The Jordan Harbinger Show - 928: Whisper or Withhold Stepson's Paternity Untold? | Feedback Friday

Episode Date: December 1, 2023

Your stepson doesn't know your late husband wasn't his real father. Is it your place to clue him in against his mother's wishes? Welcome to Feedback Friday! And in case you didn't already know it, Jordan Harbinger (@JordanHarbinger) and Gabriel Mizrahi (@GabeMizrahi) banter and take your comments and questions for Feedback Friday right here every week! If you want us to answer your question, register your feedback, or tell your story on one of our upcoming weekly Feedback Friday episodes, drop us a line at [e-mail]. Now let's dive in! On This Week's Feedback Friday, We Discuss: Your adult stepson doesn't know your late husband wasn't his biological father. Is it your place to clue him in against his mother's wishes? [Thanks to licensed marriage and family therapist Nancy Yen for helping us with this one!] You're deeply in love with someone who professes the same toward you, but a prior history of abuse makes her skittish about intimacy. How do you support her through these times while protecting yourself from being hurt every time she pushes you away? You and your cancer-battling wife are overjoyed to have a new child, but you sure could use a break from the incessant interference of your intense in-laws. How do you get them off your back and protect your family from their destructively overprotective tendencies? Should you pursue an implied job with your wishy-washy in-laws, or take their poor communication skills as a sign that maybe you're better off without taking them on as co-workers? Want clarification about how woolly mammoths might once again walk the earth? Here are some updates from our recent guest Ben Lamm! Have any questions, comments, or stories you'd like to share with us? Drop us a line at [e-mail]! Connect with Jordan on Twitter at @JordanHarbinger and Instagram at @jordanharbinger. Connect with Gabriel on Twitter at @GabeMizrahi and Instagram @gabrielmizrahi. Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/928 This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors: jordanharbinger.com/deals Sign up for Six-Minute Networking — our free networking and relationship development mini course — at See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to Feedback Friday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. I'm here with Feedback Friday producer, a co-host so committed to this show that he actually arranged to have his birthday fall on the day of this recording. Gabriel Mizrahi. Happy birthday, man. Thank you.

Huge sacrifice on my part, honestly. I can't think of a better way to spend my birthday, by the way, than reading some Feedback Friday letters and being roasted by you. So it's a pleasure. Yeah, you hear that, guys? Gabe likes the roast. He's on board with the roasts. I still get emails from people going like,

ease up. It's not nice. You treat your friends poorly in there eventually. It's like reading into this a whole lot. I might have Stockholm syndrome a little bit, but I mean, I'm still laughing over here, so I'm good with it. Let the record reflect that my homie slash co-host explicitly consents to all roostage. You guys can stop sending me DMs. Maybe the layer of sarcasm is lost on some of these people. Then again, I do pay you. So maybe there's a power dynamic here that I'm not sensitive to. This is starting to sound like a feedback Friday letter. Right? My mouthy boss won't stop roasting me on the show we do together. What would you do? I'd be like, well, are the roast accurate? Exactly. Are they funny? Are they original? Come on.

Just laugh, bro. Enjoy it, you know? Being mocked by a true artist is one of the great pleasures of life. I'm satisfied now. I'm glad that on this birthday of yours you could give me this gift. You're welcome. I'm glad we sorted that out in real time. Me too. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills are 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.

And our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker. During the week, we have long-form conversations with a variety of amazing folks from arms dealers to four-star generals and Emmy-nominated comedians. This week we had Miko Pellid. This guy is on the far left of Israeli politics.

He's the son of a general, and he is very, I mean, I would just say radical left Israeli. So if you thought we were two on one side with the Mossab Hassan, episodes. This is the complete opposite perspective of this. I won't say he's a Hamas apologist, but he's the next best thing, I guess. Really interesting conversation, a lot of good faith in there, and frankly, I just wanted to make sure I was getting an equal number of death threats from both sides. So go back and check out that episode if you haven't done so yet. As is our custom.

On Fridays, we share stories, offer advice, play, obnoxious soundbites, and defend our right to mock each other so that you can all relax and enjoy the show. And by the way, before we dive in, a lot of you guys have been writing me lately, asking why I haven't written a book. Actually, not even just lately. Over the years, people have asked me this pretty routinely. I do get it often. I figured I'd answer it here on Feedback Friday.

It comes down to a few factors, but the biggest one for me is time and using my time intentionally. And I think this is important for everyone. For example, if I write a book, or Gabe and I do, because we usually collaborate on stuff like that, Gabe has to be available to deal with it, of course, and I have to be available to deal with it, that takes away from stuff like Feedback Friday, Gabe's movies that he writes, directs, produces, whatever, spending time with my kids, which I do all the time. But even if we sacrifice that time and we struggle through and we write a book and it's actually a good book, which is the best case scenario, right? Because a lot of books suck, I'd say most of them.

But let's say we write an actual good book. What happens after that, best case? Then I slash we go on a book tour where I'm going all over the place, also away from my family with two young kids four a year and a half. And then again, if the book sells well, I start getting speaking gigs as a result, and I have to leave my family and kids to do those. Worst case scenario is the whole thing is a big waste of time because the book fails and it still costs us a lot of time and energy. So don't get me wrong, the idea of writing a book is really exciting to me and maybe one day I will. But I have so many friends who are authors. You know, I'm close with guys like Mark Manson, Ryan Holiday. I know how much work goes into writing a meaningful book. It takes real dedication and craft

and time, and it's just not high on the list right now. What is high on the list for me is my wife, my kids, and this show. And for Gabe, it's probably what, this show, film projects, whatever other writing you got going on. One thing I learned when I had kids and I started to feel like I wasn't working enough was happy and successful people that I know kept telling me things like, work is always going to be there later. And it sounds like a cliche, whatever.

Nobody told me to work more now, to have more later. Zero people told me that. Everybody else told me the opposite. Every single one of those people told me to work less now and enjoy my children and family, and there are always things I can push off until later. And if later never comes with the work stuff, I will probably never really regret it because I will have spent so much good time with my family instead. And that is just where my priorities and values are these days.

Anyway, I'm sharing this not to like low-key humble brag about how I'm too busy to be a writer, although that is the weirdest humble brag ever and not really a humble brag at all now that I think about it. I'm sharing it because a lot of people, including many of our list, listeners who write in, they get it into their head that they're not doing enough professionally. And they often end up making tradeoffs that they think, oh, I'm not going to have any time to do this, but long term, yada, yada. Some of those are good, investing in yourself, et cetera, but some of them are just really shitty deals for them and their family, especially if they have children, and especially, especially if they have small children. As a dad, I just think

it can be really dangerous and a real missed opportunity for everyone. In my own life, my dad worked a ton when I was little so that we would have opportunities. And now they're retired. They retired like a decade early. And they're like, oh, we're going to croak with a lot of money. And it's like, I would have traded some of that money for a dad that got home before 8 p.m. every night before I was in bed. I would have done that. And I'm sure they would have done that. And that said, if it turns out my kids are super boring, Gabe gets sick of Hollywood and decides he wants to be a real writer, maybe we'll take a crack at a book. Don't bank on it. Not as long as we have other parts of our lives that are more important right now.

And I'm joking. Someone's going to be like, how dare you? Children are not boring. No, they're not. I totally thought you were going to say, how dare you? Gabe is a real writer.

It's not fluff ourselves. It's not too much. As always, we've got some fun ones and some doozies, and I can't wait to dive in. Gabe, what is the first thing out of this mailbag? Dear Jordan and Gabe,

I'm a 68-year-old second wife, very recently widowed, and over 40 years ago, my husband let me in on a family secret. He is not his son's biological father. This secret is huge because his son was never told this, and to this day believes that he is his father's bio-son. My husband never knew the identity of the biodad. It has always been my husband's position that his son should know the truth, but his mother,

who's a successful status-conscious woman in her early 70s with the personality of a sugar-coated steamroller, continues to be vehemently opposed. She gave birth to her son when she was 15, then ran away from home. The infant was placed in foster care for the next three years. My husband met her when she was a 17-year-old runaway. They married a year later and took custody of the toddler, and my husband legally adopted him. Two years ago, when my husband knew that he didn't have long to live,

he called his ex and told her he wanted to come clean with her son. She became hysterical and verbally abusive, saying that he had no right to ruin her life and estrange her from her son. My husband's position was that this is not my problem, and that he feared his ex would make my life hell if I told. Piecing together bits of information I've learned, I strongly suspect that the ex's stepdad fathered her child. This could explain the immense amount of shame that she may be carrying.

Yeah, I would say that's probably the case. Wow. Okay, I really was not expecting. I was like, oh, she slept as someone when she was young, people don't talk about that. Wow. So if that's true, she was abused, that's a polite word for what happened. when she was 14, 15 years old, and then she ran away. Wow. Yeah, that would be very painful if that's the case. And potentially very difficult for her son to hear, too. Yeah, good point. I can appreciate why she doesn't

want to dredge all this up. Same. Carry on. When my husband was near death, his son planned to fly in for a last visit. When the ex learned of this, she flew in two and made sure that father and son were never alone with each other. My stepson is tremendously successful in his professional life, but has shown signs of trauma throughout the decades. He's been in therapy for years. He's now working on a detailed family tree with the help of Ancestry.com and 23 and me. It's never good, is it? In these stories, whenever I hear 23 and me, I'm like, oh, shit, something's about to go down. He's now doing the one thing where everyone finds out that they're not who they think they are and that they have secret siblings or parents. And a couple years ago, he was notified about a first cousin he never knew he had. He brought this up

in his father's hospice room with his mother and me present. His mother. His mother, Another is an only child, so the son's conclusion was, well, mom, looks like you had a sibling you never knew about. Oh, my God. Imagine the awkward laughter in that room to try and dissipate the tension from that comment. Yeah, that must be it. There can be no other explanation possible. It's got to be it. A better.

Oh, well. I summoned the courage to say, you know, it could be on your father's side. Oh, man. I thought the ex might have a stroke. She was so visibly shaken. I was hoping to plant a seed with this comment, but my stepson seemed satisfied, believing that the cousin was a wild oat sewn by his paternal uncle

while in the service. My close friends have advised me to stay out of this, but my nephew thinks that I have an obligation to tell my stepson everything. My husband asked that if I felt compelled to disclose the secret, I should only do so after her death. I'm torn.

What would you do? Signed, walking on eggshells as I sit on this bombshell. Wow, I mean, I'm torn. This is quite a family secret. I can understand why your husband's first wife is so protective of it, and I can also understand why that puts you in a bit of a tough bind. It's hard to know what to prioritize here.

We wanted to run this by an expert and also deflect responsibility for getting this wrong. So we reached out to Nancy Yen, marriage and family therapist and adoption expert. And the first thing Nancy said was family secrets like this, they're more common than not, and they're often associated with a great deal of shame. So you are dead on when you say that the birth mother might be feeling immense shame about her past, along with the fear of loss. And if other people in this family know more about your stepson's story

than he does, it naturally feels wrong for you to be keeping this secret. But Nancy also pointed out that in this family, it's not just one huge secret. There are multiple secrets here, secrets within secrets. His adopted dad is not his birth father. All right.

His birth father is possibly the birth mother's stepfather and or the pregnancy was the result of some kind of assault. Not clear if your stepson knows this part, but it's also possibly a secret that he was in foster care for the first three years of his life. And it's also a secret what the birth mother did from age 15 to 17, what she was going through back then. So your late husband's ex would need to overcome a lot of fear and a lot of shame in order to even consider opening up about this stuff. And revealing it will probably require a very long

conversation, probably many conversations, because there's just a lot to work through here. But in Nancy's view, this would be an amazing, challenging, and meaningful opportunity for healing. And those are her words. So Nancy's take on a situation like this, your steps on has every right to the truth about his story. But that doesn't mean that it'll be beneficial for you to be the one who shares these secrets, not without considering the impact all of this will have on the most important people involved. Nancy actually agreed with your friends and your late husband. It's not your problem. if that's the right word, because it'll be less consequential to you and your nephew than to your stepson and his mom. Now, I totally understand the impulse to tell him. I think that comes from

your love for your stepson and is probably informed by your many frustrations with his mom. I tend to really sympathize with your desire to let the cat out of the bag, but that day in the hospice room, when you wanted to plant the seed of the secret with those 23 and me results, almost forcing her to spill the beans to her son, Nancy, and I will agree here, felt that that kind of thing takes the power away from her. And saying that in front of a woman who is not consenting to tell her story,

in Nancy's view, it doesn't signal much respect or foster any trust with her, even if you feel that truth-telling and curiosity are virtues. Like you said, you're torn, I'm torn. And by the way, I agree with that. They probably should be more open, but that doesn't mean that that's more important than letting them handle this secret the way that they want to,

since, you know, it's their secret. It's their secret, exactly. As Nancy put it to us, revealing the truth yourself would really take away the biomom's ability to decide whether to share this, how to share this, how to repair any betrayal with her son, if and when she does share this. So, in her opinion, that would be a sort of boundary violation.

So Nancy laid out a few options for you. Option one is you carry the privilege, if that's the right word, and also the burden of knowing somebody else's story, and you respect your late husband's advice. For better or worse, his ex gets to decide how to handle this, because, again, yes, it is her life. Nancy said it might be helpful to think of this more like a chain of command. So if the biomomom ends up dying,

not having shared her story with her son, the next in line could be you as the stepmother. Your stepson might still feel betrayed that you kept it from him, in which case you might need to say, I'm sorry, and repair things with him, depending on how he responds to that, but you would be honoring the chain of command created by this secret.

Option two is you re-approach your stepson's mom and you try to guide her towards sharing the secret with her son. Now, Nancy did say that this would be no small task and it'll probably require a lot more personal development work on your part as well as her part just to prepare for that conversation because based on what we know about her,

it's very possible that she's going to shut down this invitation, reject this advice, especially if there's very little trust or related. between you, which it sounds like is the case. So you could choose to invest in that trust and build that relationship a little bit more and see if that builds a foundation for you to say, hey, maybe it's time to tell him, which, by the way, also might mean exploring what part of you cares for your stepson and for his mother. Nancy pointed out that if you only see his biomomom as the ex of her husband,

who is, you know, image conscious and has the personality of a sugar-coated steamroll, which is quite an image. Nancy would gently suggest reorienting your perspective a little bit, maybe to a neutral one, if possible, or even better, you know, a compassionate one. Right. I thought that it was interesting that she keeps calling this woman the ex.

I get it. She sounds difficult. Domineering, maybe even a little narcissistic, but she's also her stepson's mother. Might be kinder and more productive to think of her that way. That was pretty much exactly what Nancy said. Also, this would mean apologizing and repairing any damage that you might have caused

with her over the years, especially that day in the hospice room when you caused her to become visibly shaken, as you said. Nancy's general insight here is that reorienting your perspective and repairing with your stepson's mom without any agenda, that's crucial for building trust. So there's a bit of a paradox here. You're repairing the relationship to foster trust to hopefully convince her to open up to her son about her past, but you're also letting go of the agenda to make that request immediately and maybe even letting go of the expectation that you'll succeed in convincing her.

But as Nancy put it, it takes the privilege of having a trusting relationship to hope for a genuine consideration. But look, if building a trusting relationship with her is just impossible, which it might be, then you have to decide where to land with all of this. Nancy's belief is that the relationally minded choice is to respect the boundaries of the primary people involved in the secret and hold out hope that your stepson's mother will share it one day. and not just for her son's benefit, but also for herself. But I got to say, I completely understand why you feel torn here. I'm not trying to say that you are a terrible person for wanting to share it.

I think I would feel the same as you, especially because this woman does seem quite difficult, and she does seem not particularly open to exploring other angles on this secret, certainly not from you. But let's also remember, this is a woman with a very, very painful past. Some serious trauma. I'm guessing a need for control to some degree. I think she carries a lot of shame, a lot of fear,

and whether she's a fun person to be around or not, whether you like her or not, her reasons for protecting the secret, even if they're not necessary anymore, even if they're ultimately creating more problems in this family, they are understandable. So I think what Nancy is pushing us to understand is that it might not matter who is right and who is wrong here.

What matters most is whose story this is to share primarily, and who would be most impacted by the secret coming to light. That's what you need to be. be thinking about right now. That's right. And I can see why it's easy to lose sight of that when you're dealing with somebody that you just don't like, because then you're going, but she's so stubborn and overbearing and image conscious and she's lying to her son. Yeah, maybe she is, but it's her choice and it's her story and it doesn't really matter how you feel about her. I do want to just throw out one other option here, a way to potentially walk this line without overstepping,

which is if your stepson ever comes to you like, I don't know, something about our story just doesn't add up. These 23 and me results don't make any sense. My mom's acting super weird. Then maybe you say, well, why don't you talk to your mom about that? Tell her you have some questions, invite her to tell you if there's something you should know. I mean, I wouldn't say that with a wink in a, you know, elbowing him in the ribs a bunch of times. I just wouldn't do that. But you can maybe play it cool and encourage him to seek out answers on his own. That would be one way to do right by your steps on while also honoring his mom's wishes. And maybe she's on the fence and she's like, if he ever asks me, I'm going to tell him.

But until then, you never know where she's at with us. She might be just ready to spill it, but she doesn't want to just volunteer it if he's not wondering, because it's scary. So big thanks to Nancy Yen for her wisdom here. Nancy is now providing private, virtual consulting and therapy. You can learn more about her and her practice at nancy yen.com. That's Nancy Yen with one Y.

Also, big congratulations to Nancy on the birth of her first son. We're thrilled for you, Nancy, and we know you're going to be an awesome mom. Just make sure your son grows up listening to the Jordan Harbinger show. maybe you can leave one of the starter packs playing while he sleeps. It's the least you could do. Baby Einstein ain't got nothing on us. You know what? You won't have to hide from your family on your deathbed?

The great deals on the amazing products and services that support this show. You can just see somebody, their last dying breath, being like, Jordan, 10 for free vitamin D. In the end. We'll be right back. Thank you for listening and supporting the show. Your support of our advertisers keeps us going. All the deals, discount codes, and ways to support the show. So Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals.

You can ask the AI chat bot. You can email us. We'll surface the code for you. Now, back to Feedback Friday. Okay, what's next? Hi, Jordan and Gabe. I met a girl last year, and we really headed off. We're both divorced with kids

and spent six months getting to know each other and each other's children. We're both in our early 30s and have similar interests and values. I never felt as strong a connection with anyone else before. She said the same. We fell in love.

and started planning our futures together. Then, at the start of the year, she ended things very suddenly with no warning and when completely no contact. She said it was because of unresolved issues from her previous relationship in which she experienced domestic violence. Ooh, okay, that is super sad,

but it's definitely not the full story. There's something else going on here. There's more for sure. I was devastated and had to put in a lot of time and effort to get through that period. I went to therapy and made some positive life choices that really helped me get through that difficult time. That's great. Okay. Well, I love to hear that. Good work.

Then earlier this year, she reached out to me, out of the blue, and wanted to reconnect. It took a few months, but now we're dating again, and she's working through her issues with a psychologist. Okay, that's promising. I'm really glad she's found some support, too. She obviously has some work to do. It's still a little weird. But it seems that every week she still regresses into a few. fight or flight state and pushes me away. Keeps canceling plans, then un-canceling, very hot and cold. So she has some conflicts around intimacy.

Okay. It's hard for her to stay close consistently. I still think there's something else going on. There's definitely some ambivalence here. Whatever it is, it's not easy to be in a steady relationship with somebody like this. The push-pull thing always signals some deeper issue. This is not just somebody who's like bad at managing their time or whatever, right? It's not it.

I do love this girl. and she said she loved me recently. So how do I support her through these times while protecting myself from being hurt every time she pushes me away? Signed, stuck in these throws, as my lady comes and goes. Well, first of all, I am really sorry that you're going through this.

I totally understand why this is hurtful and frustrating. And yeah, it's confusing. But I got to say, I love how far you've come. I love that you've done your own work apart from her. I think that part is fantastic. Even his question, how do I say, support her while also protecting myself, I feel like that signals to me that he is making room for both of their experiences here. I mean, he can empathize with her and he can also hold her accountable

and take care of himself. I think that's excellent. Absolutely. Yeah, as opposed to letting her mess him about by pulling away over and over, not speaking up, or just breaking up with her without giving her a chance to work on this, which might make her stuff worse. So my take is, I think you need to talk to your girlfriend very directly about this tendency of hers and invite her to open up to you about why it's happening. When the time is right, maybe after she enacts this pattern, when she pulls away and comes back, maybe you say something like, hey, listen, I notice you have this tendency to pull away from me. You can be very hot and cold. You often cancel plans. Then you say they're back on, that sort of thing. Now, I know you went through some really painful stuff in your last relationship,

and I am so glad that you're talking about that in therapy. And I'm here to support you however I can, but I got to tell you, this hot and cold thing, it's becoming very difficult for me. It's hurtful, it's confusing, and it makes me wonder whether we're really on the same page. So I wanted to talk about that with you. Are you aware that you do this? Do you have a sense of why?

Is this something you're talking about in therapy? Can you help me understand what's going on? Because I'm here to listen. I'd really like to work on this together. Something like that. And I'd work very hard to make it safe for your girlfriend to be very honest with you about why she operates this way. If she actually even knows, of course,

maybe this conversation is about helping her understand why she does this, although I would hope she's already having or getting clarity on that from therapy, but maybe not. Or maybe it's about making her feel comfortable sharing that with you. Now, if she opens up to you about this, if she tells you why she pulls away, what she's afraid of, or even if she's just like,

I don't know why I do this, I just do it, I'm confused. That's a good sign. the way to support her is to listen, to understand her, to appreciate how pulling away is serving her. I'm guessing it's to protect herself in some way, but it could also reflect some other concerns or conflicts that she has in the relationship and to encourage her to bring it into therapy, to tell her therapist that it's something she wants to work on. Yes, I completely agree. It is not on you alone to fix this for her, and you can't do that on your own. But staying connected to her when she opens up about this, in other words, not pulling away from her or punishing her,

the way she does to you sometimes, that could be a very powerful part of her healing and help her rewrite this pattern. Now, if she doesn't engage with you on this and you try a few times to have this conversation and she just continues to come and go and hurt you with zero progress, then I would say, I don't know, maybe time to reevaluate this relationship. That's where you need to really stay connected to your side of the equation in the question that you asked. because there's a point where all of this wonderful empathy and all of this great patience that you have might keep you in a relationship that isn't entirely fair,

that doesn't totally work. If she continues to hurt you by coming and going and she doesn't seem to appreciate how that affects you or she just isn't interested in working on it, then you have to pay attention to that signal. The fact that you love each other so much, the fact that you have such a strong connection, that doesn't make this pattern of hers okay, in my opinion,

and it doesn't necessarily mean that it's quote-unquote worth it. Yeah, I agree, Gabe. My ears always prick up when somebody says, I've never felt this strongly about anyone. Also, she's wishy-washy, she bales on me a lot and hurts my feelings. When I hear that, I'm often going, okay, hmm, is it possible those two things are related, especially when it's a couple's second go-around together? I think it's a very fair point. In fact, I would be curious to know whether this pattern of hers is the kind of ambivalent, disorganized attachment thing that seems to be going on here, the flighty thing, whether that might be hooking into some pattern of his. Is he drawn to who aren't totally available or aren't always consistent?

Does the hot and cold thing trigger something old in him that he's responding to? Is he maybe used to suppressing his hurt and his anger when people don't treat him the way he wants to be treated? Right, or like, is her saying, I love you, but being inconsistent and hard to pin down, does that create some suspense and drama? And that heightens the intensity of his feelings for her? Oh, good one. Exactly.

That kind of thing. And I'm not trying to poke more holes in this relationship or judge him for his feelings. I mean, every relationship has its challenges. Every person brings their own stuff to a partnership. But I do think it's important to appreciate why such intense feelings can form for certain people who behave this way in particular. Especially when they're not treating you the way that you deserve and they already hurt you in one big way in the past.

Anyway, try to talk about this first. That's how you'll know whether she's ready to do this work. And if she is, then it'll only bring you guys closer together. Overall, yeah, I love your mindset. I admire your empathy. you're doing a much better job of taking care of yourself this time around. And I know this conversation will lead you to the right answer. So good luck.

And you can reach us Friday at jordanharbinger.com. Please keep your emails concise. Try to use a descriptive subject line that makes our job a lot easier. If you're finding dead squirrels in the mailbox, you accidentally cheated with the married person, or you're debating whether to reach out to your abusive ex after they were almost murdered. That story last week was insane.

A banger. Whatever's got you staying up at night lately. Hit us up Friday at Jordan Harbanger. We're here to help and we keep every email anonymous. Okay, what's next? Dear Jordan and Gabe, earlier this year, my wife gave birth to our first daughter two months early by having emergency surgery due to an advanced but treatable cancer.

My wife and daughter spent over a month in the hospital before they came home. Wow, that's intense. That is a lot to go through all at once. My gosh. I am very sorry to hear that. My daughter is now doing great and my wife is responding well to treatment. Ah, amazing, great. Really good news.

very happy to hear that as well. We're hopeful that the rest of my wife's treatment will go as planned, and we can finally start the life that we dreamed about with our beautiful girl. But I have another major stressor in my life, and that is my in-laws. Ooh, yeah, here we go, as if you guys haven't been through enough, let's hear it. To start, my in-laws made the medical process during my wife's inpatient stay a living nightmare. They called and texted me incessantly about scheduling who would be at the hospital, and they even tried to circumvent me by talking to doctors behind my back. I would have gladly eased their concerns or talked to the doctors with them, but the covert nature of their dealings made me uneasy. Now my in-laws are frequently at our apartment, and they find any

excuse to come over. They've asked me questions like, when's the last time your mom or dad saw the baby? They didn't mean it in a disrespectful way, but it feels like they're keeping tabs on when my family gets to see us. When my family spends time with us, which is a fraction of the time in comparison, My wife's family bombards her with texts to remind her how much they miss her. They'll also text me to remind my wife to check her phone. Ooh, that's a little much. It's so intense, man. It's so intense.

At a minimum, they're overbearing. But it sounds like they might actually be dominating and competing with your parents for time and attention. It's so weird to me that there are parents like this, but we hear versions of this story a lot, I feel. We do. All right, continue. My mother-in-law plays the part of the hero, doing everything for her kids. and I mean everything. There are times that she's acted like the keeper of my daughter.

But when I question their intentions, my wife stonewalls me with the same excuses, saying things like, but they do so much for us, or that's just the way they are. Right, so she's blind to her parents crazy because she's used to it. They were probably like this growing up,

so it just feels normal for her parents to run the show and demand a lot of attention. But also the whole they do so much for us comment is very interesting. I don't know, I have a feeling that she might be aware that this isn't totally normal, but she's afraid to push back because she doesn't want to seem ungrateful. Slash, her parents have made the cost of speaking up very high.

Yeah, or she's saying they can't possibly be overbearing because, look, they do so much for us. They're helping. Right, but that might be part of the same strategy. Either way, it's a problem. Her parents have created, like, economy and their family where she can't tell them to back off a little bit because it's not the way the dynamics work. So he goes on. My wife is also not in a mental or physical position to constantly tell her parents no, and I don't

blame her. Right, because she just gave birth and she's being treated for cancer. So there's another layer at all this, right? This might be a huge fight, and she just has enough on her plate. I get that. But you know, Jordan, there is another angle I'm just thinking about now, which is it's possible that her parents are so freaked out by their daughter's illness that they are being extra involved because they're afraid of losing her and they want to be there for her and be there for the granddaughter. It's not healthy or sensitive to our friend here, but it might be coming from an understandable place. That's fair. They might be overbearing and competitive people and those qualities are just being pushed into overdrive by a crisis. But my gut is telling me that it's all the above. And regardless of the reason behind it, it sounds so unbelievably annoying.

It does. So the letter goes on. It's now getting the point where I feel physically ill when I'm around them for prolonged periods of time. This all makes me feel uncomfortable and disrespected and they have me questioning my own sanity. So far, my strategy with my wife has been to call out her family. behavior privately after we spend time with them in order to draw some boundaries. I've also started therapy to learn coping skills to weather the storm. Thanks for the Better Help Discount Code, by the way. What should I do? It's not my job to change my in-laws, but how do I get them off my back

and protect my family from their unhealthy, overprotective tendencies? Signed, smothered by this mother and her significant other, who constantly hover when we just need a buffer, and my wife won't give us cover. You went all out with that one. Okay, this is a tough one because there are a lot of factors here. Your in-law's personalities, your wife's personality, there's a baby, there's cancer treatment, there's you. It's kind of a perfect storm for this very understandable experience you're having of,

these people are driving me up the frigging wall and I feel uncomfortable and angry and helpless. Am I crazy or is this super weird? And I get it, I really do. I think I'd feel the same way. So you're mostly right that it's not your job to change your in-laws. You're certainly right that you can't. change them on your own, but in another way, it is your job to change them, or at least to change your dynamic with them, because you're their son-in-law, and you're being affected by all this.

How you do that, that's the question. My gut is that your best bet is to redefine this relationship through your wife, because these are her parents, and they're more likely to listen to her than to you. But you've already tried, and she was like, they're not overbearing, they're just generous. This is the way they are. Slash, I'm too scared to stand up to them right now, so let's just deal with it. So I think you need to help your wife see her parents a little more clearly and see how they're affecting you more clearly, because even if she doesn't think they're too much, she can at least acknowledge that you do. My goal would be to gently help her see what she considers generous or involved that often tips over into these unhealthy

overprotective tendencies. And that might take some time. Like I said, she's probably so desensitized to her parents or so conflicted about them. It might be hard for her to see. them clearly. It also might take her some time to recognize her true feelings about them. Because like Gabe was saying before, the cost of speaking up and pushing back in this family are just so high. So I would help her get in touch with that and work through that a little before you ask her to talk to her parents. Especially because she might be so overwhelmed by the cancer treatment that she's going through. That's another important variable to consider whether this is even a fight worth having right now. I can see the hesitation in his letter with respect

to this. Everyone might be so freaked out in tight. and defensive, that you wouldn't even be able to have a productive conversation about any of this right now. So it's possible that the right answer is to hit pause on this question until she's done with treatment and continue coping with her parents until it's over. That's going to require a lot of patience and forgiveness on your part, and that's hard. But I'd hate for you to try to do this in the middle of a crisis and because no one's equipped or willing to have a big conversation, it just blows up and your in-laws double down and it all gets worse. I think that's a very fair point. Let's deal with one crisis at a time.

because this is going to be a big conversation. You do have another option, and that's to work on some of this with your in-laws directly. Obviously, I would only try to do this. If your wife knows and can share some input, I wouldn't do it behind her back. If you do, though, the approach I would take with these in-laws is, listen, guys, I know that you love your daughter. You've been incredibly supportive. You've been incredibly generous with us.

You've been so involved with her treatment and her doctors and the baby, and we love that. And it means a lot to both of us, and I know it comes from a really good place. But I also feel that we don't always have the independence and the privacy that we would like to have as a couple. At the hospital, you guys talk to the doctors behind my back, you guys spend a lot of time with us here at the apartment, I can't help but notice that you text me and your daughter quite a bit. And again, I know it comes from a good place. You love us.

You're concerned about your daughter. You're excited about the baby. I'm glad you are. I totally get it. I'm not saying we don't appreciate it. I'm not saying we don't want you around. We'd just like to have a little more say in when we spend time to be. and how we spend time together.

Oof, that's a tough message to deliver. I don't know, man. It's hard to say something like that to your in-laws. It'll take some real prep and honestly, some real courage on your part, and they might react poorly to that no matter how you phrase it. It's possible. Something tells me they're not going to love this. They're not going to be huge fans, I think.

And then the question becomes, should that stop them from drawing some boundaries? But at some point, if the situation is going to change, somebody is going to have to say some version of that, either you or your wife. Now, you're right. it's just tough to think about. And I think it should be his wife or the two of them together. I think it's important for her parents

to hear this from their daughter. I think in this case, a united front is probably essential. For sure, man. But whatever you do, I do like Gabe's approach of coming from a place of love as well as firmness.

But given these parents, I think your wife is going to have to go through a process of her own before getting to this point. So your first order of business is to support her in understanding this relationship with her parents better and then to figure out

what to do about it together. Actually, the first order of business is to get through this treatment and be great parents to your baby. Once she's done fighting the immediate problem, then you'll be in a much better position to say, okay, honey, let's talk about what the rest of our lives look like, including your parents. And I feel for you, man, I really do. It's tough. The in-law stuff is always challenging, but I know you guys can figure this out together with the right approach. And good luck.

Yeah, Gabe. The daughter has to decide that this is her idea because the second somebody pushes against their parents for the first time in their life when they're a grown-ass adult, the parents are either going to just ignore it or they're going to have a crazy reaction where they're like, what, you don't love us anymore? If she's not ready for that, if this isn't like your therapist telling you,

by the way, they're going to have a strong reaction and it's probably going to be one of these three things. If you're not ready for that, you're just going to backtrack immediately. Like, I didn't mean it. My husband made me say this to you. You really got to be ready for what's next, and that requires a little bit of groundwork.

You know, it'll definitely win your overbearing in-laws over after telling them to back off. One of the fine products and services that support this show. Nothing says, get out of my life, but I still love you like a mattress. Or is the security system? Nothing says get out and stay out,

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If you like this episode of Feedback Friday and found our advice valuable, I invite you to do what other smart and considerate listeners do, which is take a moment and support our amazing sponsors. All the deals, discount codes, and ways to support the show are over at Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. The AI chatbot can help you too or email me.

I will dig the code up for you. It is that important for you to use these sponsor codes for the show to support the show. And thank you for supporting those who support us. It really does keep us going. It makes it possible to continue creating these episodes week after week. Now, back to Feedback Friday. Hey, Jordan and Gabe. My fiance and I are moving to the Dominican Republic to pursue our job.

dream of developing a piece of land. He currently works for a company owned by his sister and her wife, so working from another country is no problem for him. My job, however, can't be done out of the country, so I had to give notice to my boss. Over the past few weeks, my fiancé's sister asked me on a couple of occasions if I would like to come work for her. I would, as I'd get to work remotely and still live my dream. She even asked me to look into a few things relevant to the position I would be taking. I have and I shared my findings with them. But the meeting never happened. My fiancé told me that they recently included me in their 30-month plan in their executive meeting,

but I haven't heard anything more. Yesterday, we were all in the car together for over six hours talking about work stuff. I thought for sure this topic would come up, but it never did. I mentioned my findings again to his sister and her wife. Neither said anything other than we'd love to know more. I couldn't really tell if they were hoping I wouldn't follow up on it or if they were just kind of oblivious to the conversation I was hoping to have. I find it weird that they approached me with a position and then they're not discussing it

with me when I agreed. I don't want to seem desperate and I would love to keep our great relationship with or without the position. Being direct is something I struggle with a bit, but it's not impossible for me to do. What should I do? Should I be more direct with them? If so, how do I approach this? Or should I just go on a job search for a different remote job and forget about this entirely?

Signed, scratching my head about bringing home this bread. Oh, weird. I can definitely see why this left you confused. So, honestly, my take is I'd probably just let this opportunity go for a few reasons. First of all, if your sister-in-law and her wife are being kind of wishy-washy with you now, that doesn't bode well for your working relationship. Good point. Companies that have crappy communication and service and you haven't paid them yet, you're like, wait a minute.

This is how you act when you want my money. You want my business. I haven't signed on the dotted line. It's going to be even worse after you've got the check, right? They asked you if you'd want to work with them. Cool. They asked you if you'd do some preliminary work. You said, yes, you did the work.

You offered to do more. And they just didn't engage. Whether that's because they're scatterbrained and oblivious, whether it's because they're inefficient and poor communicators, whether it's because they saw your work and they weren't happy with it and they don't know how to say that, whatever their reason, it kind of suggests that this isn't a great match. So, yeah, I wouldn't push too hard on what really looks like a closed door. And I feel that's a pretty good policy in general. You want to go where the good vibes are as much as I hate that word, where your work is recognized and appreciated.

How's that? Where your employer meets you in your excitement and wants to keep building on it. Not where your employer invites you to join the team, asks you to do something. some free work early on and then just never talks to you again. It leaves you hanging. True. And also the fact that these people are your family only heightens that concern for me. Yeah, that's a good point because you can maybe put up with an employer who's a bit of a mess or doesn't communicate well. And then when you're unhappy or you get sick of it, you just quit, you leave. But if you start working for your sister-in-law and her wife and then you quit,

then it's more complicated. It might get awkward. There's going to be some low-grade tension between you or it might just spill over into a larger family conflict. And that's why working with family is so tricky. So I say stay away. I agree. And I know it's frustrating, but I actually think it's kind of great that you're seeing this tendency of theirs so early on.

It's just so much easier to find out now. That said, if you have reason to believe that you guys would be really great colleagues, and this just feels like some weird disconnect and you guys just need to hash it out, then you could bring this up with them directly. And it doesn't need to be a fight. You could just make it a very casual,

easy conversation. You could say, listen, guys, you invited me to work with you. I was pretty hyped about it. You asked me to look into this thing. I was happy to. Told you what I learned. But we haven't really talked about it since. So I just want to check in and see, like, are you guys still interested in working together? Have you maybe changed your minds? Did you not love the work that I did? It's all good. Either way, we are family. We have a great relationship. I want to protect that more than anything. I just want to know where we stand because, yeah, I'm a little confused and see what they say. And maybe they're like, oh my God, no, we're so excited. We just had to get our ducks in a row. And we're not ready to bring you on yet and we just didn't explain that to you. Sorry, we're like

entrepreneurs and we're busy with a million things. Honestly, that's still a little bit of a red flag to me on the communication front, but it might be understandable. It could be forgivable. Or maybe they're like, oh, yeah, you know, I don't know. We talked about it and we don't know where you're going to fit in and we're not sure if we're ready to hire, blah, blah, yada, yada, and then just you got to take it as a sign that it is not meant to be. Honestly, again, both responses suggest to me that it's not meant to be. But if they seem super, avoidant and they're BSing you, then yes. Accept their decision, be gracious about it,

and just thank your lucky stars that you won't be working with them and just look for another remote job. Because I'm with Jordan, working with family is complicated enough. But working with family who is not valuing your time or being thoughtful about how they communicate with you, which, as your family, they should be even more conscious of, in my opinion. I just don't think that's going to go well. Yeah, I'm wildly speculating here.

But I wonder whether they saw that preliminary worksheet and they were like, ooh, um, could be. Do we have to deal with this? And then they didn't know how to tell her after offering her the job, say they were just like, oh, yeah, we'd love to know more, hoping that she would just drop it, right? Maybe they're just as scared of being direct as she is. Maybe it's a family culture thing, right?

And all of their avoidance is creating this situation. Again, I'm speculating. They could also just be like, ah, crap, we didn't really mean it, and now she's taking us up on it. Who knows? But they included her specifically in their 30-month plan and their executive meeting. Like, she was in the PowerPoint presentation.

She had a slide. She had a slide. So I'm confused about this. I don't get it. That is a good point. Why would they do that if they weren't psyched about her? They didn't do that for her benefit. Correct. But then that just makes them really crappy managers and bad communicators. Like, that's the best case. Yeah, it somehow makes it worse.

Big red flags all around. Totally. I say stay away. Follow the good signals. Avoid the bad ones. It might save your relationship with your in-laws and with your fiancé. Church and stayed on this one. That's my take.

My take. As a guy who hired his wife before they were married and works with his best friend. Do as I say, not as I do. on this one, folks. It just worked out. We got lucky, I guess. I don't know. We did.

And everyone told me and told Jen, don't ever work together. It's going to be a mess. It's going to be terrible. Don't work together. Don't do it. But you know what? I still hold that that's good advice.

Not that I wish I didn't work with Jen, far from it. But for every Jen and I, yeah, we work together great. All my friends who work with people and their family are like, this is a nightmare. I hate it.

It's either their spouse or like, they hired their brother or their sister-in-law, and they're like, it's a freaking nightmare. And I can't, get rid of them. Jen just happens to be really good at this and yeah, I think we just got lucky. So congrats on the piece of land, best of luck in the DR. As a side note, I heard the Dominican Republic can be rough. Maybe they're Dominican, so it's going to be fine, their locals-ish. But I've just read a lot of crazy stuff about that place that would give me pause. I don't know

if I'd buy a piece of land there and just be like, yeah, we're going to build a house. So stay safe and definitely invite us down there because maybe we'll come visit. I mean, if you build some badass thing down there, I'll come see it. I'd love to go down there with people that know how to be safe in a place like that. Okay, before we wrap up here, as many of you know, I interviewed a guy named Ben Lamb on resurrecting the Willie Mammoth last week. That was episode 914. And if you didn't catch that episode, Ben's company,

colossal biosciences, is working to bring back animals that have disappeared from the Earth. It's a process they call de-extinction. And they think it could help restore the Arctic ecosystem, treat animal disease, sequester carbon to reduce the rate of climate change. It's pretty wild to all this crazy stuff that can be done by bringing back a woolly mammoth. Anyway, after the episode aired, one of our listeners, Gary reached out with a list of some really great follow-up questions. Questions, I assume a lot of you had as well.

And I passed them along to Ben, and he shared some answers. And they were so interesting. I actually wanted to share them with everybody here on the show. So the first question was, is Ben's team going to use mama elephants to give birth to the woolly little ones? Because it seems like elephants are a scarce resource. How many elephants are needed? How do you even get them? Ben's response was, we have an animal operations team that is making strategic decisions on working

with three partners and more in the future for healthy future mama elephants. While we cannot place a number now, we will base our decision on the health of the animals for our first calves. We have the most talented team of scientists, embryologists, veterinary doctors, and zoo and government partners to guide us through this core part of the colossal mission, as well as a milestone for elephant conservation. These are important collaborations and a sensitive coordination, as elephants are special and on the IUCN Endangered List, we must proceed with thoughtful urgency so we don't

lose these keystone species, which by the way, a keystone species is an organism that helps hold an ecosystem together. And I think the concern is if elephants are all sort of bogarded to give birth to woolly mammoths, are we just going to stop giving birth to elephants? Because gestation in elephants is so long. So that's the concern. The second question Gary shared with us was, are they planning to use artificial wounds for this purpose? And how many can they produce in this way in the lab, and over what time period. So Ben told us that Colossal is actually building artificial womb prototypes for smaller animals that will scale to larger ones like elephants and mammoths, which again, to Jordan's point, have longer gestation times. And these technologies will be available in the near

future for all of our rewilding efforts. X utero gestation of large megafauna can really be scaled up to hundreds and even thousands, though the numbers will depend on the minimum needed for ecological impact and what makes for a thriving, self-sustaining herd without further human intervention. And just side note, if anyone's Latin is a little rusty these days, ex-uterogestation just means fetal development outside of the womb. But Ben did say that this technology is still years out. The last question from our listener was, can the woolly mammoths mate and reproduce with each other, or do they need elephants as surrogate moms all the time? Which is a really great question, and I was wondering that as well.

So to quote Ben again here, for our first calves who will be cold adapted elephants, elephant surrogates will be needed for gestation. As we think about rewilding populations, we will rely on ex-utero-gestation and the healthy natural breeding of our engineered animals to sustain their continuous presence in the cold habitats. In other words, the engineered animals

can breed normally on their own without surrogates or ex-uterostation. So interesting. And finally, in addition to Gary's questions, I also ask Ben what he thinks of the climate change slash habitat loss versus hunting issues. In other words, are we just going to see the mammoth go extinct again because of climate change, even if we prevent them from being hunted to extinction again? Because they were hunted to extinction, but they were hunted to extinction because climate

change got rid of so much of their environment that they were able to be hunted to extinction. Like you couldn't hunt deer to extinction. It'd be very difficult. So Ben's take there was the most impactful aspect of our work is the benefit to the conservation of endangered iconic like the elephant. An Arctic-adapted elephant can benefit from a new ecosystem. It can thrive in away from the more poaching-prone and high-risk human-animal conflict regions. Ben's team believes that the right model moving forward is select rewilding zones that are protected habitats and sanctuaries very much in line with what we see as successful models in the U.S. and other parts of the world. As he explained it, governments can do a great job issuing protective measures for endangered

species when there is serious engagement from the public and a positive ecological impact from rewilding Keystone species. Anyway, I know that's sort of a mouthful, but I thought that stuff was so fascinating. And yeah, the concerns were real. Otherwise, it's just like, yeah, we're bringing back the mammoth. And it's like, no, you're not. So big thanks to Gary for these questions, and a big thank you to Ben Lamb and his team for answering them and for everyone who engaged on this, because a lot of you did have similar questions as well. If you haven't heard the episode, definitely go check it out. Again, episode 914, one of our more unusual and fascinating conversations here on the show. It really is real life Jurassic Park type stuff, and it's being done very thoughtfully

and very strategically. Hope you all enjoyed that. I want to thank everybody who wrote in and everybody who listened. Thank you so much. Also, I just wanted to let you know that over the next few weeks, you might notice that we're taking a bit of a holiday breather. We're scaling back on episodes to give our incredible team some well-deserved time off to recharge and enjoy the holiday season. What that means for you is that we're going to get a little lighter on the episode drops for a short spell. Don't worry. We have killer content, including Skeptical Sunday, which I have not stopped doing, by the way. We've just stopped airing them because it just got overwhelming, but that is not something we're done with. I love doing those. We've got other content queued up that we are polishing

to a shine for when we're back at full throttle. So keep us in your podcast rotation. Stay tuned as we gather more amazing interviews and stories to keep your company on your commute or wherever you're tuning in from. Don't forget to check out the episode with Miko Pellid yet, especially if you were angry about our previous coverage of this conflict, or if you weren't angry enough about our previous coverage of this conflict, this episode should do the trick. 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. I'm teaching you how to build that same circle. I know you're not a podcaster, probably, but you do need this for your career, or just the happiness dividend that comes from maintaining great relationships over

time, a la Dr. Waldinger that we had here on the show. This is a free course on the thinkific platform over at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. Dig the well before you're thirsty folks, build relationships before you need them. I wish I knew this stuff a couple decades ago. You can find it all at Jordanharbinger.com slash course. And our newsletter, really popular, a lot of great feedback from you all on this.

Jordanharbinger.com slash news. We dig up an old episode, get those gems delivered to your inbox every week, Jordanharbinger.com slash news. Show notes on the website, transcripts on the website, advertisers, deals, discount codes, and ways to support the show

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Remember, we rise by lifting others. Share the show with those you love. And if you found the episode useful, please share it with somebody else who could use the advice we gave here today. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn. And we'll see you next time. You're about to hear a preview of the Jordan Harbinger Show with Bill Bray. who uncovered a massive fraud inside the Russian government and took on one of the most powerful men in the world, Vladimir Putin.

Making ten times your money is the financial equivalent of smoking crack cocaine. And once you do it once, you just want to repeat it over and over and over and over again. It was completely, absolutely Wild West, chaos, gold rush type of situation. The companies were run by these oligarchs, and these oligarchs said, well, we might as well just cheat everybody on everything. And so while I was sitting there down 90%, they were going to steal my last 10 cents on the dollar. I took a decision which nobody had ever taken before, which was to take on one of the oligarchs. I did.

I fought back big time. And I ended up with 15 bodyguards. There was a lead car, a lag car, a side car, three-arm guys in my car. When we got close to the home, they would go and scout the rooftops for snipers. They'd look for bombs under the cars and secure the stairwells. then escort me into the apartment. Then I had two guys with automatic weapons sitting in my living room. It was very, very intense, very scary.

And after that, I hired a young lawyer named Sergei Magnitsky to help me investigate it. Sergei and I exposed the crime. The same people who Sergey testified against arrested him and then tortured him to try to get him to withdraw his testimony. And they thought, you know, here's a guy. He buys a Starbucks in the morning. He wears a blue suit and a white shirt and a red tie. and he works in the tax practice of an American law firm. He'll buckle in a week.

And it turns out that they got him wrong completely. He's the most principled guy in the world. He was really a man of steel. On the morning of November 17th at 7.45 a.m., I got the call from Sergei's lawyer, and it was the most horrifying, life-changing, soul-destroying news that I could have ever gotten. For more on how Bill Browder continues to fight for change while being a thorn in the side of Vladimir Putin,

check out episode three, which is one of the most popular episodes of the Jordan Harbinger show. This episode is sponsored in part by What Was That Like Podcast? If you're looking for a new show to add to your rotation, something that'll make you stop mid-dishwashing and go, wait, what, that actually happened? You got to subscribe to What Was That Like? It's real people telling the most surreal moments of their lives, and they're not just giving you the highlights. They're walking you through it from the inside as the person who actually lived it, which means you're basically getting a front row seat to the chaos. One episode is about Scott getting locked up in a foreign jail for a crime he didn't commit. Sure, Scott. Another is Sue's parachute failing. Wow, I'm surprised she was around to tell that story.

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