry all the time or whatever. Either way, they're probably going to be talking about mom on the couch.

Gabriel Mizrahi: But in the meantime, I would just check in with them a lot. I would do a lot of meaningful activities together. I would invite them to talk about how they're doing, how they're feeling about the whole situation without poisoning the well, of course, because even if their mom is difficult, they still are entitled to have a relationship with them and you don't want to accidentally turn them against mom any more than is necessary.

But really, you want to show them that they're safe talking to you and your girlfriend about anything and everything.

Jordan Harbinger: The best antidote to mom's manipulation and gaslighting. Yeah.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. Also, like you said, you are not responsible for your ex-wife's well-being, which I'm glad you see that clearly. And I know that's tough because sadly, yeah, there is a world where she hurts herself or continues to spin out and that might be devastating, but you are responsible for your daughters and they have significant exposure to mom, especially when they're over there.

So I would put together a plan, maybe a written plan for when she calls you, for example, threatening to commit suicide or do something dangerous. Here's what that plan could look like. First, you want to decide in advance which circumstances warrant which response, right?

You don't want to be improvising in the moment what to do. If she makes a suicidal statement without any apparent immediate danger, then maybe you say, okay, I hear that things are really hard. I would encourage you to call your therapist or your psychiatrist or a crisis hotline.

There are tons of those out there. If she calls you and she says, I want to kill myself, I want to take all my meds and go to bed or something like that. Or if she sounds severely impaired, then you can say, okay, I'm really concerned about your safety.

I take what you're saying seriously. I'm going to contact somebody who can help you. And I would call 911.

If she's making these threats while the girls are over there, then it's a whole other ballgame in my opinion. Then I think you figure out if she can safely supervise them. If another responsible adult is at the house, if you need to call 911, I think it's the same as above and you also throw in my immediate priority is making sure the kids are safe.

Yeah. Oof. The general advice here is to avoid arguing, bargaining, threatening custody consequences, promising secrecy, any of these things.

Don't do that. If this phone call ever comes, just take the necessary steps. Trust the plan.

Jordan Harbinger: I would also have a therapist on standby to advise you and talk to the girls if needed. Plus, I don't know, a couple of friends or neighbors you can count on to go over there and check on the girls. If you're far away from her house or you're out of town and a safe location where the girls can stay if things ever get dangerous.

And I would develop this with your attorney and ideally a child psychologist or family therapist. That'll help. Also, ask your attorney if your custody arrangement or custody order allows you to retrieve the girls during an emergency and what to do if you try and she's like, no, you can't take them.

I would also get in the habit of immediately typing up some notes about every incident in your documentation file so you don't forget any details.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. This is about protecting your kids, but it's also about doing right by your ex. It's not your responsibility to keep her alive, but she needs help.

She needs to stay alive for the girls at least. And so I would also keep encouraging her to find her own support, starting with a therapist of her own.

Jordan Harbinger: He can't make her see a therapist and I'm guessing she's going to resist, but God knows it would be a huge help. Gabe, I think we should talk for a second about the other woman in his life, his girlfriend, this saint who's basically picking up all the slack here. This woman sounds amazing.

Yeah. She's basically their stepmom. She's doing all this unexpected work to help raise the girls.

She's sticking with our friend, despite the fact that he's got some real baggage here. This woman deserves a ton of love and gratitude, even if she absolutely wants to be in the role. It's an amazing thing she's doing.

And so I would keep checking in with her, see how she's doing, make sure all of this responsibility feels fair and more importantly, sustainable to her, see what she needs, invite her to talk, make sure that she feels supported and recognized. I assume you're already doing this. Y'all sound like a great team, but I'm just calling it out so you don't lose sight of her amidst all of this chaos.

This woman is just a gift to all of you. Again, very sorry things played out this way, but I'm actually glad you found out what your wife was up to as painful as it was. And I'm glad that this dysfunction is reaching a level where you're going, okay, time to step things up and get this done.

The essential element right now is a good lawyer. So start there. Sending you and your tribe a big hug and wishing you all the best.

Big thanks to Greg Hitt for his insight and wisdom here. All right. You know who we want to catch you in bed with at 2 a.m.? The amazing sponsors who support this show. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Progressive Insurance. Everyone talks about how challenging it is to raise kids, but what about protecting them?

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All of the deals and discounts are on the website, searchable and clickable at jordanharbinger.com/deals. Please consider supporting those who support the show. Now back to Feedback Friday.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Okay, next up. Hi Jordan and Gabe. I was recently asked by a good friend to be his best man at his wedding next summer.

Of course, I said yes. I'm honored, he asked, but it's made me think about my own wedding someday and whether I'd want him to fill that same role. We're both only children, so neither of us has a brother who might naturally fill the best man role.

But one of my closest friends is someone I've known since kindergarten, he's the closest thing I have to a brother, and I've always imagined that role going to him. That leaves me in a bit of an awkward spot. I care about the friend who asked me, and I'm genuinely happy he wants me to be a part of his big day.

But I also don't want to feel obligated to choose someone as my best man just because he chose me as his. I realize that this is a pretty privileged problem to have, and being asked is an honor in itself. Still, I'm curious how you would approach this.

Jordan, I know you've mentioned being an only child, so I'd especially love to hear your perspective. Am I overthinking the reciprocity of it all? Or is it reasonable to see the best man role differently depending on the friendship?

Signed, stress that I'm going to falter when it comes to this decision about the altar.

Jordan Harbinger: Alright, interesting. It's funny, I didn't have a best man at my wedding, and partly the reason was I didn't want to have to deal with all this stuff, so there's that. I mean, we really went as low-key as we could with some of the wedding planning because my mother-in-law was going crazy with the other stuff.

Anyway, for starters, congrats on being surrounded by not one but two close friends, people who want you to be a part of their big moments, people whose big moments you want to be a part of. That's great, man. That's a gift.

Second, you must be a solid dude if your friend wants you to be his best man, so congrats on being you, I guess. So honestly, I don't know if you're overthinking the reciprocity of it all. If you get married one day and you don't ask this guy to be your best man, yeah, maybe it'll be a slightly delicate conversation, but I do think you might be overestimating how hard it's going to be, and I definitely think you're worrying about this long before you need to, because the fact is, you don't know when you're going to get married, you don't know even if you're going to get married, you might change your mind, and if you do get married, you don't know where you'll be in your life, whether your friendship with this guy will be the same, whether your friendship with either of them will be the same for that matter, whether this will even be a problem.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah, totally. He feels it's a problem now because he just asked him to be his best man, but this problem is, right now it's just in his head, yeah?

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, and in his head, it's as if they're both getting married right now at the same time, and he's got to choose between him and this other guy today. You don't, though, I just put the stress down for now, man, it's just not productive or necessary to worry about any of this right now.

Gabriel Mizrahi: It might also detract from the joy of the wedding. If you're running this scenario in your head where in six and a half years you have to tell him, I'm sorry, bud, you're great, but I'm going with Kyle.

Jordan Harbinger: 100%, man. I would enjoy the wedding, enjoy the moment, be a great best man, deal with this if it ever comes to pass. Honestly, I'm personally not convinced that if somebody asks you to be his best man that you're obligated to make them yours.

I get that being an only child means you don't have an easy out because you can't choose your brother or whatever, and that makes things harder, but I just don't think there's any rule that says you owe this role to somebody, even if they asked you to be theirs. You're all grown-ups. You choose Kyle, this guy's going to be okay, and if he's not okay, you tell him, listen man, I went with the guy I've known the longest, I'm sure you understand.

I really don't think this is going to be as much of an issue as you think. You could always have two best mans, but it is bad grammar. If he's super hurt about all this for some reason, then you've got a different issue, and I think it's probably more about him than you at that point, really.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I don't know. Sorry, Tim. Kyle got there first, bro.

If you wanted to be the best man, you should have been there rubbing leaves with crayons when we were four. I don't know what to tell you. Exactly.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, you should have been born next door. Kyle was there in season one, you joined in season six, that's just how it is. Obviously, look, you're allowed to pick whoever you want for this role, but one thing to keep in mind, I'm guessing you're on the younger side, probably younger than me.

I say this not to stress you out, it's just a reality, and it's kind of fascinating. You really have no idea how life will unfold between now and your hypothetical wedding. Kyle could still be your homie, or you guys could drift apart.

Tim could stay Tim, or you guys could, I don't know, you could do a camping trip that bonds you for life, and he becomes your ride or die, or you connect with some other guy who becomes an important part of your life, and that's your best man.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Ooh, season seven cast addition.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, man.

Some dude takes a bullet for you, you don't have a choice, or I don't know, you and your future wife's brother really hit it off, and you're like, oh, here's the brother I always wanted, and he's going to be in the family, it's got to be him, I mean, that'd be nice and sweet.

Gabriel Mizrahi: It would be nice, but then he's going to have to break Tim and Kyle's hearts for this new, this interloper.

Jordan Harbinger: Tough rocks. You just never know. You can't know.

So that's another reason not to agonize over this. Also, friendship can be, this is my opinion, of course, but friendship can be reciprocal without being symmetrical, okay? You don't have to have the same title for everybody in order for there to be love there, so don't get hung up on these conventions too much.

But I like that you're being thoughtful about this. You obviously care about your friends, that's probably why you have so many of them. So have a blast at the wedding, definitely write us if you end up planning a wedding, I'd love to know how things shake out, just out of pure curiosity.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Season 12 preview right there.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, this show's going to last forever. It's going to be like Grey's Anatomy.

Good luck!

You know what's a great consolation prize for the friend whose heart you trample on? The fine products and services that support this show. We'll be right back.

This episode is sponsored in part by Wayfair. We get just about everything from Wayfair at this point. Right now, we're buying Christmas decorations and cat furniture because we're getting ready to foster some cats, so we're making the house festive while giving the cats somewhere to climb that hopefully is not the Christmas tree.

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That's over there on the Jordan Harbinger subreddit. Recently, there's been a bunch of AI memes of me from the show, but why do you guys always make my face so fat? I don't look like that, okay?

Anyway, that's over there on the Jordan Harbinger subreddit. Now, back to Feedback Friday.

Gabriel Mizrahi: All right, what's next? Hey Jordan, I understand that you don't always control exactly which ads we hear during your show, but I sometimes get these same exact ads in the same commercial break, multiple times. If I hear about an Avocado mattress three different times within 120 seconds, I might lose my mind.

I hear the same kind of thing on other shows, too. Why does that happen? Are they just trying to be repetitive so I remember their name?

Signed, feeling kind of emosh about all this repetitive promosh.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, this is a good question. I'm actually glad you asked this because I get the sense a lot of people are curious about these. There's some Spotify or other comment that was like, there's one that has an alarm clock and it's so annoying.

It probably is that dumb Avocado mattress ad that also has an alarm clock in it. So this is going to be some technical stuff. So if you don't care about it, I don't know, skip to the next question.

But this is an example of bad advertising targeting. It's all automated. So I've said this before.

If an ad is not in my voice, like it's not me talking or Jen talking, it's not something that we record or produce on our end. It goes in a little slot that we tag in the file through the magic of the Internet. And what this means is I basically can put in a little marker that says advertising goes here and whoever bids on that spot gets to put the ad that they produce in that spot in between me and the Avocado mattress advertiser.

There's at least two or three different agencies, people, software companies, probably even more than that. And so the company doesn't realize this is happening because a salesperson went, oh, hi, Avocado mattress. You want to buy some ads?

All right. We're going to put you on every podcast that's in our network, not just PodcastOne, but this could be a huge network. Something—there's ads.

Wiz is one of them. We're going to put you on 4,000 different podcasts or 40,000 different podcasts, and we're going to target the demographic of males and females ages 20 to 65, which is like this huge demographic range. Right.

And it's all going to be inside of North America because that's where we ship these mattresses. And so if they don't do that correctly, if they don't say, hey, we want people to only hear it one time every 24 hours or one time per show, then the computer, which is not my server, it's some server on another thing that even our podcast host connects to grab ads from, it'll just say, oh, there's enough time for three ads here that are 30 seconds long and it'll grab the three ads that have the highest budget.

So if Avocado's outbidding everybody, like they're paying a dollar for the ad or $5 for the ad and everybody else is paying $4 for the ad, they'll just put that ad in there as many times as the targeting says to do. So they might put it in three times in a row, which is really not good. Now the company doesn't realize this is happening, but the salesperson who sold it to them and the network that paid the salesperson, they don't really care, right?

Because they're getting paid for each one of those ads. I care because it's annoying to you guys. So I try and make it that they can't do that, but I can't actually turn down the ads.

I can only block specific categories, like gambling, vaping, and even then you guys tell me, hey, I heard an ad for a casino in Southwestern Australia and I'm like, okay, now I've got to block this very specific advertiser who lied about them being a casino and put like financial services or something in the category marker, because you can do sort of like a self-service thing with these. So there has been ads for all kinds of stuff that I don't agree with where they lie about what it is. And there are different tiers of paid ads, right?

Like I said, you can bid on it. So if the mattress company is paying more, they'll go. And then when that budget runs out, there's something called a waterfall where it goes, all right, we're out of $5 ads, let's go to the $4 ads.

And those might be, I don't know, another type of company. So then that ad gets put in there a bunch of times. So bad targeting, if they do this wrong or in an inefficient way, it means that low-priced ads like the mattress one, they just go everywhere that they can fit.

And big agencies or companies, they do this a lot to burn through budget. Because let's say a big company like Ford or Discover Card, they're like, yeah, we're going to spend $10 million on podcast ads. One person is spending that budget, right?

One person who works at the ad agency that Ford hired is spending that. So they don't go, hey, this is showing up too many times on a single show. They're just like, yeah, we put 10 million into podcasting, and the agency that buys those ads is like, we want to burn through this budget as fast as we can, because then we'll get more money probably.

Now as for the volume, they can't actually make an ad louder. I wish I'd asked producer Jase to opine on this, but you can put more sound into the same area of a file, and it sounds louder because there's more going on. Maybe there's an alarm, and there's somebody talking, and then there's a siren, and it's filling up the available volume that's being played.

Like right now, I'm at a certain volume in your ears, and I could be made louder even if you don't turn up the volume by filling essentially the bandwidth, the headroom more with my voice. And we don't do that, because it's annoying, and it sounds weird, it can even sound distorted. An example of this going wrong is when something is so loud that it sounds distorted.

That's called clipping. And it's when there's no room for more sound, but you hear only part of my voice. Like when someone screams into a microphone, and it's like wah, and it vibrates the speaker in a staticky way.

So a lot of production companies that make ads, they will get as loud as they can without clipping, or sometimes they will clip, and they just don't care, because they figure it gets your attention. And there's really unfortunately nothing that we can do about that. Now I've gone ahead and blocked some of the annoying advertisers that you report to me if you tell me where you are and what the company name is.

I send my people from PodcastOne after them, because I find it to be obnoxious, and I don't want to annoy you guys. But I'm just going to go on record as saying I'm sorry this happens, there's just only so much I can do to control it. Because there are tens of thousands of advertisers in these systems.

So if you're like, hey, I'm in Hanoi, Vietnam, and I heard an ad in Vietnamese, and it's for some fast food chain, and it's really loud, I don't even know how to block something like that. And I get like a $27 check from all of the Asian fast food chain advertising. I can't block it unless I know exactly what it is.

And even then, sometimes we send that to the agency, and they're like, we don't have this. Because it's sold to another third party, which has some website. There's just so many layers to this, it's not like I can just turn it off in some dashboard somewhere.

What you can do, and I think it's funny I'm recommending this, but you can always scrub through the ads and just get back to the show. Or just put up with 17 screaming ads for an organic mattress because you love the show that much. But I don't allow more than a few ads in a row.

My ad breaks are deliberately kept short most of the time. And I don't allow ads for things that I think are harmful products. But again, things slip through, people lie, or there's just a system that's going crazy, some AI ad insertion thing, and it's just impossible to police because of how this is set up from a technical perspective.

So I hope that explains why it's not me inserting those Avocado mattress ads all the time, or gambling ads, or three credit card ads in a row that are the exact same. And I hope you see how much care and attention we put into what is allowed to be broadcast to you, as much as we can. And by the way, if you want to report an advertiser, just email me jordan@jordanharbinger.com.

Show me the advertiser, tell me where you are. If it's really bad, I'll block it, or I'll try to. And if you want to reach us here on Feedback Friday, you can reach us friday@jordanharbinger.com.

Keep your emails concise, try to use a descriptive subject line that makes our job a whole lot easier. If you're convinced you're about to be fired and you don't know what to do, the mafia is threatening your friend's family in a foreign country and you're unsure how to help, or your in-laws straight up stole your house from you, whatever's got you staying up at night lately, even the mundane stuff. Hit us up at friday@jordanharbinger.com.

We're here to help and we keep every email anonymous. All right, now for some perfectly organic and non-redundant ads for the fine and reasonably volumed products and services that support this show. We'll be right back.

If you like this episode of Feedback Friday and you find our advice valuable, I invite you to do what other smart and considerate listeners do. Buy an Avocado mattress! No, uh, take a moment, support our amazing sponsors.

To learn more and get links to all of the deals you hear on the show, they're all searchable and clickable at jordanharbinger.com/deals. And if that doesn't work, you can always email us jordan@jordanharbinger.com. We're happy to dig up codes for you.

Thank you for supporting those who support the show. Now for the rest of Feedback Friday. Now for the recommendation of the week.

I am addicted to lip filler.

My recommendation of the week is More/Less protein gummies. That's more slash less. It's another bro rec, another bro-tein plug.

So More/Less is a company that makes protein gummies. Five gummies gives you 10 grams of protein for only 60 calories and they're designed for people who know that they've got to hit their protein target, but they have no easy way to do it. They've earned their way into my daily routine.

I actually at full disclosure, I invested in this company because I loved it. I was like, whoa, they sent me some, it was like a prototype and I thought these are amazing. My kids liked them and I was like, okay, how do I get in on this?

So it's early stage company, but its products are available on Amazon and these things are great. So basically five gummies is 10 grams of protein and 60 calories. So roughly two thirds of the calories in these things come from protein.

A typical protein bar runs 200 to 250 calories for that same 10 grams. You also don't need a shaker. You don't need powder.

You don't need a fridge. They don't melt. They would at higher temperatures, but not at chocolate temperatures.

You can keep them in your pocket. You can bag it in your carry on or your gym bag and you have easy protein just like that. They're made with whey protein isolate and collagen peptides.

There's no sugar alcohols, there's no artificial ingredients and they're really easy slash fun to eat. There's three flavors, berry, orange, lemon. Apparently early testers kept saying, hide these before I eat the whole bag.

I'm kind of like that too. My kids, again, they'll just keep eating these, which is great because getting kids protein is always such a huge pain. Visit morelessprotein.com.

They're not a sponsor, but I've got a code for you. You can use code JORDAN at morelessprotein.com for 35% off your first order and it's a great way to get protein. It's a great way to get your kids protein.

They're constantly iterating on the flavors as well. So I think they're going to put a little cane sugar in there because pure protein gummies can be a little sour. I like that, but they're going for a kid market as well as an adult market.

So again, an easy way to sort of get protein during or after a workout or if you want to keep stuff in the car because you just end up hungry and you're like, oh crap, I've got a two-hour drive home. You can throw these in the center console and munch on these on the way home and I find that's a good use case as well. All right, let's get back to Feedback Friday.

Gabriel Mizrahi: What's next? So we have another update from the woman from last week, the one with the older boyfriend.

Jordan Harbinger: Oh, that was fast.

Gabriel Mizrahi: A lot of updates. Feedback Friday has been feeling like a novel lately. Have you noticed?

Multiple installments of these stories.

Jordan Harbinger: Yes, I have. So where we left off, this is the Netflix recap for everybody. She's like 40, her boyfriend's 60, her dad was skeptical of the relationship, but the boyfriend finally won over the dad by, I don't know, stealing a futon for him or something like that from his house.

Got the ex-wife to finally move out of his house, which I guess she already had a secret house. So she's fine. And our friend and her boyfriend finally moved in together.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Perfect summary. Thank you.

Jordan Harbinger: Okay. This recap was brought to you by U-Haul. You all have got to get at us.

Your brand shows up on our show a borderline weird amount.

Gabriel Mizrahi: So she writes, Hi guys. I spoke too soon. My mother always warned us to keep quiet about our joy so as not to tempt God.

Right now, I fear she was right.

Jordan Harbinger: Oh no.

Gabriel Mizrahi: After waiting so long through the court system and finally moving in together, our brief window of pure celebration took a devastating turn.

My partner was just diagnosed with stage 4 cancer.

Jordan Harbinger: No.

Gabriel Mizrahi: She writes.

Yep. That is terrible. I'm so sorry, friend.

This sucks. So she goes on. As you probably know, that's the bad kind.

The one that's already spread to distant organs. It came on quickly and wasn't evident in scans from a year ago. Oh, that's awful.

There are still unpacked boxes in our home that I had hoped to open with excitement for a new life. Now, I'm unpacking them with the overwhelming uncertainty that our time together may be anywhere from six months to two years. His prognosis.

Oh man, that's super upsetting. Gosh. You had to bring up the boxes?

The unpacked boxes? Why? Yeah, that detail just makes it very real.

He is in a lot of pain, which is heartbreaking to watch, and we are both still reeling as we try to process what this means. Poor guy. In hindsight, sure, a cold risk assessment at the start of our relationship might have flagged the age gap or his history as a smoker.

Seriously, kids, don't smoke. Perhaps my family's early concerns were just their own unspoken fears that a moment like this would eventually come. But here we are.

Jordan Harbinger: Interesting. Well, this is one very real fact about dating older people. It's not really an issue when you're 25, 30.

When you're 40, yeah, I guess it can come with the territory.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I wonder if her family's concerns were about this, or if they were just being judgy.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, she said they thought it looked like daddy issues, and it was weird. I don't think anyone said, love whoever you want, just know that you might have to deal with some things sooner than other people. I don't know.

Gabriel Mizrahi: She's saying that maybe this is what it was really about, but I guess who knows. Maybe it was a couple things. I will say, though, all those AARP jokes from last week have not aged well, so to speak.

So sorry about that, my friend.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, oof. No, they have not. Well, obviously we did not see this update coming, of course.

Sorry about that. We were just having a laugh. You know how we do.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I'm determined to show up as myself through this. I'm not built for the traditional nurse role. People who do that are absolute saints.

But I know I can bring my own strengths to the table. My sense of humor, practical execution, momentum and motivation, a can-do attitude, and getting things done for him when he needs it most, as well as my genuine love and care for him.

Jordan Harbinger: That's a ton, my friend. That's huge. The rest of it, you guys will either find support, or you'll learn to do it.

But the love, the humor, the connection, that's got to be a big chunk of it.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Man, it's intense. Whole new world for these two.

Jordan Harbinger: Life is so crazy. Oh, it's so crazy.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Where I'm struggling is navigating the everyday reality of anticipatory grief, and I'd love your perspective on a few questions. How do I manage moments in public, like at work with colleagues or at Pilates, when the grief suddenly hits and I start crying out of nowhere?

Jordan Harbinger: Gabe does Pilates, so I'mma let him handle that one. I'm not your man. Gabe, what do you do when you cry during Pilates?

Gabriel Mizrahi: I'm more of a Lagree guy, but yeah, I think the advice will transfer. They both involve grippy socks, so I think I can help here. What's the best way to handle those interactions briefly and gracefully without over-explaining?

How do I maintain my social network and avoid isolating myself when I feel like bad company or a mood killer? For those who aren't naturally gentle caregivers, how do you sustain the stamina needed for practical support over a long haul without burning out? I'm sorry to bring a sad update after such a hopeful one, but I appreciate you both and the community so much.

Signed, reeling from this latest turn in this relationship for which I yearned, and feeling a bit concerned about how I'm going to navigate this U-turn. Oh man. I know.

I hate it. Yeah, like, I need a minute. This is terrible.

Jordan Harbinger: Putting on my grippy socks for this one just to get in the zone. First of all, no need to be sorry about a sad update. This is life.

We're here for it. Thank you for writing in again. And I'm sorry.

I'm sorry for your boyfriend. This is just such a tough blow for him. I'm so sorry for you as his partner.

This is next level stuff. I hate that this is happening right as you guys settle into your new life and are overcoming those obstacles. It is just so unfair.

But like you said, here we are. So the next six months to two years is going to be very intense. There's going to be a lot of sadness, a lot of anger, a lot of grief, of course.

I predict there will also be a lot of joy, a lot of gratitude, a lot of closeness. And that's the flip side to the grief. The grief heightens those things.

And in that way, I hear that this is quite a bittersweet experience. It's not all good, obviously, but it's also not all bad. And I hear from people who have gone through this kind of thing, that's a very meaningful experience.

Not easy, not at all, but meaningful. So when the grief suddenly hits you at your desk or mid swan dive on the reformer, I just think you let it. You let the tears come.

What else are you going to do? You let yourself have five, 10 minutes for a good cry and you just carry on as best you can. What could be more normal?

Maybe in time you get better at managing it. Maybe you step outside for a bit, you go for a walk, you have your cry there and you come back. Maybe you get better at making time for the grief so you can get things done during the day.

You'll find your way with that. But I don't know if you need to do too much to hide the grief. Yes, it's vulnerable.

Yes, it's intense. It'll probably be a new experience for your colleagues, for the housewife doing single leg kicks next to you in class. But that's okay.

You're allowed to cry in public. I would.

Gabriel Mizrahi: If you could.

If you could.

Jordan Harbinger: If I could cry, right. Big if.

OpenAI just has not installed that functionality on me just yet.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Jordan GPT-6 requires credits for the cry.

Jordan Harbinger: That's right.

You need tokens. There's no Waterworks plugin that's working currently. But seriously, if I were losing my partner, I'm sure I would cry in public.

Gabe, was it you and I who were talking about in New York, you can just cry on the street, either alone or on the phone and just no one will stop and ask if you're okay.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I think that's how you know you're a New Yorker when you have your first public cry on the subway.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, because wasn't it you and I, we were walking in New York and this woman was just crying. This young woman was just crying. We were like, yeah.

Gabriel Mizrahi: What was that? She was. Was she just bawling on a stoop or.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, she was bawling on a stoop on the phone. OK, so that was you with me. And we were just like, yeah, you just this is New York.

You just do nothing about that. Nothing.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah, because you can't be in your tiny apartment. People do everything outside. So you see it all.

Jordan Harbinger: Yes. And it's like they don't want you to go. Are you OK?

They're like, look, I'm in public, but I want privacy. It's just a New York thing.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I know. So if someone checks in on you while you're crying in New York, you're like, what's your problem? Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: Keep walking.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Keep it moving. Exactly. As the guy who invited you to help set up for the Coldplay concert across the street is like, "Stop being so nice to her."

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Don't be nice to her. She doesn't want this. Yeah.

Look, at work, if you're crying, if you're going to work and you think you're going to cry at work, I would give your boss and your close colleagues a heads up. I'd book some time with them and just maybe tell them what's going on.

I'd say, look, I have no idea what's going to happen, what the exact timeline is. I might be able to soldier through it pretty well at work. I might burst into tears at my desk sometimes if I do.

Thank you for understanding. I'm so sorry for the disruption. I will do my best not to make a scene, but I just wanted to give you a heads up so you don't think that I'm crazy or that you need to do something.

And I'm sure everyone's going to be like, Oh my God, I'm so sorry. Of course, do what you need to do. And if you ever do cry, they're not going to freak out.

They're not going to judge you. They know what's going on. They'll be supportive.

They'll give you time and space to go through this. And you don't need to over explain anything. You can just trust that they know what's going on and they get it.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I just remembered a few months ago when I was in LA, I was in a yoga class and the woman next to me started crying in the middle of class and she didn't leave class. She just kept doing the class actually very well, but she was crying for like 5, 10 minutes and it was actually weirdly a nice moment. If that makes sense.

It was sad because everybody could tell that she was going through something. Who knows what her dog died or her father was sick. Who knows?

But I think everyone in the room was like, yeah, girl, we get it. It's okay.

Jordan Harbinger: Everyone's going through something.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Everybody. If you can't cry in Pilates, where can you cry?

Jordan Harbinger: Chuck E. Cheese. Just let it all out in the ball pit. That's the place.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. It's awkward. The public cry is a little awkward, but it's not the worst thing in the world.

I think worst case scenario, if it happens at Pilates, you blame it on the corkscrews and your teacher is going to love it.

Jordan Harbinger: Is that a Pilates move?

Gabriel Mizrahi: That's the abs exercise where your legs go over your head.

You know what I'm talking about?

Jordan Harbinger: Around here, we just call that a Saturday night. Know what I mean?

Gabriel Mizrahi: It's such a dumb touch. We've got to get you in a class one day, dude.

That has to happen.

Jordan Harbinger: By the way, did I ever tell you how I got kicked out of my Pilates studio?

Gabriel Mizrahi: No.

Jordan Harbinger: This is like 10 years ago.

Gabriel Mizrahi: What? What is this?

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

Okay. So this was not my fault. I'm just going to start off with that, okay?

Gabriel Mizrahi: The best stories start that way. I am not the crazy person. Okay.

Jordan Harbinger: This is before I started working out in earnest. I was looking for a trainer or a class or something. Again, it's like 2015, 2016, whatever.

Jordan 1.0. Groupon is the latest and greatest thing and Jen had found barre class and it was all women and it was like, there was maybe a gay dude in there and she's like, you're not going to like it. Not because it's no guys, but just like the moves in barre, which she was wrong. You and I did barre.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Loved it. Nailed it. Crushed it.

Jordan Harbinger: Crushed it. But anyway, she's like, Pilates, it'll be good for you. Because I was sitting down all the time and I was like, my back hurts, my knee hurts, my hips hurt.

She's like, do Pilates. Which I was stoked about. So Jen gets me a Groupon for 10 or 20 Pilates classes and I show up and it's 100% pregnant women in there.

And I don't care. I was having fun. I was like, this is great.

But it was really easy. It was like, do two and a half pounds on this thing. And I was like, can I do 15 pounds on this thing or 30 pounds on this thing?

Not because I'm a tough guy. I wasn't at all. I was overweight and not that strong, but I was like, this is just really easy.

You know, planking for five seconds or 10 seconds or whatever is probably really hard when you're pregnant. But if you're a guy, even if you're a chubbo like I was, that was really easy. It was just super, super easy.

And so I kept saying, Hey, can you modify this for me? And then I get an email after three or four classes because I kept going and I don't think they expected that. They're like, the class is women only now.

And I was like, yeah, so what do I do about that? And they're like, I don't know. And I'm like, no, no, no, no.

What do you mean? I don't know. I bought this.

And so I forwarded it to Groupon and they were just like, no, you cannot exclude somebody who bought a Groupon based on their gender after you decided you don't want a man in the class.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Wait, are you saying that this was about you, but you were the only guy? So the easiest way to get, they just didn't want you there. So they just decided overnight that it was only women.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Like class number four, they were just like, the teacher must've been like, we don't like this guy, which is weird. Because I was talking with the ladies and joking around and I wasn't doing anything disruptive or anything at all.

And the teacher seemed fine, but she must've just been like, Hey, there's a guy in the class. And maybe one of the women was like, I don't like that there's a man in here. I feel like I can't work out.

I don't know. Who knows? Maybe they all ganged up on me after I left.

I have no clue. So anyway, they changed it to women only. Groupon, to their credit, ripped them a new one.

And they were like, absolutely, you cannot do this. If you want to change your class to women only, you need to work this out with them. We're not going to refund this guy from our pocket because you changed the rules after the fact.

That's against our terms of service basically. So the Pilates place offered me one-on-one lessons and they tried to be like, since it was a class with seven people, you get one one-on-one lesson instead of 12 group lessons. And I was like, absolutely not.

You're going to give me 12 one-on-one lessons. I'll round down to 10 because it's going to cost you extra money. And I like it.

And I might even renew. And they were like, you can't renew. We're just doing this to get rid of the Groupon.

Gabriel Mizrahi: And they didn't love you.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. After that, I was like, no, I'm making you do this or you can pay me in cash.

They didn't want to refund me, which I thought was ridiculous because what is a reformer like $30,000? Like, you have the money. Basically that was not out of control at all.

I took them up on it and they were so angry. They were so pissed. To their credit, I did it with the instructor and she was perfectly fine.

She wasn't like this idiot. She was like, oh, you should sign up for this and you should do this at a studio that accepts men in Pilates. I just never did because there was nothing else close by.

This place is like a block away from my apartment. Look, I'm not even upset. Pregnant women need a space to do their thing.

They should have told me on day one or day two, or they should have been like, look, here's your money or we're going to give you lessons or please come at this other time. But they just handled it in the completely the wrongest way. But all that to say, I feel like if it was hard enough, it would have been awesome because I remember being like, wow, all these little muscles are sore and I feel like I'm taller.

I literally felt taller after doing it.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah, it's great. There's a reason people are so culty about Pilates because it's really, really good for you.

Jordan Harbinger: I would love to do something like that because I have like, I'm 46, I've got aches and creaks and cracks and I'm like, I bet this fixes all that stuff.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Bro, next time we're in LA together, I'm going to take you to a Lagree class. It's like Pilates for bros. It's like they took Pilates and made it evil.

Jordan Harbinger: I'm in. As long as it's not like that. What is that yoga sculpt where it's like a thousand degrees in there, but you're lifting weights and doing cardio?

I hate that. It's not like that.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I love that. That's my favorite. No, it's not like this.

Jordan Harbinger: See, that's what I'm worried about. That's what I'm worried about is it's that.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Lagree is not heated, so it's a completely different experience. So back to our friend here. With strangers or new places, I think it's perfectly fine to say, I'm sorry for the waterworks guys.

I'm just going through it right now. And you can leave it at that. Everybody's going to understand.

And if someone comes up to you after class and asks you questions or you feel moved to share more, you can, but you don't have to.

Jordan Harbinger: For sure. Also over time, you might learn how to not let it completely overwhelm you or derail your day. I'm sure it's a practice.

Now about staying close to people, not isolating. This has got to be one of the hardest parts for anyone who's going through a loss. And my advice there is I would trust that the people who love you, friends, family, coworkers, whoever it is, they're going to love you even when you're quote unquote bad company.

This is what relationships are for. Now that doesn't mean you can't check in and make sure they can handle it. That doesn't mean you bring everything to everyone all the time.

I'm sure you're going to be thoughtful about how you share this with people. You're going to be respectful of their time and energy. But I'd let your people be there for you.

I would also keep an eye on the tendency to isolate and come up with some simple systems that keep you engaged. Like if four days go by and you haven't talked to a single person besides your boyfriend, maybe you send a couple of texts to friends. You book a Pilates class.

You stay connected to life. I would also encourage you to keep one foot in the world of grief and one foot in the world of life basically. You could still be kind and funny and available to other people while you go through this.

You can still be good company even while you're going through this. I'm saying this not as a like put on a good show so your friends can put up with you. What I mean is this can be part of your grief process too.

And it probably should be part of your grief process. Still being open to talk to other people, still being able to experience joy. And I think that will also help with, man, I'm such a bummer, I don't want to inflict this on anyone, that kind of thing.

Gabriel Mizrahi: That's a really nice point. She might be surprised by how this fits into her life overall.

I think about Rob Delaney a lot when this comes up. Do you know Rob Delaney? The comedian?

Jordan Harbinger: He's a great joke writer.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's a comedian.

He created the show Catastrophe, which is pretty great by the way. And it's a comedy, that show. And right before they were about to start writing the final season, his son died of brain cancer.

I think the kid was like two years old or two and a half years old.

Jordan Harbinger: This is not a plot line from the show. His son actually died of brain cancer.

Gabriel Mizrahi: The writer, the guy who created it, his son in real life.

Jordan Harbinger: Okay, that's horrible. I did not know that.

Gabriel Mizrahi: So sad. So he's grieving his baby and he also signed on to write a whole TV show, like eight episodes of a comedy or whatever. And he's talked about this in interviews and it's very moving.

And basically what he says is, at first he had absolutely no desire to return to work, of course. He only did it because he wanted his kids to see their dad maintaining some semblance of a normal life. And he had to build a lot of systems around himself that would allow him to function, like what Jordan was talking about with the texting and staying close with people.

But in the end, he says that he actually found grief and work to be compatible.

Jordan Harbinger: Interesting. Wow.

Gabriel Mizrahi: He would regularly have to stop writing to go cry. Sometimes he would leave work early because he was just like needed to have a breakdown and then he would come back when he could. And apparently his writing partner who's in the show, she was a big part of making that work.

And she let him cry without having to hide his grief. And I'm sure she carried a lot of the weight for him. But it's just an interesting example of this grief being compatible with life thing.

And no two losses are alike, of course. And everybody's different. But I always think about this guy when this topic comes up.

Jordan Harbinger: I think most of us assume we'd completely collapse if we went through something like this, that we couldn't do anything else, that we'd only be sad for a very long time and nobody would want to be around us. But we've heard so many stories over the years. This is yet another one of how people have continued to live their lives while they lose someone really important to them.

And often find more connection because of it. More meaning, more aliveness in the long term. As you said, this is the perverse upside to grief.

It's the flip side.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Also, some people find it easier than others to depend on other people in a difficult moment. I'm guessing based on your question that it can be a little hard for you sometimes. You're the person who goes, am I a buzzkill?

I don't want to bother people with all this. I'm the same way a lot of the time. That can be thoughtful, but it can also speak to some fears about asking people to be there for you when you're not fun or easy all the time.

And given some of the facts that you've shared about your family, I think I can imagine why. But this chapter might also be an opportunity for you to ask yourself, what is too much really? Is it okay to be a mood killer, quote unquote, sometimes?

Even more to the point, is it possible for me to be in a difficult mood and for that to not kill anyone else's, as I fear, and see what happens. If you turn to the right people in your life, I think you're going to find experiences that actually help rewrite a lot of those fears.

Jordan Harbinger: Yet another strange upside of losing something. Not everyone's cut out for the job. Some are better than others, but I'm actually in a way excited for you to have this experience of feeling like you're too much and find out if you really are, because I doubt it.

As for being a caregiver without burning out, I don't have direct experience myself, but here's what I've learned. You can't and shouldn't do this alone. So I would work with your boyfriend to put a support structure around you guys.

That's fair to everyone. Maybe that's friends and family who come around and pitch in if things get intense. Maybe that's hiring in-home care if it comes to that, hopefully not for a while.

There's a practical labor aspect of all of this that has solutions. But also, going back to the grief being compatible with life thing, I would really stay connected to friends, to Pilates, to anything that gives you relief and energy to keep going. You can't be a caregiver 24-7.

It probably won't be necessary for a long time anyway, if ever. You have to be a human being in addition to a caregiver.

Gabriel Mizrahi: You have to. Yes. And I would also strongly encourage you to look into some more formal supports.

So therapy is one of the best, of course. Having that while you're going through this would probably be huge. I think you know that.

It goes without saying. But I would also consider looking into a grief support group. Maybe you can join a couple grief groups on Facebook or WhatsApp or whatever.

Read some good books on grief. See if there are any book clubs around them. Look for people who have been through something similar.

Maybe even people who have gone through exactly what you're going through with an older partner. I know those people are out there. Also, I just googled grief Pilates and a bunch of classes and resources popped up.

Weirdly, Jordan's photo is on the first website. I don't know. I'm not sure what that's about.

Jordan Harbinger: Strange. Just me and 37 grieving women looking really angry.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Pointing at him to get out.

I know this sounds a little cheesy, but it can be extremely helpful and profound. Part of it is the social connection, of course. That's important.

Part of it is just education. You're learning. You're learning how to go through this.

And part of it is opening yourself up to the expertise and the wisdom of people who might really help you move through this huge transition in the best way. So that's what I would do. And I have a feeling that's going to make it much easier for you to be there for your boyfriend through all of this.

Jordan Harbinger: Amen, Gabe. Totally agree. I don't know if I'd drag my skeptical ass to a grief Pilates class, but I definitely would be working out.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Grief CrossFit. That's more your jam.

Jordan Harbinger: That's right. Just a bunch of yoked bros crying between deadlift sets. Stuffing grief gummies into their mouths.

Those are my people. So wherever you find this connection, this insight, that's really all that matters.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yes. But listen, more than anything, I hope you move through this period with a lot of love for your boyfriend and for yourself, of course, and with a lot of patience and a lot of grace because it will get difficult sometimes. That's to be expected.

And with as much openness and trust as you can, that you will get through this and that you will be surrounded by good people. And like Jordan said, that this period will not be all tragedy. There will be joy amidst the tragedy.

And I'm so sorry that you and your guy are going through this. Truly, it makes me so sad. We're angry.

I wish you could see our faces right now. We're bummed. We're weirdly emo about it.

And also we cannot control these things. We're just not in charge. Yeah, that's part of the grief too.

I imagine it's the hardest part. I think so. So if there's one thing you should do over the next six months to two years, I think it's just this.

Just enjoy your time with your boyfriend. That's it. Be there with him.

Create as many experiences together as possible. Start unpacking those boxes. You guys still have time together.

Enjoy this place. Be present in these experiences. Be generous.

Be grateful for the time you have. Just enjoy because on the other side of this loss, these memories, the relationship you had with him, which you'll always have with him, that's what's going to matter. So the sadness is real.

It's there no matter what. It should be there. But try not to let the sadness rob you of the joy and the preciousness of this time that you have with him.

I've never been through this myself either, but I know that's all that matters.

Jordan Harbinger: Amen, Gabe. Ugh, who's cutting onions in here? I might need to book a grief CrossFit class after this one.

Thank you for sharing so much of your life with us. We're here for it. We're here for all of it.

And I think you gave all of us and everyone listening a great gift with your story this week because we all need to remember that life can really turn on a dime and we need to act accordingly, sending you and your boyfriend a huge hug. Take good care of yourselves and please stay in touch. Go back and check out Attia Qureshi, Leo Mann, and our Skeptical Sunday on Banned Books, if you haven't heard those yet.

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. It's our Six-Minute Networking class free on the Thinkific platform at sixminutenetworking.com. The drills take a few minutes a day.

They're great for keeping up with people in your life or maybe reconnecting with others. It's the stuff I wish I knew 20 years ago. So dig that well before you get thirsty, folks.

Build relationships before you need them. All at sixminutenetworking.com. Show notes and transcripts on the website, advertisers, deals, ways to support the show, all at jordanharbinger.com/deals. I'm at jordanharbinger on Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. Gabe's on Instagram 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 I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer. Consult a qualified professional before implementing anything you hear on the show. Ditto Greg Hitt.

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. Why does knee have a K doing absolutely nothing?

And who looked at two Vs and decided to call it double U? Linguist Danny Bate explains how our alphabet got this weird.

Danny Bate: First and foremost, I can't call the alphabet a language. For one reason being, it's shared between multiple languages. Quite quickly, we unpick this tapestry of writing and see it's a kind of technology that has been very successful and consequently has been spread among sometimes very different languages of the world.

Among its branches, you can find Hebrew and Arabic writing there as well. It breaks down walls across the world to learn about these connections. I have to admit, as somebody who thinks about this, who loves the alphabet as this ancient piece of technology, it really does break my heart when people say it makes no sense.

There could be historical rules, there could be current rules, there could be things that haven't been tidied up where they're in competition for the same kind of sound job in spelling the same sound. And that will, altogether, look like anarchy. But it's not.

I should clarify, very importantly, the alphabet's really old. The Romans didn't invent it, they got it from the Greeks who got it from somebody else who got it from somebody else in a kind of big game of pass the parcel. There's a kind of dialect of Semitic being spoken in ancient Egypt and these are the people who get our alphabet up and running.

Just appreciate that we have this extremely ancient writing system that is really being pulled apart in so many directions. It's being pulled apart by the different ways that a country can speak, the different ways a region or a family or even an individual can speak. So it can kind of work well for us all in a very democratic and clunky kind of way.

Jordan Harbinger: For the backstory behind spellings we're still explaining to confuse children to this day, listen to episode 1362 of The Jordan Harbinger Show with Danny Bate.