1374: Safety Compromised by Husband, Traumatized | Feedback Friday

1374: Safety Compromised by Husband, Traumatized | 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 vegan torero waving and whipping this red cape of wisdom around the charging bull of your most volatile life drama, Gabriel Mizrahi.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Nice and Spain specific. I love that one.

Jordan Harbinger: You know how we do. Olé. 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, and during the week, we have long form conversations with a variety of amazing folks: arms dealers, rocket scientists, legendary actors.

This week, we had Professor Sonja Lyubomirsky on how love is formed in the mind, how to be loved more, how we can improve our relationships to be more loved and loving in general. It is way less woo-woo than it sounds, I promise. Y'all know me. This one is very rooted in real science. Super interesting and fun conversation.

We also did a Skeptical Sunday last Sunday on milk. On Fridays, though, we share stories, take listener [00:01:00] letters, offer advice, and get dragged around the world behind the sputtering jalopy of Gabe's vagabond life.

A gentle drag, a loving drag. It feels a little bit like whiplash to me, my guy. I don't know what it's like for you, but must be nice up there in that air-conditioned car.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Oh, you think I have air-conditioning in the old world, in Europe?

Jordan Harbinger: Oh, that's right. That's right. Nah. AC in Europe. Nah,

Gabriel Mizrahi: son.

Jordan Harbinger: AC in Europe is crack that oddly shaped window over there and pipe down.

Gabriel Mizrahi: And we're back to our favorite topic, windows in Europe. Right. Yeah. Al- also that during a generational heat wave has been brutal.

They

Jordan Harbinger: say generational heat wave, but here's the thing. I looked it up. The last one, th- there's been, like, five since 2003, maybe more. So at some point, it's like, "Hey, this does happen all the time, and tens of thousands of people die from it."

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. I guess it's not generational anymore if it just happens every summer.

This is just summer.

Jordan Harbinger: No, now it's completely predictable and happens all the time. But now at least we know why you're shiny. You're a little shiny.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I'm a little... It's the sheen of joy, my friend. It is the sheen of living.

Jordan Harbinger: The sheen of [00:02:00] heatstroke, more like.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah, but it ain't living if you're not almost maybe kind of dying a little bit, you know?

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Those days are behind me. I've almost a-died twice, and I've hit my almost a-dying quota.

Gabriel Mizrahi: You fell off, man. I can't even look at you.

Jordan Harbinger: I know.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I can't even deal with you.

Jordan Harbinger: How sad that I finally got to a point where being kidnapped in various quasi-failed states no longer seemed worth it, and staying alive for my family became more important.

So all right. Where are you barely hanging on this week?

Jase Sanderson: Producer Jase here. How are you doing today? If you'd like to track down the end of Gabe's Spanish hippie countryside misadventures like a wild boar- You can train your bow and arrow to timestamp 16 minutes and 20 seconds. Enjoy the show.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I am like an hour and a half outside of Madrid in...

Shoot, actually I don't know the name of this place. They told me in the car but I forgot and I haven't looked at Google Maps yet.

Jordan Harbinger: That's promising. So I'll get back to you on that. If you go missing, that'll come in hand- We'll just call Liam Neeson. I don't know. He's somewhere n- in, near Madrid.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah, 90 minutes [00:03:00] from Madrid, guys.

It's not that hard. Just search the whole-

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah ...

Gabriel Mizrahi: radius. Listen for the sound of Natalia Lafourcade playing from a Bose Bluetooth speaker and you'll find me.

Jordan Harbinger: 90 minutes by car, by plane, eh.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I don't know. I took a nap on the way and I woke up here, so.

Jordan Harbinger: Ridiculous. Survival instincts of a potato, this guy.

Gabriel Mizrahi: No, by, uh by car.

By car. So I'm at my friend Ara's brother's house. I've told you about Ara before. Yeah, this is- You remember this one?

Jordan Harbinger: She's like the Spanish witch who calls you and invites you to weird places with no internet.

Gabriel Mizrahi: That's the one. The sorceress herself. Yes, dear friend of mine. Awesome lady. So her family has this small ranch in the countryside and she invited her two best friends, Ana and Isa, two other characters by the way.

I can't even... I don't have time- Yeah ... really to tell you about these people. I've been staying with Isa in Madrid in her childhood home. It's this small apartment in a quiet suburb kind of, which has been really lovely. And Ana lives in Gran Canaria but she's visiting for a week. Ana, funny story, I met her in Peru on the same trip I met that guy Sebastian.

Remember him? The, whose car- Right. Mm-hmm ... I almost died [00:04:00] in Chile. Yeah, just to stitch those two plot lines up. That's how that connects.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. I mean, I'm barely following this but- Fair ... wow, I can sorta see the red string on the conspiracy map John Nash style.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. As I chain-smoke trying to explain this meme.

Exactly, yeah, it all fits somehow. Ana's the reason that a lot of cool things have happened in my life which is really funny because she famously does not like to get involved in things.

Jordan Harbinger: Okay ...

Gabriel Mizrahi: too much. Her words, not mine. This is a lady who, by her own admission, does not ask too many questions and for, I believe, 10 years slept in a hammock every night, but she's the linchpin of this whole operation.

Jordan Harbinger: My back hurts just thinking about that.

Gabriel Mizrahi: She says she prefers it. I don't know. And Isa I met three years ago in Extremadura at a retreat in the middle of nowhere, and she is just a hyperactive, utterly disinhibited, very free, nonstop monologuing- Partially deaf, shape-shifting clown. That's the best way I can describe her.

Jordan Harbinger: Okay. Uh, what the actual hell? Anyway, I've never heard those [00:05:00] words strung together before, but interesting crew.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I know. That was almost as crazy as the gay Mormon drug dealer redemption story.

Jordan Harbinger: Right, exactly. It's a bunch of those people.

Gabriel Mizrahi: No, but I love these friends. When I hang out with them, I feel like I'm in a Pedro Almodóvar movie if it were somehow written by Hunter S.

Thompson.

Jordan Harbinger: Ah, yes, like Penelope Cruz plays her, and they dose the on-set catering with acid.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yes, exactly. Somehow even weirder than that, but yeah, that's a nice way to put it. And I should add incredibly loving, incredibly generous, just super sweet, open human beings who have taught me to be more that way, and that's why I love them.

I feel very lucky to know these people. These ladies are kind of my bridge to another world, another way of being. Which I, as a semi-nomadic American, need desperately.

Jordan Harbinger: , I know the feeling. I get... I have a few friends like that, too. They're not witches or whatever. I mean, surprise, surprise. But, uh, they're on a totally different frequency from me, and they come from a different world, and they have different concerns, [00:06:00] and that's crucial.

And it's like, "Hey, man, do you want to go jump off, uh, the Burj Khalifa and learn how to BASE jump?" And I'm like, "I don't think you learn that one by doing that." What's the equivalent of the ski lodge when people are BASE jumping, where I just watch them plunge to their death with a cocktail in my hand? I'm like, uh, "I'm mech...

Like, I'll see you at the after party."

Gabriel Mizrahi: Sign me up for the, for the apres bunge.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, I was going to say, apres BASE jump. Uh, I'll be there with my matching Christmas socks.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Ah, that's so funny. Well, you get it. Yeah. Exactly. I get it. So anyway, that's how I ended up on this ranch, which is a very beautiful place.

It kind of looks like Southern California, weirdly. Rolling hills, lots of beautiful trees, big valleys. But, like, you'll drive past a medieval castle on your way in.

Jordan Harbinger: Honestly, that sounds sweet.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Actually, I kind of think you would hate it, I have to say.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. I mean, I love a good castle, but it all depends on the Wi-Fi.

Gabriel Mizrahi: That it's not going great? No, no, no, you would love the castle. It's just, yeah, the internet here is not ideal.

Jordan Harbinger: That's a hard no from me. [00:07:00] Yeah. I need to be able to stream Beef season two and upload three gigs of audio at the same time without sweating.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I'm shocked that we're pulling off this episode, to be honest.

Although, we made it work in Bahia, which was way dicier- Yeah ... than rural Spain, which is very well-connected. So I don't know. If we can confía en Bahia, I think we can confía en

Jordan Harbinger: España. Sure. Whatever you just said. Trust in Bahia, trust in Spain, I guess.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Trust in Movistar, I guess. Amen.

Jordan Harbinger: That's right. I forgot the network over there is called Movistar.

That... Yeah, well, look, so far so good. Let's not jinx it.

Gabriel Mizrahi: What I did not know until I got here was there is no running water on this ranch.

Jordan Harbinger: Ah, so the shine, your, your shininess is there to stay for a few days.

Gabriel Mizrahi: So gross, but-

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah ...

Gabriel Mizrahi: that might... Yes. Unfortunately, yes. Turned on the faucets when I got in, nothing came out.

I was like, "Oh, guys, did you... Is there some... Is the bathr- No. Oh, there's no running water." Right. "Cool."

Jordan Harbinger: Okay, they live in this house, first of all. But w- they ha- why have faucets if there's no water? It's just like, "Hey, maybe one day we're going to have water, and then we're going

to

be totally ready because we have [00:08:00] faucets all over that."

This is like getting ethernet hardwired into your home, but you just don't have internet at home. Why would you do that?

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. Well, okay, so they are still building this house, which is itself a fascinating thing because her brother built it himself using this technique called superadobe. Have you heard this?

Jordan Harbinger: Sounds like a hot sauce brand.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yes. He's building a house using the chipotle method, the chipotle technique. No, it's an eco-friendly building method that uses these long bags filled with damp earth. So the earth that you dig up to build the house. You then apparently use to build the actual house, and then you stack it in these layers, and then you bind the layers together with barbed wire, and that forms the structure.

Jordan Harbinger: Interesting. I think I read about this in Architectural Digest, of course, which I read regularly.

Gabriel Mizrahi: At the dentist office, I'm going to guess?

Jordan Harbinger: That's... I mean, if I ever saw anything like that, that would be where it was. Or, or Highlights For Children magazine, but I don't think they cover Chipotle architecture.

Gabriel Mizrahi: No.

Super adobe. Super adobe. Yes. Not Chipotle.

Jordan Harbinger: Adobe quesadilla, whatever. Um, I don't... [00:09:00] The, uh, these people are... You know the weirdest people, myself included, I guess.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I love that. Thank you for that compliment. So when you build a house this way, the walls become super strong. This is fascinating actually. I didn't know anything about this.

The walls become super strong, and apparently very safe. Like, they can withstand earthquakes and floods and all of that, and they regulate the temperature well in the heat and in the cold. It also looks cool because it creates this curved dome shape, so the roof kind of looks like an ice cream cone. It's very trippy.

Jordan Harbinger: It sounds like those houses you see in New Mexico, like Hank's house in Breaking Bad kind of.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Less bougie than that, but close. Yeah, it kind of looks like a house where you'd have a writer's retreat n- near Taos or something. Mm,

Jordan Harbinger: Sedona.

Gabriel Mizrahi: It's like a hippie rustic version of that, yes, but even cruder and more DIY.

But also it has solar panels and a pool on the property. I posted some pictures of this. Oh, that's cool. So it's, it's legit. There's just no water. So yeah, they're still very much building the house, but they're also living in the house part-time while they build it, which now that I think about it, a great metaphor [00:10:00] for a lot of people's lives, certainly my life right now.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, just in process, eh?

Gabriel Mizrahi: And still somehow perfectly at home. But so- So no water ... yeah, no running water, but faucets that work. That's right, yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: What's crazy to me is they're like, "Yeah, we should have guests to our house that has no water."

Gabriel Mizrahi: Without warning them. Like, I thought somebody would've given them a heads- Oh, they

Jordan Harbinger: need to tell them.

Right, right, right. Yeah, that's even better. Not at all. You don't need water. You don't, you don't need, like, running water to be comfortable, do you?

Gabriel Mizrahi: No, they just, like, made it sound like, hey, we're having... They're having, like, 10, 12 people over to stay at the hou- Like, nobody w- I mean, they must have alr- I think they all knew, but they assumed I knew, but why would I know?

I've never been there. But they do have a well on the property, and so they filled this, like, trash bin full of water, and from that bin they filled buckets, and from those buckets they fill the sink to do dishes. They fill more buckets for the bathroom. That's how

Jordan Harbinger: it works. So they're just pouring water down the toilet.

I used to have to do that at my- Yes ... cottage growing up. Like, we had this crappy cabin that had nothing.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Wait, the one that you hate?

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, yeah. And you'd, you c- you had to flush by dumping a bucket down the [00:11:00] toilet. So it was a, obvi- it was like, "Hey, if it's yellow, let it mellow, and if it's brown, dump a bucket down."

Gabriel Mizrahi: Flush it down.

Jordan Harbinger: Yep.

Gabriel Mizrahi: That's it. Yeah, it's a real throwback. Little casita on the prairie, bro.

Jordan Harbinger: That is my nightmare. Yep.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah. I know how much you hate that cottage. I forgot about that. Yeah. The fact that... But this is funny. You would hate to be here, right? So the fact that you are the princess now and I'm the hippie sharing a waterless toilet with eight people is just, mm, such a nice moment for me.

You're getting too old

Jordan Harbinger: for this shit. Exactly.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I feel like I'm only getting old enough now for this shit, which weirdly feels like getting younger. I don't know why.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, that's cool, man. I, look, I dig it. It w- it wouldn't be the Airbnb I'd choose for the Spanish country getaway with a friend group- ... but hats off to them for building an ice cream cone house with no water, no plumbing.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Just to paint you a little bit more of a picture, uh, they also have two beautiful white horses that act like dogs. Like, they're so friendly, like golden retriever horses. If you put a, what is, like a horn on them, they would look like [00:12:00] unicorns. And up the hill are these cows

Jordan Harbinger: Isn't that all horses, though?

Gabriel Mizrahi: No, but these are like white, like these are like majestic white horses. I see. Like, they're like-

Jordan Harbinger: Okay ...

Gabriel Mizrahi: mythical beasts on this piece of land. It's wild. And, uh, up the hill there are these cows that every so often just start going like, "Ha!" Just shrieking and honking. And everybody will be in the middle of a conversation, and when they start, everybody just pipes down.

They're like, "Oh, hang on. Got to wait for these guys to finish talking." And then there are these jabalis, which I believe are wild boar- Oh, that's scary ... that come onto the property. Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Which I have to say, despite how aggressive they are, much to my dismay, Ada's brother hunts with a literal bow and arrow in the indigenous style, and then butchers himself for his mom to cook for family dinners.

So that's not fun.

Jordan Harbinger: Okay, that's cool. So I'd be hanging out with this guy and be like, "Sh- teach me how to kill a giant pig, giant deadly potentially pig, with a bow and arrow." That sounds interesting. Anyway, so I assume you bring this [00:13:00] up constantly and lecture everyone on how wrong it is while, while they eat their delicious meal.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Obviously. That's my style, you know? I just go, go around lecturing Spaniards about going vegan. Hell no. I just let ... It's fine.

Jordan Harbinger: You're the only one with no water. By the way, everyone else has water. This is how they're getting back at you. No,

Gabriel Mizrahi: um- They're like, "Oh, you're vegan? You use that

Jordan Harbinger: bathroom." Yeah. You get that bathroom.

Mm, sorry, it's a bucket toilet. Mm, no, the faucet doesn't work. Look, it's the circle of life, man.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I mean, I'm afraid so. Not, not my life, but most life, I have to acknowledge.

Jordan Harbinger: But wild boar are actually pretty dangerous, especially if they're big, which they usually are. I mean, these don't, like, run away when they see you most of the time, right?

Gabriel Mizrahi: That's what they say. Yeah, the, apparently you do not want to cross one on your property.

Jordan Harbinger: You kind of have to hunt them unless you're just like, "No, it's cool if they kill my pets and small children."

Gabriel Mizrahi: That's what they say, so I'm inclined to believe them. Also, I don't think they have impossible boar.

Jordan Harbinger: No vegan substitute for that one.

Is that hard for you to watch, seriously? Because I mean, it is a little gro- watching an animal get butchered is kind of objectively [00:14:00] gross if you're not really used to it.

Gabriel Mizrahi: If I had to watch it be butchered, it would be an experience and it would be a little hard, but l- I didn't have to watch them prepare it.

It was just, that was what was for dinner, so I think this operation was completed long before I arrived. But yeah, we just all sat at the dinner table. They're eating their jabali stew, and I sat there with my , my pasta primavera and my nutritional yeast with veggies grown in their garden, which are amazing.

And then, yeah, later I go cry in the bathroom with no water.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, that sounds about right. Just don't, don't put the Kleenex down the toilet. Nope, trash bin only.

Gabriel Mizrahi: That was also a thing. Yeah, you have to be careful with that. The only working plumbing in this house was my eyes after- Yeah ... I watched them go to town on this wild boar.

Jordan Harbinger: May- yeah, your urethra. Maybe if you cry enough they can do the dishes without somebody falling down a well.

Gabriel Mizrahi: See? Everybody lives. Everybody's at

Jordan Harbinger: peace. It's the circle of life. Wow, these dishes are shiny and streak-free. Yeah, these are all Gabe's tears that we've collected for the past three days.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Gabe had a meltdown in the [00:15:00] super adobo, so yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: Oh, God. Freaking vegans, so sanctimonious. All right, so what a place. So there's no showers, obviously. You just go swimming. Is that the move?

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yep, just the pool. Bruh. That's right.

Jordan Harbinger: Ugh.

Gabriel Mizrahi: And you can imagine my conflict around getting into that water, just to get in the wa- I went in once and I was like, "Oh, I'm good."

Yeah,

Jordan Harbinger: they don't chlorinate that thing, right?

Gabriel Mizrahi: Little European... They did. They did. Um, little European whore's bath from the trash water, which I did at regular intervals, and that's about it.

Jordan Harbinger: And that, my friends, is how I met Giardia.

Gabriel Mizrahi: The spinoff that didn't go ahead at

Jordan Harbinger: NBC. Yeah, they did not green-light that one.

Gabriel Mizrahi: For two and a half days, this is totally doable and really very beautiful. The mountains, the sunset, the stars at night are just next level.

Jordan Harbinger: Well, that's why people live out there.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Clearly, so I flow.

Jordan Harbinger: No, factually incorrect. You lie stagnant like a trash can full of muddy ranch water that you're going to use later to clean all of your dishes and clothes.

Gabriel Mizrahi: It's Buddhism, guys. It's the lotus flower, you know?

Jordan Harbinger: All right, you grimy [00:16:00] lotus flower. I'm glad your travels continue to deliver. RIP your normally rigorous hygiene rituals, but, uh, yeah, LOL to your misadventures. What do you say we grab our bow and arrow and hunt down some life drama?

Gabriel Mizrahi: Let's do it. Let's dooze it.

Jordan Harbinger: Before we do that, let's take a quick break, give you a chance to walk off that nutritional yeast, and give me a chance to Google El Pollo Loco style architecture and various species of wild Spanish boar. Then we'll dive into your letters. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Boll and Branch.

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Jordan Harbinger: Thank you for listening to and supporting the show. Your support of our advertisers keeps the lights on around here and, and my seemingly unlimited supply of fresh, clean water. To check out all the sponsors, they're searchable and clickable on the [00:19:00] website at jordanharbinger.com/deals.

Please consider supporting those who support the show. All right, what's the first thing out of the mailbag?

Gabriel Mizrahi: Hi Jordan and Gabe. My husband and I have been married for 19 years and have two boys ages 11 and 13. He served in the Australian Army where he participated in a mefloquine trial before active service.

So mefloquine, for anyone who doesn't know, is an old malaria medication. Afterward, he struggled with anger and later served as a police officer where he experienced significant trauma. He was eventually diagnosed with PTSD and depression.

Jordan Harbinger: Damn, that's mephed up. No, Gabe, right, that's so mean. I'm so sorry, folks.

Bro. But Gabe, pause. You said you looked into this, right? This is a real thing?

Gabriel Mizrahi: Apparently, yeah. So quick history, kind of interesting. Mefloquine was actually developed by the US Army in the 1960s, and it was tested on US military personnel before it was approved by the FDA. And in the original pre-approval trials during the '70s and the [00:20:00] '80s, mefloquine appeared effective against chloroquine-resistant malaria, and a few common side effects were what you would expect normally, like nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, sleep disturbances, vivid dreams, stuff like that.

But then when they started giving it to more people, they realized that there were these psychiatric side effects, so insomnia, anxiety, irritability, depression, and then even more serious ones like paranoia, psychosis, and apparently in some people, suicidal ideation.

Jordan Harbinger: Wow. I've always heard that these malaria drugs give you crazy dreams, and I didn't know they could low-key drive you insane.

Gabriel Mizrahi: What's really wild is that the US, the UK, and Canadian and Australian militaries all used mefloquine extensively, especially in the '90s and early 2000s, and that population reported a lot of dizziness, balance problems, cognitive difficulties, anxiety, depression, but also PTSD-like symptoms.

Jordan Harbinger: That is so interesting and terrible.

But we're ... Okay, so we're talking about military service [00:21:00] people, right? So how do they know it was the drug doing that and not PTSD from being in combat, for example?

Gabriel Mizrahi: So that's part of the challenge. Apparently, it was hard to establish real causation, because some doctors argue that in some people, mefloquine toxicity might have contributed to or just been mistaken for PTSD or, like, a traumatic brain injury.

But I guess there were enough concerns that a lot of militaries restricted the use of this drug, and they moved to alternatives like Malarone, which I think is the most common antimalarial drug now. And in 2018, the Australian Senate opened a formal inquiry into whether soldiers were adequately informed during the trials and how adverse reactions were monitored and whether long-term injuries were recognized and all of that.

And so the ADF now uses mefloquine only rarely, and typically only when other antimalarials are unsuitable, and the Department of Veterans' Affairs created support programs apparently for veterans concerned about past mefloquine exposure, which means they're saying, "We know this was a [00:22:00] problem."

Jordan Harbinger: Wow, okay.

That is super sad. So her husband has been through a lot, potentially some adverse effects from this malaria drug trial, and then he becomes a cop and experiences some traumatic stuff there. Man, this guy's been through the wringer. Poor guy.

Gabriel Mizrahi: In 2023, he suddenly stopped his meds. He experienced a serious mental health crisis, ended up spending around 60,000 Australian dollars on domain names.

That's a little over $40,000 US. All of which led to an involuntary psychiatric admission.

Jordan Harbinger: Okay, this is really tragic, but I, I just got to say, skipping your meds and then buying, uh, 400 .net domains, that's one of the more unusual symptoms we've heard about on the show. It's almost a little funny except for the whole losing 60 grand part.

That part is not funny at all.

Gabriel Mizrahi: It is not. But also, like, "So how'd you know you were manic again?" "Well, I stayed up till 3:00 AM going absolutely ham on godaddy.com." I mean, that's when you know there's a problem.

Jordan Harbinger: Why do you want to up your Lexapro? Oh, I drained my 401to buy [00:23:00] chuckleporn.edu.

Gabriel Mizrahi: chuckleporn.edu Got it.

chuckleporn.edu. Let's go up to, uh, what do you say? 20 milligrams? I think 20 milligrams should do it. Yeah. Uh, okay. So she goes on, "Later, he came off his medication gradually under psychiatric supervision because he felt emotionally numb and wanted to feel like himself again."

Jordan Harbinger: Oh, boy. After all that, seems risky.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I'm glad he did it with a psychiatrist's input, but yeah, that's a big decision.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Better check your GoDaddy bill. That's all I'm saying. "

Gabriel Mizrahi: Unfortunately, he now has very little trust in his psychiatrist. Over the years, I've watched what feels like a gradual personality shift in my husband. He has become intensely distrustful of institutions.

He's strongly anti-government, anti-AI, anti-monarchy, anti-police, anti-pharmaceutical companies, and anti-Department of Veterans Affairs. These topics dominate most conversations, and he genuinely believes he's simply telling uncomfortable truths. He's [00:24:00] also recently become a Buddhist."

Jordan Harbinger: Man, this is intense.

So he's on one, and there might be some psychiatric stuff at play here.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Fascinating that he identifies as a Buddhist on top of holding all of these other positions. Like, I believe that all the powers that be are out to hurt me, but also, you know, there is no self, and thoughts are impermanent, so.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

Yeah, and attaching to them creates suffering. I mean, seriously, what a interesting wrinkle that is. "

Gabriel Mizrahi: But my main concern is what this is doing to our family. I'm worried about friends and relatives pulling away because every interaction becomes a rant. I'm worried about the examples our boys are seeing. I want them to grow up believing that healthy relationships involve curiosity, joy, emotional safety, and mutual respect, not constant anger, distrust, and conflict.

The hardest part is that I still have enormous compassion for my husband. He's been through experiences I can't imagine. Leaving feels like abandoning someone whose life has been shaped by trauma."

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, [00:25:00] I get that, of course. This is really hard. I'm, I'm just thinking about his wife and his kids. Just imagine watching your dad slowly, what's that word, decompensate every single day and then ranting about, I don't know, the Bureau of Land Management or whatever at the dinner table.

That's just intense and sad. "

Gabriel Mizrahi: Then staying sometimes feels like I'm teaching my children that it's normal to remain in a relationship where you feel increasingly lonely and emotionally disconnected. How do you know when compassion becomes self-sacrifice? How do you balance supporting someone with significant trauma while also protecting yourself and your children?

If you were in my position, what questions would you be asking yourself before deciding whether to stay or leave?" Signed, looking for a new credo to guide my approach to this tricky ego after my husband decided to veto his meds after fighting off the mosquitoes.

Jordan Harbinger: Okay. Well, I'm so deeply sorry that your husband has been through all these difficult experiences.

The malaria drug [00:26:00] trial, whether it explains most of his struggles or not, man, it's a tough break. I'm sure they were just like, "Hey, look, we're sending you to Papua New Guinea. You're probably going to get malaria there, but the good news, there's a drug available for it. They're testing it. It's kind of your only option.

You in or what?" And I'm sure most soldiers were like, "Yeah. All right. Everyone's doing it. Fine." Dot, dot, dot. You're having night terrors about mosquitoes the size of buildings and you think the Army's out to get you. I mean, it's just, it's terrible.

Gabriel Mizrahi: And then you become a cop and like, I mean, what happened to him?

Did he have to like pull his weapon on somebody or something and then something terrible happened and then the trauma just compounds this poor guy?

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. You watch somebody get stabbed or whatever, or you come to the scene of a crime. Those are hideous. It's really sad. And then he goes on medication, but he feels like the medication turns him into a zombie and he doesn't want that and so the poor guy's been through a lot.

Gabriel Mizrahi: But I have to say he's also put himself and now his whole family through even more unfortunately by going off of the medication. So like. Which one does he want?

Jordan Harbinger: Look, I can only imagine how hard it is not to feel like yourself when you're medicated. That sucks. I, I couldn't work that way. Think [00:27:00] about it.

Think about it if I was a different person, it would be very hard for me to do this show. But then y- to go off the meds on your own, though, it's reckless, right? And then you go off again knowing what happened to you last time, even if it was with your psychiatrist guidance, I don't know.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Even more reckless, I think.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Well, risky at the very least. I mean, maybe he knew exactly what he was doing and the risk was worth the reward at the time and, and the reward is more life and more authenticity and you f- I don't know, you feel alive more. I don't know. But it sounds like life and authenticity to him looks like monologuing about how every institution is corrupt at the dinner table and driving everybody in your family away, which must be very unsettling and unpleasant for all of his family and friends, and even more isolating for him.

So I don't know if that's a good trade, man.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I find this really interesting, though, because this guy might come by this cynical view of institutions honestly. You know? Several powerful institutions really let him down. The pharmaceutical industry created an experimental drug that messed with him. The Army [00:28:00] probably encouraged, maybe even forced him to participate in the drug trial.

The Department of Veterans Affairs might not be doing much for him. I suppose we don't know the facts there. But, you know, also law enforcement, just one organ of the government, exposed him to even more trauma, and then his psychiatrist offered drugs that he feels didn't ultimately help him.

Jordan Harbinger: So you make a fair point.

His life experience has taught him that a lot of institutions can really hurt you. They can really let you down. So he might not be entirely off base there. He might not be, you know, he's not totally crazy, quote, unquote.

Gabriel Mizrahi: But also, and.

Jordan Harbinger: And, yeah, he does sound a little unhinged or the hinges are loose in any case.

These are not calm, measured conversations by the sound of it. She said these rants dominate most conversations. That's not good.

Gabriel Mizrahi: There's a difference between passionately talking about how flawed institutions are and railing against ICANN at the Christmas dinner table

Jordan Harbinger: ICANN, right. I love the, the, the idea that this guy has beef with the nonprofit that governs domain names in addition to, like, I don't know, the, the taxation authorities.

Gabriel Mizrahi: don't know [00:29:00] why I thought he would be angry at ICANN, but bro is probably still trying to get reimbursed for buying mefloquine.ai, so.

Jordan Harbinger: That one might actually be a money maker.

Gabriel Mizrahi: That's true.

Jordan Harbinger: Here's the thing.

She said he's constantly angry, distrustful, full of conflict. So it does sound like there's something obsessive and dysregulated about all of this. All that to say, and all jokes aside, truly, I mean, your, your husband pulled some really crappy cards. He's made some questionable decisions based on those cards, and I'm very sorry about all of that.

And obviously right now, I'm most sorry for you and your kids because it's got to be really hard to watch a spouse or parent devolve like this over a period of time.

Gabriel Mizrahi: , it's heartbreaking. Really heartbreaking.

Jordan Harbinger: is heartbreaking, and it's terrifying, and it's bizarre.

Gabriel Mizrahi: it's confusing. Like, what do I do?

Jordan Harbinger: Yes, it's very confusing. So let's feel our way through that. When does compassion become self-sacrifice? So to be super literal for a moment, compassion is identifying with someone's pain, wanting them to get better, right? Sympathy, maybe even empathy plus action, plus a real ability and effort [00:30:00] to achieve that help.

Self-sacrifice, I mean, that's when you put someone else's needs above your own and you pay a significant price for that, and over a long period of time. Like, helping somebody for three or six months till they get back on their feet, hey, that's different from propping someone else up at your own expense for years or even decades on end.

Gabriel Mizrahi: would also say that compassion for her husband can exist alongside compassion for herself, but self-sacrifice might begin where her self-compassion, her healthy self-regard no longer feels like it fits in the equation

Jordan Harbinger: Good add, yeah.

And there's also something in here about taking on her husband's problems as her own when he won't take them as seriously

Gabriel Mizrahi: Compassion probably says, "I care about your suffering." Self-sacrifice might say something like, "Your suffering has to become mine, and maybe I'm the only one recognizing this as suffering.

You see it differently"

Jordan Harbinger: Which implies a boundaries piece, too, yeah? I

Gabriel Mizrahi: mean, when you're being truly compassionate, I think you can say, "I'm offering you this help, and that help has its limits"

Jordan Harbinger: And those limits are, I don't know, what do you [00:31:00] think?

Gabriel Mizrahi: That's the question, right? Because every couple and every situation is different, and every person has a different threshold for what's, quote-unquote, too much, for what they owe a spouse in the first place and all of that.

Jordan Harbinger: maybe a good question for her is what other thoughts or feelings does your compassion come with?

Because those are probably good clues.

Gabriel Mizrahi: sure. Thoughts, feelings, and her motivations for sticking around when he's not getting better, I would say. Which she's calling compassion, and I think her compassion for her husband is genuine. That is fundamentally motivated by love for him, right? By genuine love and concern for him, a desire to see him get well.

But I do wonder if there are maybe a few other motivations in the mix I have to say guilt might be one of them.

Jordan Harbinger: I do hear some guilt in her letter or some proto-guilt just for thinking about leaving.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Very normal, I have to imagine. I'm sure it's, again, heartbreaking to think about potentially leaving a husband, redefining their family, leaving him to deal with this pretty severe mental health crisis largely on his own.

And so she might be thinking, "You know, what does that say about my commitment to him if I just up and leave? What about the duty I have [00:32:00] to care for him in sickness and in health and whatever other promises we made?" All of that weighs heavily on her, I imagine.

Jordan Harbinger: So I totally get that. The guilt, the, what was that word we love again?

The proleptic guilt is probably overwhelming. But at what point with a spouse do you go, "My concern for you is genuine, my love for you is real, and my obligation to you can't be limitless, it can't be unboundaried, it can't be unqualified. You need to step up and take care of yourself, too"?

Gabriel Mizrahi: So what you're saying is if he continues like this, does she really need to feel guilty about leaving or even just pulling back a little bit in her support, right?

Jordan Harbinger: Basically. In sickness and in health, yeah, sure, wonderful, but this isn't cancer. You know, this is his mental health, for which he could be medicated, for which he could go to therapy or a support group. This is not a disease he has no control over. Even if it were something he had zero control over, there's still a realistic limit to what she can do for him.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Oh, man. We're in interesting territory now because how do you define zero control, you know? I get your point [00:33:00] entirely, but I think in his mind he's like, "I can't trust any of these institutions. I can't go back to my psychiatrist. I don't even know if I believe that this is a mental illness. I think I'm seeing things clearly, and all of you are deluded."

Which is, of course, the bind that most, and I feel a little weird saying this, but what most sane people come up against when they're dealing with people who are unstable. So I agree with your point in principle, and sometimes this is very hard to embrace. But that's kind of why I brought this up, because the guilt might be driving a lot of this, and there might be a few other motivations, too.

I think one of them might be fear. Fear of what might happen to him if she separates, fear of how he might feel about her. How she might feel about herself, fear of what might happen with the kids, what they're going to make of all this, which this is another reason I really feel for her, because it sounds like she's afraid either way.

She's afraid of what she is teaching their sons if she sticks around, that basically this is what love should look like, and she's afraid of what she would be teaching them if she left, that it's okay to abandon somebody who [00:34:00] has really struggled in his life and is really struggling now.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, I think we need to double-click on that for a minute.

Gabriel Mizrahi: It's important, yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, exactly. It's a huge part of her story, w- what all this is doing to their kids.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Who, how old are they again? 11 and

Jordan Harbinger: 13. Yeah.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Young, young.

Jordan Harbinger: Yes, very tender ages. And I am sure having this father in the home is having quite an impact on them. If he gets worse, he might leave a real negative mark on them.

So the stakes are pretty high. These are not grown children who are dealing with some serious discomfort. These are kids who are impressionable and getting their model for current relationships right now.

Gabriel Mizrahi: She has a responsibility to them as well, not just to her husband. I think she knows that.

Jordan Harbinger: Well, yeah, absolutely.

It, it, look, again, they're not in college. He went off his meds. They're living alone in another city. That would be a huge event in their lives for sure, but it's different. They're so young that they're probably getting scared by Dad these days. So I really appreciate that she grasps these implications, and it's hard.

I, I think I would also be very torn. But I guess my thought is [00:35:00] if you agree that you have a responsibility to your kids that is equal if not greater than the one you have to your husband, because they're young, they depend on you, and because they're your kids, a responsibility to create as safe and harmonious a home as possible for them and to, again, hopefully give them the best possible example of what relationships are supposed to look like, then I think you need to at least take stock of how they are experiencing all this.

You didn't share a lot of detail about that. I'm speculating, but obviously they're seeing some of this behavior and it's landing in some way. So whether you stay or you leave, there's going to be a cost, and there's no scenario where they don't experience some kind of pain, some kind of instability, sadly.

So one way to look at this is which option creates the least amount of pain and instability for the kids? Another way to look at this is what's more important, the example I'm setting for them or what seems to be my obligation to my husband?

Gabriel Mizrahi: These are really nice questions. These are very big questions, and I'm going to be honest, I do not know the answer to them.

But I believe if she can [00:36:00] answer them, she might start to know what to do here.

Jordan Harbinger: Gabe, I think a lot of people would say, look, the red line, the point at which you've got to leave is if he ever becomes aggressive or abusive with her or with the kids. But I actually kind of feel like the red line should be before that because he's already compromising them financially, emotionally.

There's a lot of notches on this spectrum, and your red line, it can't be something you find out at 2:00 in the morning during a heated moment. And I can't tell her, "Hey, for sure leave him when he does X," but I think she needs to face the question, does he seem to have any hope of getting better, a- and is staying in this marriage still responsible to me and my kids?

Gabriel Mizrahi: If things continue to get worse, yeah. It might also be good to think about this lesson or this message that you feel you're sending to your children if you stay. You seem to feel that you'll be teaching them that relationships should involve chaos, danger, unhappiness, conflict I think you're implying that if you leave, you would be teaching them that it's okay to ditch a spouse in need.[00:37:00]

But if that's how you feel, and I know I'm reading between the lines a little bit, then I would invite you to consider if that's truly the message you would be sending them. If you do decide to leave your husband, and it's not an easy choice to make, but if you get there, the message might be more like a healthy and responsible person sticks with a spouse who is in pain as long as that spouse is still showing up for themselves and honoring their duties.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, I agree with that.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Also, a, a healthy and responsible parent puts their kids' safety and happiness above a spouse's need to be completely validated in his anger and paranoia and odd personal beliefs. That's another one.

Jordan Harbinger: Yes. You know, Gabe, I find it interesting that she's spending some time evaluating whether his worldview is correct.

And I appreciate that. Like you said, it might not be completely disconnected from reality, but her job is not to decide whether his worldview is correct. It's to decide whether his worldview and the way he identifies with it, the way he, he acts on it, she has to decide whether that is safe for her and her [00:38:00] children, not whether he's right about the VA or whatever the equivalent is.

Gabriel Mizrahi: That is such a good point. You're absolutely right.

Jordan Harbinger: His distrust is not the problem. Look, tons of institutions are untrustworthy. I probably share plenty of this guy's views about the American version of whatever Australian institutions this guy doesn't like, you know? The problem is that the distrust has become the fulcrum of this guy's entire personality/life.

On top of what sounds like either mania and/or psychosis that's leading to reckless financial decisions like spending tens of thousands of dollars on Labubus or whatever.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I don't know if this guy would put his trust in Labubus. I think too new.

Jordan Harbinger: You think he's a Beanie Baby guy? Yeah.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Maybe a Beanie Baby

Jordan Harbinger: guy.

Exactly. Mm-hmm. Definitely. He's going old school. Beanie Babies, the Bitcoin of the meaningless collectible world.

Gabriel Mizrahi: So I agree with all of this, and yet she might not be ready to walk out tomorrow. I think you, my friend, are probably moving through a stage where you need to make room for both, for your husband's struggles and your children's struggles [00:39:00] and your own feelings, and to attend to all of these things until the calculus becomes a little clearer.

For example, you might still want to be kind to your husband. You might still want to listen to him and validate his difficult feelings even if you disagree with his positions. Maybe keep encouraging him to get help, which, you know, maybe that conversation is over and it ain't going to happen, but still, I think probably important to keep affirming and go on record as saying, you know, "Honey, I can see that you're angry.

I understand why you're angry. I can see that these opinions are also creating a lot of suffering. I would really love for you to find somebody trustworthy you can talk to. And if you'd like, I'm here to help you do that." And you're going to want to stay very close to your kids, ask them how they're doing, make it safe for them to open up to you, and make sure that they know you have got their back and are keeping an eye on things, because that's important, too.

Jordan Harbinger: And what her kids say in those conversations, that'll also be good data in deciding whether to stay or leave. Like, if they say, "We're scared of Dad, we don't want to go downstairs when he's in the kitchen," or whatever, that's a crucial fact. So the questions I'd be asking [00:40:00] myself right now are, does my husband show signs of realistically, meaningfully working on his mental health?

Is there any openness to talking to somebody, looking at his views or behavior, asking for help, or is he just like, "No, you can't trust anyone, and I'm right about all this anyway"? And does he seem to be getting worse? It sounds like maybe he is, but who knows, maybe he'll plateau. I don't really know how this stuff works.

But what effect is his behavior having on our home and on our kids? What price are they paying?

Gabriel Mizrahi: Also, does my husband seem to appreciate my efforts to stick with him and help, or is he, like, just shrugging me off at this point?

Jordan Harbinger: What specific behavior would make me go, "Okay, this is officially getting to be too much.

This is too dangerous," or whatever?

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yes, although to your point, that red line might have to start sooner than she thinks. And if he deteriorated further, and God forbid, did something more extreme, like hurt one of you guys one day, would you wish you had left sooner or had some other intervention sooner?

Jordan Harbinger: Yes. What will future you wish that present you did right now, either in terms of seeking out [00:41:00] resources or having certain conversations or potentially leaving? It's a hard question to answer, I know, but it's good exercise. You want to put the fire extinguisher in the kitchen before the fire happens.

Gabriel Mizrahi: On that note, we found a bunch of resources that might be very helpful for you right now.

I won't go on about them here, but we're going to include them in the show notes. I would definitely check those out, and these people might have some ideas for you as well. I'm also just thinking about the fact that, look, I'm going to guess that your husband is fairly isolated and becoming more and more isolated because of these rants.

And I think probably he can't hear a lot of information from certain people close to him. He might be able to hear certain information from people who share some of his life experience. For example, maybe other veterans. And so I'm just wondering, you didn't say very much about this in your letter, but Are there any other people in his life who might be able to, I don't know, give him some new angles on his situation or be a tether back to reality for him somehow?

And are you in touch with any of those people? I'm just thinking about other veterans who might have struggled in a [00:42:00] similar way but haven't quite gone off the deep end in the way he has, or maybe who are having a successful experience with medication or with the Department of Veterans Affairs and might be able to sit down with him and, you know, validate what he's going through, but also say, "Hey man, it doesn't have to be this difficult, and I have put my faith in these institutions or these people, and it's really saved my life, and I would like to help bring you back into the fold in a way that makes sense to you, in a way that feels safe."

I don't know if anybody like that is in this equation, but if there is such a person, I would try to reach out to them and tell them this story and see if they can be allies to you.

Jordan Harbinger: I'd also like to ask a tough question. Is your support of your husband increasing his capacity to take responsibility for his life and his mental health?

Or are you getting better at tolerating the consequences of his behavior and essentially enabling him? That might actually be the barometer that you're looking for here. Again, I'm so very sorry you guys are going through this. It's tragic. It really is. My heart aches for you and your husband, and he also needs to [00:43:00] be taking a lot better care of himself for his own sake, for your sake, for your kids' sake.

I hope he sees that. If he doesn't, I hope you find the insight and confidence you need to take good care of yourself and your kids, which is ultimately all you really have control over. Sending all of you a big hug and wishing you guys all the best. All right, you know what's better than blowing your kids' college fund on a bunch of .co.uk domains?

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That's drinkag1.com/jordan. By the way, if you haven't signed up yet, come check out our newsletter, Wee Bit Wiser. It's a bite-sized gem almost every Wednesday, very practical, and it's an under two-minute read, I promise. Jordanharbinger.com/news is where you can find it. [00:46:00] And now back to Feedback Friday. All right, next up.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Jordan and Gabe, I've been with my boyfriend for nine years.

We're both divorced, and this relationship truly feels like a second chance at love. Over time, we've built a life together, moving in, blending our families, and even raising pets. We're deeply in love, and I don't question his commitment to me. What I do struggle with is the feeling of being stuck in the title of girlfriend indefinitely.

His divorce was difficult and left lasting impacts financially and emotionally, and his relationship with his adult daughters, who are twenty and twenty-nine now, is still complicated My experience was very different. My ex and I consciously uncoupled, even using the same attorney to amicably divide assets and move forward.

It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do, but I'm proud of how we both handled leaving one another.

Jordan Harbinger: That's fascinating. Two very different divorce experiences. Really cool that you and your [00:47:00] ex separated so amicably. That's- it's nice to know that can even happen.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Totally. So she goes on, "My boyfriend and I also have a nine-year age gap, and I find myself still open to the idea of marriage or, at the very least, some form of legal and financial security for our future together.

My concerns are not about love. They're about protection and stability. I live in his home, and my name isn't on the mortgage or deed. If something were to happen to him, I would have no legal standing, and I worry that his daughters would not handle things fairly when it comes to decisions about his health or his assets."

That's a vulnerable place to be after nearly a decade together.

Jordan Harbinger: Interesting, yeah. So it sounds like she's carrying spouse-level dependence on this guy, but she's got, like, roommate-level legal protection.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I've tried to express these concerns, but they tend to get minimized or dismissed. I don't want to issue an ultimatum, but I also don't want to feel like I'm indefinitely waiting and hoping he'll come around.

I think I need a clear [00:48:00] answer so I can accept it or decide if it's something I can't live with. Is it unreasonable to ask for some form of legal acknowledgement of our life together, whether that's marriage, a living will, or power of attorney?

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, so t- I don't want to get too lawyer-y over here, and I'm not an estate or family attorney, never was, I should say, but marriage is kind of the extra value meal that you get.

All the protections are included, right? You got the will, the things, the asset division kind of goes to you, so you've also got property rights. You've got all kinds of different legal protections in place. Medical stuff is in there. But if you're not married, you've got to get all these pieces a la carte, right?

You've got to get the burger, so you've got to get the will in place. You've got to get the medical agreement in place. And if you forget the fries, if you forget something, it just doesn't exist. It's not like when you're married and go, "All right, well, there's no will, but you're his spouse, so here's your stuff," right?

It's you're not married and you have a will, but you don't have the medical thing in place, so guess what? You can't even get in the room. You, you have no voice [00:49:00] here. So you've got to be really careful with this and do it with a lawyer who knows what they are doing.

Gabriel Mizrahi: How can I approach this conversation in a way that encourages action without creating pressure or defensiveness?

Or is this simply something I have to wait out and accept? Signed, Wondering If It's My Lot That My Boyfriend Won't Tie the Knot.

Jordan Harbinger: Wow, interesting situation. I've got to be honest with you, while Gabe was reading your letter, at first I was thinking, "Okay, you guys are deeply in love. You don't question his commitment to you.

What's the issue here? Do you really need the title?" But then you got into legal protections, the practical stuff, and I was like, "Oh yeah, this is a real thing. Okay, I get it." Because if something were to happen to your boyfriend tomorrow, I mean, I don't know what his estate plan looks like if it exists, but his assets would generally pass according to the will and/or state law, and if you're not married, you're not named in the documents, you probably don't have many rights at all.

Or if he ended up in the hospital, medical decisions would fall to whoever has legal authority, so that's going to be, like, man, I don't know, his kids, [00:50:00] somebody else designated in advance, but not automatically the partner he's had for nine years. So I really understand your concerns here. I also want to make room for your boyfriend's position for a moment.

If I went through a devastating divorce that cost me a ton of money, drained me emotionally, complicated my relationship with my kids, I'd probably have some reservations about the whole institution as well. It might feel like a very risky structure to get involved with. It also sounds like the idea of marriage is tinged with pain, loss of control, conflict, financial exposure, family upheaval.

Plus, he's older, right? His kids are grown up. He's probably thinking, "What do I have to gain from getting married at this point. So in a big way, I get his position, or at least his hesitation. In that said, it does not sound like he's handling this conversation very well or putting himself in your shoes.

Gabriel Mizrahi: It doesn't really sound like a conversation at all.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. It sounds like you're bringing up your concerns, which are legitimate, and he's basically brushing them off and kicking the can down the road. I'm sure that's [00:51:00] very frustrating for you. He could probably be talking to you about all this in a much more helpful way.

Gabriel Mizrahi: What I'm trying to figure out is what does his minimizing or dismissing actually mean? How does he feel?

Jordan Harbinger: That's where I'm a little confused as well.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Is he dismissing her concerns because he actually disagrees with her, does not think she should be entitled to certain assets or decisions, but also doesn't want to be in conflict with her and possibly lose her?

I'm s- confused.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Is he just being unhelpful and dense? Like, what's the deal, man?

Gabriel Mizrahi: It's the lack of real dialogue that's concerning here, more than not making her his wife, although that matters, too.

Jordan Harbinger: I would almost prefer they go through a period of active conflict about all this than just not really talking about it at all.

Yes. I'm imagining he's sitting there reading the, whatever the 2026 version of the newspaper is, and she's like, "So if anything happens to you, I can't even visit you in the hospital potentially, and I can't decide medical stuff, and I'm homeless and destitute." And he's like, "Yeah, whatever. Uh, do you want to go to the game on Saturday?

It looks like the Mets are playing." I mean, I don't ... W- w- He's just blowing you off. So I wonder if [00:52:00] you need to approach this conversation differently. Maybe you don't make it about marriage. You make it about partnership. You know, maybe you go up to him and you're like, "Hey, look, I know we've had very different experiences with marriage.

Maybe it means different things to us. I want to clarify my concerns and my interests here so you know where I'm coming from, and I want to know what yours are. I don't doubt that we love each other deeply. I don't doubt our commitment to each other. What I worry about is, given that commitment, what would happen if something ever happened to one of us?

What position would that put us in? Would we still mean the same thing to each other in the eyes of the law, at the hospital, the government? My feeling is this isn't about marriage at all. This is about protection. This is about finding ways to reflect what we mean to each other if something were to go down. That could mean marriage.

That would simplify a lot, but I'm open to other forms of this, estate planning, power of attorney, healthcare directives, wills, whatever else. But I need to know whether protecting the life we've built together is something that you're also interested in doing. And if [00:53:00] not, why? Because I don't know where your hesitation is coming from.

That's something I'd like to understand. I'm not here to make you do anything. I'm willing to hear your true feelings about all this, whatever they are, but I can't let us avoid this conversation any longer. It's becoming confusing and kind of hurtful, and I'd rather know where you stand on this than stay in this in-between place where we're not really talking.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Slow claps over here.

Jordan Harbinger: And if he's like, "You're imagining the worst-case scenario. That's never going to happen. Stop stressing out," I would respectfully press the issue. And if he won't give you a straight answer no matter what, then I suppose at a certain point, that is actually also an answer.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yeah, sadly, but again, an answer to what exactly?

Whether he's willing to give her this piece of paper, whether he takes her concerns seriously, whether he feels the same way about her. There are a few questions buried in this question.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. It would be an answer to whether he wants to get married, but you're right. That's the ambiguity that she's struggling with.

What does his silence mean at this point, really?

Gabriel Mizrahi: I [00:54:00] think what is very tricky about this is that she is saying, "My concerns are not about love. They're just about these practical things." Great, but by refusing to really talk to her about this, a part of me wonders if he is raising a question about whether they share the same feelings or at least whether they are in agreement about what obligations those feelings imply.

Do you see what I mean?

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, right, like is he allergic to getting married again, or is he allergic to protecting her legally?

Gabriel Mizrahi: He might say, "I am in love with you. We are on the same page. I just don't think that means you should be entitled to have the house over my daughters or be able to make healthcare decisions instead of them," or whatever.

Okay Fine, that might be his position. Maybe that's compatible with being in love with her, but that might also make her go, "How-

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, yeah. How can you hold that view if you really love me, if I'm truly your life partner? You just want to leave me homeless? Like, come on, man ...

Gabriel Mizrahi: they've been together for nine years, right?

They've blended their lives, their families, their cats and dogs sleep together. If she doesn't know if he's going to give her this protection, ugh, I hate to say it, but it sounds like the answer is [00:55:00] either no or I don't want to think about it, neither of which sounds like great news for her right now, I'm afraid.

Jordan Harbinger: No. The status quo is already a decision. Bear in mind, okay, it just happens to be the decision that works best for him. So if he doesn't want to get that piece of paper, I would also collaborate with your boyfriend on different solutions. A lot of the security you're looking for can be created through thoughtful estate planning, a will or a trust, updated beneficiary designations, healthcare and financial powers of attorney, clear medical directives.

If your biggest concern is what happens if he dies or becomes incapacitated, there are legal tools for that outside of marriage. For example, an estate plan can allow you to inherit assets, remain in the home for a period of time, potentially for the rest of your life, rather than being forced to move out, and it can authorize you to make medical or financial decisions if he's unable to do so himself.

Gabriel Mizrahi: It can also make his wishes clear, which can reduce confusion or conflict among family members during an already difficult time. So that's an added bonus for everybody, including and especially [00:56:00] him, that really has nothing to do with the title of wife or husband.

Jordan Harbinger: Right. So I don't think this is something necessarily you should just wait out and accept.

You don't need to give your boyfriend an ultimatum, but you might want to give him an ultra minimum, namely the minimum level of protection so you don't end up homeless and destitute if one of you decides to end the relationship or he gets hit by a beer truck tomorrow. But I think what you need most is real information about how your boyfriend, sorry to use that word, but where he stands on all this.

If he gives you a clear no, then you can decide what that means and if you can live with it. That would be a tough decision, but I'd cross that bridge if you get to it. For now, just invest in the conversation and see what you learn, and good luck. By the way, you can reach us Friday at jordanharbinger.com.

Keep your emails concise. Try to use descriptive subject lines. That makes our job a whole lot easier. If your spouse is pressuring you to have kids even though you always said you didn't want them and neither of you is capable of having a family, you're rebuilding your entire life after a series of losses or [00:57:00] accidents, or your in-laws literally stole your house from you and your wife, still shaking my dang head about that one.

Some people, man. Whatever's got you staying up at night lately, hit us up Friday at jordanharbinger.com. We're here to help, and we keep every email anonymous. All right, next up.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Dear Jordan and Gabe, my mother-in-law had a very successful career and raised four ambitious, successful children. They had a wonderful childhood, and my mother-in-law was attentive, involved, and loving In recent years, though, she's become a hoarder.

My husband said they did not grow up this way at all. Things were always clean and well-kept. She had a little clutter when I first met her, but it's gotten progressively worse over the years. Now it's hard to walk around in many of the rooms in their home.

Jordan Harbinger: Ooh, that's got to be a meaningful clue. My understanding is that hoarding generally starts young and then gradually gets worse over time.

So the fact that the hoarding started later, I wonder if something changed with her.

Gabriel Mizrahi: That's caused us to visit less, and the other siblings to not [00:58:00] visit at all. There are many grandchildren in the family she would love to see, but no one is willing to stay with her because the conditions of the house make it impossible, which hasn't changed her behavior either.

She also frequently comes home with bags from Dollar Tree full of things she already has. The saddest thing is she'll buy things for the grandchildren, but we're the only ones who come to see her. She buys so much that she doesn't even know what she has, and when she does, she can't find it. For years, she's made little jokes that she's got a hoarding issue, but I don't know if she recognizes the full extent of the problem.

Jordan Harbinger: Interesting. That's actually encouraging. That means some part of her, some conscious part of her, knows that she's a hoarder, and that could be a huge help.

Gabriel Mizrahi: My father-in-law acknowledges the problem, but has largely enabled her for years. Now he's almost 80 and has his own health battles, so he's not able to reign her in as much.

I'm worried that this disease is not going to stop. She hasn't always [00:59:00] been completely forthright with her doctors, but we all suspect that she struggled with alcohol in the past. She gave up alcohol a few years ago, and her energy and overall health dramatically improved. We were all so proud of her, and were hopeful that these positive changes may help in the hoarding as well.

Unfortunately, this has not been the case. It seems that she has traded one compulsion for another. Out of all her children, we are the closest physically and have the best relationship recently, so I feel that this responsibility falls on us. But we're struggling with how to approach this topic with her.

She's very sensitive, and with her alcohol use in the past, I'm really worried that approaching this the wrong way may cause her to backslide into drinking again. The dark Jordan in me wants to just rent a dumpster while she's on vacation and go ham on the house, but I know that won't treat the underlying disease.

Jordan Harbinger: Totally. Yeah, that's like bailing water out of a sinking ship while there's a huge hole in the [01:00:00] hull. She's just going to come back from Dollar Tree a few dozen more times, and you're right back to where you started.

Gabriel Mizrahi: She was such a wonderful mother growing up and is a great grandmother, but it breaks my heart that this disease is affecting her relationship with her children and grandchildren.

How do we approach her seeking help? Signed, trying to keep smiling and reconciling my mother-in-law's different sides without reviling when she refuses to stop stockpiling, which must mean that there is something underlying.

Jordan Harbinger: Man, this is a sad story. This is a tough situation. First off, I'm very sorry you guys are dealing with all this.

I'm sorry for your mother-in-law. She's had her struggles, but she sounds like an impressive woman in so many ways. And I'm sorry this has made it hard for you and the rest of the family to be super close with her. It's actually got to be stressful and sad and scary, honestly. But I'm really touched about how much you care for this woman, how thoughtful you're being about how to address this with her.

You sound like a great daughter-in-law. It's interesting, the picture you're painting of your mother-in-law, well, it's complex, right? There's the woman she [01:01:00] used to be, her successful career, her ambitious and well-functioning kids, no history of hoarding. The house was always super neat. That's all meaningful stuff.

There's her cognitive state, the forgetting what she's bought or where she's put it or not seeing her situation very clearly. There's the history of alcoholism. There's whatever trauma led her to turn to alcohol back then.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Which I suppose could theoretically also be informing the hoarding now.

Jordan Harbinger: That's what the alcohol might have done to her cognition over the years.

There's this quality of being hypersensitive, which has got to be playing a big role in all of this as well.

Gabriel Mizrahi: This woman has a lot of stuff going on. I'm not quite sure where to begin.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Gabe, you said you looked into the trauma piece of this. You want to say a few words about that?

Gabriel Mizrahi: Well, it's interesting.

Apparently hoarding is related to trauma very often, but trauma is actually not part of the diagnostic criteria for hoarding disorder in the DSM. But a lot of studies do find elevated rates of childhood neglect, emotional abuse, loss of various kinds, you know, deprivation, insecure [01:02:00] attachment in people who hoard.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Dot, dot, dot. You have 37 of the same Guy Fieri bobblehead, but you can't find any of them in the guest closet.

Gabriel Mizrahi: This woman's house just came to life for me. Thank you for that. So it's interesting, most experts seem to argue that trauma does not, quote-unquote, cause hoarding exactly, but trauma can create intense attachment to possessions. It can create exaggerated beliefs about somebody's responsibility for things in their house.

It can create perfectionism, which contributes. It can create avoidance of emotional distress, including, interestingly, the distress of having to decide whether to get rid of something. And it can also impair decision-making. So there are different lenses on this problem. There are different ways to approach it, but the psychodynamic lens on hoarding is that it's actually expressing deeper conflicts, not just, you know, faulty thinking or whatever.

And on that model, people who hoard might really struggle to tolerate loss. They can have problems with separation and individuation. They can [01:03:00] sometimes use possessions to maintain continuity of identity, like, "I don't feel like myself. I don't know if I have a stable sense of self unless I have these things around me."

They can also use objects to create safety against abandonment, to try to regulate unbearable feelings, all of that.

Jordan Harbinger: I see. So in a way, trauma can cause hoarding, but it's not quite a direct connection.

Gabriel Mizrahi: That's what I'm learning. What that means for our friend here, I don't quite know. I don't know if she can really help this woman heal whatever wounds might be underneath the hoarding thing.

Also, hoarding apparently has one of the lowest treatment response rates among anxiety spectrum disorders, which is also very interesting.

Jordan Harbinger: Super interesting. That actually makes sense somehow.

Gabriel Mizrahi: But she might not have to heal that stuff in order to get a little bit better here.

Jordan Harbinger: Which is the fact that the hoarding developed later in life, and it sounds like she's having trouble even remembering what she bought or where she put it.

So where my mind goes is, is there some dementia at play here? Would that explain the hoarding?

Gabriel Mizrahi: So I looked into that as well, and dementia and other forms of [01:04:00] cognitive decline can absolutely contribute to hoarding, yes.

Jordan Harbinger: I assumed so. Yeah, that's why old people's estate sales be lit- ... because there's a ton of stuff.

Gabriel Mizrahi: The DSM says that hoarding disorder should not be diagnosed if the hoarding is better explained by another medical condition like dementia or a brain injury or stroke or certain neurodevelopmental conditions. Then the diagnosis might be something like major neurocognitive disorder, which I had never heard about until now, with hoarding behavior, but not hoarding disorder.

But, you know, we're kind of talking out of school here. Like, that's for a doctor to decide.

Jordan Harbinger: So, like, maybe she's just slipping, right, and that's creating anxiety and fear and just a general lack of awareness, and that's what the hoarding is about?

Gabriel Mizrahi: It's a theory. Someone who's had mild hoarding tendencies their entire life can definitely become worse if dementia starts to develop.

But then there's that thing you jumped on in the letter, how she kind of acknowledged the hoarding. That's what the DSM calls [01:05:00] insight, and high insight means greater likelihood of improvement. But then high insight is also less common in people with dementia.

Jordan Harbinger: Interesting. So maybe that doesn't fully explain it.

The only other clue in her letter is that her husband now has health problems, and maybe that's been a huge transition for her and it's bringing up some new fear and anxiety, and that's what's driving the hoarding. But we don't know the exact timeline on when his health stuff began and how it lined up with the hoarding, so there's that.

But look, whatever the root cause is, here's what I'd do. One day when you visit your mother-in-law, you and your husband could sit down with her and say, "Listen, we want to share something with you that we feel is really important. This might not be the most fun conversation, but it's all good. We just wanted to talk to you because we love you As you know, the house has changed a lot over the last few years.

There's a lot more stuff here, as you can see when you look around, and we're a little worried about you guys. Now, we know these belongings matter to you. We're not here to decide what should or shouldn't be kept. That's up to you. But what worries us is that the house doesn't seem to [01:06:00] be supporting the life that you want.

We know how much you love having the kids and grandkids over together. All the clutter is making it really hard for them to come over and enjoy their time here. It's also making you and Dad's lives a lot harder. Just navigating the place with all this stuff is tricky, and it's a little dangerous. We don't want Dad, with his health problems, having to navigate a Pan's Labyrinth of plastic colanders and ceramic garden gnomes from Hobby Lobby.

And maybe that would be a good moment to pause and check in with her, see if any of that's landing, if she's having any reaction, good or bad, if, if she's on board and acknowledging or just getting defensive and retreating. And then I would work up to saying, "If you're open to taking a look at the house and making it more inviting for the family, we'd love to work with you at a pace that feels good.

We don't expect everything to change overnight. We're not forcing you to do anything. We're not criticizing you. We just want to understand how we can help make things easier." Based on what I've read, the goal is to avoid arguing about the possessions themselves, because that's a minefield, right? And it's going to be a harder point of [01:07:00] entry.

What you want is to tap into what matters most to the person. In your mother-in-law's case, I think that's staying close with the family and to invite collaboration, which is supportive and non-threatening.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Oh, man. Amazing approach. Also, because the hoarding started later in life and there might be, there might be this cognitive decline piece, I would definitely get your mother-in-law checked out by a doctor as soon as you can.

You can start with a PCP and then maybe get a referral to a neurologist or a psychiatrist or a neuropsychologist if necessary. You can speak with the PCP privately before the appointment or after the appointment and say, "Look, we're noticing some things. What do you think?" What kind of doctor do you think she should visit?

This would be very high on my list.

Jordan Harbinger: And you'd do that before recommending she see a therapist?

Gabriel Mizrahi: I think taking her to see a doctor for a general checkup is going to be a much easier sell for her mother-in-law. I worry about how her mother-in-law might hear, "Yeah, you're hoarding and it's freaking us out. Uh, and by the way, we're taking you to a therapist."

I don't know if she wants to do that.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, especially since she's [01:08:00] hypersensitive.

Gabriel Mizrahi: By the way, I probably would not tell her that you're worried she might have dementia. Maybe just frame it as, "We want to make sure that you're feeling as well as you could. Let's visit the PCP. It's probably about that time."

You know, something like that.

Jordan Harbinger: By the way, if she refuses all help, which is very common, most experts seem to agree you don't want to keep reopening the argument. The best approach is basically express concern without shaming, keep the door open. You know, like, "Hey, if you ever want help, we're here." And focus on immediate safety issues, like the ability to get around the house, fire hazards, stuff like that.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Honestly, that's kind of my main concern at this point, because she might not be able to get her mother-in-law to a point where she stops hoarding so much stuff that the kids and grandkids don't want to come over. But if they are getting older and their stairwell is lined with newspapers from the last 25 years, that's a real issue.

So I really feel for you guys here. You want to intervene, you want to save her from herself, but you're also kind of walking on eggshells. You're afraid of hurting her. You're afraid of somehow making her relapse with the alcohol. This is... The [01:09:00] stakes are high here.

Jordan Harbinger: They're not walking on eggshells. They're walking on 450 eggshell cartons she picked up from a garage sale for her arts and crafts project that she's never going to do.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Quite. I think you're smart to take all of this into account. I also think you kind of have to be willing to provoke your mother-in-law a little bit in order to make progress here I can tell that you're not going to be cruel when you talk to her. You're not going to be too heavy-handed. I wouldn't let these fears stop you from having an honest but compassionate conversation about how her stuff is getting in the way of the life that she says she wants to have with the rest of her family.

Look, maybe some experts would disagree. I'm happy to take that note if it comes along, and if anybody listening right now happens to be an expert in hoarding or dementia and you have a different take, I would love to hear from you, and we can pass that along to our listener. But from where I'm sitting, I think it's okay if that pinches a little.

The pinch might be part of this conversation. You might want to also trust that she can bear a little bit of that discomfort in order to receive your help. I [01:10:00] think your responsibility is to communicate with love and to approach her with a helpful spirit, not to manage every possible emotional reaction she might have.

Jordan Harbinger: Totally agree. I'm also remembering that her husband has contributed to this situation, which is unfortunate. I know the guy has health problems. I know it's probably really hard for him, but he also needs to be an anchor to reality. He needs to say, "This is getting out of hand. Let the kids help." So maybe that's another approach you and your husband could take, letting your father-in-law know that you plan to talk to his wife about the hoarding in a helpful way, and you'd like him to be part of the conversation and encourage her to really hear you guys out.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Once again, we found a bunch of good hoarding resources, a couple great books on the topic, also some organizations. We're going to link to all of those in the show notes, and I hope they help.

Jordan Harbinger: I am very sorry your mother-in-law is dealing with this. It's got to bring up a lot of anxiety and sadness for you guys, but your mother-in-law's lucky to have you guys looking out for her as well.

I hope she can take in what you have to say, and I hope this conversation goes well. Good luck. Keep us posted. Also, [01:11:00] in case y'all don't know, there's a subreddit for the show if you want to jump into discussions with other listeners about specific episodes. If there's an episode you like, you didn't like, you want to share additional thoughts, Feedback Friday's always a major set of threads over there in the subreddit.

You can find it all on the Jordan Harbinger subreddit. You know what you are going to want to block your fire exits with? The fine products and services that support this show. We'll be right back.

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

If a code doesn't work, something's misbehaving, email us Jordan@jordanharbinger.com. We're happy to dig up codes for you. Thank you so much for supporting those who support the show. Now for the rest of Feedback Friday. All right, now for the recommendation of the week.

Jordan James Parke: am addicted to lip filler.

Jordan Harbinger: recommendation for the week [01:12:00] is a free website.

It's called visualping.io, visualping.io. It's a website that monitors changes on other websites. So like I got a bunch of software that doesn't check for updates automatically. It's not from the Mac App Store. It's from the web somewhere. There are pages on Wikipedia that I want to check so that to see if people are vandalizing my page or whatever.

I'm researching topics, whatever. You can put the URL into visualping.io, and it'll check every day or every week, even every hour if you really have something mission-critical, and it'll send you an email summary telling you if there is a change. And for example, you could do it for your own website every hour or every day, and then you'll know if some plugin broke or your e-commerce store went down or your website got hacked and something weird is up there, a casino ad.

Or say you need to, I don't know, regularly check on the Boy Scouts website or the Little League website you run for your kids, visualping.io will keep an eye on it and let you know whenever there's updates on there on events and locations and [01:13:00] times and all that so you're not checking, "Oh, is the camp info up there yet?

Oh, is it... Let me check tomorrow. Is it up there yet?" It's such a great tool. I'm a big fan of this thing. It kind of became a major part of my workflow and ongoing maintenance recently. Again, visualping.io. We'll link to it in the show notes. The free edition lets you check every day, and I think you can do a bunch of websites for free before they ask you to pay anything.

All right, what's next?

Gabriel Mizrahi: For our last segment today, we have an update on the dog custody letter from a few weeks ago. You remember this one?

Jordan Harbinger: This was the woman who was sharing custody of Frankie, was it?

Gabriel Mizrahi: Frankie, that's right, the pup that launched 1,000 ships, yes.

Jordan Harbinger: Yes, and sank another relationship, that is. So she was sharing custody of the dog with her ex, and he kept being like, "I want 50/50 custody," but then he had her, like, 10% of the time and wasn't kicking in any money for the vet bills and stuff and would show up two hours late to pick her up and return her.

Annoying.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yes, that's right. So our take was basically at this point you are Frankie's rightful owner. This guy seems to be making this arrangement very difficult in a variety of [01:14:00] ways. He's not being very collaborative or frankly realistic about what he can offer here, so I think it's time to do this.

Jordan Harbinger: Right. So you're good to tell him that you're keeping Frankie full time. Time for this dude to just moveon.org.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Yes, which by the way, just purchased by the husband from question one. But that's a side note. Uh, so she- Savage ... so she wrote us again, and she said, "Hi, guys. I listened to the episode and you both provided some really insightful feedback and opinions as per usual and some good laughs too To update you, this conversation around custody of Frankie with my ex happened.

Jordan Harbinger: Oh. All right. Let us-- Give us the goods.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Against all odds and to my absolute utter surprise, he took it extremely well.

Jordan Harbinger: Wow. That's amazing news. I did not see that coming.

Gabriel Mizrahi: When he requested to take her most recently, I sent the message saying we won't be sharing custody anymore through text because I had some of the same fears some of your other listeners shared by email and in the subreddit, as well as the thoughts that you both shared on [01:15:00] the app.

He essentially said he agreed, despite how hard it'll be, understands his life is unfitting for her, knows that I will give her all the care and love she needs, and thanked me for being so patient with him.

Jordan Harbinger: Gabe, I'm a little confused. Is this the same guy? Do- is he in therapy? Does he have a twin who's a good guy?

Did he hear Feedback Friday and he's like, "Uh, I better not be the totally predictable A-hole when this conversation comes up"?

Gabriel Mizrahi: Mm, I don't know. Maybe he had ChatGPT write the response and he's like, "Yeah, that is probably what a good human being would do." I don't know.

Jordan Harbinger: Maybe. Even ChatGPT is not always this nice.

I'm just a little surprised, because she described him as combative and difficult, and even kind of manipulative emotionally and otherwise, and it just, it just sounds like a different person entirely.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Well, that's actually one reason I wanted to share her update, because she goes on, "I was not expecting that response.

And honestly, it makes me think he's finally been going to therapy, so good on him."

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. That is the best ad for BetterHelp I could have asked for. Therapy: when you need to let go of the chihuahua you've been [01:16:00] neglecting without creating more pain and stress for your ex.

Gabriel Mizrahi: To be clear, it's not because this is an ad for therapy that I wanted to share the letter, but I do think if this guy is in therapy and that's why he was able to let go so easily, uh, wonderful.

Yeah. I think that's fantastic. So she goes on, "Anywho, thank you so much again for your time thinking about and responding to my letter. My new partner and I love to listen to the Feedback Friday episodes together when we drive, and today's was extra special."

Jordan Harbinger: Love to hear that.

Gabriel Mizrahi: Couples listening together in the car is so sweet to me.

It's the best.

Jordan Harbinger: So sweet, yeah.

Gabriel Mizrahi: But I ju- I just like that detail, mostly because it probably means Frankie was in the car, so she listens to Feedback Friday too. So I'm going to count that as a win.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. We're a hit in the canine world. I get emails all the time. "

Gabriel Mizrahi: All the best. No longer cranky, because I finally got Frankie and did it without tanking this relationship that got shaky."

Jordan Harbinger: Man, well, this is great news. I'm happy for you. I'll be honest, I thought this was going to be a bit of a fight with your ex. A fight worth having, but a fight nonetheless. And I thought it might get a little ugly before he [01:17:00] finally, hopefully backed down and let you keep Frankie. I really did not see this outcome.

I don't know. Gabe, am I, am I overly cynical, where it's like he's reacting this way and then he's going to catch you off guard by grabbing the do- I mean, I, I, I just probably watch too many horror movies, right? But I don't know.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I think so.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I think that's dark Jordan, uh, just going buck wild in your mind.

Jordan Harbinger: Maybe.

Gabriel Mizrahi: I have more hope. But, you know, what I love about this update is, to your point, when we read her letter and she described her ex, we were kind of positioning ourselves, positioning her for a fight, right?

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. I mean, she literally said, "I don't think he's going to take this well. I think he's going to yell and make a scene and maybe even steal the dog," or something along those lines.

Gabriel Mizrahi: And so it only made sense to go into this conversation with her guard up, with a tough script, with a firm plan to avoid the worst-case scenario. But what her update made me think this week was, well, first of all, these are always just assumptions, and we don't know with total certainty how somebody is going to react to a difficult conversation.

So there's that. But [01:18:00] more importantly, the response that we get from other people when we have to engage in conflict like this, that often depends in part on how we speak to them. So if you go into a conversation like this assuming the worst, which I cannot blame her for doing, she-- I think she would probably be a little naive not to. But if you go into it assuming that the other person is going to be hostile, manipulative, aggressive, whatever, I think it's probably more likely that you meet them with a certain tone or a certain spirit that feeds that response, that might even create that response.

But if you go into a conversation assuming the best or just staying open to the possibility of things going better than you think, with some hope that you might be speaking to the other person's best self, you know? Maybe you meet them with a kinder tone, with a more collaborative spirit, and that invites a better response.

Obviously, that does not always happen, but it can, and that's what I liked about this letter.

Jordan Harbinger: It's an interesting point. So what you're saying is, if you assume you're talking to the best version of the other person, even if there's conflict, [01:19:00] even if there are hurt feelings and tough words, if you talk to the person in a way where you believe they can meet you on the same level, see things from your point of view, like in this case, that her ex could empathize with her and do what's right for Frankie even though he'd be losing this dog that he says he loves, do you almost inspire the person to rise to the occasion as opposed to talking to them like they're already your enemy?

Gabriel Mizrahi: That is exactly it. Exactly.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. I mean, look, I think that's a really good point. And like you said, not always the case, but you're right. You can actually shoot yourself in the foot by assuming you have an enemy or that an enemy will always remain an enemy.

Gabriel Mizrahi: And again, if I were in her shoes, I think I would have prepared for a fight as well, but this turn of events is kind of humbling to me in a really great way because we made no room for the idea that he might be mature and understanding or that she could prepare for this conversation in a way that invited that response.

And I don't know if her conversation did or if he was just ready to hear it in a new way, but clearly he was not the person she thought he was.

Jordan Harbinger: I also find it kind of touching that this formerly challenging guy seems to be evolving quite a bit, at least [01:20:00] on this particular issue.

Gabriel Mizrahi: That is all part of it, and good for him.

Jordan Harbinger: We think we know people. We think we know exactly how they're going to respond, but they can surprise us. And if her ex responded this way because he went to therapy, well, great. Good for him. It's just, it's very cool to hear. Must be a huge relief.

Gabriel Mizrahi: But the headline is, congratulations on getting custody of Frankie.

That is amazing. You must be over the moon. I'm sure Frankie on her dog level feels it, too, and I'm just very, very happy for you guys.

Jordan Harbinger: For sure. You deserve her. She deserves you. And now you can enjoy your dog without always worrying about your ex. What a gift. Well done, my friend. Sending you all a big hug and hope you have many, many great years together and many great episodes of Feedbark Friday in the car.

All right, I'll see myself out. Go back and check out Sonja Lyubomirsky and our Skeppy Sunny on milk if you haven't done so yet. Our Six Minute Networking course remains free and remains on the Thinkific platform at sixminutenetworking.com. Dig the well before you get thirsty, folks. Build relationships before you need them.

Show notes and transcripts are on the website. Advertisers, deals, discounts, ways to support the show also on the website at [01:21:00] jordanharbinger.com/deals. I'm @JordanHarbinger on Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. Gabe is on Instagram @GabrielMizrahi 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 now I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer. Consult a qualified professional before implementing anything you hear on the show. 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. You're about to hear a preview about the biggest threats to your health that most people never see coming, from microplastics in the brain to everyday habits that quietly chip away at your energy, focus, and longevity.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick: I think microplastics are a problem. Most people know generally what they are. I mean, these are, like, small pieces of plastic that [01:22:00] come off larger pieces, and they get into our bodies mostly through what we're ingesting, and they're in the air as well. And so they get smaller and smaller and smaller.

They're called nanoplastics. And the smaller they get, they become more dangerous in a way because we can absorb them easier. It's in our water sources. It's on the plants that we eat, so vegetables and fruits, because it's in the soil and they get on the plants, so it's in the plants. It's in meat. It's in every...

It's all over the place. Air is a big source of microplastic pollution as well. It's getting everywhere, in our organs. But dietary fiber seems to prevent absorption in a couple different ways, particularly soluble fibers, fermentable fiber, prebiotics, right? Those are all sort of interchangeable ways of saying soluble fiber.

Fruits, fruits is a big one, the skins of fruits, some vegetables as well. But you can supplement with it, like inulin. You know, there's a lot of these prebiotic fibers people take as well. Beta-glucans is another one. The point is, is that if there's [01:23:00] something you can do to prevent your body from absorbing it, that's the best, and try to eliminate these microplastics as much as they can.

And the number one thing you can do is get a water filter for sure. Air filters in your house, water filters in your house, those are the two top things that you can do. The reality is, is that microplastics, it's just everywhere.

Jordan Harbinger: Catch the full conversation with Dr. Rhonda Patrick for the science behind it all and the practical changes that can actually make a difference on episode 1267 of The Jordan Harbinger Show.