The Jordan Harbinger Show - 1365: Strange Estrangement from Down in the Basement | Feedback Friday

Episode Date: August 6, 2026

Your brother-in-law cut off the family, can't hold a job, and asks his girlfriend what he's feeling. Hostage, or willing prisoner? It's 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!Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1365On This Week's Feedback Friday:Your brother-in-law Tommy was the little brother you never had. Then a much older girlfriend rebranded herself as a "somatic trauma therapist," diagnosed him from a certificate mill, and helped him cut off everyone who loves him, all while living rent-free in his parents' basement. Can you free a hostage who keeps demanding pizza money?You've got a hard-working husband, three kids, and zero doubt that he loves you, so why do you feel so lonely? He'll show up to any date night you plan, buy you flowers you don't even want, but what you crave is initiative: being thought about. You've said it for years and nothing changes. Are you asking too much, or is something sneakier hiding in the ask?You and your ex split amicably, but somehow you became fluffy Frankie's full-time everything: vet, food, boarding, your whole life rearranged around her while he "borrows" your soul dog whenever it suits him, then rages that it's not 50/50. Now you want to end the sharing for good, but he turns scary when he's crossed. Do you even have the right, and how do you say it without lighting the fuse?Recommendation of the Week: Wise — a money-transfer app Jordan leans on for sending cash across 80-plus countries and holding 40-plus currencies, with wire fees of a few bucks instead of the $30 to $50 a traditional bank charges. Clean UI, fast, and it does the exchange-rate math for you.You're a finance-and-stats builder moonlighting on an algorithmic trading system — after shelving a therapy app that ate your sleep — and Jordan's own newsletter about nothing being "too far" has you spiraling on the real question: when is grit wisdom, and when is it just refusing to quit? How do you tell the last mile from a dead end?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.And if you're still game to support us, please leave a review here — even one sentence helps! Sign up for Six-Minute Networking — our free networking and relationship development mini course — at jordanharbinger.com/course!Subscribe to our once-a-week Wee Bit Wiser newsletter today and start filling your Wednesdays with wisdom!Do you even Reddit, bro? Join us at r/JordanHarbinger!This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors: The Cybersecurity Tapes: Listen here: thecybersecuritytapes.comBetterHelp: 10% off first month: betterhelp.com/jordanDripDrop: 20% off: DripDrop.com, code JORDANMint Mobile: Shop plans at mintmobile.com/jhsSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This episode is brought to you in partnership with Airbnb. We had the best time in Victoria, BC, staying with our friend Chad, who lives up there, also happens to be an incredible fitness trainer, leave it to Chad to sneak a strength training block into a relaxing vacation. But staying with somebody local, it made the whole trip feel different. It wasn't the tourist version of Victoria. It was the Here's What You Actually Need to See version. We flew on a seaplane, wandered Government Street, and Fantan Alley, found an amazing

coffee spot, hiked Mount Douglas Park for this incredible 360-degree view over the whole city. and that's the kind of travel experience people actually remember. It's also what makes listing your space on Airbnb in Canada so practical. While you're away, your home doesn't have to sit empty. It can become part of someone else's trip. Maybe you love your quiet street, your walkable neighborhood, the coffee shop around the corner, the nearby trails, the cozy backyard at your stay,

or just the feeling of coming back to a real home at the end of the day. Those are the details guests love because they make a trip feel local, personal, and memorable. And while guests get to experience your neighborhood the way you do, your home can bring in extra income to put towards your next trip. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.ca.ca. Welcome to Feedback Friday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger.

As always, I'm here with Feedback Friday producer, the polyphenols helping me neutralize the free radicals and the precious bloodstream of your life conundra, Gabriel Mizrahi. On the Jordan Harbinger show, would decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice

so 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. Undercover agents, former jihadis, journalist-turned poker champion or a tech luminary. This week, we had social scientist Max Butterfield, Dr. Max Butterfield. He debunked a lot of popular dating and relationship myths online, like, do soulmates exist? Does it matter if you look like your partner? When are red flags, red flags are just internet BS?

Stuff like that. Super interesting conversation and very present. practical. On Friday, as though we share stories, take listener letters, offer advice, play obnoxious soundbites, and compare Gabe and me to various naturally occurring plant-based micronutrients. Lots to get into today, fun ones and doozies. Let's dive in. Gabe, what is the first thing out of the mailbag? Dear Jordan and Gabe, my brother-in-law Tommy and I were close when he was younger. Whenever my wife and I visited, he and I would go on long, late-night walks, and just talk about life. I made a real effort to be a big brother to him, and when we got married, I included him on

my side of the wedding party. Tommy met Jane about 10 years ago when he was 16 and she was 22. They didn't start dating until he turned 18, but the dynamic was set early. Interesting. Okay. After a year long distance, Tommy relocated across the country to be with her. Tommy, who's now 27, has always struggled to hold a job. Part of that is a poor work ethic, but he never sees it that way. There's always an excuse and always someone else to blame. In 2018 and 2019, Jane had serious health issues that left her frequently bedridden and unable to care for herself. To his credit, Tommy stepped up as her full-time caretaker. Jane has also alluded to abuse in her past, though the details are vague.

That history seems to be the foundation of a dynamic that's only grown unhealthier over time. My in-laws are conservative Southern Christians, not perfect, but genuinely good people. My father-in-law built a successful business from nothing, and 18 months ago he offered Tommy a job, a real path to equity in that business, and housing if he and Jane relocated home. They took the deal. Tommy and Jane moved into the basement of a large house as parents own, with a private entrance, their own kitchen, and bathrooms. Tommy pays nothing toward rent, insurance, or expenses. My in-laws bought him a car when he was 17. They still cover the insurance, gas, and maintenance on it today. Before Tommy even started working, he began pushing a narrative that his parents had promised to buy them a house. What they actually offered was help finding housing with the possibility of buying them something down the road if things went well. His dad started him at the bottom, wanting him to learn the business before handing over any real responsibility. Within six months, Tommy stopped showing up entirely. Not calling in. Full, no call, no show.

Wow, with his own father, who's saving his butt from being a little. homeless. Unreal, but also I'm gonna guess this guy's just one of those. Meanwhile, Jane has styled herself as a life coach and more recently a somatic trauma therapist. She cut off her entire family without explanation

and now she's helped Tommy cut off his. His parents, my wife, and about six months ago, me. Wait, but they live in the basement of the parents' house. Do they cut those people off? Good point. How do that? Yeah, how do you cut your parents?

off when you live in their basement. Mom, dad, I'm going no contact. Well, wait, I need $20 for pizza, but then no contact. It reminds me this episode of the office where Dwight shuns Jim, I think it was, and he's like, shunned. And then he's like, Jim, actually, I need some unshun. I need you to go ahead and pass with it. Shun, and he's just unshunting and shunning people when it's convenient for him.

It's so ridiculous. This is so ridiculous. Did we miss something? Do Tommy and Jane still live there and ignore the parents, or did they move out? what a pair. I'm a hold off because I know we're still getting the full picture here, but these two are ridiculous. I got to say, I know Jane's had a tough go of it, but I love that she's chosen this seemingly entitled, messy, unreliable guy who can't even show up to the cushy job, his own dad created for her in a super successful company. And then she turns around and she's like, you know what

I'm going to do for a living. I'm going to tell other people how to live. Yeah, that's it. That's my calling. Don't even get me started on this. I know there are good life coaches out there. I've met them. I've collaborated with a few. But if the clients of 90, 90% of life coaches out there knew what those people were like in their personal lives, they would be shocked and probably stop being clients. It also sounds like she's calling herself a trauma therapist without having a degree or a license, right? So that's cool. Yeah, that's totally legit. Actually, that's illegal, to be clear, in a lot of states, in addition to being unethical and intellectually bankrupt. Also, cutting off your family with zero explanation, that's generally. Yeah. That's always suss. That's a huge red flag. And then pushing your partner to do the same thing. I just, that is.

What are the odds that they both had to go no contact with both of their families for the same reason at the same time? Pretty low. Part of me is going, we don't know what Tommy's family is like. I mean, our friend here is saying that they're not perfect, but they're good people. But like, we don't know the history here. If he's this way, is there a reason? Well, fair, but even if there is, cutting the family off completely with zero dialogue or explanation. Not cool.

Not good. It sounds way more like Jane's trying to isolate everybody than gets self-protection for her partner. So it goes on, here's where it gets darker. After learning that I have borderline personality disorder, Jane decided Tommy probably has it too, along with multiple personality disorder. So Jane really do be out here diagnosing people with her certificate from lifecoach institute.net. She's been quote-unquote practicing somatic trauma therapy on him. She has him convinced that the parents providing him free housing, a car, and a standing job

offer are the abusive ones. For roughly eight months, Tommy demanded his parents pay $2,500. a month for quote-unquote specialized therapy for him. They agreed without ever asking who the therapist was. I can't prove it, but based on conversations before I was cut off, I strongly suspect Jane was either receiving that money directly or taking a significant cut of it. Okay, well, I guess we'll take your word on that.

If so, that's awful because it's basically fraud, but okay, continue. Then, recently, Jane reached out to the in-laws demanding money for Tommy to undergo ketamine treatment. No details about who would be administering it, where would take place, how it would be structured, and just refuse to share any of it. Given the history with the $2,500 monthly therapy payments, the pattern is hard to miss. I'm not dismissing ketamine out of hand. I've personally completed three rounds of treatment and still receive occasional boosters.

But I did serious research before going in, and I work with a licensed psychologist, certified in psychedelic assisted therapy, who sat with me through every single. session and continues to help me with integration, ketamine is a tool that helps you do the work. It doesn't do the work for you. I'm concerned that Jane is just going to order mail-order ketamine, and if this isn't true clinical treatment, the person most likely to sit with Tommy during it is Jane. Handing someone in that position unsupervised access to a dissociative person in a vulnerable state is not treatment. It's the opposite. Yeah, for sure. Yikes. So much can go wrong here. Holy moly. It's funny. His worst case scenario is that they do it with therapeutic intentions,

but a bad therapist who is his girlfriend is the one sitting with. There's another scenario where it's like, we just want to do ketamine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, taking any drug like ketamine intravenously with somebody who has no idea what they're doing is extremely dangerous. I think that goes without saying, but holy cow, they're playing with fire. I've also watched Tommy ask Jane what he's feeling mid-conversation. and she just tells him. My God. So this guy has just completely lost his spine, his whole identity, if he ever even had one, and she's running the show.

This is so insane, man. Yeah. Tommy has multiple personalities, and one of them is apparently Jane. Yeah, that's good. Imagine watching that conversation happen in front of you. Yeah, so my dad just being super manipulative and abusive, and I'm like, what am I, babe? You're angry and you're hurt.

Yeah, yeah, I'm angry and I'm hurt. That's what I am right now, right? I am because I'm a person who feels things for himself, and that's how it is. Yeah, man. You remember men in black, Jordan, the first one? Yeah. Remember the guy who dies and then they find a tiny alien living in his head pulling the levers? With the levers, yes.

Yeah, the little guy, cute little guy who controls the flesh suit robot. That's so funny, exactly. That's the image that just popped into my mind. Tommy is the robot and Jane's the little alien pulling the levers on this guy. A hundred percent. Yeah, this is so, what a weird relationship this is. They're completely isolated now. Her family, his family, everyone in the community. Tommy periodically demands money for food because he can't find...

Oh, so he has not completely cut all these people off. They're not cut off. It's literally what you were saying with the shun unsun thing. They're not cut off when they want money from people. You know what this reminds me of. Hey, mom! The meatloaf! We want it now! The meatloaf! This person is ridiculous. Tommy periodically demands money for food because he can't find work. That is literally what it is because they're probably still living in the basement. Yeah.

The letter goes on. Tommy periodically demands money for food because he can't find work. And he's told his parents that if the financial support stops, he'll kill himself. The threat is what's holding everyone hostage. Wow, that's terrible. These poor parents, man. I hate to say this, Jordan, because Jane is not in a position to diagnose anyone with any certainty. but I don't know, she might be on to something with the BPD theory.

You might actually be right. I say this is somebody who's as qualified as Jane to diagnose somebody, especially over the internet. Same, but recurrent suicidal threats or gestures. That is one of the diagnostic criteria for BPD. The irony of the fake, unlicensed somatic therapist potentially nailing it with the label. I don't know. Geez. Well, but then she did seem to be inspired by our friend here.

That's true. She plagiarized our boys' disorder. In all seriousness, in all seriousness, though, whatever Tommy has, he's obviously struggling in a big way. I do kind of feel bad for the guy, even though he's a huge pain in the ass in a failure to launch type of kid, type of adult, actually. Then this week, Tommy got a speeding ticket for doing 60 and a 35. Ooh, actually, reckless driving, they talk about that with BPD too, don't they? They do. Impulsivity in self-damaging areas is another criterion. It is, yeah. And reckless driving is often listed as a common example of that.

Another point in Dr. Jane's favor, I guess. Dr. Jane, all ketamine queen herself. That's right. He's demanding his parents cover a lawyer, and he's blaming them for the ticket because he was, quote, tired from all the stress and hungry from not eating since he can't afford food. That is a direct quote. Jeez, that's all right, I guess. Sure.

I'm starting to feel bad for this guy now myself. If you'd say something like this to your own parents, there's something seriously wrong with you. something wrong. So no wonder he couldn't hold down any job ever. My in-laws love their son. They want real help for both of these people, but they're terrified that cutting the cord will push him over the edge, and he refuses every alternative. Poor parents, man. What a nightmare for them. My instinct is to do this. Find out where Jane would go if she had a soft landing, buy her a ticket, cover a month or two of expenses, and let her leave with some dignity, then get Tommy into an actual

mental health facility with real professionals, not another pseudotherapy arrangement. But I genuinely don't know if that's viable, and I'm out of ideas. What's happening now isn't just frustrating to watch. It's a genuine loss. How do you help someone who's being used as both a hostage and a cash machine? And how do you get through to parents who are enabling it out of pure fear? Signed snapping my dude out of this spell and coping with his painful farewell. When I don't know how to impel him to get well, and his parents are stuck on this carousel. My God, what a cluster. Okay, well, to state the obvious, I'm actually very sorry for Tommy, I'm sorry for his parents, and I'm sorry for you. You've lost a homie here. That really hurts.

It's got to be super sad and stressful to watch him be dominated and manipulated and isolated by this woman, this girlfriend, in all these different ways. And although, to be fair, I don't even know if I blame her completely. He's obviously participating in this dynamic. but what a huge loss, man. It's just, it's awful. But that's the choice he's making to the extent that he can choose, of course. I know that's a complicated question. So candidly, I don't know how much influence you even have here, man. And that actually might be the hardest part for you. Mourning, not just your friendship with Tommy, but your power to save the guy. And I think Tommy probably needs a few things. He needs intensive therapy for a while. He probably needs some other

supports like medication. He certainly needs distance from Jane and some good people who can help him see his situation more clearly. That could be you sitting down with him and giving it to him stray, but based on what you've shared, I just don't know how likely it is that he's even going to listen to you or give you the opportunity to you or anyone else, especially when you tell him that his girlfriend is using him and he's out of control and he needs to radically change his life. Cutting everyone off, look, that could be about a number of things. That could be Jane isolating him to maintain control. That could be the two of them isolating themselves from criticism and tough conversations. That could be him rejecting all of you before you guys can reject him.

That might even be what ditching the job was about on some levels, hard to say. But practically speaking, that's made it a lot harder for you to get through to him. You could still try. You could see if he'll engage. You could write him a letter if he won't talk to you. That could be a nice approach. But I'm afraid that this situation has gone on for so long. And Tommy and Jane's dynamic has become so entrenched that you're really up against a lot here. I do think you might have more luck with his parents, although, man, that's tricky too, because A, I'm guessing it's going to be hard for Tommy's parents to acknowledge how they've enabled their son and accept that they might have to pull back. B, even if you can get through to them, they can't force Tommy

to change either, and it sounds like you want them to see that they're continuing to enable their son out of fear that he's going to follow through on his promise to off himself, and I get why you want to do that. It must be really hard to watch them capitulate to his demands and send him money that he's either wasting or giving to Jane and continue to suffer when he lets them down again and again. So yeah, you could go to them, perhaps with your wife, and have a real heart to heart about their strategy with Tommy. What's at stake for them, how they got here, what their goals and expectations are, whether they're willing to try things in a new way. Maybe the best you can do is get them to stop sending Tommy money without asking any questions or make them realize that they can

do this, but they need to pay a therapist directly, not just hand the money over to Jane, which seems like a no-brainer. And there is a world, tragically, where Tommy makes good on his promise. And I hope he doesn't do that. It could all be a bluff. It could be a manipulation tactic. I'm hoping it is. But it's possible. And so when you go to your in-laws and you say, you're enabling your son and you need to stop, you're also asking them to accept a timeline where their son commits suicide or just continues to melt down in various destructive ways. And then they have to deal with that and feel responsible. For them to get to a place where they don't feel responsible, it's going to take a lot, probably a lot of therapy, introspection, support of their own,

and I don't know how much of a role you can play in that either. Gabe, I do find it interesting that his go-to strategy is to somehow pay Jane off and essentially make it worth her while to just give up and disappear. I just don't see her going for that, especially if our friend's theory is correct that she's using Tommy as an ATM. Why would she give up her cash cow? I think it would take a lot more than a couple months rent and a Frontier Airlines ticket with extra leg room to get her out of the picture. Yeah. Shane is not a Frontier Airlines kind of gal with or without the extra leg room. I think she's flying business on Copa. I think what he's saying is, I have no idea of Copas even that night. I don't

know if I've ever flown that airline, but I just like to imagine her not on Frontier Airlines. It's basically United for South America, I think. Oh, cool. What is the worst punchline I could have gone with. What he's saying is, I can't get through to my brother-in-law as long as she's in the picture. Like, we can't get him help if she's involved. So that says a lot. So yeah, my feeling is if you want to make an impact here, you're going to have to go directly to Tommy, but if he literally won't talk to you, I'm confused about his no contact is a very flexible, no contact. So he might just say, no, I'm refusing to speak with you. And then that might just be the reality for a little while. Although, you know the one thing that gets Tommy to pay attention

and that's money. So if you really wanted to have a sit down with him, you could say, listen, man, I'm ready to lend you $5,000, but can you meet me at Starbucks? And I'm sure he will be there. and then maybe you'll have your audience for the talk that you want to have. I don't know. But if you want to help his in-laws come to a new position on their son and on Jane, you're welcome to do that. Maybe them cutting him off, at least financially, will help accelerate some process that could lead to him either breaking up with Jane or coming back into the fold. I mean, if I were his parents, I definitely wouldn't keep supporting him, but I know that's easier said than done. But I would really get clear on what you hope to achieve with your in-laws, and I would remember

that this is ultimately their son. So I'm unfortunately with Jordan. There's only so much you can do here. And maybe that's a better conversation for your wife to have with them. Maybe you can be a part of it too, if it helps. It's also possible that he will always be troubled, and that's just the way it is, which I think makes your letter more about how you're coming to terms with the reality of Tommy's situation, not so much about what you need to do in order to solve this guy's problems. It's interesting. There are two implications of the whole Tommy situation that feel more relevant to our friend here than how to just make Jane go away. One of them is how our friend here's wife feels about all this. You just brought her up. I mean, he didn't tell us much about her,

but I'm going to guess that watching her parents support her unstable and reckless brother in all of these ways for years. And I assume that that started pretty young. I think the first time they really support him with the car was like 17 years old, right? That must bring up a lot of stuff for her. And that's relevant because I'm sure that shows up in our friend here's marriage, maybe part of his role as helping his wife work through those feelings, but also her feelings are probably going to come into play if they try to convince her parents to stop supporting Tommy. Good point. It must be infuriating to watch your parents pay for your deadbeat brothers whole life and give him a job and a place to live and maybe even buy him a house when he's like this and when he's with someone like this. I'd be pissed.

The other implication is that our friend and Tommy might share this personality type. Our friend says he has BPD and by the way, kudos to him for learning that and owning it. That's a huge step. and also seeking out help and, you know, finding his way to good clinicians, like for the ketamine assisted therapy and all that, just good on you for taking good care of yourself. We don't know if Tommy actually has BPD, but as we talked about, some of his behavior does seem to fit. Even if he doesn't have this particular disorder, I think it's fair to say that we're talking about a guy who's pretty impulsive, unreliable, manipulative, for sure. He does seem to blame and project a lot onto other people, like with the whole, I got a speeding ticket because you wouldn't pay for my groceries.

Dude, I'm still just shaking my dang head about that. That's legitimately just such a stupid bananas thing to say. He's like, if you had just gotten me a gift certificate to Whole Foods, I wouldn't have been driving 75 miles an hour by a school. But I guess I'm just curious to know what it's like for one person with BPD to watch another person with potential BPD act out like this. Interesting question. Or, you know what? Let's put aside the idea that Tommy has it. Like, what is it like for our friend to lose this person he was so close with? You mean because abandonment is such a central concern for people with BPD? Is that where you're going with this? Yeah, like arguably the central organizing feature.

Like he said, what's happening now isn't just frustrating to watch. It's a genuine loss, and I believe him. I think it would be a genuine loss for anyone. But for someone with BPD, a loss like this hits in a very unique way. It's got to bring up a lot of intense stuff and potentially quite valuable therapeutically, if worked with in the right way, but very hard. And so I just wonder if that's the most important part of his letter, not how to get rid of Jane. but how to manage the feelings that come with losing somebody he loves so much.

Well, he might be fixating on how to make Jane go away because it's so hard to cope with the feeling of losing Tommy. Right. Well put. Just give me my friend back. But as you said, his friend might not come back. And even if he did, he would still have to do a lot of work to be a healthier presence in his life. So when we say there might not be much for you to do here, you've got to focus on the parts of this you do control, how you're experiencing this loss, how you're grieving this friendship, what you're learning from all of you. it, taking into the rest of your life, how you're working with your wife on this, all of that you do control. And I just have a feeling you're going to get a lot further focusing on that. Amen, Gabe. Again, I'm very sorry you guys are going through this. It's a super sad situation. Very concerning. I wish you weren't. But Tommy's on his own path, where the speed limit is negotiable, apparently. He and Jane need to work this out in their own way. All you guys can do, you and your wife, her parents, is protect yourselves appropriately, support one another, learn what you can, and empower

tell me to find the perspective and help that he needs. If he can hear that, and then basically wait and see. Sending you guys a big hug and wishing you all the best. And now I'm feeling... Actually, what am I feeling, Gabe? Oh, you're feeling excited, you know, to tell our listeners about the fine products and services that support this show.

That's how you're feeling. Yeah, that's it. I'm excited. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Dell and AMD. What if hackers stole your organization's encrypted data today, not because they can read it now, but because they're willing to wait until they can. That's the threat at the center of episode 16 of the cybersecurity tapes. The story follows a pharmaceutical company preparing to release a potentially groundbreaking cancer

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can better prepare. Episode 16 explores post-quantum cryptography, third-party risk, data classification, security hygiene, and the importance of beginning the transition before QD-A. arrives. Listen to episode 16 of the cybersecurity tapes because the data stolen today could become the breach your organization has to explain tomorrow. This episode is also sponsored in part by BetterHelp. Finding the right therapist can be a very personal process. What works well for one person may not be the right fit for someone else, which is why it can be useful to hear from people who have actually gone through the experience themselves. BetterHelp has a reviews page where you can explore real customer feedback and see what users are saying about the service. The page is updated every day with

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please consider supporting those who support the show. Now, back to Feedback Friday. Okay, next up. Hi, Jordan and Gabe. My husband and I have been together for 19 years and married for 17. We have three kids, ages 11, 9, and 2. I'm a stay-at-home mom, and he owns a small business and regularly works 80 to 90 hours a week.

Whoa, dude's putting in 12-hour days, seven days a week. That's insane. I genuinely don't resent the hours. He's working incredibly hard for our family. The kids are thriving, our life is stable, and I know without question that he loves me. Amazing. Glad to hear that. Lots to be grateful for. The problem is that I feel... And then?

Is that I feel increasingly lonely in our marriage. My husband tells me he misses me. He talks about date nights. He talks about anniversary trips. He wants intimacy. If I arrange child care, coordinate schedules, and make everything happen, he's there. But what I crave isn't participation, it's initiative. A good example is flowers. My husband likes giving me flowers and I genuinely appreciate the thought behind them. I don't want him to stop buying them. The funny thing is, I don't actually care about the flowers themselves. They don't make me feel particularly loved. If anything, they create more work for me because I have to trim them,

find a vase, arrange them, clean up the leaves and eventually throw them away. The flowers are not the point. The thought behind them is. Gabe, I'm a little confused, so she does like the flowers or she doesn't like the flowers? I'm also a little concerned. I think she's saying she likes them, but they aren't the most meaningful thing to her. It's what they represent that she likes, and she wants more of that. So, flowers good. He's crushing the flowers, yes? I think so, but I think she's saying she wants more. She goes on. Date nights feel similar. My husband says he wants a date night or a weekend away, but the mental load of making it happen usually falls on me. Childcare schedules, packing, preparing the kids, and all the logistics somehow become my responsibility. What would

make me feel loved is hearing, I already lined up child care, everything is handled, just be ready at six. It's not stubbornness on my part. It's that being thought about is how I feel loved. Okay, so she's feeling neglected and unappreciated, unloved. Or just not loved. Enough or as frequently as she would like. I mean, I have so many thoughts already, but go on. We've talked about this multiple times over the years. I've explained for years that initiative and thoughtfulness are what make me feel loved. Sometimes he seems to understand, but nothing really changes.

Other times, I wonder if he simply forgets, doesn't see it as important, or doesn't understand why this matters so much to me. Or dude is so run down from working investment banker hours that he can't even begin to think about. date night? One thing that makes this complicated is that I know he's probably operating at capacity. Correct. Over capacity, for sure. Running a business and working 80 to 90 hours a week doesn't leave much energy in the tank. Quite. I don't question whether he loves me. I know he does. That's why I sometimes wonder if I'm being selfish. At this point, I don't want to bring it up again because I feel like I'm becoming a nag. If I have to repeatedly ask someone to prioritize me, it starts to feel less meaningful when they finally do. Yeah, I hear that. Am I asking for something unreasonable?

Am I asking too much from someone who's already giving everything he has? Or is it reasonable to want him to try harder in this one area? If I've already communicated this clearly, and nothing changes, do I accept that this simply isn't how he's wired and find another way to feel connected? Or is there a way to help him understand that the planning, initiative, and mental load are the gift, not the flowers, not the date night, not even the trip itself, signed a conflicted complainant, feeling some estrangement, because my husband won't just make the damn arrangements. Okay, really good question. So I guess I want to start by saying that what you guys are struggling with, it's extremely common in marriages, especially long ones. It's even harder when one or both spouses

work a ton. Obviously, that leaves less time and energy to stay connected, make each other feel appreciated, all of that. And I'm sorry that you're going through it, man. I'm sorry that your husband won't or maybe can't give you this experience you're hoping for, which is basically feeling cared for and taken care of in this specific way. And I'm sorry that you feel unloved as a result. And I think both of your experiences, well, okay, we're only hearing about yours, but I can kind of imagine how your husband probably feels given as obligations. And also, because I am a husband too, I think they're both largely valid. And they're both meaningful. And I understand why you're here. Wouldn't it be nice if your husband heard what you want, made it happen, took care of all the logistics, took you on a date night or a vacation?

Yeah, I know that means a lot to women generally, especially since child care traditionally falls to them. But your husband is working 80 to 90 hours a week for you guys. You're a stay-at-home mom. I know that's not easy. I'm not saying it's easy. It's a massive job that comes with its own overwhelm and stress and isolation. I absolutely understand that. but I'm sure planning a vacation and all the logistics around that vacation when he's sleeping,

I'm going to guess five hours a night and hustling all day every day, that must just feel impossible. Again, maybe because I'm a guy and I'm a business owner myself, I kind of identified with him here. It might be my bias here. But also, maybe that bias is just a little useful in this case. Your husband is running the business. He owns the business, which means even when he is not physically there, he's thinking about it constantly and trying to make sure the wheels don't call off. And I can tell you that it's probably paralyzingly overwhelming for him to even figure out how to go about planning a vacation for you guys and taking care of all the child care in the literal zero minutes that he has to think about this. On top of the time and energy it requires,

I'm guessing it also requires him to learn a bunch of other stuff that traditionally has not been his domain, right? Contacting the babysitter, figuring out how to pay her with PayPal or whatever, managing school schedules, arranging pickups, handling meals, all of that. So it's not just like making a couple calls and get it done. It's he's got to learn all this, hit the learning curve, and then do it. And I'm not saying at all, hey, that's your job, suck it up and stop complaining. I'm saying there's a reason that marriage is a partnership where you tend to divide up responsibilities because this is a ton of work. My point is what seems to you like, hey, just plan a vacation for us and make me feel loved. That's actually probably a much bigger

task for your husband than you maybe realize, and with a lot more pressure attached to it. Now, I'm not saying you're not allowed to want this. All I'm saying is, if it were as easy for him as you seem to think it is, or at least hope it is, I just, I don't know if you'd be writing in today. All that said, I also know that if your husband really wanted to make this happen, I assume he's a smart guy and he could figure it out. He could spend five fewer hours at work one week and use that time to plan a trip. He could hire a travel planner or an assistant to help him out. There are options. And so it's a fair question.

If he probably could do this, if he put his mind to it, and he knows how much it would mean to you, then why hasn't he? What's the issue here? It's actually quite a complicated question. Am I asking for something unreasonable? Am I asking for too much? In one way, given your husband's responsibilities,

yeah, you might be asking for something unreasonable in the sense that it might be virtually impossible for him, given the kind of person he is, given what's on his plate, to plan something in the way that you want. In another way, no, it's not unreasonable to want to feel loved and appreciated by your spouse. I don't think it's crazy or unfair to want to feel that from him. And for whatever reason, I wish we knew, this message just simply isn't landing with him.

Or he disagrees. Or he totally gets it, but he just can't give it to you. But then that becomes a question for her again, in a world where he can't or won't give her this thing that she's asking for, which does seem to be the world that she's living in at this point. What does she then do with that? the main thing she seems to be doing with it is clinging to this need, doubling down on it, and continuing to expect this very specific thing from him. I want to feel loved. The way I feel loved is being thought about. So as long as you're not thinking about me in this way, I feel

unloved. But if they're going to make progress here, something's got to give, right? So to over-simplify this dramatically, either he needs to realize that this is worth his time and energy, or she needs to be less rigid in her definition of what his love should look like for it to matter to her. That's exactly it. And it's not necessarily that it's all on her, but if he won't try things in a new way, then the question before her is, can I? Even if it's just as an experiment, you know, like forget who's right and who's wrong for a second. Just what happens if I loosen up on this idea a little bit? What if I go about getting what I want in a different way? To be fair, though, she's probably listening to this and going, yeah, and I'm sorry, but this is the way I am. Being thought about is how I feel loved. That's how most people feel loved. I can't change. that. How am I supposed to not be hurt when my husband doesn't think about me? She might not be wrong about that. Okay. So I guess I would challenge that idea a little bit because there's so much going on

just in that position. First of all, later in her letter, she said, I don't question whether he loves me. I know he does. And that's why I sometimes wonder if I'm being selfish. Right. So she's already kind of onto herself here a little bit. She knows he loves her and he shows her in all of these other ways, namely how hard he works and the way he provides. But there's something about this way, this date night or planned vacations, whatever it is, that still feels so important to her and very charged. I don't know if continuing to demand that he do this makes her selfish. I think it's more like continuing to expect this when she's not getting it might be temporarily blinding her or blunting her to all of the other ways her husband shows his love, even though she's also saying

I know that this is how he loves me and he does. And so in that way might make it harder for her to be aware of his other forms of love and his sacrifices because her attention is so consumed by this one thing he's not doing. Harder for her to be consistently grateful. That's a diplomatic way to say ungrateful. But she's not ungrateful, right? She's literally saying, I know he loves me and he works hard. I just think it's hard for her to feel that that's enough or for that to land in the right way for her when her mind is saying, but the only thing that will be enough is if he does this one thing that I want. So it's not that she's not that she's selfish, really. It's more that she's, again, a little inflexible, by which I mean she's not budging

from this expectation. She's fixating on this very specific active service that she wants, and she's also fixating on its meaning. The meaning if she gets it, and the meaning if she doesn't get it. It's funny because she said, I feel selfish when she's not really selfish, but then she said, this isn't stubbornness when I think she is maybe being a little stubborn in the way that you just described. Right. So my question is, why, if she allows herself to acknowledge that she is being a little stubborn or a little inflexible here, what function might that inflexibility serve? I get that it would mean a lot to her, but I'm with you. There's something more here. We're just not hearing it. I mean, at this point, I think we would be speculating, but she could

approach this question through a couple different lenses. One lens is her past, her childhood, how she received love early on in her life, who did things like this for her or who didn't and how that made her feel. We know nothing about her childhood. I don't know how much she's thought about it. But I would be surprised if those early experiences were not informing the meaning she's making of her husband's response to all of this. For sure. Yeah, how could it not? It always does, right? And another lens she could take is what else is going on around this need? So, for example, if she's feeling overwhelmed and burned out and isolated with the kids,

and her husband, despite as many virtues, doesn't, for example, validate her very often in words or with other actions, doesn't express his love to her in small ways, or doesn't seem to take much of an interest in child care and school and all the stuff she worries about. To be clear, I'm making all of this up. These are examples. But if those things are happening, then I could see why that would make her feel a little unappreciated. And then why something big, like planning a whole vacation and taking care of all the child care stuff, would suddenly feel very crucial. You know, maybe because that feels like the only way that she'll be able to get that validation or that reassurance from him. But then where my mind goes is, why does she need that particular

reassurance in that specific way right now. Is she a little bit rigid in her needs in general? And if she is, does that go back a long way too? So we're kind of back to childhood again. This is really hard, Gabe, because you could look at all this and say, well, he should just plan the vacation and make her happy. Come on, dude. But he won't. So then you could say, well, she should let go the idea that she needs to be loved in this particular way. But then she'd say, why should I have to forego being loved in this particular way that means a lot to me? Why shouldn't he forego his need to be exempt from planning things because he's freaked and too busy? Come on.

Yes. Totally. I know. This is a hard one. And then it becomes a question about who gets to be right and whose needs take precedence in this relationship. Exactly. Welcome to being married, I guess. Sounds so fun.

Can't wait to experience that. You're going to love it. It's the best part. It's the best part famously. These potentially unsolvable disagreements. Yeah. You know what I'm realizing? The way she's framing this expectation is also kind of interesting.

What would make me feel loved is hearing, I already lined up child care, everything is handled, just be ready at sex. Yeah, her fantasy of how this happens is very, very specific. Yeah. Specific and simultaneously, very vague. Oh, yeah. To your point earlier, does he know what lining up child care actually means? Does he know what everything is hand? You couldn't do it.

Interesting. No. I mean, I would call my wife's aunt. And if she was like, I can't, I'd be like, well, I'm out of ideas. I gave it a good go. I gave it a good text. and came up empty. So we're out of life. Does he know what everything is handled is actually comprised of? You know, does he know how much communication she actually wants around all of this? I'm guessing not

entirely. Whereas, and go with me for a moment on this, let's treat it like an experiment. You could go to your husband and say, hey, I know I've said this to you before, but I want to say it again. It would mean the world to me if you planned a trip for us. I know how busy you are. I know that some of this stuff is not your domain. So here's the babysitter's number. Here's her vet. The last week of August, the kids are off from volleyball camp before school starts. I could be super into a place with a pool or we could maybe go, I would love to go to a vineyard. That would be awesome, but I'm open. Let me know if you have any questions, but I put this in your hands and I can't wait.

And just give them that little assist. Dude, that seems super fair. Like, why can't this be a collab between them? Why does it have to be this all or nothing thing for both of them? And that's what I'm getting at. Like, she might be architecting this expectation in such a way that, especially at this point in their marriage, she knows he will never meet. And as long as he can't meet it, she gets to continue nursing this injury, this frustration, this grievance, this feeling, which might be a

story that she's co-creating, that she's unloved. Yeah, whereas if she let go of the need for it to happen exactly like this, which essentially means zero involvement from her, it might not look exactly the way she wants it to go, but then it might actually happen. Then it might actually happen, exactly. So is this maybe the function of the rigidity? to defend some of these feelings or defend certain ideas about, I don't know, what she deserves or about what love should look like or about the importance of her responsibilities with the kids, whatever it is. I don't know. It's just kind of a loose theory. So interesting. So what would she have to give up if she let go of this version of the vacation she wants? That would be a good

question for her to ask. Yes. Gabe, I know this isn't what she's writing in about, but I'm actually concerned about this guy and how much he's working. I mean, this is actually crazy. Yeah. This is quite a thing. It's a big sacrifice. I'm legitimately concerned about his health, physical and mental. I'm also concerned about his relationship with her and with their kids. I mean, I love his work ethic. Okay, his commitment, his stamina. Great. I really love that. It's extraordinary. And I'm sure a big part of his motivation is his love for his family. But dude, 80 to 90 hours a week. That's like Tokyo businessman level dedication. And that comes at a real cost. You can actually die young working like this. You can develop health problems. You can miss out on crucial moments in your family's life, which is the

whole reason you want to provide for your family in the first place. Look, it's one thing if you need to work 90 hours a week for six months, or you do it for a year, you're making a push, you're positioning your company for sale or whatever, or you work 90 hours a week, but you take two full months off every year. But to work 90 hours a week consistently for years on end? Yeah, that is a very big deal. So what you're getting as there might be more to that than just hard work? I'm going to speculate here. We don't know how your husband is at work, but if I were him, I would really want to make sure those 90 hours are truly high-impact hours. He's not spending a ton of time at work just pushing paper or hanging around looking for things to do that don't actually need to be done by him or waiting around for other people's work product so he can do it. Or just staying late because he thinks he needs to be there until close or constantly in order to get results. I do wonder if there's an opportunity here for him to learn how to lead and manage differently in a way that creates a little more

free time. I mean, just imagine this. If he went from working 90 hours a week to 80 or 80 to 75, that is 5, 10 more hours to sleep and work out and hang out with his kids. Maybe plan a vacation for him and his wife. Precisely and actually enjoy that vacation. Some entrepreneurs really do need to be at the office 90 hours a week. My honest take, most of them absolutely don't. And very few people, maybe no people can genuinely sustain 11, 12, 13 hours of truly high. impact work in one day. It's not possible. And the more hours you work, the more you start finding small ways to take a break or do mindless, low-impact stuff because your brain literally cannot handle it. So take a look at this, it could be a game changer for both of you. Now,

I don't know how much influence you have over your husband's work style, how he manages his time, how he manages his team. But this might be a conversation that you could begin with him. Not from a place of, hey, you need to spend your time better or you need to spend more time with me, but from a, hey, are we designing our life in the best possible way to maximize the quality of that life and take good care of you while you also run this business? Are you spending your time as wisely as possible? That's a great conversation for a couple to have, and it could be the beginning of some really important shifts for you guys, and it might solve a number of problems. So this is super interesting where we've ended up because what you're saying is in a way all of this might, in

fact, be your husband's quote unquote fault, but not in the way that she thinks. I do wonder what ripple effects this could create in every area of his life, including his marriage. But if your husband refuses to try any of this in a new way, then yeah, you're going to have to accept this quality in him absolutely. And yeah, it would probably be very helpful to you guys and just an interesting experiment to look for other ways of feeling connected. That's also part of the rigidity thing. You might surprise yourself. I don't know if there's another way to help him understand that this kind of planning is the gift if he doesn't agree or can't understand. But if you find a way to collaborate with him on this in a new way, maybe he'll be more open to seeing how meaningful this gesture actually is to you,

maybe to him too, and that'll make it easier. As with most of these conflicts, it's more helpful to ask how can I work with this situation rather than how can I show him I'm right. Because right in relationships, outside of very black or white situations, that's usually tricky business. Thanks for letting us go hard on the paint on this one. I hope this gives you some new angles here, and good luck. By the way, you can reach us Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com. Keep your emails concise, try to use a descriptive subject line, that makes our job a whole lot easier. If you're finding dead squirrels in your mailbox, you're struggling to define your relationship with an unstable parent, or you're afraid your family's going to falsely accuse your child

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Wisdom from our past episodes from us to you. I invite you to come check it out. You can sign up at Jordan Harbinger.com slash news. Now, back to Feedback Friday. Okay, next up. Hello, Jordan and Gabe. I'm a 27-year-old female from Canada, and my ex and I were together for 11 years. We got a dog together, Frankie, during the last two years of our relationship, and she quickly became the center of both of our worlds. Shockingly, the dog did not fix our problems, and we broke up relatively amicably in November 24. Because we both loved Frankie so much, we agreed that we would share her. That felt like the kindest and fairest thing to do. I didn't want him to lose her, and I genuinely believed we could make it work. But for the last

year and a half, I have effectively been Frankie's full-time caretaker and owner. I take her to the vet, I keep track of her annual shots and appointments. I buy her food. I arrange and pay for boarding when I go away. I plan my work, travel, social life, and day-to-day routine around her. I am with her and responsible for her every day. Whether I'm busy, tired, traveling, sick, working, or overwhelmed. She is my soul dog, my pride and joy. And I would do anything for her. The issue is that the quote-unquote sharing arrangement has started to feel less like shared responsibility, and more like my ex barring her whenever it happens to be convenient for him. There have been multiple times where he has asked to take her, change the plan several times, or not follow through at all. There have also been times where he has made plans to pick her up or

meet me to go get her, and then either been very late or not shown up at all, which has caused me to change or cancel my own plans. I really feel the lack of respect and consideration. I no longer want to share her, plain and simple. The hard part is telling him. This isn't just about me being nervous to have an awkward conversation. There have been moments since the breakup where conflict around Frankie has escalated in a way that made me feel genuinely unsettled and powerless. Since the breakup, my ex can become very reactive, aggressive, verbally abusive, and manipulative during conflict. For example, at one point, we had agreed on a date and time for me to get her back,

but after an unrelated conflict came up, he refused to return her and stopped replying to me. It made me realize that if he was upset with me, access to Frankie could very quickly become part of the conflict. Mm, yeah, that's not cool and definitely tricky. Another time, after not seeing her asking about her for six weeks, he asked to take her while I was leaving for a planned weekend trip. When I told him we were unfortunately out of town, he became extremely upset that I hadn't told him I was taking quote unquote his dog away and said that if we were sharing her, it needed to be 50-50. Okay, then make it. it 50-50, bro. I don't get it. You can't ask for the dog every six weeks of the last minute, and then when it's not convenient for your co-owner, turn around and say, hey, I need her half the time.

If you had her half the time, this wouldn't be an issue, dude. This guy sounds like an unreasonable, annoying man-child. Those moments showed me that he wants the authority and emotional claim of being her co-owner, but not the actual responsibility. He has a hard time seeing things from my perspective, and I genuinely don't think he realizes that the current arrangement is not equal custody. I don't say that to be cruel or to minimize his love for her, but I think there's a difference between loving a dog and being responsible for a dog. A hundred percent. Absolutely, I agree with you. Also, my ex works in the film industry, so his schedule can be extremely demanding and unpredictable. When he's working, he often isn't

able to take care of Frankie at all. This was the case even when we were still living together. In 2025, he had her for a whopping 32 days out of the entire year, which is less than 10% of the year. And so far, in 2026, he has had her only four days in six months. Someone's keeping receipts, but I'm glad because the numbers don't lie. I know some of this is genuinely because of his work, but I also see that he has more free time than he says. I haven't asked my ex to contribute financially because part of me hoped that when I eventually asked to stop sharing her, it would be clear that I've been the one supporting and caring for her full time. It feels unfair to me, and especially to Frankie, to keep doing this inconsistent back and forth. She deserves stability,

and I deserve to not have my life disrupted in this way. But I have extreme anxiety about his reaction. I'm expecting a massive fight. I'm expecting him to say that I'm not allowed to make this decision, that she is his dog too, that I'm being cruel or unfair and that he won't accept it. Do I have the right to end this informal sharing arrangement when I've been the one caring for her almost entirely since the breakup? How do I communicate this in a way that is kind and respectful, but still firm enough that it doesn't invite a debate? If he reacts aggressively or says I'm not allowed to make this decision, what is the best way to respond without escalating? And from a legal or a practical standpoint, what should I be documenting or preparing in case he refuses to accept this? signed feeling shaky about telling my former matey

that I'm keeping our four-legged baby after he's been snaky, flaky, and pretty cagey when it comes to showing up for this beloved lady. Oh man, tough situation. First of all, I'm very sorry that you're dealing with this. It's got to be very common with couples that break up. It doesn't have to be this contentious. Two reasonable parties should be able to either share true 50-50 custody

and financial responsibility for a dog after breakup or decide to leave the dog with the owner who can care for it the best. It sucks that you're in this position. On the upside, congrats on finding a dog that crawled her way into your heart and well done on taking such good care of her. Having a dog is a huge responsibility. I'm just touched that she's brought so much joy to your life. I mean, that's why people do this, right? So given the unique facts here, in my book, I do think you have a right to end this arrangement. One, you guys are broken up and you don't seem to have a lot of good will toward him at this point. It's not like you guys, Have a really nice friendship that lasted beyond the breakup, and Frankie's a part of that. It sounds like your relationship is rocky at best, and you'd just rather not have any contact

with your ex at all, which I understand, by the way. Two, his behavior is garbage. He can be competitive, petty, inconsiderate, mean, he's inconsistent and unreliable. These are terrible qualities in a co-parent and a pet owner. So minus 100 points or whatever for this guy right here. He's not some overwhelmed and chaotic guy with a crazy job who's just super-competing. and means well and is doing his best to make it easy. So I don't think he's earned a ton of loyalty or consideration here either. Three, he's saying he wants 50-50 custody of the dog, but he doesn't

actually follow through on any of that. He's not contributing financially at all. So now he might have gotten used to that, of course, because you haven't asked him to split the bills because that serves your interest, and I can't blame you for that strategy. But the fact that he hasn't gone, huh, you know, maybe I should offer to kick in some money every month to pay for Frankie's food and vet bills, while also demanding 50-50 custody, that just strikes me as selfish and immature. He doesn't even appreciate or even understand what really goes into owning a pet. Four, yeah, I don't know if I have a four. I just don't like this guy. Based on what you shared, he's a dick who believes he's entitled to the dog whenever he wants

when he's not putting in any of the work. It's just, it's absurd. And I know we only have your story to go on here. Maybe he's got a different version of events, but the numbers speak for themselves. So on a moral, emotional level, I do think you have a solid case here. And the way that I'd communicate that to him is, listen, I've spent a lot of time thinking about what's best for Frankie, about how this arrangement has actually worked over the past year and a half. The reality is that I've become her full-time caregiver and owner in every sense. I've realized that continuing to share her isn't working for me anymore. It's just too disruptive, it's unsustainable and frankly difficult, given the way that you handle the logistics

and the way that we communicate. I also don't think it's providing the consistency that's best for her either. So I've decided that I'll be keeping Frankie full time going forward. I know this is painful. I know it's not the outcome you want. I'm not saying this to hurt you or minimize how much you love her.

I know you do. But this is what I've decided and it's not a decision that I'm making lightly. Owning a dog for real is a huge responsibility, logistically, emotionally, financially. and I've borne that responsibility almost entirely myself. You say you want 50-50 custody, but you haven't contributed equally to her care. And you have to acknowledge that even though your love for her is real, your job and your schedule

and your commitments, they don't allow you to spend meaningful amounts of time with her. So I'm here to tell you that. This isn't something I'm looking to debate. I'm sorry about how hard this is. I genuinely hope you can see this from my perspective and think about what's best for Frankie. And I wanted to tell you respectfully rather than simply changing things without a conversation. Look, something like that's going to do the trick, I think. And if you think that he's likely to yell or he's going to make a scene or he's going to grab Frankie and run,

I would do this in a public place. You don't even have to bring the dog with you. I might decide not to do that so that you have some protection and he knows people are watching, as opposed to say, your apartment where maybe he could snatch Frankie and walk out and you wouldn't be able to stop him. And the cops don't come for three days. Great point, great script. And if he does escalate, I guess you say things like, I know you're angry. I can see that. I know this is really hard. It would be hard for me too, you know, stuff like that.

I know you don't want to say goodbye, but you have to acknowledge that you haven't been an equal co-parent for the last year and a half. You hit them with the numbers, 10% of 2025 and all that. Maybe you tell them, look, if you really want a dog, amazing. Maybe this is a good time to think about adopting a new one, and we don't have to manage our time with Frankie like this. Also, by the way, do you really want to be tethered to me like this for another, I don't know, I'm completely making this up seven, ten. I don't know how old Frankie is or what, breed she is, so I have no idea how long this is going to last. You probably don't even want to think about that, so I'm sorry for going there, but maybe you make him realize that he's going to have

to be tied to you for quite a long time if you guys continue this arrangement. That's a good one. It's a little self-serving, because it's not really about what's best for her or Frankie, but it's a good point. He might not love the idea of having to fight with his exes for literally a decade to hang out with a dog for four hours every two months, right? In general, I would stay very calm, very neutral, don't escalate things, but don't back down either, you know? Resist the urge to over-explain your decision. Just state the facts. Don't make this a negotiation. Although I would be prepared for him to say, okay, okay, okay, you're right. I'm sorry. I'm going to start sending you $200 a month and I'll be here every other day. He might realize he's about to lose Frankie and then

you're going to have to be firm and stick to your guns here because this could easily turn into, well, you know, if you feel bad, you might back down and then suddenly you really are in a 50-50 custody relationship with him. So if that's not the outcome you want, then plan for that in advance and be ready to shut that down. And if he reacts, just nod and validate and be kind and lower the temperature however you can so that he can hopefully see things from your point of view. My hope is that he realizes that even though it really hurts, it really does make the most sense for all of you. I would also think carefully about timing. Like if this were me, I'd wait until Frankie's already with you before having this conversation. Don't do it while you're handing her over. I definitely

wouldn't hand her over afterward. Like if he says, fine, but I just want one last day with her, that is too risky. I would not put it past this guy to text you 15 minutes later like, surprise, I'm keeping her and you're never getting her back. In fact, honestly, Gabe, I don't even know why we said meet up in public and, you know, blah, blah, blah, make sure he doesn't snatch the dog. This could be a voicemail. This could be a phone call. They don't have to meet. She doesn't owe him any sort of in-person say goodbye closure. You can FaceTime the dog, bro, if you really need closure. You don't need to be there at all. That's a bunch of nonsense. She knows him best, so she's going to have to make this call. but like if they do meet up with the dog,

does that give him one chance to say goodbye and that makes him more likely to let go? If she does it that way, is he gonna show up at her doorstep, yelling up at her window because she wouldn't let him even say goodbye to the dog after saying he can... Go ahead. Let's see what the police think

when you're screaming on my porch. Like this guy is a, like I said, insecure man child. I don't really care if he's upset. He's gonna be upset. Do I have to manage that by putting myself in the dog at risk? No.

Right. Why would you do that? So this is about how nice she wants to be. It's also about what she thinks is going to be the most effective. But you are now raising a good point, which is that her goal here is not to not upset him. Her goal is to keep Frankie and whatever feelings he has he's going to have to have. And that's his job to work through. It's not hers. Yes, agreed. And so that's the emotional and practical angle here. Let's spin a minute on the legal side, shall we? Because people are worried about that. Based on what we've read, and I'm not a lawyer in

Canada and I never was, Canada does not have a single national pet custody law. Pets are generally treated as personal property just like the United States, meaning courts decide ownership using property law rather than the best interests of the child standard that's generally used for actual children. And yes, pet disputes have ended up in Canadian courts, but they don't arrive as standalone pet custody cases. If they reach a courtroom, it's either as part of a separation or a divorce case or as a civil claim over ownership of personal property, which would require your ex to hire a lawyer and sue you. What that would probably look like is he and his lawyer could send you a demand letter asking for Frankie's return.

If negotiation or mediation fails, he could theoretically file a court claim. Now, I'm guessing that that's extremely unlikely, but who knows? And in the very small chance that this did end up in court somehow, in most provinces, a judge is going to look at things like, who purchased or adopted the pet, whose name is on the adoption contractor registration, whose name is on vet records, who paid for food, vet bills, insurance, all of that, any written agreement between the parties, and whether the pet was owned before the relationship or acquired during the relationship. Also, courts are reluctant to enforce an ongoing visitation schedule. I don't see how they could realistically.

They don't work out a whole co-parenting schedule for a dog. Interestingly, British Columbia is the notable exception to this. In 2024, it changed some aspects of its family legislation, and now for animals owned by separating spouses. courts can consider factors beyond simple ownership, like, who primarily cared for the animal, the relationship between each person and the animal, each person's ability and willingness to care for the animal and the animal's well-being. Which is kind of wild to think about a judge weighing in on those factors, but, you know, oh, Canada.

Truly. But even in BC, British Columbia, the court can't order joint possession. It can only decide which person should have the animal. And if you live in Ontario or Alberta or whatever, you can disregard that. Also, if this dispute ever did end up in court outside BC, the strongest evidence is still going to be the evidence of ownership and primary caregiving. And on that front, it sounds like you have the strongest case. So my advice there is gather Frankie's vet records, microchip registration. By the way, if your name is not listed as microchip contact, changed that immediately. Pet insurance, receipts for food, vet bills, medication purchases, boarding invoices, photos showing Frankie living with you, messages with your ex discussing care arrangements, and all the time. he didn't show up, a calendar documenting where Frankie's actually lived the past couple years, some record number of the overnights with each of you, which sounds like you already have, all that. And if he hires a lawyer and sees you, which again, unlikely. But if he does,

you slam that binder down on the proverbial desk and you go, yeah, now what? Because something tells me your chaotic, unreliable Manchild X who works as a camera operator for 16 hours a day on set doesn't have a single freaking receipt for Frankie, partly because he's not on top of that stuff, and partly because it's really hard to have receipts for stuff that you never paid for in the first place? And look, just to be clear, I do feel a little bad for the guy. I know this is going to hurt and I feel for him.

I'm sure some people listening are like, but he loves the dog, you can't just cut him off, but dude, he's a grown-up. He either needs to step up and be a true partner to you and the dog, like he says that he wants, or he needs to come to terms with the situation and bow out. And like I said, if he weren't being such a dick, I'd have a much harder time telling you that you're good to keep Frankie. The fact that he's rude and aggressive and unreasonable,

it just makes it so much easier for me. So I'm sorry you have to have this conversation, but it's necessary. Be brave, prepare well, go into this knowing he might slash probably won't react well. But him reacting well, that's not success here. We're rooting for you and we're rooting for Frankie. Good luck. And be damn thankful that you never have to. human kids with this Yutz. Also, in case y'all don't know, there's a subreddit for the show if we want to jump into discussions with other listeners about specific episodes or jump down one of our throats about specific episodes, that's over there on the Jordan Harbinger subreddit.

You know what you're definitely going to want to take with you in the breakup? The doggone amazing products and services that support this show. We'll be right back. If you like this episode of Feedback Friday and find our advice valuable and how could you not. I invite you to do what other smart and considerate listeners do, which is take a moment and support the sponsors that make the show possible. They're searchable and clickable on the website at jordanharbinger.com slash deals. And if they don't work or they're giving you a hard time, email me, Jordan atjurbaner.com. Somebody here will dig up that code for you. It is that

important that you support those who support the show. Now for the recommendation of the week. I am addicted to lit filler. So ever since I started traveling, I've been making a lot of wire transfers to other countries. in a bunch of different currencies. You know, I have to like pay rent for an apartment in Berlin. I have to reimburse a friend for our road trip in Chile, reserve a spotted a yoga retreat in Costa Rica, whatever it is. Here in the States, if I had to make a payment, I would just use Zell or Venmo, but they don't work internationally, at least not without some other service involved and usually not without a fee. And so moving money around can very quickly get complicated.

And then I learned about this app called Wise. Maybe you've heard about it. It's pretty popular, but this app has been a game changer for me. If I have to go make a traditional wire at my bank, I think it costs $30 to $50. With wise, it's usually like $3, $4, $5 at the most in most cases. It allows you to send money to over 80 countries. It lets you spend and hold money in over 40 currencies. You can use its debit card and digital wallets in over 160 countries and territories around the world. The app is very fast, very reliable. I've never had an issue with the money landing where it's supposed to land. And the UI is super clean and easy to use.

For example, there's this one feature I love. You can enter exactly the amount you want the person to receive in their local currency, and it'll calculate how much that's going to be in your home currency plus fees. You don't need to do extra math trying to figure out how much more to send someone to cover the exchange rate and the fees. And small stuff like that just makes the whole experience so easy. So I'm a huge fan of this app. If you're traveling internationally or you need to send money to somebody abroad, definitely check out Wise.

Way better than spending five to 12 times as much sending a wire from, you know, Citibank or Wells Fargo or whatever, sitting there at the desk with the person, they print out a form. It's like a 19903. You're like filling out all this paperwork. It's ridiculous. And then having to wait several days for the money to arrive with Wise, it just seems to arrive either the same day or within, I would say, two days. It's always there.

So big fan of this company. you can check it out at wise.com or you can download the wise app on your phone. By the way, we use wise actually for some things. And I remember I found out about it because I had gotten paid, I think a six figure sum from a company abroad that I had equity in it. And they're like, oh yeah, we'll transfer you the money. So these bankers like at whatever investment bank in London, they transferred it to us. And I was like, hey, this is $1,800 short. And they're like, oh, yeah, that's what the fee that was charged by whatever service to wire this abroad was $1,800. So I signed up for WISE and I found out it would have cost me like six bucks or something.

And I was, I was freaking furious, obviously, because I just lit $1,800 on fire. I was like, can you reverse it? And they're like, no, not really. Man. Just infuriating. Game changer. Unreal. All right.

Next up. Hi, rock stars of the Internet. Wow. Rockstars of the Internet. I didn't realize we were at that level right now. I guess we've been promoted from dwebes of the Wall of Garden, huh? Yeah. Not too shabby for a guy who started as bridge troll of the radio world.

Are you talking about me or you? I'm talking about me. You were lucky enough to hop on this bandwagon when the party was already in full swing. That's true. I started with an actual microphone. Facts, yeah. I was talking directly into a laptop in a hot basement or a freezing cold basement, whatever, but just raw dogging those sound waves, bro, with a furnace next to me.

That was a very interesting way to call me a podcast, princess. I appreciate it. Hey, just read the letter, your royal highness. The newsletter you recently put out the one about how the idea of something being too far is a myth hits a difficult point that I've wrestled with for some time. For a few months, I've tried to build an algorithmic trading system alongside my day job. Before that, I tried for a few months to develop a therapy app. I've put down this therapy app after extensive work and some sleepless nights

because I felt that I would never succeed in reaching something marketable. Also, I'm no therapist while I'm trained in finance and statistics. But I'm experiencing some frustration with my trading system and doubts about my ability to make any kind of profit while competing with banks, asset managers, and funds that spent hundreds of millions on this very same idea. When I'm in a more optimistic state of mind, I can find some arguments in my favor, the main one being that I'm not playing in the same sandbox as they are. But your newsletter echoes my questions about when to stop a project that goes nowhere and when to be committed and avoid quitting on the last mile of the run.

The satisfaction I get from developing these systems is real. Developing my therapy app was a wonderful introspection phase and raised a lot of questions about what it means to get into therapy. But there were boring parts of it as well, and being persistent means doing the job even when some parts of the job are tedious and not always fun. You could tell me to go full steam ahead on this trading app. Best case scenario, I become the next Warren Buffett,

and I'm grateful for your encouragement and fly the both of you in a private jet to some wonderful holiday. Nice. I'm going to hold you to that, man. I'm partial to the Caribbean these days, but I'm flexible. Honestly, as long as I get an aisle seat, I'm happy. Dude, it's a PJ, Gabe. It's all aisle, baby. Oh, yeah. All aisle and window, for that matter. I forgot. I've never flown into PJ. Well, you're a peasant. Carry on.

I'm both a princess and a peasant somehow. Yes, somehow. I've actually never been in one either. Wait, have I? I don't know. Who cares? The answer is who cares? Worst case scenario, I go broke, but that doesn't cost you a cent. I like that deal. Funny, so what he's saying is, please don't just tell me to keep going with my dream. I'm the one who pays the price if it doesn't work out, not you? Fair enough. I think so.

How do you guys decide when to not invest anymore in a project you tried to pursue? How do you know when the goal really is too far away? Signed, looking for you to discuss when to trust, adjust, or decide to bite the dust. Really good questions. So, first of all, love your hustle. your creativity and curiosity and your dedication. Look, you're a builder, man. You're genuinely lit up by developing products. It gives you a lot of joy and meaning, and it's super awesome to hear. Second, I appreciate that you're engaging so thoughtfully with our newsletter. The whole question

of what makes something too far away, too difficult, too unrealistic, it's really interesting to me. And the idea that we were driving at in that newsletter was, is that thing you want really too far? Or is what we call too far just an idea in our heads about how do we it is to chip away at it slowly in tiny pieces over time, which is the only way anybody really ever achieves anything. But you're raising a very good point, which is some things really are too far away, either because they're unrealistic or because we don't have the resources to achieve them, or because the timing isn't right, or because they're not really meant for us. And so, yeah, how do you know? Really, there's no simple answer to your question. But let's start with this

thing you said that jumped out at me. When I'm in a more optimistic state of mind, I can find some arguments in my favor, the main one being that I'm not playing in the same sandbox as these bigger financial institutions. Okay, so that might be a point in your favor. Any small business that hopes to compete with the big boys has to find that sandbox or that vulnerability point in order to have a chance of succeeding. I imagine that's even truer in the fintech world if you're going up against Schwab or whatever with all of its resources and you. You're users and advantages, you better be able to do something that they can't or spot a weakness that they can't or offer a feature that they refuse to. It's really hard to find these things.

But when a startup does and can actually execute, it's amazing what David can do to Goliath. But if what you're saying is that you only feel like you want to keep going when you're in a positive mood, when you can buy into a narrative that makes you want to keep going, that's a little bit of a red flag to me. Look, every new venture on some level is a narrative, right? You're telling a story about what's possible, what you can achieve, what the future's going to look like. All companies are ultimately in the storytelling business, but it's storytelling wed to execution. The goal is to make that story a reality. And if you can't do that, well, sometimes you go to prison like Elizabeth Holmes from Theranos. But hopefully we're not playing in that sandbox,

the fraud sandbox. So what makes something a reality? Basically, when it hits certain milestones that everybody agrees are meaningful, you got good features, you got customers, you have revenue, that order. But mostly customers or users in general, people don't come unless there are good features. Now, it can take a long time to get to that point, especially if you're working alone, which it sounds like you are. And that's another thing I would factor in. How realistic is it for you to achieve something if it is just you or whether you need a team to get where you want to go? But so there might be a period of time where you really are operating on a narrative. That's just how works, and even after a business gets off the ground, the vision, which might or might not come to

pass, that's a story too. Your job as a builder is to bring that story down from the clouds and test it against reality, which never lies as soon as possible. Find out if that story is actually true. And the only way to do that is to launch the product, talk to customers, learn, iterate, get better, create targets, measure the things that tell you if it's working. So that's my first thought for you. If your relationship with a venture is mostly based on a story, then A, you have to ask yourself why that story feels so important and why it comes and goes. And B, it's going to be a lot harder to decide whether to keep going because you won't be making that decision based on real data out in the world. You'll be basing it on an idea in your head, your mood, vibes, basically,

which is a very shaky foundation to build a venture on. That said, I also think it's crucial to make sure that you're dedicating yourself to things you truly care about and things you know pretty well or could know pretty well. For example, a therapy app sounds cool and sounds promising and personally meaningful to you, wonderful. But in all likelihood, you're not going to go up against better help or some therapy AI platform if you're not a therapist or an AI engineer or have any experience as an executive in the mental health world or something like that. The algorithmic trading platform sounds like it's much more in your wheelhouse and that is great. Obviously, I don't know if you you have all the expertise, you need to make a product that can compete. I also don't know if you're

genuinely lit up by trading, but those are two things I'd be very honest with myself about, because you do need to have a real emotional investment in a product to bring it to life. And you need to have the skills and knowledge to actually execute well. So going back to the story aspect, this is where your attachment to the story does matter. Sometimes what sustains you through periods of struggle is just how much you care as a human being about the problem you're trying to solve, about the person who's going to be using your product, about what life could be like if your thing existed. Yeah. And by the way, that's also what sustains you through the boredom and the drudgery and the drudgery worthwhile. But if you want to quit because the boredom of these things is too

great, then I think you either need to find a way to care more about the boring bits, or you need to ask yourself if you're actually not as interested in the problem as you might have thought at first, which is totally fine if that's the case. but another thing that it's important to be honest about. Another thing I think is important, when you find yourself wanting to quit something but you don't want to give up, I would really ask yourself why.

Is it because you truly believe in the thing you're building and still enjoy working on it? Or is it because you're going to feel ashamed if you have to tell your friends and your family that you quit and you don't have any other ideas to jump to? Obviously, those are very different motivations and they reveal something crucial about what drives you. The former is probably a compelling purpose.

The latter is just, just ego. So bottom line, if you're not hitting meaningful milestones after a reasonable period of time, and I can't tell you what that is, every industry and venture and person is different, but I think we usually know when we've tried something for long enough, if you're not getting anywhere meaningful by the metrics that are important, if you're not genuinely lit up by the problem you're trying to solve or the opportunity you're trying to chase, that's all probably a good indication that it's time to reevaluate. But I would think of those moments as a question. Do I need to study what's not working, figure out the lessons and apply them in a new way to make

this thing work, or do I need to put this down and dedicate myself to something that I can make work? The hard part is no one can come along and tell you with 100% certainty which is the right path. I mean, look, if you spend nine years coding this fintech app and nobody's using it, the answer's pretty obvious. But usually this stuff is more ambiguous. So when you're unsure, I think it's helpful to come back to the basics. Am I learning and growing? Am I having fun doing this?

Do I truly care about this problem? Am I making some kind of meaningful progress? What am I chasing here? Is it money, attention, users, glory, purpose, personal satisfaction? Which one is the best barometer of success for this project? Keep answering those basic questions and keep your answers basic too. And I think you'll usually find the right answer. Absolutely.

Very wise advice, Jordan. I suspect that part of what he's coming to terms with is that his own personal sense of meaning and gratification is crucial. you said, but it's also not enough. Yeah, tough pill to swallow. Tough pill to swallow. I should say it's it's not enough if you want to build a company. It might be enough if you want to have a hobby or a side project, then it might be everything. But if you're trying to build like a successful startup, and to be clear, I've never done this myself, so I'm only going on what I've seen in other people, what I've read. But to build a real product and a real company, you need a lot of things.

You need a great team. You need capital, expertise in your industry, crazy good execution. You also need a lot of luck. Yeah, that's another variable that's impossible to predict. It sounds to me like you're approaching this question largely from the position of the artist slash builder, and that mindset wants to ask, am I passionate about this? Should I stay committed to it? But you also have to approach this as a manager or as a leader and ask, can I actually make this happen? You know, does the market support this product that my passion wants to build? Am I executing in a way that's going to allow me to make this thing work out in the real world. Those are very different mindsets and they both have to take turns driving. Such a good point. One last idea for you. There's also a way to lower the stakes

of this decision in a good way. If you keep your day job, it matters way less whether these side ventures succeed. There's no need to quit your job and burn the ships. All these influencers tell you to do that. They have no idea what they're talking about. They are just saying dramatic things for the sake of clicks. If you're spending two hours after work every day coding an app and the app doesn't go anywhere, but it was fun and gratifying, and you learned a bunch of good lessons and became a better developer? Great. Take the lessons and apply them or quit and take the lessons somewhere else. That's not a failure. And it's way less of a failure if you're not pinning your entire livelihood and retirement account on it. I'm just thinking about that thing he said about how

if it works out, he might be Warren Buffett. I don't know how serious he was about that. Maybe he was just being cheeky. But I do wonder if there's a little truth to that. and if he might be, I don't know, a little aspirational here, a little bit lost in that story we were talking about? A little delulu, I had a similar thought. A little delulu. I mean, look, all entrepreneurs and artists are a little delirut. True. Sometimes there are a lot delulu. You have to be, to some degree. Also, he said that he's worked on the therapy app and the algorithmic trading platform for a few months each. So, like, he worked for, what, 12 weeks on these things? And then he, one of them he gave up and the other he's debating whether to give up. That's not a lot of time. I mean,

even if you had a full team and you were learning really quickly, that would be a very short amount of time to see if something can really work. So that also kind of gives me pause and it makes me wonder about the Warren Buffett thing. If he did genuinely mean that, what does that reveal about his why? I mean, is he in this for the billions of dollars in the glory? Or is he in this because he genuinely cares about the pain points of therapy patients or traders? 100%. Is the point for you? to be fabulously rich, or is the point to build something that people love and want to use because you're one of these people too and you give a real shit about it? It doesn't always happen, but I do really believe the money flows from that and not the other way around.

All the more so because he's telling us that he's a little unclear about how to balance being realistic with being persistent. And I think all humans, but especially entrepreneurs and artists, makers of any kind, we all have to keep an eye on our fantasy, our grandiosity, our ego, and make sure that we're not living entirely in those narratives, which kind of brings us full circle here. We're back to the story. Very true. The Warren Buffett outcome is unlikely for even the most talented entrepreneurs, and for a lot of people who get that far, they weren't even optimizing for money. That's precisely why they made so much of it. So it's a good idea to really interrogate that fantasy. I hope that gives you some new angles here. Like I said, there's no

rubric or template for this decision. That's part of what makes the entrepreneurial journey is such a mind-fuck. But there are tools and practices that can generate the data you need to come to the right decision. So that's really what we're encouraging you to do. I would also grab the book Million Dollar Weekend by my friend Noah Kagan. He's experienced with startups, especially the tech stuff. He's got some really good business advice. He lays it out really explicitly. And he's just a really, really smart guy. Million Dollar Weekend by Noah Kagan. We'll link to that in the show notes. I love your openness. I love your passion. Marry them with good information and honesty with yourself. and you'll know what to do.

In the meantime, keep sharing your gifts with the world. Keep experimenting and learning. That is never a loss. And I know it'll serve you well no matter what happens. And good luck. Go back and check out Dr. Max Butterfield, if you haven't done so yet. The best things that have happened in my life and business have come through my network, the circle of people I know like and trust.

Dig that well before you're thirsty folks. Six-minute networking.com. That's a free course. There's no shenanigans. It's a bunch of stuff that I wish I knew 20 years ago. Build relationships before you need them. six minute networking.com. Show notes and transcripts on the website, advertisers, discounts, ways to support the show, all 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 on Insta at Gabriel Mizrahi. This show is created in association with Podcast 1. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Ian Baird, Tadasidlowskis, and of course Gabriel Mizrahi. Our advice and opinions are our own. And I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer. consult a qualified professional before implementing anything you hear on the show. 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. Ben Jordan reveals how 100,000 license plate readers are quietly tracking your movements, how vulnerable that data really is, and why I've got nothing to hide may be the most dangerous assumption of all. Right in the beginning, when we first found the security vulnerabilities, and when I first realized how bad it was, I basically went to some senators and was like, hey, we have a national security problem. Above all things, if we're banning TikTok because we're worried about China

getting people's data from their phones, this is 10 times worse than that. This is actually a major problem. There is flock all over the place, but there's also ricotta and axon, which is different companies more or less trying to do the same thing. I initially assumed that they were just monitoring traffic. It's a third-party company that leases the cameras and the technology to cities and police departments. And every single time that you pass the camera, it logs your license plate using a mixture of AI and license plate readers. And they're putting into a massive database.

So your police, if they want to get a notification every single time that you pass a camera, they could find out everywhere that you've been over the last 30 days. I ended up being able to just get these really advanced profiles on people that if I wanted to rob them, I would now know when they were home. I would know the kind of stuff that they have in their house. Even to some extent, you could even zoom in on somebody's front door when they're putting the code in. And so just because you don't have any secrets doesn't mean that you don't have anything to hide. Like a lot of people wonder if it's constitutional and I don't see a way that it can be.

When a company like Flock turns it into this organized system that law enforcement can access, open source intelligence, it's just really bad. There's a lot more bad things that could happen than good things with that. To hear more on why you should rethink every safe camera you drive past, check out episode 1308 of the Jordan Harbinger Show.