The Jordan Harbinger Show - 1033: Warn Her That Suitor Is a Bed Intruder? | Feedback Friday

Episode Date: August 16, 2024

Your ex-best friend groped someone, and now he's flirting with a mutual friend on Twitter. Do you warn her or stay out of it? Welcome to Feedback Friday! And in case you didn't already know it, Jordan Harbinger (@JordanHarbinger) and Gabriel Mizrahi (@GabeMizrahi) banter and take your comments and questions for Feedback Friday right here every week! If you want us to answer your question, register your feedback, or tell your story on one of our upcoming weekly Feedback Friday episodes, drop us a line at [e-mail]. Now let's dive in! On This Week's Feedback Friday: Your now ex-best friend groped your wife's best friend during an overnight visit. Now he seems to be courting a mutual friend on social media. How can you warn her about his problematic history without overstepping boundaries? Your 93-year-old mother, with whom you've had a rocky relationship, stole a cherished toy your late father gifted to you and gave it to your sibling. This was the last straw in a long history of mistreatment. How do you move forward and process these complex emotions? As an educator, you accepted a job at a challenging school, only to have your dream school offer you a position afterward. Due to district rules, you can't take the better offer. How do you cope with this regret and make the best of your upcoming school year? Your wife adopted a puppy without consulting you, despite your objections. Now she's talking about getting another one, and you feel your concerns are being ignored. How do you address this communication breakdown and assert yourself in your marriage? Recommendation of the Week: Secrets of the Octopus on Nat Geo TV. You're a single mother raising your five-year-old daughter alone after her father chose not to be involved, despite living nearby. How do you guide your child with love and resilience while shielding her from questioning her self-worth due to his absence? Have any questions, comments, or stories you'd like to share with us? Drop us a line at [e-mail]! Connect with Jordan on Twitter at @JordanHarbinger and Instagram at @jordanharbinger. Connect with Gabriel on Twitter at @GabeMizrahi and Instagram @gabrielmizrahi. Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1033 This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors: jordanharbinger.com/deals Sign...See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to Feedback Friday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. As always, I'm here with Feedback Friday producer, the overpriced plastic cap keeping the dust off this crystal clear lens of life advice, Gabriel Mizrahi. Dude, you are getting way too into this camera stuff. Yeah, I'm in that phase where you have no skills, so you build your gear collection really fast, and I'm trying to resist it. By the way, they call it GAS, gas, gear acquisition syndrome, and it's real. I feel like it's real in every sort of technical skill, too. Like, I remember, doing it with audio. I need to look at all these different mics and it's like you need to learn how to talk into a microphone without spitting. How's that? James Cameron over here, Jordan and Cameron. What kind of films you making? At this point, I have literally hundreds of videos of my kids taken from terrible angles. The focus is off. Some are unintentionally in slow motion. Like I have 120 FPS video of my daughter biting into an ice cream cone with my and it's not like, wow, that's artistic. It's, no, my finger is covering half the frame because I didn't even know I'd hit record.

I was like messing with the settings and aiming it generally in her direction. That's where I'm at with this with my videography career here. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you. Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker. During the week, we have long-form conversations with a variety of amazing folks from legendary Hollywood directors, astronauts, cold case homicide investigators, gold smugglers.

On Fridays, though, we share stories, offer advice, play obnoxious sound bites, and plumb the depths of the dues that binds us all. Speaking of which, I was thinking this week, you know, Gabriel, whenever I notice that I'm worrying about what other people will think, and I don't mean like keeping up with the Joneses in my personal life. It's usually something around the show or the business. I realize I'm not usually worried about any single person's opinion. What I fear, is some collective abstract opinion in my head, which I realize is totally imaginary. And I think this happens to all of us, either in our personal lives, our professional lives, or both.

For example, when I think, what would Gabe think or what would Ryan Holiday think, guys that I'm close with, right? The answer is always, oh, they would totally understand or they wouldn't care at all. Sure. But when I ask myself, what would people think? I'm always imagining a collection of the least charitable people with the most vicious opinions of me that are faceless and nameless. Right. Even though most of these abstract people who don't exist, literally wouldn't give a crap about me and my choices anyways.

And knowing this, realizing this, has helped me manage this thought a lot. So I thought I would share it with you guys. And I could be wrong. I think this is something James Clear and I talked about on our show that was episode 108. By the way, great conversations, one of the sort of classics of the Jordan Harbinger Show library. So keep that in mind. You know, when you're worried about what other people will think, which people?

And do you care? Because the answer is usually nobody and no. Anyway, we got some fun ones and some doozies. Let's dive in. What is the first thing out of the mailbag? Dear Jordan and Gabe, about five years ago, my best friend whom I've known since my freshman year of high school, moved to another state across the country. I'll call him Nate. Nate and I kept in touch, but I could feel us drifting apart. So last year, I flew him up for a visit. While he was here, we hung out with some friends over drinks and games, including my wife's best friend. We had joked around with her that she and Nate should date, but she let us know that she wasn't interested in him. We went to bed, and they slept in the same room. Around 3 a.m., she called us from an Uber, telling us that he had groped her in the middle of the night. Ooh, boy. Okay.

I was devastated. This seemed so out of character for Nate, as he had always preached about sexual assault and about how he thought it was unforgivable. interesting. Well, I wonder why he talked so much about it. Yeah, strange fact. I'm trying to hold that against what happened. The Brozky doth protest too much, me thinks. So he goes on, I obviously sided with my wife's best friend, who, after this event, became one of my best friends as well. She requested that we not go to the police about the incident, but she now sleeps on an air mattress in our room when we have more than one friend over. Oh, man, so this evening he's kind of scarred her. That's sad. I confronted Nate about it, and he didn't

say a word the entire time, although he had a concerned look on his face. His last words to me before walking into the airport were, I'm sorry. Okay, so he knows he did something wrong. He's not like, huh, that was weird. Sounds like it. Yeah, he's probably ashamed and I would imagine kind of panicked about what this all means for him, for the friend group, but yeah, not a lot of meat on that bone, is there. My bad. Sorry, I grew up, best friend. See at the reunion. Makes me wonder how sorry he really is, or maybe he really is, but he doesn't know how to express it. So he goes on. I ended up cutting off Nate after that, but kept an eye on his social media where he seems to be acting as if nothing changed. About 15 of our mutual friends from high school are all

on Twitter, where we banter with each other, and Nate is part of this group. While I don't follow him, I do see him pop up in the threads from time to time, particularly in the replies of a woman, I'll call Robin. Robin and I have some history. We dated at one point, but due to religious differences at the time, we ended up breaking it off. Robin and I now have a platonic relationship, that consists of liking and commenting on each other's Twitter posts. The way Nate is talking with Robin over Twitter seems to suggest that he's trying to court her, and lately she seems to be reciprocating. Should I warn Robin of what Nate did to my wife's best friend?

Is it even my place to do that? Given that my wife's best friend never pursued legal action against Nate, which means that what he did is largely unknown, would it be wrong of me to bring it up now? Signed, Let her know about my erstwhile bro? Or lie low, this ain't my show. Wow. Okay. Well, this is a really interesting situation. First of all,

I'm very sorry Nate did this to your friend. In your house, no less, whatever the circumstances, groping somebody in the middle of the night is just gross and weird and disturbing and wrong. And obviously, I really feel for your friend here. I also feel for you because you flew Nate out. He was your friend and now you know a crucial piece of information that could impact another friend of yours. And that's just a tough place to find yourself in. Gabe, what's complicated about the situation is? Well, there's two things, actually. The first is what Nate did was absolutely not okay. Okay, this is a moment where I'd normally say full stop, but I just caught myself, because as you know, some of our listeners, they hate when I say that and continue to write me

multiple emails about it, which I continue to find super weird, actually. Full stop, I would say. Yes, Gabe said it. Not me. Yeah, all me. Direct your weird, angry emails to Gabe today, please. I'm really, you know, I got to say, I'm a little sick of hearing people get mad at my vaguely British way of saying, period. Which I wouldn't mind if you started saying that instead, because it sounds so funny coming out of your mouth. Period. It is fun to say, period.

But I think that's way more annoying than full stop. Full stop. Casually spoken. All right. So what Nate did was wrong, but then I find myself wanting to know more about what actually happened that night. So we know the group was kind of intoxicated that night. Maybe that lowered Nate's inhibitions.

It might have made him less attuned to this woman. And this is truly like a one-off drunken mistake and he's horrified by it. and it's not something he'd never do again. Also, our friend here said Nate groped this woman, and I think we can all agree that being touched when you don't want it is horrifying and not cool. But like, did they stay up all night talking and Nate read the signals wrong

and grabbed her thigh and miscalculated somehow? Or was this totally different? Like, was she asleep in a bed somewhere and he gets out of his bed, crosses over the room, and just like slides under the blanket and feels her up and she wakes up horrified because the spectrum is wide here.

Right, two very different scenarios for sure. Again, I'm not saying that what Nate did was okay at all. I'm just saying there's just degrees to this kind of offense, right? And the specifics actually matter in this particular instance. And unfortunately, we don't have all the specifics, which might come to bear on whether to tell Robin about all of this and how. Gabe, I'm going to be honest. I'm getting a little sweaty over here because I can already hear people firing up their keyboards accusing us of apologizing for a rapist or whatever. And I just, I think it's pretty clear that that's not what we're doing here when you parse this stuff. What I'm trying to do is just understand

in the nature and the degree of the crime here. Because look, if Nate 100% just grabs this woman in her sleep, or worse, zero ambiguity for me here, then I'd be like, tell Robin immediately, she needs to know, don't even think about it. But as far as you know, Nate doesn't have a history of this stuff. And what he did, there's a world where it might have been this isolated mistake. And yes, it freaked your friend out and for good reason, but this assault, and it is an assault. And what it says about Nate's character, I don't know.

I'm not 100% sure what to make of it right now. I'm with you and I get it. And so what you're getting at is, should our friend here risk damaging Nate's reputation and potentially compromise his relationship with Robin over something that, A, might have fallen somewhere kind of confusing on the spectrum potentially, and B, that he might not do to Robin or even ever again to anybody. Yeah, I think that's where I'm going with us. I think it's a fair question to ask.

On the other hand, to your point, Jordan, I think we also need to factor in Nate's response to all of this. He said, I'm sorry before he walked into the airport. Sounds to me like a tacit admission of guilt, which is important. But as far as we know, he never fully acknowledged what he did to our friend here, to his wife, to her friend. He never apologized to her. He didn't call them. He didn't write them letters saying, I did an awful thing. It's not who I am. I'm so ashamed. I'm very sorry. Please forgive me. He just kind of moved on. Yeah, that's not a point in his favor. Because if I'm, like, Gabriel, if I'm putting myself in his shoes and let's say that I'm 25 years old,

That's the max age I would probably make this kind of mistake. But you got to be wasted. Like, just totally blackout drunk with a group of other blackout drunk folks. You would be horrified when somebody told you this. Right. Right. You would be like, oh my God, I need to make this right no matter what, bend over backwards, talk to everybody about it.

You wouldn't be like, oh, man, I'm sorry. Bye. No. Although maybe I'm more of a face problems as they actually come up guy. And Nate's not? I don't know, man. I certainly wouldn't be like, my bad. I'd be like, okay, wait a minute.

I'm horrified by all this. Put some sunlight on it. I need to make this right. Let me at least try. Yeah. They might not forgive me, but I have to speak up and say something. Yes, exactly.

But then we don't know how Nate has processed this event on his own. For all, we know, he could be deeply sorry about it. He's just not saying that to his old friends. I mean, he could be talking about it with his other friends. He could be talking about it in therapy or with a priest. I mean, we just, we don't know. That's right. Who knows? I mean, there's a lot of data about Nate that we just don't have access to, and that's part of what I find frustrating about a story like this. But I think we are back to our new favorite Feedback Friday idea, which is if intervening can save a life or make someone's life significantly better, you got to do it. Because what if Nate does have a history of assault and nobody knows about it or what if he might do this kind of thing again and they could save Robin from being his next victim. Again, I don't know if that's what's going to happen and that's what makes this story tricky for me. But if something ever did, happen with Robin, man, wouldn't it be awful to know that you knew about this and you didn't

say something? And also, I will throw in the best predictor of future behavior is previous behavior. Right. Fair point. I think you got to reach out to Robin. And when you tell her what happened, I would just be extremely fair and accurate about the facts. I would tell her what you know to be true about Nate before this incident, after this incident. And I would also recognize the things that you don't know about him and about that night. I wouldn't say, you know, Nate is a monster and he's dangerous and you got to stay away or he's going to do something terrible to you because you don't know that to be true. But I also wouldn't soft pedal the facts about what went down that night. I might also say, by the way, look, I don't know Nate as well as I thought I did. We don't talk anymore, so I don't know

what kind of guy he is these days. For all I know, this was a really disturbing, drunken, isolated mistake. He's not truly dangerous and he would never do anything like this again. But there's also a world where, unfortunately, he could, or where he hasn't fully resolved why he does. He doesn't. this in the first place. And as your friend who cares about you, it doesn't feel right to not at least tell you what I know. I like that. That feels fair. I think your goal here is to arm Robin with as much responsible information as possible so that she can make the best decision for herself. And after that, she gets to decide whether to keep engaging with Nate, whether to stop talking to Nate, whether to bring this up with him and see how he responds so she can form her own opinion. But that's

her business. Right. And that's why I was being so lawyerly earlier when I was trying to parse the details of the incident because being accurate about the facts, not editorializing or speculating too much, not extrapolating from this incident in ways that could be unfair to Nate, I think that's important. It's very important that Nate be held accountable for what he did and that you give your friend the information she deserves before she gets involved with him. And I think balancing those two objectives, that's really hard. Very tough. I'd put together some talking points for this conversation, and then I'd reach out to Robin as soon as possible. I'd probably make it a phone call or a FaceTime. You can meet up with her in person if she's nearby. But if you feel most comfortable doing this by email

or whatever, go ahead. I would just make sure you're comfortable with what you're putting in writing and that you're being fair to everyone involved. For stuff like this, though, I really do feel like a live conversation is best. You might also consider doing the phone call also with your wife on the line, so it's not like you used to date, now you're talking to her and she's not sure of your motivations. Like, if your wife is there and you're both on the same page, maybe she'll take this kind of information better from another woman, too. Who knows? If you stay connected, to your intention, which is to empower your friend to make the best choice for herself, and you stay focused on the facts, sharing what you know to be true,

qualifying or not sharing what you don't know to be true, I think you'll be doing your job here. Again, very sorry all this happened. It's a difficult event to work through in a friend group. It's clearly had some huge ripple effects for a number of people. But Robin's lucky to have you looking out for. You're a solid friend, and I hope your conversation goes well. Good luck. All right, folks, how about consensually putting your hands on the fine products and services

that support this show? We'll be right back. Thank you for listening to and supporting the show. All the deals discount codes and ways to support this podcast are on one page, Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. Please consider supporting those who support the show. Now, back to Feedback Friday. Okay, what's next? Hey, guys. My mother is 93 years old, and we've had a rocky child parent relationship forever. I'm the youngest of five by 10 years, and I'm the white sheep of the family. My brothers and sisters all drink excessively and you. use drugs, although they still manage to hold jobs. I'm the only one of her children that has a degree, which I paid for myself. While my father and I were very close, I have no fond memories with my mother. She's always degraded everything I accomplished and supported my siblings. My oldest brother is her favorite, and she's given him everything. Okay, without knowing more, I can already tell you that you are a remarkable person coming from a family like this. Your siblings and your mom almost

certainly have complicated feelings about your success. It's funny because this is, is actually my mother's situation, really. Two brothers, both terrible. One was a junkie and a thief and a bum his whole life. The other one is just a selfish piece of crap, basically. I don't, we don't even know if he's alive, like whenever. My mom also paid her way through school, had to do a lot of raising of herself. She was also kind of a surrogate mother to her brothers, but with no authority. And her mom, my grandma, she'd just bail the boys out, literally, in many cases. I mean, my, my mom's brother, Chuck, that guy went to jail a zillion times. And grandma was always like, oh, he's a good boy. I mean, it was delusional. So it got to the point,

Gabriel, where my mom once told me, and I was probably like 11 years old. She's like, I just want you to know, I will bail you out of jail one time and never again, because my grandma did it so many times. And I just remember being like, uh, okay, right? Like, how do you react to that when you're 11? By the way, she never had to do that just in case anyone's wondering. I still have one get out of jail free card with my mom. I mean, there's still time, Jordan. You know, we could always go back to North Korea and act a fool. Yeah, I don't know if Bev's get out of jail free card applies to a gulag and Kangdong.

Anyway, I saw the toll that all took on my mother, just the behavior from these guys, and it was really painful for her. But on the other hand, it also clarified a lot for her and gave her the conviction to build a very different life because it was just so obvious that she didn't belong in her family. So all of this is a really massive endorsement of you, my friend. One day when I was 12, I mentioned something at my grandparents' house that reminded my father of a toy he had when he was a boy. We searched the basement, found it, cleaned it up, and got it working.

He ended up giving it to me, and I kept it on my bookshelf for years. Then, when I got married 30 years ago, my wife and I moved into an apartment that was part of a house my parents owned, and I still kept the toy on my shelf. Shortly after we moved into the apartment, my dad passed away. way. Fast forward to a couple weeks ago, when my mom let slip that she went into my apartment, took the toy, and gave it to my oldest brother. I was furious. This whole time, I thought I had lost the toy in the move from the apartment to our first house, and I've been beating myself up

for losing it ever since. I told her, Dad gave me that toy when I was 12. She acted like I didn't know what I was talking about. A couple days ago, my sister asked me for help with our mother, and I said, nope, I'm done with her. I told my sister, why? And I said, and I told my sister, why? And and she offered to try and get the toy back. I told her, nope, I don't want it now. Mother destroyed a fond memory with dad. Beyond this, my mother has done many things to me. Tried to ruin my marriage, said false things about my soon-to-be wife,

volunteered to host my wedding reception in her yard, then withdrew the offer on the day of the reception. Oh my God. Forcing me to call all of our friends to tell them the wedding was canceled. That was the first time I stopped speaking to my mom for years. Wow. Okay. Yeah, this woman is a real nightmare.

Gabe, I don't know. We don't have a ton of data to go on here, but she just sounds... Unstable at a minimum? I was going to use more colorful language, but yeah, unstable at a minimum. There's something seriously wrong with this woman. This is a Dr. Ken Adams case study or something, what she did with the house on the day of the wedding, interfering in their marriage, etc., etc., unforgivable.

Yeah, she sucks. She is the worst. No apologies. There were many other instances since then where I said I didn't want anything to do with her, but I usually ended up making up with her. This time, however, I'm done. She violated my private space and stole a memory from me. If she had done this in the past couple of years,

I could have said that she was just old and unaware of her actions, but she did this 30 years ago when she was still lucid and knew what she was doing. Totally. Yeah, this conflict has been building for decades. Fascinating how your whole relationship is being captured in this one object. The toy that broke the camel's back. So he wraps up. Am I wrong for being angry?

even if you say I'm wrong, I don't plan on seeing or talking to her ever again. Signed, a son who's done wavering after catering, laboring, and self-endangering. Okay, first of all, that's it. That's his question. Nope, that's it. I don't think we've gotten a letter that ended like this before. I mean, we've gotten, you know, are my feelings valid? Right. But this, even if you say I'm wrong, I'm still doing this thing I've decided to do.

I don't think we've ever heard that before. And in a way, I'm like, I applauded that somehow. I know what you mean. But I'm trying to figure out what to make of that. It's a curious way to end a story like this. Yeah, I'm a little confused. Why is it confusing? I can't even figure out why I'm confused.

Well, I mean, he just told us this objectively insane and awful tale of a mother who has treated him pretty terribly all of his life. And then he's like, am I wrong for being angry? And it's like, hell no. No. You're not wrong. You full stop. Next question. Yeah.

Wow. You just braved all the emails. That's how passionately Jordan is on your side here. That's right. I'm here for it. Even if his mother were more of an ambiguous character, I think he would still be allowed to feel angry. So that's already an interesting theme here to wonder if you're entitled to be angry when your parent has done these terrible things to you and your spouse. We could probably talk about that for a while.

But then in the same breath, he's saying, well, I don't care what you say about whether I'm allowed to feel angry. I'm still cutting her off, which is unexpectedly secure. Well, exactly. That's what took me by surprise. It's like the two halves of him are writing this letter and they're wrestling with each other right there in the same sentence. Look, we're hearing from a guy who probably spent a lot of his life wondering whether his mom was a nightmare or where, whether he was the crazy one. For sure.

And that's probably part of being the white sheep. And I also think that's probably a common experience for a child whose needs were not validated and met by their mother. And we're hearing from a guy who he's what, 50 or 60 now

and he's going like, fuck this woman. I'm done with all this BS and mistreatment. She's still a huge chunk of my life and this memory of my dad. I don't deserve this. I'm out. I kind of love that he's at that point now. It took him a while to get there,

but I think his anger is appropriate and frankly it's healthy. I do too. What I'm trying to figure out is if he's at that point and he's made up his mind, why did he write us in the first place? Yeah, I don't know. Maybe to vent? Get it off his chest. That's part of it. I get that. I also sense that he's genuinely asking, is it okay for me to be this angry? And I think you can tell that our answer to that is yes, it's more than okay. And it's important, actually, for you to be in touch

with this anger. My fuller answer would be, yes, it's good that you're in touch with this anger, but now you need to unpack it and decide what to do with it. Because there's a lifetime of conflict and abuse here and just walking around being furious at your mom, that's a meaningful first step. And I would rather you do that than repress your feelings or justify her behavior like you did in the past. But that's not the end of the story. Processing it, healing from it, that's the real journey. But maybe Jordan, he's also writing in because he's looking for permission. Permission to what cut her off, you mean? Maybe in a way, although to your point a moment ago, he's literally saying, I've already decided

whatever, even if you say it wrong, I'm cutting her off. So. Right, he's doing the opposite. He's not asking for permission. at all. Maybe what he's asking for permission for is just the ability to be conflicted at all, to be a little messy and to put himself first and to own his experience and say, I am so pissed and I've had enough of this and this is what I want to do, even if you, podcasters, I want your opinion on, logically disagree with why I'm feeling this way. Yeah, interesting. Like you said a moment ago, we're hearing from somebody whose very basic feelings were not validated by his mother. Now he's validating them himself, which I think is excellent. But he might also be looking for

us to validate them while also anticipating that we might not validate them or that we might qualify them somehow. Like, yeah, you're allowed to feel angry, but also... Right. So what you mean is that we might not 100% be on his side. Exactly. I think this guy deeply wants someone to be on his side after the life that he has had with his mother. And I get it. So do I, yeah. So is that what this closing paragraph is really about? Is he really saying, tell me my feelings are valid here, but also, I don't care if you don't think they're valid. I think they are. I'm daring to honor my feelings and stand up to this bully of a mother and sort of bask in my rage and my contradictions, which I never got to do my whole life. But can you maybe tell me

that that is valid? And to that I would say, again, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Look, I'm really heartened that you're daring to take your feelings seriously. Stand up to your mom, prioritize yourself. I really am. It's not that I don't think you have work to do. It's not that I don't think you have a lot to unpack and understand. Also, I think your anger, your very justifiable anger, it might evolve over time, but in this moment in which you find yourself at this crucial juncture after the toy incident, I think this is all appropriate. And the facts are on your side, the facts you've shared with us. Anyway, you said there's a lot more you could have told us, hey, I believe you. What your mom has done here is definitely not okay. A lot of gaslighting and all that too. I mean, it's just so familiar.

The bottom line, you do you, man. Honor your feelings. But also, this is just a lot. This is just the beginning of an important process with your mom. It's coming later in life, very late in her life. You might not have many years of actively wrestling with her, but your mom's impact will play out for the rest of your life, too. So yes, I applaud you for standing up to her and redefining your relationship in light of this toy thing. Gabe, we didn't talk too much about the toy itself. I find that fascinating. But beyond that, I hope you get to work through the legacy of this relationship, which means ideally therapy, but also working through this in your own way and finding ways to talk about it and process it and not recreating your mother's anger and instability

and narcissism and all that in your own life, which I doubt you're doing, but which is very much a part of your story. And if I were you, I would think about maybe getting that toy back if you can, at least after your mom passes away. I mean, look, if it really doesn't matter to you anymore, then fine, it doesn't matter. It's all good. But I suspect that it does matter to you. And I have a feeling that that toy might represent something even more significant to you now.

I mean, it's so interesting. At first, it was this beautiful reminder of your father. Then it became a precious memory that your mother stole from you. And now that you're redefining things with her, if you get it back, it might represent a profound victory for you, just like this great emblem of how much you've grown. So I think it might be cool to look at that toy in your bookshelf every so often. I don't know, see your whole life captured in that one object. God, Gabe, you're such a screenwriter turning his memento into some super meaningful symbol. Can't help yourself, can you? I mean, the story did that. I don't know. Objects are never just objects, right? Especially in families. So it has now been through a few phases. So I think, I don't know, I think there's a lot of meaning there. It's the velveteen rabbit or whatever.

I don't remember that story, but I remember the toy. Exactly. Proud of you, sir. Thank you for letting us be in the messy with you wishing you the best and hope you return that toy to your bookshelf one day where it belongs. You can reach us Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com. Keep your emails concise. Use descriptive subject lines.

That makes our job a lot easier. If you're finding dead squirrels in your mailbox, your husband of 15 years just told you he might be a sociopath, or you're struggling to handle your wife who has a rare and brutal form of dementia. Whatever's got you staying up at night lately. Hit us up Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com. We're here to help and we keep every email anonymous. Oh, by the way, if you haven't signed up yet, come check out our newsletter We Bit Wiser. It is a bite-sized gem from a past episode from us to you, delivered right to your inbox once a week on Wednesdays. So if you want to keep up with the wisdom from our 1,000 plus episodes and apply it to your life, I invite you to come check it out. Jordan Harbinger.com slash news is where you can find it. And it's a great companion to the show.

All right. What's next? Dear Jordan and Gabe, I'm a 29-year-old man, and I have three years of experience teaching high school English. I'm confident in my teaching abilities, and I have a true passion for what I teach. Last year, I taught at a new school in my new city, and it was not a great experience. Our students were out of control, and I felt like the leadership did not know what they were doing. Almost the entire English department, including me, resigned at the end of the school year. Eventually, I got invited to interview at a school that works primarily with low-income and at-risk kids,

not my strong suit, which means it's going to have a lot of behavioral issues. A week later, they offered me the job, saying I had 24 hours to reply. Then, out of nowhere, my dream school, let's call it school 2, called me about an interview. This school is one of the top-rated in the area and has a great reputation. The problem was, school one wanted an answer from me before I would have a chance to interview with school two. My dad gave me some advice, except the first job, just to be sure that I have something lined up, but don't sign the contract until I hear back from school two.

If I got the job, I could just back out of school one, apologize, and move forward. It made sense, even though it felt a little deceptive, like I was preparing to break my word, which bothered me a little. But I trust my dad, who was a very moral and religious person, and I look up to him. I then ran this advice by my former department head, whom I trust, and she agreed that it would probably be fine. The next morning, I half-heartedly accepted school one's offer. That afternoon, I had the best interview I have ever had, and I was really proud of myself. Two days later, School 2 called with an offer. I felt like I deserved it. It was an amazing feeling.

Then, half an hour later, the principal of school two called me back to say that he noticed their district had already offered me a job. Of course, these two schools are part of the same school district. My heart sank. The principal sounded worried and said that I needed to call the principal of school one and discussed this with her. I called her. It did not go well.

She explained that because I accepted her school's offer, no other school in a district was allowed to offer me any job. Oh man, what a bummer. The brilliant advice from my dad turned out to be the worst possible thing I could have done. He's never worked in teaching and doesn't know how this all works. My former department head didn't realize that both schools were in the same district. The advice they gave me was misguided, and my conscience was correct. I was devastated.

Yeah, I bet. Oh, I'm so sorry, man. This, ah, that would feel so awful. Needless to say, I am not excited about school one, but I don't want to burn a bridge with the entire district and walk away now. I can't stop beating myself up for not seeing the massive flaw in my plan. I can't stop thinking about this one bad decision. The feeling of regret is so strong that I feel it physiologically, even though I am someone with no history of anxiety or anything like that. How can I move forward from this? How do I not be secretly angry with my dad for giving me

this bad advice? How do I make the best of this next school year when I feel like I'll have a cloud of regret hanging over my head the entire time, signed Coping with this huge bummer when school's out for the summer. Oh, man. Well, look, I'm really sorry things played out this way. This is a super tough break, especially after the crappy year you had. You had a lot riding on school too. It sounds like it would have been an amazing fit, and you did so much right here. You prepared well, you got advice from some trusted people, and it just all got snatched away from you. It really sucks. It sucks, full stop, I would say. Indeed. Yeah. You're not going to say it, Are you? No. Now I'm self-conscious about it, and my inbox is already crazy this week. Yeah, this is a

huge blow. There's no way around it. So now that you're here, and there's nothing you can do to change the facts, you need to go through a mourning process over this job loss. And that means feeling all the feelings that are coming up, sadness at losing this awesome job, anger at your dad, at your old department head. I think probably some shame and self-loathing about getting excited, about not knowing about the school district rule, all of this. And while you make space for all these feelings, I would try not to put too much stock in them or create too many narratives based on them. For example, be in touch with your sadness and regret, but resist the urge to throw yourself some kind of pity party. Acknowledge how angry you are, but don't pick up the phone and scream

at anybody just yet. Just feel the feelings directly, allow them to be, and as you do that, start to accept that this is how things played out, bring some peace and surrender to the facts here as painful as that is, and make a little room for the possibility that things are just playing out this way for a reason. I don't mean that in some sort of like woo-woo kind of way. That's Gabe's domain. If his accessories are any indication, his beaded bracelet today is just blinding. Sorry, Gabe, I didn't plan to give you a hard time. No, no, no, it's all good. Yeah, live by the bracelet, die by the bracelet, am I right? Exactly. I appreciate you having some integrity around that. What I'm getting at is my experience has been that everything that happens in life, it has a function

that we can never fully appreciate when we are going through it. I mean, I'm not saying everything happens for a reason. I'm just saying we give it that meaning and that function. Maybe you needed to learn about this district rule thing for your future job searches, and that was the only way you could have learned it. Maybe there are some important lessons you're going to have at school one,

like a great colleague, some amazing students, a future partner, a new appreciation for the books you teach. I don't know. Maybe you needed one more year to develop as a teacher. And school too is going to be thrilled to have you next year or you'll find an even better school. And who knows, maybe this will help you give great advice to your peers who are interviewing too, you might save them from making a similar mistake,

and that might create some great friendships that'll pay dividends for years. You just don't know, but soon you'll start to see these weird upsides, slash you'll be inspired to create these upsides because they're the only way to make meaning out of an objectively crappy turn of events. And I realize that I'm sounding a lot like Gabe right now. There's something almost like cosmic, man, about these failures. But what can I say? The Oracle of Kay Bonito is rubbing off on me. Ah, namaste. Welcome to the greatest cult on earth, my dude. Thanks, man. Love your cult's merch, by the way, 10 out of 10. Appreciate that.

So, let's talk about your dad. My feeling is you're absolutely allowed to be angry at him for giving you this flawed advice. But, like I said, I would hold off on expressing that to him. Unless your dad is extremely open and he's going, look, if you're mad at me, I get it. You can put that one on me. Let's talk about it. But as somebody who's been plenty angry about stuff like this in my life, I find that anger usually quiets down and shifts eventually, and you'll thank yourself for taking a beat and

sitting with this feeling before raging at your dad. In the meantime, that anger is yours to feel, and it's totally legit. But here's the thing, your dad's advice? It ended up biting you in the butt, but I actually think he was right. We probably would have told you to do the exact same thing if you had written in. Sometimes you just have to take calculated risks and put yourself first in a job search. It just so happened that your dad didn't know this nuance about the policy, and that was not his fault. Even your former department head didn't think to ask you if these schools were in the same district. And this is her industry. So I'm not sure that it's fair to hold this against your father, although the impulse, of course, is totally fair. Well, exactly. I also wonder if his father is an

easier target for his anger right now. You mean as opposed to the department head or whatever? Or as opposed to himself. Yeah, that's interesting. Like, he's raging at his dad, but he's actually mad at himself. I mean, look, they were all ignorant about this rule. So they're all to blame, or rather no one's to blame. I think it's possible that projecting that anger onto the people who advised him, especially his dad, is easier than sitting with that anger himself. Yeah, I think that's probably right, which is interesting, though, because he also said that he really trusts his dad. He's this super moral guy. He really looks up to him. Right. Well, I wonder if that's part of the anger, too. Is he mad at his father for contradicting himself, for compromising on those values that he looks up to,

for leading him astray when he sees his father in a certain way? It's interesting. That might be another thing that our friend here is grieving, not just the loss of a great job, but the loss of the way he saw his father, and maybe the loss of the role that his dad played in his life as this, you know, totally reliable, unquestionable, morally upstanding, perfect role model. Yeah, bingo. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but I think that's definitely in the mix here. And that doesn't mean their relationship is done or anything. No, no, no, of course not. It doesn't mean he still can't go to his dad for advice or look up to him.

But yeah, it can be painful to see a parent's flaws, especially if you've gone your whole life kind of believing that they were perfect. And also if you've gone your whole life outsourcing some of your most important decisions and values to that person, as I think our friend here has, because that's another layer to all this. He felt in his bones that playing both schools wasn't the right thing to do. But his father gave him permission to push the rules a little bit. And part of his anger here is feeling like, I knew I wasn't comfortable with this. And I let my dad convince me otherwise. I should have listened to my instinct, which, by the way, I just want to be very clear. I actually think your dad was right, and I'm with Jordan. We would have told you to do the same

thing. If this had worked out in your favor, I don't think you would be angry at your dad for compromising on these values. But I do think that your anger probably has even more contours than you realize. Part of it is about your dad misadvising you. Part of it is about allowing yourself to be misadvised. And part of it might be about losing this source of moral authority, of guidance, of security, which you thought was unassailable until now. But now you might be about. be seeing is human and imperfect. Yeah, good point. It's not just his career that's in flux here. It's also his relationship with his father, with his former boss. With himself as well. To your point, Jordan, a moment ago, could this be one of the reasons that things had to play out this way? You know,

did he maybe have to de-idealize his father a little bit and learn to honor his own values? Yeah, good point. Maybe. But look, just to be very direct with you, I don't think it's fair to beat yourself up for something you didn't know. It's not like you willfully violated a policy you knew about to further your career. You simply didn't know. Now you do. You took a risk based on limited information. You sought out advice from at least one person who should have known and it didn't work out. So I would really ask yourself whether your self-blame, your embarrassment, whether those are really appropriate here? Like if this happened to a friend of yours, would you make them feel terrible about it? Or would you just feel sorry for them and understand why they did what they

did and encourage them to make peace with it? Yeah, exactly. It's always easier with someone else, isn't it? Yeah, always. So let's talk about how to move on from this and make the best of the school year. First of all, you got to start by radically accepting that this is what's happening. And that might take a few weeks. It might take a few months. But at some point, you're going to go, okay, this is my path and I'm going to follow it as best I can. The second thing you got to do is you have to remember that the regret you feel right now will not last forever. When the school year begins, you're going to be in a very different place. So try not to project your current self too far the future. My experience is we rarely end up feeling the way we think we're going to feel.

This is just where you are right now. And when the school year begins, I would throw yourself into the experience as if you had chosen this outcome yourself. So strive to be the best teacher you can be, put in the time to develop your teaching skills, your interests, your curriculum, your philosophy, and look for every possible way to make the most of the school year, which means invest in your relationships with your students, with your peers, with the administrators, with teachers at other schools, including, by the way, the schools where you might want to teach one day in the future. Insert six-minute networking plug here.

For sure. I second that. And as the year goes on, take stock of everything that happens, everything that comes up, the good stuff, the bad stuff, just allow this experience to be whatever it is. I'm sure that this school is going to be challenging in the ways that you expect. And I also have a feeling it's going to be stimulating and educational in ways that you probably can't even imagine right now. So once the school year starts, you'll have an opportunity to find the good.

good in the job, or like Jordan said, you'll make it good, however you can, because the other big upside here is now you get to find out what kind of teacher you are when you show up with the best possible spirit. You could go into this school year bitter and resentful and obsessing about how it all went down and counting down the days until you can peace out. Or you can treat this year like an adventure and an experiment and see how much you can offer your students and grow as a teacher, you know, just go full Michelle Pfeiffer in dangerous minds and absolutely transform. your students' lives. Oh my God. Dangerous Minds. I have not thought about that movie in years. Classic movie. That's where they use the Kulio song, right? Gangstas Paradise. Yeah. I sure did. R.I.P. by the way.

So sad about Kulio. Man. What a ledge. Yeah, that song is so iconic. Anyway, I'm with you, man. At this point, the only thing he can do is control his attitude. So that's my advice, Amigo. Surrender, grieve, then make the best of it. Life has a way of disappointing us a lot of the time, but it also always gives us the experiences we need. I've lived it firsthand. I can tell you that with confidence, but a guy with a beaded bracelet and a hat that says how beautiful in Spanish has confirmed it for me. I mean, what else do you need? Nothing. That's it. Truly. Good luck, bud. We're rooting for you. You know what is the perfect accoutrement for your gangster's paradise? The fine products and services that support this show. We'll be right back. As you walk through the valley of the shadow of

death, I invite you to do what other smart and considerate listeners do, which is take a moment and support our amazing sponsors. All the deals, discount codes, and ways to support the show are at Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. If you can't find a code, you're not sure if there is a code or the code's not working. Email me, Jordan at Jordan Harbinger.com. I am happy to surface that code for you.

It is that important that you support those who support the show. Now, back to Feedback Friday. Okay, next up. Hey, Jordan and Gabe. I married my wife four years ago, and we've had a great marriage for the most part. We met over a doggy play date, And the rest was history.

We've chosen not to have children, so the dogs are our fur babies. We eventually decided to get a cat as well. Life was going great, until one day she put a $300 deposit down for an Australian Shepherd puppy without talking to me first. Oh, yeah, the old adapting a dog without talking to the other person first, drums. That's a big one. She knew I was very against adding any more to our family. Not only am I against paying for a dog when you can rescue, but my old dad,

dog has severe arthritis, so adding a puppy into the mix would cause her a lot of stress. Man, not cool on a number of levels. That would be sort of irk me so bad. I felt bullied into the decision. She made it nearly impossible to reverse course without her resenting me, so I eventually had to cave. The puppy has been a huge pain in the butt at times. Ossies are expensive and very high energy, quite a bit of work, but she is very sweet, so it hasn't been all bad. I'm a huge dog lover. none of this has anything to do with not liking the dog. I simply feel like my wife doesn't care at all how I feel, and she'll just go and do what she wants,

despite how it may affect me. Yeah, totally get it. Completely valid, in my opinion. Recently, she's been making comments saying she wants yet another puppy. She was talking to the dog right in front of me, saying things like, we're going to get another one of you soon. Your dad thinks I'm joking, but I'm not.

Yeah, oh, this is a real problem. I'm not liking this at all. By the way, that would really piss me off if somebody did that in front of me. I would lose my, for sure. Are you talking to the dog or are you talking to me? Do you not want to talk to me so you're saying it to the dog so that I hear it? Yeah. Oh, it's so irritated. It's so passive, not passive aggressive, but like passive annoying. Is that a thing? I don't know, but I like that phrase a lot. Passive annoying. Yeah, passive annoying. I also feel that I got bullied into moving to another state. I agreed to move when she gave me the ultimatum saying, well, I'm not staying here. It was either go with her or separate. My wife does do a lot for our family, so I don't want to paint her as super selfish.

But I really do feel that we are in a team and that my concerns don't matter. I love her very much, but I'm afraid to have any more discussions about this, since she clearly knows how I feel and she may just get defensive again and nothing will come of it. I don't want to throw around the word divorce just to get my way, but I also can't imagine a lifelong partnership that doesn't include me in big family decisions. Am I ever reacting here? How do I handle this? Signed, feeling sidelined when my wife makes up her mind. Is she being unkind? Or are we just unaligned on our frame of mind? Really good questions, man. First of all, I am very sorry

your wife has treated you this way, that she's approached big family decisions in this way. The nice part of me wants to say she probably struggles to take another person's feelings into account. She doesn't have the tools of the capacity to have those conversations with you. So let's start by appreciating why that is. And I do feel that way. But the, The more brutal part of me, and frankly the part of me that is totally on your side here, that part of me is going, this is incredibly disrespectful. It's insensitive, it's manipulative, it's unfair, it's clearly also a larger pattern in your relationship, and, you know, your wife needs to take a hard look at how she treats you.

Full stop. Full stop, exactly. Sorry, Gabe, I'm forwarding all my full stop complaints to you now. Too bad. I mean, I feel like you're not really taking my feelings into account here at all, but okay. Your feelings? What are those? I'm not familiar.

Anyway, look, you're angry, I get it. I would be too. You are not overreacting, in my opinion. You feel dismissed. You feel unconsidered. You feel kind of manipulated. And you are. Based on what you've shared,

your wife has a pattern of putting herself and her interests above you and yours. Or at least not giving you a chance to weigh in to factor your thoughts and feelings into decisions that affect both of you. And that is not cool, man. That's not what a marriage is, not a fair and healthy one.

So you guys need to talk, obviously. And the way I'd frame this is, honey, I want to talk to you about something that isn't sitting very well with me. It's important to me that we can talk about this. I'm really hoping you can hear me out and understand where I'm coming from. When you adopted the dog without talking to me,

that was really hard for me. I kind of felt bullied into the decision. It seems to me that you made it nearly impossible for us to reverse course without you resenting me, so I caved. Now, you know, I love the dogs. I love you, so it's not that I'm not enjoying our new fur baby, but the way you made this very big decision for both of us, it just feels unfair. I didn't feel

considered. I felt kind of coerced like you wanted this to happen and that's all that mattered. I felt something similar in the way that you handled the move. It wasn't, oh, I think it would be really cool to live somewhere else. I love Utah. How do you feel about it? It was, well, I'm not staying here, so I felt I either had to go with you or we were going to separate. And now I see the same thing happening with the new dog you want to adopt. You literally said to my face, well, to the dog's face, I guess, we're going to get another one. of you soon. Your dad thinks I'm joking, but I'm not. All this has brought up a lot of anger and frustration and concern for me. I don't think you're a selfish person, but in these specific

instances, I feel you've put yourself first, and it's made me feel that my concerns don't matter that we aren't a team. So this is something I need to talk about with you. I want to work on it with you because I don't want us to make any more huge decisions in this way. Something like that. And then just see how she responds. My hope is that she goes, wow, okay, I can see why you feel that way. I didn't realize it was doing that. I'm sorry. And then you guys can talk about how she can be more respectful, more empathetic, more collaborative, maybe even why this is her MO. That's the real work of this conversation. But if she doesn't respond well to this, if she can't even acknowledge how you're feeling, then that'll be interesting. I don't know if that means you need to go straight to a divorce

attorney or whatever, but you might want to try saying, I can see that you're not responding very well to what I'm saying. Maybe it's hard for you to take my feelings about this seriously, and that's exactly what I'm talking about. And maybe that's how you help her see how she treats you. But if she digs her heels in or she continues to dismiss you, then that's crucial data for you. And you're going to have to decide if this is the marriage you want to be in. But you don't need to decide that now. All you need to do is have this conversation. I agree completely. This conversation is crucial. This is you going on record and saying, I'm not okay with this. You've hurt my feelings. This doesn't feel right. I want to fix this. But what you're also doing is you're taking yourself

more seriously. This empathy and this consideration that you feel you're missing from your wife, in a way you've also struggled to extend those to yourself. I thought it was so interesting when you said, she made it nearly impossible to reverse course without her resenting me, so eventually I had to cave, which I understand why it felt that way. But the truth is, you didn't have to cave. You decided to cave because the cost of standing up to your wife felt too steep. Well, he's scared of her. Right. And that's very much part of the problem. Now, whether she's actually scary to talk to or whether our friend here is scared of conflict with her in general, maybe with people in general, that's an interesting question.

My hunch is it's probably a little bit of both. Yeah, but I have a feeling that he's also scared of himself, of being in touch with the part of himself that feels kind of angry and hurt and disrespected, you know, that feels missed and going, yo, this does not feel right. We got to take a beat and talk about this before we move forward with this dog or with this move or whatever the decision might be. Right. So this conversation is also a chance for him to strengthen his relationship with himself.

Absolutely. And in so doing to give his wife an opportunity to see him and meet him in a new way. Which I think that's important whether or not she ultimately plays ball. For sure. Because look, he feels invalidated. He feels missed. And he is. But it's also easy to miss someone who's missing himself, who isn't expressing his feelings, who isn't always asserting his needs, who's not speaking up when it's appropriate. that seems to me the dynamic between them. Totally. It's not just my wife's a steamroller and doesn't consider my feelings. It's more like my wife has a tendency to make big decisions without me, and I also haven't always shown up fully in our relationship. Yeah, exactly right.

I also think that there's a lot more for us to know about why his wife behaves this way. To your point, Jordan, this might be a reflection of how hard it is for her to consider somebody else's experience, or how hard it is for her to negotiate between her own wants and her partner's wants. maybe she feels like factoring in somebody else's feelings, maybe that feels like losing to her in some way, or maybe it feels threatening somehow. It might be a little distressing to her to have to acknowledge that there's another person in this relationship whose needs and desires will not always align with hers and that she needs to make room for those. And yeah, I'm sure her childhood and her entire life really is informing this pattern. So I know that's more your wife's stuff and you're the one writing in. So it's entirely fair for you to just frame this conversation around your experience.

I actually think that's the most important thing right now. But if you really want to understand your wife and make real progress here, I would get curious about what's going on for her and all of this, why she defaults to this unilateral strategy. And then, of course, you know, like rub it in her face. Like, see what I'm doing here? Wondering what all of this is like for you? That's called empathy, Linda.

Maybe give it a shot. Wow. Dark Gabriel peeking out a little bit. It did, didn't it? I guess so. I'm a little angry at this letter. Is that why you wear the bracelet to keep the darkness inside? You know what?

I'm not going to wear it next week and let's see what happens. Yeah, my God. I don't know, that scared me a little bit. Maybe wear two bracelets, one on each wrist. That's on brand anyway. I actually do have enough for that, so. I bet you do. And, you know, there's a bead store with show fans in it right around the corner.

You can go just get another one made up. It reminds me of this movie I saw when I was a kid. There used to be horror movies on after cartoons on Saturday, which is a weird freaking choice. It was called the Thriller Double Feature, and you just left the cartoons on, and it would eventually turn into these horror movies, like really crappy B movies. And I remember one, which definitely didn't scar me for life or anything, probably watching it when I was six.

This woman and her mom went shopping abroad in Africa or something, and the mom bought her like this doll that's really ugly with a necklace on it. And the daughter was like, oh, this is so gross. So she takes the necklace off the doll because she likes it. Or maybe it's a bracelet, right? And she wears it. And the doll comes alive because the bracelet the whole time, where the necklace there the whole time was to keep this like evil spirit inside the doll.

Oh, wow. And so maybe that's what's going on with your bracelets. That's wild. Am I your little Feedback Friday doll with my little Peter bracelet? Yeah, little evil spirit voodoo thing. So, all right, go have this, I don't know how we got on this. Go have this chat man with your wife. I hope it all goes well.

If you can make room for your wife's feelings as well as your own in this conversation and she's willing to really hear you out and engage with you on this, I think it could be a massive breakthrough in the way that you guys relate. Either way, this conversation is going to be powerful. We're rooting for you and good luck. You know, Gabe, I have a little sympathy for the wife in this situation. I don't think she's handling this stuff well or anything to get me wrong. But I know what it's like to get really excited about something and be like, oh, my God,

we're going to move. It's going to be amazing. And you start thinking about it and you think about it and you're dreaming about it. And you're telling your friends about it. And you're just selling yourself on it so hard. And then you bring it up to someone else and they're like, I don't know. and you're like, I start to get like anger. Like, why are you as excited about this as I am?

And the answer is because they've heard about it for 10 seconds and you've been thinking about it for 10 days. That's a good point. You know what I mean? I might be in the mix. But again, you can't do that. Like, I can't go to Jen and be like, I'm building an addition to the house and turning it into a studio.

She's going to be like, wait, hold on. What? No, that seems like a bad idea. Can we talk about this? Right. And then I'm like, you don't know, you don't support my dream of being a video podcast or YouTube or like, you can't do that. And I think that's kind of what she's doing.

with the dog and the move, right? You have to realize that you're in a relationship and it's about compromise and just because you're excited about something doesn't mean the other person is, and it doesn't mean they like don't love you anymore because they're not into it. And it's just part of growing up. I wonder if this is a younger couple to, I don't know, a whole lot going on. Recommendation of the week, Gabriel, what do you got for us? My recommendation of the week is Secrets of the Octopus on Nat Geo, National Geographic. You and your Octopi. Oh, I'm obsessed with the Octopi. And this documentary is part of the reason. You know that I love my octopus teacher.

We talked about that a few weeks ago. I can't, I'm one of my favorite documentaries. A friend of mine who knows that I love Octopi. Pulpos in Spanish, as I just learned, told me to watch Secrets of the Octopus. Actually, you know who told me to watch this? Dr. Aaron Margolis, the one and only. I'm also known to the people who know me the best as the fucking doctor.

And apparently also the fucking recommender, because she nailed it with this one. It's three episodes, so really quick. And each episode follows a handful of different species of Octopi in different parts of the world and gets into the psychology of Octopi, their inner life, all of their incredible skills from hunting to building to choosing mates. I was blown away. There were stuff that I did not know about Octopi that I learned from this documentary. It was so fascinating and it was also so beautifully shot. The technology with the cameras and

everything now is just extraordinary. But maybe my favorite part was realizing that Octopi are so intelligent. I was literally sitting on my couch watching it being like, these octopi are smarter than half the people I know. You can just say octopuses, by the way. They're both correct. I think on the documentary, they keep saying octopuses. Yeah. And I was like, why are they doing that? Have we all moved on octopi now? We just given up on grammar. But I will say octopi. It's a little pretentious. It's a little affected. That's hilarious. Because it feels wrong to me to say octopuses, but that's why I'm single. Yeah. One reason. Anyway, there's a little. There are many. We talked about the bracelet already. I feel like an octopus who's just collecting weird objects and putting them on and taking them off. If you're interested in nature, if you're interested in underwater stuff, and if you love octopi octopuses, see, it just sounds so weird. I'm not saying it does. It sounds a little bit like, what did you just say? Exactly. Which one is it? I don't know. I'm not sure.

They're both correct. That's the thing. And mostly, if you enjoy hearing Paul Rudd, who narrates this documentary saying octopuses over and over again, then go enjoy this. It's on NatGeo. And it's streaming on Disney Plus. Also, in case you all don't know, there's a subreddit for our show. If you want to jump into discussions with other listeners about specific episodes or about our recommendations, that's all fair game. If there was an episode you liked, you hated, you want to share some additional thoughts, learn more from other people in our show fam. Definitely check it out.

Gabe and I are both in there, some good conversations happening in there, all on Reddit in the Jordan Harbinger subredits. All right, next up. Hi, Jordan and Gabe. I'm a single mother to a wonderful five-year-old daughter who is undoubtedly my proudest accomplishment in life. She is my constant inspiration, full of joy, curiosity, sincerity, and overwhelming love. My daughter's father and I were together for five years before she was born. We chose not to legally marry because it didn't feel necessary. Our relationship felt secure.

Plus, being in a state that recognized common law marriage provided a sense of stability. During the pandemic, her father's struggles with alcohol escalated to domestic violence, which eventually led to him being arrested after a physical incident in front of our daughter. After his arrest, I made the difficult decision to move with our daughter to a state where we both had familial support, hoping that he would prioritize us and, in time, we could rebuild our family. However, despite him now living just 20 minutes away, he has chosen not to be involved in our daughter's life. What began as occasional inconsistencies in visitation has now stretched into over a year without seeing her, and more than six months without a phone call to her. It's heartbreaking,

knowing he is so close, but has chosen to abandon her. Oh, man, that's tragic. Even now, as I've taken steps to seek court-en-forced child support, he actively evades service and refuses to accept the necessary papers. I know we can never hold ourselves responsible for another person's choices, but I struggle with guilt and disappointment. I struggle with how to forgive myself for allowing my daughter to grow up without her father. I just want to address this one right off the bat. You are not allowing your daughter to grow up without her father. You want him around, right? He's choosing not to be involved despite living 20 minutes away, and he's avoiding every other way of supporting you guys. Let's just be clear about that. Even with the support of consistent therapy, thoughts about the

responsibility of providing her with the best upbringing on my own, fill me with fear and uncertainty, navigating parenthood alone while processing my hurt and my resentment toward the situation sometimes feels overwhelming. How do I continue to guide my daughter with love and resilience? How can I reassure her that she is always enough? Most importantly, how do I shield her from questioning herself worth because of her father's absence, signed Making My Daughter's Life Richer when her Pops isn't in the picture? Oh, man.

These are all really great questions. The fact that you're even asking them, that you feel, this huge love and commitment and responsibility to your daughter, that says so much about what kind of mother you are. And it gives me a lot of confidence that she has one fantastic parent, and that's going to make all the difference. But look, I'm really sorry that her dad doesn't want to be involved in her life. He clearly has some real demons. He's conflicted about being a father, and that is heartbreaking. For him, for you, for your daughter, it sucks. There's no way around it. The reality is not having her father in her life, that will leave some kind of.

mind a mark. It might be big, it might be more manageable, but it will play a role in her development, and she will have to learn how to heal that wound as she gets older, hopefully with your help. Now, whether that father wound is better or worse than having a dad like this in the picture, hard to say. And that's something to keep in mind, too, given what kind of guy he is, his addiction, his ambivalence or straight up indifference to being a good father, it's possible that it's better that he's not in the picture. Doesn't make it easy, but it might, in a certain way, be easier. So that's what you're working with. And now all you can really do is the things you're asking about to be the best possible

mother, which you're already doing. So in my experience, that means spending a ton of time with her, making that time generous, rich, interesting, productive, meaningful, being super present when you're with her, both in terms of giving her as much of your attention as possible moment to moment, but more generally, being very attuned to her needs and her feelings and her interests. So you notice her dipping into sadness one day and you say, hey honey what's up anything you want to talk about and you make lots of room for her to share how she's feeling whatever her capacity is for that at five years old maybe you notice her getting angry or

short-tempered with you with a friend with a teacher at school you can tell her i can see that you're angry what made you mad what's going on and you walk with her through that anger you show her that it's okay to be anxious to be mad to be scared you hold that for your daughter that's part of your job as a mother that's what young kids need a parent who's sturdy enough and big enough to absorb their anxiety, until they can learn to hold it themselves, and in that way, you make her feelings safe and manageable. And same thing with her thoughts.

If she wants to ask you about her dad, where he is, why he's not around, make space for that. You don't need to tell her every detail at five years old, but you can answer her questions on the level that she can handle right now. Maybe you tell her that it's hard for her dad to be close with you guys.

Maybe you tell her her her dad has a hard life and that he has some things he needs to fix before he can see her again, and that she can always ask you anything she wants, and you'll always answer her questions, that kind of thing. And part of your job in those conversations is to model for your daughter what this courage and resilience actually look like.

You know, these chats about her father might be pretty painful for both of you, potentially. And if you get uncomfortable, if you get kind of cagey or vague, if your own sadness or anger ever overwhelm you, she's going to clock that. She might internalize your feelings about her dad, and she might get the message that, you know, it's not safe to bring certain things up.

So you have to do your own work on all of this to be able to talk to your daughter in a way that keeps the focus on her, that keeps the channel open, that doesn't accidentally send the message that anything she asks is wrong or off limits. And as for reassuring her that she's always enough, I think that's all about how you relate to her, how you express your love for her. When you listen to her openly, generously, you're showing her that she's enough, that she doesn't have to do or be anything in particular to deserve your love, to deserve your attention. So when you pick her up from school or you see her back at home at the end of the day or whatever, and you say,

how is your day, honey? How are you feeling? What do you want for dinner? What do you want to do this weekend? And you know, take pleasure and whatever she tells you, that's how a child learns that they're enough by being in a relationship with a parent who treats them like they're enough. Exactly. I wouldn't overthink this part too much. I don't know if you need to tell your daughter three times a week. You're enough. I mean, you're welcome to. And that might be sweet, but those are just words. What she needs is an experience of you that signals, I am enough. Which I know I'm so corny right now.

I'm sort of laughing at myself. But I got to say, based on your letter, I have a feeling she's really already getting this. But maybe holding that idea in your head will give your conversations with her every little moment you spend with her, that extra intention. And I think that's going to make a huge difference in her life. I got to say, Jordan, I am also very touched by this letter. And I'm so happy that her daughter has such a thoughtful parent. I think that's going to be this girl's saving grace. But I also think our friend here is in the process of making peace with the fact that her daughter is going to have some wounds or at least some difficult experiences because of who her father is.

And that's really painful to accept, but it's also unavoidable and it's also essential. I mean, none of us gets through life without some kind of trauma, nobody. Some of us have profound trauma. Some of us have relatively minor trauma. A lot of us have that kind of like somewhere in the middle manageable trauma, you know, that diet trauma. Yeah, that trauma zero. Exactly. That zero calories, weirdly a lot of sodium trauma.

But the project of parenthood is not to create a life for your child that is entirely free of adversity, you know, totally free of pain, which is impossible anyway. It's to teach a child how to work through that pain, how to move through adversity so that they don't get buried by it. Which to your point a moment ago, Jordan, that begins with a parent. who can do that for them. But there are a lot of parents, I think, who want to try to spare their children from all pain. And I get it. I mean, who wants to see their five-year-old daughter cry because, you know, dad hasn't called her for six months? It's devastating. Yeah. And obviously, you want to

avoid any unnecessary pain for your children, but all human beings experience their share of pain. And it's an essential ingredient in our development. We actually need it mentally, mentally, spiritually, sometimes even physically. So when you ask, how do I shield my daughter from questioning her self-worth because of her dad's absence? I would argue your job is not to shield her from any thoughts or feelings specifically, especially as she gets older. Yes, of course, you want to protect her. That's important. If her dad coming around is just going to create more pain and very little connection, maybe that's something you decide to shield her from. Or I don't know, if like a kid at school makes fun of her because her dad isn't around or something like that. Yeah, you step in, you say something

you protect your child, that's a different thing. But when it comes to your daughter's inner world, there's no need to police that too much. I would argue that your job is actually the opposite. If she ever questions herself worth, the best thing you could do is say, tell me about that, and ask her why she might feel down or why she might feel sad or whatever version of unworthy she's feeling, or why her father's absence makes her feel a certain kind of way and just listen to her, validate her, and then help her and show her that the way her father behaves is a reflection of him, not of her, and that you are not going anywhere, and that she's important and she's valuable, and she is your priority no matter what. So actually, you have to be

willing to let your daughter feel her pain in order to teach her how to survive it. Shielding her from stuff, whether it's by trying to talk her out of her feelings, or slapping a band-aid on them, or avoiding them altogether, that only sends the message that that pain is dangerous or inappropriate, inconvenient, or somehow wrong. And that's how feelings become shameful. And then a whole other layer of trauma can develop, which is the trauma of not knowing how to deal with trauma, which can take years to unpack as an adult. For sure, because there are facts you just can't change about your daughter's father. You could be the most brilliant mother in the world. Your daughter would still have some painful feelings around her dad. So your job is to face those facts head on,

make peace with the sadness and the regret and the guilt that you feel, and show your daughter how to bear those feelings in a way that makes them, A, meaningful, and B, survivable. But speaking of the difficult feelings you're feeling these days, that's a whole other process. My advice there is, find ways to do the exact same thing yourself. I would stick with your therapy. I would find other outlets, again, like our friend from question one, to work through those feelings. I'm not going to say, you know, don't feel guilty, don't have regret, your husband's entirely

to blame. I do think he is the main problem here, but there might be some good way. for you to do around how you're making sense of his absence, and most importantly, how you're experiencing all of this in a way that produces that guilt and regret. That's important. You said it beautifully, you're not ultimately responsible for your husband's choices, but you are responsible for how you're responding to them, how you're showing up for your daughter. So taking care of your side of the street, I think that's crucial too, and that's part of your process of being the best possible mother. So I hope you get to do that. Gabe, you know, as a dad, I can only

assume that whatever this guy is going through is so horrible that he thinks his daughter is better off not seeing him and hearing from him. It's possible. He must have such a low opinion of himself. And you know what? Maybe he's right in his current condition. Maybe he's correct. Maybe him not being around is actually the best thing right now because I cannot imagine. For example, I was working on something this morning, finalizing something and I missed my daughter from when she woke up before she went to dance class and then to daycare. And I was like, oh, I miss her. I didn't see her today. It's been a few hours. And this guy hasn't seen his daughter in six months.

The only thing that would keep me away is if I feel like I'm so toxic that I'm actually going to hurt her by being around. That's it. That's the only thing. There's no like, oh, I don't care. Or he's so in his addiction right now that he doesn't even, he's not in control and he can't show up for anybody. But that amounts to the same thing. Yeah. I mean, look, you can't get your daughter to sort of internalize that, especially at this age.

But this isn't a guy, you know, you're going to want to convince to be around. I mean, he's, it's a shame, it's tragic, but it's on him and the ball's in his court. But listen, you're already doing so much right here. You sound like a wonderful person. Your daughter's very lucky to have you in her life. I think your love for her is going to influence her profoundly. It's going to give her the security and inner resources that she needs to work through her dad's stuff. And that is amazing.

Take care of her while you also take care of yourself, and you guys are going to be great. We're sending you both a big hug and wishing you all the best. I hope you all enjoyed that. I want to thank everybody who wrote it. this week and everybody who listen. Thank you so much. The best things that have happened in my life and business have come through my network, the circle of people I know like and trust. And I am teaching you how to build the same thing for yourself in our six minute networking course. It is 100% free. It's not gross. It's not schmoozy. It's on the thinkific platform at six minute networking.com.

These drills take a few minutes a day. I really wish I knew this stuff 20 years ago. It's all about digging the well before you get thirsty. Build those relationships before you need to lean on them. again, free at 6-minute networking.com. Advertisers, deals, discounts, ways to support the show at Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. Gabe's over on Instagram, Gabriel Mizrahi, or on Twitter at Gabe Mizrahi.

This show is created in association with Podcast 1. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, and of course Gabriel Mizrahi. Our advice and opinions are our own, and I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer. Do your own research before implementing anything you hear. on the show. Remember, we rise by lifting others. Share the show with those you love. If you found the episode useful, please share it with somebody else who could use the advice we gave here today. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn. And we'll see you

next time. You're about to hear a preview of the Jordan Harbinger show with former Mafia underboss Sammy the Bull Gravano. My mother father bought me a bike. They were broke. It was a Schwinn. I had to take care of it. Fucking Thursday out, somebody stole it. My friends, come running to me. Sammy, the bike, your bike is down the block near the fruit and vegetable store. I go running down there. The bar is right across the street where the wise guys hung out. So I grabbed the bike. These kids were older to me, bigger than me, and they started fighting. I were fighting the two of them. I was crying. I was getting beat up a little bit, but I was fighting like a bastard. One of them guys from the crosser street walked over. Hey, come here. What's your name?

Sammy. Another guy from across the street yelled him, what's going to him? What's going to him? going on? He said, no, and this kid Sammy, you see him? He was fighting these fucking kids. You see the way he was fighting? He's like a little fucking bull. A friend of mine, Tommy Sparrow, his uncle, Shorty Sparrow, he wanted to see me. He made an appointment. I went to see him. But he was good. He said, listen, Sammy, you've got to hook up. You're a tough kid. You're in fights. You know what's going to happen. Someday, you're going to hit the wrong guy. They're going to find you in a truck. Whatever I ask you to do, I've done, and I will do it with you. and I knew exactly what he was talking about.

And I shook his hand at 23. I was an associate in the Colombo family. I think a piece of me died on every one of those riders. It's a scar in my body. I feel it. When I talk about it in my podcast, maybe I'm getting old. I actually become emotional.

I'm not a person who normally cries, but it brings me close. To hear more about how Sammy rose in the ranks to become one of the most notorious gangsters of all time, check out episode 587 and 58 of the Jordan Harbinger show. This episode is sponsored in part by Something You Should Know podcast. Finding a new great podcast shouldn't be this hard, so let me save you some time. If you like the Jordan Harbinger show, you'll probably like something you should know with Mike Carruthers.

It's one of those shows that makes you smarter in a practical, useful way. Same curiosity vibe we go for here, just in a fast-focused format. Mike brings on top experts and asks the exact questions that you'd want to ask, and the topics are all over the place in the best way. recently they've covered things like why we care so much what other people think the benefits of laughter why sports fans get so invested and what makes people like you or not the through line is always the same smart ideas you can actually use in real life something you should know has been featured in apple's shows we love and it's got thousands of five-star reviews because it's consistently interesting so if you want another show that scratches that i want to understand how people in the world really work itch search for something you should know wherever you get your podcasts look for the bright yellow light bulb and start Start listening. You can thank me later.