The Jordan Harbinger Show - 729: Sexsomnia Guilt-Free After PTSD? | Feedback Friday

Episode Date: September 23, 2022

As you have a higher libido than your partner, it seems as though it should feel like a blessing when he makes sexual advances on you in the middle of the night when his sexsomnia ("a rare sleep disorder in which a person engages in sexual activity during their sleep") takes over. But this is problematic for two reasons: A) It briefly triggers your PTSD from being sexually assaulted in your sleep years ago, and B) When your PTSD subsides, you feel guilty for engaging in sex with a partner who can't give consent in the moment (though he has told you on multiple occasions after the fact that he's fine with it). How can you handle this in a healthy way? We'll try to find answers to this and more here on 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/729 On This Week's Feedback Friday, We Discuss: Waking to your sexsomniac partner's nocturnal advances triggers PTSD from earlier abuse, and makes you feel guilty for engaging in sex with someone who can't consent in the moment. What's the healthiest way to deal with this? Is it worth initiating a conversation about how post-Roe reproductive rights fit in with company policy when interviewing for a job in a state that has regressive anti-choice laws on the books? After numerous relapses in your struggle with addiction, you feel like your latest effort to rehabilitate may finally be sticking. But how can you convince your ex that you're ready to take on the responsibility of raising your kids together? Is there a special IRS gifting loophole that allows participants of a pyramid scheme to sign a waiver so they won't be legally liable when things inevitably go south? And if so, why would you consider signing such a thing? Are you morally obligated to tell someone their mother once slept with their fiancé? And if you do spill the beans, how do you do it without revealing yourself as the source? 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. Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini...See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This episode is sponsored in part by Conspiruality Podcast. You know how I'm always talking about critical thinking and spotting manipulation? Well, there's a podcast that's all about dismantling new age cults, wellness grifters, and conspiracy med yogis, basically the wild overlap of spirituality and misinformation. It's called the Conspiruality Podcast. The hosts, a journalist, cult researcher, and a philosophical skeptic, dive deep into how this stuff spreads, from Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation's dystopian vision of the future to how former leftists get pulled into far-right conspiracies.

An interesting episode to check out is called Speaking Truth to Goop, where Jen Gunter breaks down the pseudoscience behind the wellness industry in a way that is super entertaining and eye-opening. It's sharp, funny, and makes you a lot harder to fool, which, if you listen to this show, you know I'm all about that. From exploring cults to analyzing our cultural and political landscape, the Conspiratuality Podcast will help you stay informed against misinformation and resist fear tactics.

Find Conspirality on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Feedback Friday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. As always, I'm here with Feedback Friday, producer, the gluten-free tortilla holding this breakfast burrito of life advice together, Gabriel Mizrahi. But, you know, if it's the gluten-free ones, they fall apart.

That's the problem. Not as bad as the spinach ones. The spinach wraps are the worst. That's a problem with this analogy. Or is it just more accurate? Depends on the show, really. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills

of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice. that you can use to impact your own life and those around you. We want to help you see the Matrix when it comes to how these amazing people think and behave, and our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker, so you can get a much deeper understanding of how the world works and make sense of what's really happening even inside your own mind. If you're new to the show on Fridays, we give advice to you,

we answer listener questions the rest of the week. We have long-form interviews and conversations with a variety of amazing folks, from spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers, performers. This week we had Neil deGrasse Tyson. I asked a lot of what I thought were, well, let's be honest, they're probably kind of inane questions about space and astronomy, but I don't care. It's my show, I do what I want.

No, but this guy is so fascinating. Just a great communicator, great science communicator, fun. We also covered how many pints have been in jerrys you can eat before you die. That was insightful. You might find yourself using that, just saying. We also talked to my friend Maria Konnikova. this is one from the vault. She dives into the minds of conmen, scam artists, what makes them tick, and how we can defend ourselves. Always, she is absolutely brilliant, as you would expect. And that

episode is worth re-airing. So definitely have a listen to those two if you haven't checked them out yet. Gabe, what's the first thing out of the mailbag? Hi, Jordan and Gabe. I'm a 27-year-old woman in a committed long-term relationship with my caring, patient boyfriend. We've been together for almost eight years, and I fully intend to spend the rest of my life with this man. Over the last two years, however, I've been confronting my history with sexual abuse. I've always struggled with my relationship to sex. I have an extremely high libido that often causes tension or creates unattainable expectations for my partner,

and I've been doing a lot of introspection to understand why my desire is so overpowering. My therapist says it's common to have mismatched libidos in a relationship and that desire fluctuates, but I still struggle with feelings of inadequacy when my boyfriend, respectfully, turns me down. Recently, he's developed certain sexomnia habits, and I often wake up to my partner touching me intimately. So, hold up. Let's just clarify for anyone who doesn't know, sex somnia, which is apparently a real thing, is a sleep disorder where a person engages in sexual activity during their sleep. Yes, exactly. Touching themselves, touching someone else, making noise, sleep sex, basically, right? So she goes on. This is always jarring because in the past, I actually woke up to being raped. but I can push past the immediate terror once I realize I'm safe.

These interactions almost always result in us having sex, which I'm personally all for. I engage him when he's in these states and he confirms that he's awake, but in the morning he hardly remembers anything. I've confirmed that he's comfortable with me proceeding even if he doesn't remember, but I just feel so icky about all of it. In a way, it makes me feel like I'm raping him, which creates immense shame and guilt. When I bring all of this up, he laughs and dismisses. I asked him if he would be open to doing a sleep study or going to therapy for these habits,

and he pretty much brushed off the entire idea as silly. I want to enjoy the moments we are intimate and not go into a shame spiral every time. But is it right for me to engage with him sexually while he's in a semi-lucid state? Is it okay if he's given me his consent? How do I rationalize the guilt, shame, and self-disgust that come with it? Is there a way to navigate my own history and this new issue simultaneously? simultaneously. Signed,

struggling with consent, with my overactive gent. Wow. Well, this is a new one. Yeah, new relationship problem just drop. Yeah, seriously, this is a fresh one for us. So she's asleep in bed dreaming, about showing up to a final in college

without studying or whatever. Next thing she knows, she's waking up her boyfriend, fooling around with her in his sleep. And all of that would be fine. She's waking up to her boyfriend fooling around with her in his sleep. Right. Yeah, I'm sure it's kind of fun and sexy under normal circumstances. But for her, it's very complicated because of her past.

Right. It's terrifying for a second. Then it's a few things. It's kind of confusing. Right. So before we go any further, Gabe, I just have to pause and appreciate the sheer irony of these two people getting together. I don't mean to make light of this. I know it's difficult. But it's just so interesting that a guy who, initiates sex in his sleep and can't remember a thing the next morning, ends up with a woman who has this very particular history. It's like you just couldn't engineer a more triggering dynamic for either side. That is fascinating, especially because the incidence of sexomnia is so low. Like, what are the

odds of this happening? I mean, I'm wondering how much to read into that or if it's just pure chance. It could be pure chance. There's no way for us to know. It's just, well, relationships are fascinating. Anyway, I want to start by saying, I am really sorry you went through what you went through in the past. I can only imagine how terrifying that must have been, but it sounds like you've done a ton of work here. You've come such a long way in understanding what happened to you and how it's affecting your life now. And that is tremendous. The fact that you can even respond to this whole situation the way you are, I think that says a lot about how far you've come. How far you've come and also how safe you feel with your boyfriend, which is great news.

Yeah, that too. And that's actually the crucial variable here, how you feel about each other, how you communicate with each other. So we did a little digging online while we were thinking about your question. And everything we found confirms that the conflict you feel around engaging with your partner during these episodes, yeah, it's very normal. In fact, sexomnia, and I just again want to take a moment to appreciate that this is an actual word and a real condition. Sexomnia, it sounds completely made up. And yet here we are. Anyway, sexomnia, it can often be more stressful for the sexomniac's partner than it is for the

sexomniac precisely because it brings up all the questions you're asking. And consent is often at the top of the list. Is this really okay? Am I doing something wrong here? And the consensus out there seems to be that yes, this is okay if you guys are having open conversations around this when you're both lucid and sober and awake and you're 100% on the same page about rules and expectations. If your boyfriend can't fully communicate his consent while he's asleep because who could, then the experts we read about seem to agree that,

yeah, you can and should get consent while he's awake. If he says he's good with it and you're into it, then, you know, party on, Wayne. There you go. Two sound bites in one show. I got a soundboard, okay? I'm going to play with it a little bit. That's a, you know, it's a special day. Anyway, that makes sense, but that's still probably hard for her to wrap her head around, imagine, given her past? Like, no matter how much he says he's okay with this, I wonder if there will always be a part of her that wonders if she's doing something wrong. She might, and that's something that she should continue to bring into therapy into her conversations with her boyfriend, and hopefully she can start to release some of the associations that she has with it. But just on a practical

level of, is it right for me to engage with him sexually when he's in a semi-lucid state? My take is, in a healthy and respectful and fully consensual relationship where he's explicitly saying, yeah, I'm good with it. I'm into it when he's awake. That just seems consensual to me. It's not like he's a random dude that they hang out sometimes. This is her boyfriend, right? They're sleeping in the same bit.

But even if he doesn't remember what happened the next morning. If he's saying, I don't remember everything that happened, but I know it happened and I'm absolutely good with it, then I think yes. If you were like, wait, what? We had sex while I was half asleep last night? That's weird. I don't know how I feel about that. I guess it's okay.

Then I would say, hang on, something's off here. Maybe he's a little embarrassed. You guys got to get clear on this. But they are clear. He doesn't feel manipulated or coerced. She's happy to have sex and get it in. Everybody wins. Although, I just, I know we're going to get some emails from people accusing us of condoning

rape or something absurd. I can already hear your fingers clacking, you sexomnia, Karen's. Yeah. Don't worry. I handled the inbox, so it's fine. I'll take care of that. I'm with you. The consent question is almost the easiest part of this equation. The harder part is how all of this echoes this incredibly traumatizing thing that happened in her past.

Yeah, I agree. Okay. That's the really difficult thing here. The fear and the shame that comes as a result of this. Yes, exactly. So to answer your question, how do you rationalize the guilt, the shame, the self-discussed? Well, I wouldn't think of it so much as rationalizing. I think it's more like acknowledging, understanding, appreciating, and then hopefully processing, probably with your therapist, giving these feelings airtime and exploring them rather than trying to suppress them or pretend they're not happening or justify them away, which in the long run obviously never really works. I would ask yourself, and again, you're probably already doing some of this with your therapist, but you can do this on your own too. I would ask yourself, where is my guilt coming from?

Is it possible that I'm maybe projecting a part of myself onto my partner in these moments? Or am I punishing myself for enjoying this aspect of our relationship? And with the shame, too, what's going on in that whole, I'm bad for doing this feeling? Is that residual shame from the earlier trauma? Is that shame coming from the libido mismatch stuff? Or is it coming from the fact that what you're doing really does feel like you're taking advantage of him in the moment sometimes? Or is the shame compounded by the way her boyfriend responds to?

to her concerns. Well, I'm really glad you brought that up because one of the things that jumped out of me in her letter was how she asked him if he would be open to doing a sleep study or going to therapy to talk about this stuff, which I think would be a great idea for both of them. And he brushed off the whole idea as silly. I could see that making her feel dismissed, maybe even kind of hurt. Like, oh, this whole sex in my sleep thing that's making you feel like you're raping me and sending you into a post-traumatic shame spiral. Eh, that's nothing. Just this weird thing I do sometimes. You know, to your point, Jordan, I have a few. feeling that that response might increase her shame around all of this, because when he laughs it off

and refuses to talk about it, then suddenly she's alone with all of this. Right. She's the one with the difficult past. She's the one who has to go to therapy. She's the one who has to worry about whether his sexomnia is fair to both of them. Right. And he's sitting across from her at the breakfast table the next morning eating fricking and cap and crunch and shrugging his shoulders like, ah, sleep banging.

That's a silly quirk. Instead of saying, listen, I have zero qualms about us hooking up when I'm half asleep, but I can see that this is bringing up a lot of stuff for you. So sure, yeah, let's talk about it. Let's go to therapy. Let me do a sleep study. Let's figure this out. Yeah, I think if you just took that approach, even if it didn't become a whole huge thing in their relationship, that would go a long way in reducing some of the feelings she has, these difficult feelings. Because shame, we talk about this all the time in the show. It's isolating. It makes you want to withdraw. It makes you want to hide. It's a feeling that makes you feel like you're different and alone. And I think that's how she feels right now. Yeah, and then when you are alone with it, it grows because it's not being processed. Right. And I think that's a huge unspoken thing in this letter.

Absolutely. Which brings us back to where we started. I think this question is less about the mechanics of consent and more about the quality of their relationship. The consent thing matters, of course, but what she's really asking is what to do with these feelings and how do these feelings get explored and work through in my relationship? Could not agree more. So my take, just to be very direct here,

is, first off, keep bringing all of this into therapy. I'm really happy to hear you're there. You're still very much in the process of working through all the trauma. And it makes sense that all of this is still sort of influx up in the air. Second, is there a way to navigate your own history and this new issue simultaneously? I think that's something only you can answer by being very attuned to your own needs, your own responses. Maybe this sexomnia thing is another useful window into the trauma work that you're doing,

but I could also see it being very triggering and confusing. So my take is, sure, you can try to do both, why not? But if you feel that the sexomnia stuff is retramatizing you or just making things more difficult, maybe you hit pause for a little while. I think that's a good question for your therapist. My last thought is, I would try to help your boyfriend appreciate

what all of this is bringing up for you and invite him to help you work through it, or at least acknowledge it a little bit more. Because again, I think that's a huge, piece of why this otherwise fun activity is creating this profound shame spiral. Agreed completely. And by the way, if your boyfriend wants to manage the sexomnia a little bit better, he might want to talk to someone himself, as you suggested, or at least get a sleep study done. Look, I did a sleep study once because I was, I was snoring like, I had huge tonsils

that I had out as an adult. And they're like, you have to do a sleep study first. You basically just go to a hospital and get in bed and they stick electrodes to you. It's interesting, if nothing else. you sleep over and then you get up in the morning. Nothing hurts. It's not inconvenient. It's totally, this is a really light lift. Not a big deal. And your insurance almost certainly covers it. Interesting. Especially if you got a rare disorder that causes you to bang people in your sleep. Could be really helpful. I mean, when we were doing some research on this, we found out that there are actually a few common triggers for sexomnia. And they include stress, lack of sleep, poor sleeping conditions, anxiety, substance abuse. So if any of those are playing a role in your

boyfriend's life, that might be a way to work on this some more. So, come on, Gabe. She's finally getting the action she wants and you're going to take that away from her. Let her have this one. You're right. I'm being a buzzkill. Actually, what you should do is keep him up for 36 hours straight, assembling IKEA furniture and leave the heater running all night.

Then you'll really get some good nighttime, Nookie. That's the spirit. Crush some Xanax into y'all's rice pudding and get freaky. But seriously, Gabe's right. If this disorder is causing more distress than pleasure, I definitely take a look at those factors. But because your boyfriend is shying away from opening up about all this, and that could be a larger theme in the relationship, I do think therapy could actually be really good for him in the bigger picture. Plus, I can't imagine sleep banging leaves him feeling refreshed in the

morning either. It's probably a compounding effect here. Yeah, you've been busy in the night, bro. Seriously. So I'm sorry you're struggling with this, and I'm sorry it's bringing up some difficult stuff. But I also think that the fact that it's bringing up all this stuff with the right support, this could be an opportunity to get an even deeper understanding of where these feelings come from, what drives them, how to respond to them. And long term, that could be valuable, as long as you feel safe and in control and taking care of, of course. So I hope you get to do that, take care of yourself, and good luck. Hey, and have fun sleep banging. Sounds like y'all get

more action after 3 a.m. than most of us get during prime time, kind of jelly. Not going to lie. You know who loves a good 4 a.m. sleep shag, Gabriel, the amazing sponsors that support this show. We'll be right back. Thank you so much for listening to and supporting the show. Your support of our advertisers is what keeps us going around here. By the way, I know there's a lot of codes and they're different and the URLs are different. We put them all in one place.

Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals is where they are. You can also search for the sponsors using the search box right there on the website at Jordan Harbinger.com as well. So please consider supporting those who support this show. And now, back to Feedback Friday. All right, what's next? Hey, Jordan and Gabe. I'm a 31-year-old librarian working in higher education, and I'm strongly considering a move to Knoxville, Tennessee,

to be closer to my family and spend as much time as I can with my grandparents while they're still alive. The thing is, while Knoxville is a pretty liberal city, Tennessee as a whole is very much not. Recent legislation in the state has made abortion in any form, almost entirely illegal starting at fertilization, and that's giving me pause. I'm very passionate

about women's health care, and have done a lot of activism for Planned Parenthood. At the same time, I resist many people's impulse to write off the South when it comes to regressive policies. If I move there, I would probably resume activism and work to find support for women seeking safe abortions on top of my other job. I'm now starting to get interviews with hiring managers down there. I definitely want to bring up that I feel a lot of mixed emotions moving to a state that has so blatantly limited my bodily autonomy, and I want to ask them what they plan to do for the safety of their female employees if they needed to seek an abortion, especially if they were victims of violence.

Even if the answer is nothing, I want to start that conversation. Do you think I should bring this up in my interviews, or is this unwise to discuss? Signed, keep my feelings on the low or make them known post-row. Interesting question. I know this is on a lot of people's minds right now. Obviously a lot of women, but men too. And this is a real concern, especially for somebody who's passionate about women's health and activism, as she certainly seems to be.

But this is obviously a tricky conversation to have because who knows how it will land with a hiring manager specifically. You have to be very thoughtful about how you bring concerns up during the interview process itself. And we wanted to run all of this by an expert. So we reached out to Michelle Laterman, author, speaker, and top-notch executive coach. And Michelle's take was, she thinks there's a way to bring this topic up without it being too risky. And the key, she said, is whether you bring this up more as a policy thing versus as a

personal plan. So you said you want to bring up that you have mixed emotions about moving to Tennessee. But Michelle said she isn't sure if employers need to know your feelings about moving to the state, getting so deep into all that from the jump, not totally necessary. But what you can do is ask them if there's a company position on access to abortion, what supports they have in place for keeping female employees healthy and safe in terms of actual policies and benefits. And also, how they've handled activism among employees, either on an individual level or as a company overall. In Michelle's view, that can get the conversation going and give you a sense of their position

without them knowing about your mixed emotions, so to speak. And I think she's spot on. Your mixed emotions are fair. That's for you to work through, not for employers to know. The last thing you want to do is bring that energy to an interview where you might be signaling that you're not super hyped about the role or that you're bringing possibly inappropriate things to them from the get-go. You want employers to fall in love with you. That's your job in these interviews. Besides, your mixed feelings, they're not going to influence their policies anyways.

All you need to do is learn about them so you can use that data to resolve these mixed feelings on your own. Now, Michelle did say that part of this depends on how much you want these employers to know about you. And if you do want them to know certain things, then maybe the risk is worth the knowledge. But Michelle's take, and again, I think she's absolutely right. If you need the job, then your best bet is to approach this from a policy perspective. So go crush these interviews, sniff around for the information you need, and find an employer whose values fit yours. Once you're in a great role, okay, then you can start speaking up on this issue,

if that's appropriate, but I would argue that that comes later. Big thanks to Michelle Laterman for her wisdom here. If you want to learn more about Michelle, she writes a terrific newsletter called Connected Leadership. We'll link to that in the show notes. You can also sign up for it on her website, Michelle Tillisladerman.com. We're also going to link to Michelle Laterman's book, The Connectors Advantage in the show notes as well. It's a terrific book. I highly recommend checking it out, especially if you're in a situation like this.

And good luck. You can reach us Friday at jordanharbinger.com. Please keep your emails concise. Try to use a descriptive subject line. That'll make our job a whole lot easier. And if there's something you're going through any big decision that you're wrestling with, or you just need a new perspective on stuff, life, love, work, what to do if you found out your wife is secretly an escort. Whatever's got you staying up at night lately. Hit us up Friday at

Jordan Harbinger.com. We're here to help and we keep every email anonymous. All right, what's next? Hey, Jordan and Gabe. I'm 39. I'm divorced with twin five-year-old boys and I've always been a partier. Eventually, I got hooked on fentanyl and ended up in rehab a couple of times. The second time, three years ago, seemed promising, but I relapsed again. About a year ago, I quit again, and something is different this time. I truly feel and act differently. I'm a good man now. I've dated, and it goes really well.

All of my interactions with coworkers, friends, and strangers are better than ever. The thing is, I'd like to reconcile with my ex-wife and raise our kids together, but she can't shake the shitty person I was not too long ago. proving myself day after day is working, but it's slow. I don't want my kids to be teenagers by the time she decides. Is there anything more I can do to prove my worth that I'm not considering? Signed, the second act suitor. Wow.

Well, first of all, well done on getting clean. That is a huge accomplishment, especially with fentanyl, man. That stuff is brutal. Brutal. I can only imagine how much strength it must take to kick a substance like that. I've seen, we've all seen the documentaries. We've all seen the news. It's clearly been a rough road and the fact that you have a year clean and you're feeling and behaving differently and you're relating to all these people in a new way. It's phenomenal. And recovery is a lifelong process, so I've heard. I'm sure you know that as well. But it really does sound like you've turned a big corner here. So it makes sense that you want to get back together with your ex. You feel like a whole new person and this could be a whole new chapter, but that's harder for her. I'm going to go ahead and guess you put your family through some awful stuff. And it was probably, very painful to watch you use and relapse twice.

So asking her to give you another chance, it is asking for a lot. It's asking her to forgive you. It's asking her to have faith in you. And it's asking her to open herself up to the possibility of being hurt all over again if things don't go well to say nothing of what that would mean for your kids. I'm putting myself in the same shoes. I wouldn't want my kids to find one of their parents overdosed in the house or something like that or to be around that.

I just wouldn't. And you're not wrong to want to get back with her. I'm just calling this out so we can appreciate why this is such a huge decision for her. So my advice, and this might not be exactly what you want to hear, but here it is, I would channel most of your energy into becoming the best person that you can be, the best father, the best colleague, the best friend, the best student of recovery, rather than trying to get your ex back. That can still be on your radar. And maybe that's one of your motivations for staying sober, and look, that's great if it is. But I would think of getting your ex back less as a goal in and of itself and more as a byproduct of your recovery and your growth. And I'm going to say that again because I think it's really important. Rather than trying to

convince your ex to see you as this new person so that she takes you back, I would invest your energy into becoming that new person and allowing her to come to her own decision here. And by the way, when I used to give dating advice for a living years and years and years ago, this advice was the exact same drugs and addiction or not when somebody would say, how do I get my ex back? The answer is don't try to do that. Work on yourself, and either that will happen or it won't. But trying to get someone back as a process,

it's fraught in many ways and it's a flawed idea to begin with. And I say that for a few reasons. First, I think your biggest priority right now is staying sober and rebuilding your life. you're a year into recovery, which is amazing, but this is still early days, man. A year ago, you relapsed. A year ago, you probably broke your wife's heart again. I understand how badly you want your old life back, but I think you also need to give yourself the time you need to rebuild this foundation for yourself, not only so you can reconcile

with her, but so that you can be healthy and happy. And second, if you ever did get back with your wife, you need that foundation to be rock-freaking solid, man. Otherwise, you're at risk of recreating the same situation again. And look at it this way. If you did get another chance right now and you relapsed because your foundation wasn't 100% rock solid, you're never getting another chance, probably.

So in my opinion, it is much better to take your time and be safe rather than sorry. This is not time wasted. This is time well spent on becoming the guy who deserves his life and his wife and his family. Yeah, I agree. Well said, Jordan.

I also think that he needs to respect her process here too. Like when he said that proving himself day after day is working, but it's slow, and he doesn't want his kids to be teenagers by the time she decides. Well, I understand that he's impatient, but what about what's going on for her? To your point, Jordan, she might have some very valid reasons to be skeptical or guarded. I mean, she's probably a bit traumatized too by everything they went through. He's come a very long way, for sure, but he's also had a checkered past. He only has a year clean. She might need to see more before she's ready. and that is fair. And so I find myself wanting to say, I understand your eagerness, I appreciate your

confidence, it's great. But I also think you need to be respectful and patient while your wife goes through her process. Because this isn't just about what you want. Your timeline isn't the only one that matters. This is a really big deal for your wife and your kids too. I could not agree more. If you want to speed things up, and it sounds like you do, I wouldn't do it by performing the role of the guy who has his shit together. So she says, okay, let's give it a shot. I would do it by working every single day to become that guy. Be a present father. Be a solid friend to your ex. Be a trustworthy colleague. Be those things not because you want your lady back, but because those things matter. And I promise that if you keep working on becoming those things, which I know you're already doing,

she will take notice. She will have more reason to trust you. So you're still going to be serving your original goal here. You're just going to be doing it for the right reasons, which I think is crucial for anyone in life, but especially for somebody in recovery. So good luck, man. Take care of yourself and everything will fall into place as it should. We're rooting for you. And yeah, don't be too hard on yourself here, man. A year sober from freaking fentanyl, you've dodged a bullet multiple times. Yeah. So kudos to you for that. You know what's even better than wildly dangerous illegal of substances. The products and services that support this show. We'll be right back. Thank you so much for listening to and supporting the show. All of our advertisers,

deals, discount codes are all in one place at Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. You can also search for sponsors using the search box on the website as well. Please consider supporting those who support this show. Now, back to Feedback Friday. All right, what's next? Hi, Jordan and Gabe. A friend recently invited me to join her Women's Circle. She described how empowering and rewarding it was for her, promoting sisterhood, emotional support, and women mutually holding space to help manifest each other's dreams. Ah, yes, because when I get supernatural manifestation powers, I'm using them to help other people's dreams come true, obviously.

Maybe these women are just really generous. You don't know. You don't know what's going on in this women's group. In the orientation, though, she explained how the structure of the group requires 15 women to reach completion. one at the top, two below her, four below them, and eight at the bottom, and how each woman is required to give a quote-unquote gift of $1,440 to the most senior woman upon joining. After the quote-unquote energy is complete, in other words, once eight women at the bottom

have paid off the top person, she leaves the group, and the two women below her form two new circles. eventually you too get to the top and get your money back eightfold 11,520 dollars. Ah, yes, a financial circle jerk known as energy. And by the way, this just occurred to me. If I draw a diagram of one person at the top, two people below them, four people below them, and eight at the bottom, it looks a little bit like, I know. I don't know. What is that shape called again? Is it a trapezoid?

It's kind of, well, it's more like there's a pointy top and then the bottom is wider. And there's slanty lines. Oh, right, it's a pyramid. Right, right, right. Yes, go on. Go on. This was all starting to sound suspiciously Ponzi-schemish. Yeah, pyramid schemish, yep. Yes. So I told her I'd think about it. I then went down the internet rabbit hole finding countless stories of similar women's groups,

being busted by sting operations, disgruntled former members, turning in the group to authorities, and the women involved facing large fines and even going to jail. When I declined the invite and raised the question of legality with my friend, sharing some of the links I'd found, she explained that they were taking care of any legal risks by having all new members sign a letter, saying that they give their money unconditionally as a gift. It was her understanding that this made it legal under the IRS gifting laws. I'm dubious about all of this, and although I feel like I've done as much as I can to persuade my friend to reconsider her involvement,

I'm understandably still concerned for her. Is there really a gray area where something like an illegal pyramid scheme can become legal if the parties involved sign such a letter? Signed, roll with this loophole or dodge a sinkhole. Oh, boy. Well, these scams just keep getting dumber and dumber, don't they, Gabe? Yep. It's actually incredible to me.

We've taken so many questions about MLMs, multi-level marketing schemes, Ponzi schemes, and other financial scams at this point. I just, I think it's pretty clear they are all a waste of time. but this whole having people sign a letter saying they're gifting their money away. That's a new wrinkle. What a classy operation, eh? We haven't heard about this particular variation before, so we reached out to not one, but two experts to figure out if this is on the up and up, or if this is still a total scam and you're going to see this woman's circle busted on the local news one day. The first person we spoke to was Bill O'Nefrey, a New York transactional

tax and planning attorney. And the first thing Bill said was pyramid schemes like this. Yes, indeed. It was pyramid the whole time. They're very much a gray area in the law. Some operate without any opposition from the government. Others are taken to task. As he put it, what's right isn't always legal, and what's legal isn't always right. And that can be confusing, which is part of what draws so many vulnerable people in. In Bill's view, though, operating under the guise of gifting, that does not help matters. And any attorney drafting gift letters to try and legalize this should be very careful. And look, I'm guessing an attorney didn't even draft this is probably just something she found on the internet. Template, Microsoft Word. Yeah, it's a template. It's definitely not even

from legal Zoom. As he explained it to us, gifts in the legal sense, those are made without compensation. If you can't play without pay, this is not a gift. It's an entrance fee with an expected 10x return. The payment up the chain, that should constitute income to the recipient, and it should be reported to the IRS, which I'm, of course, I'm sure they're doing that, right? So Bill's take, to avoid parting with hard-earned money and then having to fight into court of law to get it back, your instinct was absolutely right. Don't sign anything. Don't give anything. Now, where my mind went was, should you warn other people about this group? You know, potentially save other victims. But Bill made a good point, which is, you have to be careful about how you express your thoughts about this group and who you share them with. As he put it,

Reporting concerns to the law is one thing, but bashing Susie in her magical energetic women's circle verbally or on social media, that could have negative consequences. This woman is arguably running a business. Look, it's probably an illegal business, but it's still a business. And she could argue damages if the scheme ever implodes, especially as a result of you warning other people. Bill said he doesn't know of any judge who wouldn't just toss a libel case grounded in what is an illegal act. But still, anybody can be sued for any reason at any time, and defending yourself costs time and money. So it's probably best if you just sidestep the drama, honestly. Yeah, I hate that because I want her to go on Twitter and just drag these women for defrauding people,

but that is really good advice. The second person we spoke to was Jeffrey Shirtleff, a federally licensed tax practitioner and the owner of Yorktown Maine tax and accounting in Huntington Beach. And Jeffrey was even more blunt with us. In his view, would the IRS consider $1,440 a gift? Nope. Does a signed agreement make it a gift? Also, nope. His advice really echoed Bill's advice. A gift requires the donor that is the new member handing over the 1440 to be doing so with no expectation

that they'll get something in return from the donee, which is the senior woman who's collecting $11,000 and a half thousand dollars. The 1440, that's actually payment for services, or as Susie and her coven of fraudsters call it, the energy, and for membership also in a social club. So, the new member should be reporting this payment on a 1099 NEC, and the senior woman probably needs to claim it as self-employment income, and if they don't, Jeffrey said that there could be civil and or criminal penalties. For a social group to avoid reporting and paying income tax, it has to be exempt under IRC-501C7, which, by the way, that's different from a 501c3, you know, like the non-profit status. But Jeffrey said that groups like this are not exempt because of something called

inurement. So basically, in this case, an individual member of the organization, is personally benefiting from the money paid by new members, and that is not okay. Jeffrey also confirmed that the IRS would not accept a letter or agreement that would make anything about this legal, even if it were signed by both parties. So this whole, like, letter thing, it really does sound like total BS. So the best thing you could have done is stay far away from these folks, which I'm glad that you did. And I would also tell your friend to do the same. Whether this group ends up getting investigated or not, this is almost certainly fraudulent, probably a scam, or at least dicey kind of like borderline case shady. It's just,

honestly, at the end of the day, whatever the legal status is, it's a total waste of time. A total waste of time, and for not that much money. Right. Imagine spending half a decade or more of your life fighting off the IRS and the feds and defending yourself against a lawsuit or just always looking over your shoulder because you wanted to turn 1,400 bucks into 11 grand. That's not even close to worth it. The 11 grand, not even going to be the retainer on your attorney to fight 1,000. of the cases. Nothing is worth it, but certainly not 1,400 bucks or 11 grand or whatever you end up getting. We're also going to share some great resources. Jeffrey sent us to help you and your friend

better understand the laws at play here. We'll link to all of those in the show notes for you. One of them is the IRS's Office of Tax Shelter Analysis, and there's a hotline there for reporting abusive tax shelter transactions. If you ever feel moved to drop a dime on Susie and her merry band of fraudsters, that's your call. I'd probably do it because I hate scammers like this, But honestly, this fraud is a drop in the bucket compared to, I don't know, PPP fraud or billionaires with offshore shell companies hiding assets or whatever. There are many more serious criminals out there. It's always an option, though.

But how would you even report people like this? Like, DRS, there are some women in my hometown sharing some very weird energy you should know about. Yeah, totally. I have some real concerns about some of the dream manifestation I'm seeing in my Women's Circle, Agent Forrester. Yeah, yeah. The bad vibes division of the financial crimes unit. That's where you got to take this. Exactly. And anyway, I'm with Gabe. Run from these people as fast as you can. Gather all the

information, share it with your friend. I hope she can hear you and see this more objectively. You could save her a lot of trouble down the line. And if you need some help in approaching her, I'd check out the article and the deep dive we did on the psychology of people caught up in scams. We'll drop those in the show notes as well. Sending you good thoughts? Maybe try manifesting a group that doesn't defraud other people or the U.S. government. And namaste. All right, next up. Hey, guys.

About eight years ago, I had this assistant who was always chasing this one girl. She wouldn't give him the time of day. So he worked his way in with her mom. He would help her around her business, her yard work, and eventually in the bedroom. Oh, he really worked his way in with her mom. Yeah, he worked his way in there. Yeah. He would brag about it constantly.

And I believed him as he was known to sleep with older ladies. including his mom's friends, and I even witnessed one leaving his apartment before work one morning. The thing is, the girl he was chasing originally, this older woman's daughter, she finally accepted his advances, and now they're getting married in less than two months. I'm not friends with this woman or her daughter in any way, although this guy and I could be connected later on through work, although it's unlikely. Apart from all this, I don't like this guy, and I have no respect for him. He's racist. He's extremely dumb, and he's very tone-deaf.

Am I morally obligated to tell his fiancé about what he did? And how do I do that without blowing my cover? Signed, Watching from the sidelines while this slime climbs into the bloodline. This is where I got to make my own soundbite. And here's to you, Mrs. Robinson. That's what this reminds me of. Yeah.

What can I say, another feedback Friday banger. What a way to end the week, Gabe. Literally a banger in this case. Yeah. I thought I'd mix it up, you know, give everyone. even a little moral depravity to take into their weekend? Seriously, this question makes me want to take a shower. A long one, a scalding one.

In nail polish remover. So, okay, this guy is bad news, right? He's a creep. Yeah, he's a piece of work. He's a piece of work. Absolutely. I mean, I don't know what his plan is here. He's obviously very manipulative.

But this also means that the mother is keeping this huge secret from her daughter as well, right? She's not telling her daughter that she's about to marry her former boy toy. That's incredibly messed up as well. Yeah, good point. They're both putting his fiance in an awful spot. Maybe the mom is just so ashamed that she slept with this guy. She'd rather just bury it. Maybe.

Although I don't really get that logic because the mom, no. It doesn't sound like she did anything wrong here unless she's still married to somebody or something. I mean, assuming she didn't know that he had designs on her daughter. Right. And if he was running a game on her to get to the daughter, then the mom was the victim too. And she could go to her daughter and say, okay, this is really weird and I'm mortified. But your boyfriend and I had a thing.

and I should have told you earlier, and he won't tell you, but obviously you need to know before you get married. Right. That's the right thing to do. Yeah. That's the reasonable thing to do. Of course. It's the mother's job to tell the daughter, not this guy who randomly employed this guy eight years ago. But the fact that she didn't tell her daughter, that tells me that there's something off with this family.

I just don't get it. I mean, how can you attend your daughter's wedding when you were sleeping with the groom? Dude, that's going to be a weird walk down the eye. I'll tell you that much. I didn't even think of that. Yeah. Just imagine giving your daughter away to the guy you used to bang after he pruned your azaleas. Like, and then watching them make out before they spend the rest of their lives together.

Oh, yes, while you clap and smile. I don't think it's going to be the rest of their lives. I think this is a ticking freaking time bomb that's going to go off any minute. For sure. Whether this guy spills the beans or not. And it's going to be a nightmare when it does. A total nightmare. Yeah.

So the million dollar question. Should this guy tell the daughter what he knows? Honestly, this woman deserves to know the truth. I'm not totally convinced that this guy has to be the one to tell her, though. But he's the only one who knows besides, again, Mrs. Robinson and the freaking American Gigolo over here. Well, that's true. But he's not friends with this woman.

He's not friends with this mom. He doesn't have any connection to them. If anything, I get the sense that he wants to drop a dime on this guy because he knows he's a POS. He hates this guy. and, you know, not exactly because he's really looking out for this poor woman. Well, he'd probably say that he's doing both, but you're making a good point. What are this guy's motivations really?

I think it's revenge a little bit, or at least like, I hate this guy, he's ignorant, he's racist, he's tone deaf, and now I finally have an opportunity to mess him up. Yeah, but is that so bad? If this guy has been manipulating people and treating them poorly and spouting hateful crap for the last eight years, and now he's about to break some poor woman's heart, Does it really matter why the guy writing in wants to bust him? I mean, I think it does, kind of, because when you're not clear on why you're doing something, things tend to get messy.

Look, it's kind of like that. Do you remember that question we took Jordan a while back from the guy who's, okay, so he had an employee and the guy was kind of a jerk, if I recall, and he and his wife were engaging in PPP fraud. Yeah, they bought a camera on a vacation and a deck. Yeah, I remember that. And this guy was trying to decide whether to report them to the IRS or to whatever the body was. And if I remember correctly, our take was, yeah, report. hoard him, but do it because he's breaking the law and he's hurting all taxpayers, not because

you have a personal vendetta against this guy. I just think when you start to act like a vigilante for personal reasons, things, they get messy and they get gross and it doesn't always make you feel better. I hear you and I get it, but for me personally, I find it really hard to separate those two things out. Like this kid who's sleeping with the mom and the daughter, he wouldn't be in this situation if he weren't a complete skisball in the first place. It fits a larger pattern. So of course the guy writing and hates him. The guy's hateable. His personal feelings about this dude confirm exactly what he's doing now. Okay. So, you know what? That's a very fair point. But, okay, the other reason I'm hesitating, again, there's someone here who should be doing the

right thing, and that's the mom. She's the one with a great reason for telling her daughter the truth, and she's not doing that. And that is their business. Not really his. Well, I, okay, I can't argue with you there. It should obviously be coming from mom. And if it comes from somebody else instead of mom, that's going to be a- blow up the family. Yeah. Yeah, yikes. I don't want to be in that room at all. But in a world where she won't tell her daughter, this crucial thing, I do wonder if it falls to this guy who's watching it all from the outside. And yeah, it'll be devastating to her when she finds out. But in the long run, she'll probably be grateful that somebody told her. Yeah. Okay. Fair point. Like, it might not be his

job, but is he creating a net good by giving her the heads up. Exactly. And I think he is, even if he's overstepping a little. But I really do see both sides of this. And I guess ultimately it just comes down to this guy's values what he believes is the right thing to do. As for how to tell this woman what happened without blowing your cover, I think that's pretty easy. You could create an anonymous email account

or a Facebook account and write her. You could send an anonymous letter in the mail if you want to go old style. You could cut out letters from different magazines and paste them on a blank piece of paper like a ransom note from the 1970s. You could hire a plane to write, Brandon was banging your mom between Home Depot runs in the sky.

Yeah. That's my personal favorite. It'll set you back a little bit, but that's really making a statement. That's poetry. There are loads of ways to do this. You just have to get creative. But, yeah, I would make sure you cover your tracks and keep this as far away from your business as possible. If you decide to go through with it, just minimize any potential blowback.

Gabe, family secrets can just be wild. The situations people get into, this is just insane. Insane. I feel bad for this young woman. She's obviously the innocent party here. her mom's between a rock and a hard place made the wrong decision for a long period of time. I mean, they're about to get married. She should have said something like when she met the guy.

Oh my God, I used to bang that guy. Don't see him anymore. Just, jeez, I hope she finds out and dumps this guy ASAP one way or the other. Hope you all enjoyed that. I want to thank everyone who wrote in this week and everyone who listened. Thank you so much. Don't forget to check out the episodes with Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Maria Konnikova on scams if you haven't had a chance yet.

If you want to know how I managed to book all these great people and manage my relationships using software systems and tiny habits every single day. Check out our six-minute networking course. The course is free. It's over on the think-ific platform at Jordanharbinger.com slash course. I'm changing how to dig the well before you get thirsty. I hear about this all the time. People get lazy with networking.

They don't prioritize it. And then once they need those relationships, they are too late. And this stuff takes up just a few minutes a day. Again, it's free. Jordan Harbinger.com slash course is where you can find it. A link to the show notes for the episode can be found at Jordan Harbanger. Harbinger.com. Transcripts in the show notes. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on both Twitter and Instagram, or you can connect with me right there on LinkedIn. You can find Gabe on Twitter at Gabe Mizrahi or on

Instagram at Gabriel Mizrahi. This show is created in association with Podcast 1. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogart, Ian Baird, Millie Ocampo, Josh Ballard, and of course Gabriel Mizrahi. Our advice and opinions are our own. And I'm a lawyer, but I am not your lawyer. So do your own research before implementing anything you hear on the show. Ditto Bill Honofrey and Jeffrey's shirt left. You can contact Bill at Walsh and Honorfrey, W-A-O-Law.com, and you can find Jeffrey at Yorktown-Mane Tax and Accounting, Yorktown, main.com. Remember, we rise by lifting others, so share the show with those you love, and if you found the episode useful, please share it with somebody else who can use the advice we gave here

today. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you listen, and we'll see you next time. If you're looking for another episode of the Jordan Harbinger show to sink your teeth into, here's a sample of my interview with someone with decades of experience in protecting people at every level, from the top levels of government to victims of spousal abuse. Violence is a reality. If you're not prepared for its possibility, you'll be caught off guard by its eventuality. Learn how to hone your sixth sense for danger. Discover how to spot the red flags that signify someone's a likely abuser, con artist, or predator. Here's a bite.

16 years ago, when I was 20, I got into a taxi cab in Mexico City, and it turned out to be a fake taxi. And the guy was driving me further and further away from my destination, further and further away. And my brain went through this process. It said, no, it's probably going to be fine. I know he said he was going to ask for directions, but he's a cabby. He should know that. No, no, no, no.

But, I mean, I've never been kidnapped before, so that can't be what's happening. And then I remembered some guy on Oprah in 1994 or something like that when I was a kid sitting there with my mom who said never go to the secondary location. And I only realized a decade and a half later when reading the book, The Gift of Fear, that that was you. Everybody with a normal functioning mind and body system does have intuition. And what we have in varying degrees is our willingness to honor it and listen to it and learn about it. It's our most extraordinary mental and physical process. The stomach lining, as an example, has a hundred million neurons, a hundred million thought cells.

That's more neurons than there are in a dog's brain. When you hear the word, our gut, you know, I had a gut feeling. It's a very accurate description of what's going on. And these two brains in the gut and in the skull communicate with each other through the body. And so the whole mind-body system delivers intuition to you, which is knowing without knowing why, knowing without having to stop at all the letters from A to Z on the way, just getting from A to Z automatically.

It doesn't really matter how a thing should be. It only matters how it is and how it is in terms of reality in this moment. And reality is the highest ground you can get to. That's the place where you can see what's coming. I'm so glad to hear that story, and that makes my day. That means a lot to me, particularly as I'm about to hear, I hope, how well you prevail,

because I know we're here having the conversation, so you did well. I slid behind the driver's seat, and he reached over toward the glove box, and I grabbed him and threw him back to his seat because I figured he had a knife or a gun in there or something, and that's what he made a bad for. For more, including the most important thing we can do to cut potentially threatening people out of our lives forever, check out episode 329 with Gavin DeBecker. This episode is sponsored in part by Something You Should Know podcast. Finding a new great podcast shouldn't be this hard, so let me save you some time.

If you like the Jordan Harbinger show, you'll probably like something you should know with Mike Carruthers. It's one of those shows that makes you smarter in a practical, useful way. Same curiosity vibe we go for here, just in a fast-focused format. Mike brings on top experts and asks the exact questions that you'd want to ask, and the topics are all over the place in the best way. Recently, they've covered things like why we care so much what other people think, the benefits of laughter, why sports fans get so invested, and what makes people like you or not. The through line is always the same. Smart ideas you can actually use in real life. Something you should know has been featured in Apple's shows we love,

and it's got thousands of five-star reviews because it's consistently interesting. So if you want another show that scratches that I want to understand how people in the world really work, itch, search for something you should know wherever you get your podcasts. Look for the bright yellow light bulb and start listening. You can thank me later.