1303: Self-Invited Guest Puts Friendship to the Test | Feedback Friday

Summary

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The Jordan Harbinger Show: Feedback Friday Episode 1303 — "Self-Invited Guest Puts Friendship to the Test"

Date: March 27, 2026
Hosts: Jordan Harbinger & Gabriel Mizrahi
Format: Listener Q&A, real-life advice, banter
Theme: Listeners turn to Jordan and Gabriel with sticky situations—from awkward friends pushing boundaries, to toxic siblings and nightmare neighbors. The duo breaks it all down with humor, nuance, and actionable wisdom.

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Episode Overview

This episode’s main focus is boundaries—how to recognize them, enforce them, and navigate relationships when people overstep. Jordan and Gabriel tackle listener dilemmas about a presumptuous friend inviting himself to move in, a challenging sister-in-law, a menacing neighbor, and big questions around long-term relationships, kids, and life choices. Throughout, they offer practical advice, personal anecdotes, psychological insight, and a dose of biting humor.

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Key Segments & Insights

[21:20] Main Listener Letters Begin

1. "Self-Invited Guest Puts Friendship to the Test" (21:20–32:10)

Summary:
A listener and their fiancé are confronted when an old friend, Steve, ghosts them for years and then calls to announce he’ll be moving in, uninvited, to their home as he starts a new job nearby.

• Situation: Steve expects to use their home as his personal crash pad without even asking for permission.
• Hosts’ Reaction: Outrage and disbelief at Steve’s presumption and narcissism.
• Jordan:

  “The balls on this guy, man… This is a level of narcissism or misattunement that is just pathological.” (24:09)

• Advice:
  • Be direct—say no firmly and without apology.
  • No need for white lies. “You’re on solid ground here,” they reassure.
  • If Steve is offended, that’s on him, and the friendship likely isn’t worth salvaging.
  • Gabriel:

    “Somebody needs to check him, because this is legitimately insane.” (28:07)

  • Emphasized importance of setting boundaries and not enabling manipulative people.
• Memorable Moment: Jordan joking about Steve being a “roommate who doesn’t pay rent,” and the comedic vision of conception attempts while Steve loudly munches cereal.

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2. "Toxic Sister-in-Law and the Art of Boundaries" (33:30–58:40)

Summary:
A woman describes her fraught relationship with her husband’s sister, Mandy, known for her aggression, long, belittling texts, and tendency to gaslight and alienate others. The writer worries about the future, especially as political and personal differences have heightened conflict.

• Core Dynamic:
  • Mandy is aggressive, combative, and perpetually the victim in altercations.
  • Jim (the husband) is the “conflict diffuser,” enmeshed in family dysfunction.
  • Mandy’s latest offense: sharing a pro-Trump message, seemingly to provoke the letter writer.
• Analysis & Advice:
  • Jordan and Gabriel discuss personality disorders (possibly BPD), “enmeshment,” and why families tolerate abusive behavior.
  • Jordan:

    “That’s just my favorite justification for somebody being out of their mind: ‘That’s just how Mandy is.’” (36:07)

  • Validate Mandy’s emotions without getting pulled into fights, while implementing clear conversation boundaries.
  • Emphasize that Mandy is unlikely to change; focus the writer’s energy on how she responds and protects herself.
  • Internal boundaries and avoiding over-absorption of Mandy’s projections are key.
  • Recommends resources like Dr. Ken Adams’ work on enmeshment (58:22).
• Memorable Moment: Extended comedic riff on enabling toxic relatives and sending “100-page dissertations” about Mandy’s texts.

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3. "Nightmare Neighbor: What to Do About ‘Chad’" (61:19–72:33)

Summary:
A suburban homeowner describes a neighbor (“Chad”) who surveils, harasses, and intimidates the entire block — and asks what can be done.

• Situation: Chad follows neighbors, makes vague threats about weapons, calls police frequently, forces others to move, and records everything.
• Legal Strategy (with advice from attorney Corbin Payne):
  • Document, document, document—use video, smartphones, even wearables (e.g., Meta Ray-Ban glasses) to create hard evidence.
  • Hire a private investigator to build a more credible case.
  • Share a “contemporaneous record of events” by setting up a neighborhood incident email log, timestamping every escalation.
  • File police reports, consider group restraining orders, consult civil attorneys, and if needed, take the case to local media.
  • Dissuade from direct confrontation; focus on safety and documentation.
  • Explore HOA or city code violations as pressure points.
• Jordan’s ‘Dark Jordan’ Additions: Systematically file reports, seek out civil recourse, and potentially leverage the HOA to force compliance.
• Notable Quote:

  “People like this really are a cancer. But you gotta fight cancer to beat it.” (72:30)

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4. "One and Only: On Love, Regret, and Having Kids" (76:59–98:09)

Summary:
A listener, 26, describes being with her first and only boyfriend (now fiancé) since age 17. She worries about never having dated others, fears about the future (including the kids question), and seeks advice for a successful marriage.

• Topics Explored:
  • Societal pressure to “experiment” before marriage vs. value of a long, deep partnership.
  • Importance of discussing big-ticket items (kids, money, values) before tying the knot.
  • Gabriel and Jordan encourage couples counseling, prenups (with a shout to James Sexton, Ep. 1035), and honest conversations about fears and desires.
  • On having children: Pin down a shared stance and communicate with family at the right time—avoid ambiguity.
  • Mourn paths not taken: “There’s mourning even in joy, you know, for all the other joys incompatible with his one.” (96:28)
• Memorable Moments:
  • Humorous debate about whether Jordan and Gabe should crash the wedding (“Let us sleep on the pullout couch in your matrimonial suite,” 78:26).
  • Open discussion about “grieving” one’s unchosen life paths and the myth of “missing out.”
• Takeaway:

  “Get on the same page about the big stuff, develop good conflict-resolution skills, and make space for grief—even the ‘good’ kind… that comes from choosing one path, not another.”

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Other Notable Moments & Quotes

• [15:03] — Hilarious observations from Jordan’s Saudi Arabia adventure, including eating under a veil during Ramadan:

  “I’m thinking, like, that’s a skill, isn’t it?”

• [18:40] — Jordan discovers Saudi 'zajjal', a traditional rap battle among old men:

  “It’s really like an old school rap battle, verbal sparring. It’s insults and wordplay and crowd reactions, but it’s not vulgar. I just think it’s fire.”

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Practical Wisdom Delivered (Jordan Harbinger Style)

• Boundaries: Don’t offer space to users—be direct and unapologetic.
• Toxic relatives: Don’t expect change. Validate emotions, set limits, and protect your own reality.
• Bad Neighbors: Documentation is power; collective action and legal structure matter more than confrontation.
• Marriage and Life Choices: Honest conversation > experience quantity. Mourn lost roads, but own your path.

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Recurring Tone & Dynamic

• Humor and Sarcasm: Jordan and Gabriel blend sharp observation, wit, and irreverence—easing the weight of heavy topics.
• Depth and Empathy: Psychological insights meet practical advice. Each situation is treated with nuance, always aiming at growth, healing, and agency.
• Direct Language: No euphemisms—just clear, actionable guidance.

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Episode Timestamps

• 21:20 — Main Listener Letters Begin
• 23:00–32:00 — "Self-Invited Guest" Letter & Advice
• 33:30–58:40 — "Toxic Sister-in-Law" Letter, Analysis, and Strategies
• 61:19–72:33 — "Nightmare Neighbor 'Chad'" Letter & Legal Advice
• 76:59–98:09 — "One and Only: Love, Regret, and Kids" Letter & Relationship Wisdom

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Standout Quotes

• “Somebody needs to check him, because this is legitimately insane.” (Gabriel, 28:07)
• “That’s just my favorite justification for somebody being out of their mind: ‘That’s just how Mandy is.’” (Jordan, 36:07)
• “You don’t want somebody like this in your house.” (Jordan, 28:44)
• “You have armchair diagnosis face on right now.” (Jordan to Gabriel, 37:30)
• “There’s mourning even in joy, you know, for all the other joys incompatible with this one.” (Gabriel, 96:28)
• “People like this really are a cancer. But you gotta fight cancer to beat it.” (Jordan, 72:30)

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Further Resources and Episodes Mentioned

• “Dr. Ken Adams on Enmeshment” (episode 942)
• “James Sexton on Prenups and Marriage” (episode 1035)

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Conclusion

This episode of Feedback Friday masterfully juggles humor, empathy, and tough love, demonstrating the power of boundaries and the importance of protecting your psychological space. It’s a guidebook in navigating tricky relationships—whether with friends, family, neighbors, or lifelong partners—and an invitation to approach life transitions with honesty, self-knowledge, and courage.

Recommended for anyone looking to sharpen their relationship skills, set firmer boundaries, and laugh while they do it.

Transcript

[Jordan Harbinger]

This episode is sponsored in part by LinkedIn. Hiring for a small business is one of those things that sounds simple until you actually do it. Because you're not just filling a seat, you're choosing somebody who's going to affect your team, your customers, your culture, and your stress level. And when you get it wrong, you feel it immediately. It costs you time, momentum, and way more money than people want to admit. That's why LinkedIn Hiring Pro is so useful. It's basically like having a hiring partner built for small teams, something that helps you hire with confidence without turning hiring into a second job. You can describe what you need in plain language and it helps streamline the whole process. Drafting the job, surfacing the right candidates, shortlisting them, even handling AI powered interviews for the initial screening step. So instead of spending hours buried in applications, you spend more time talking to the people who actually have a real shot at being a great hire. And it's fast. Nearly 60% of hirers find a candidate to interview within a week. So if you want to save time without sacrificing quality and you want to hire right the first time, check out LinkedIn Hiring Pro Hire right the first

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

time, post your first job and get $100 off toward your job. [e-mail] harbinger that's LinkedIn.com harbinger Terms and conditions apply.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Hi, I'm Angie Hicks, co founder of Angie. One thing I've learned is that you buy a house, but you make it a home. For decades, Angie's helped millions of homeowners hire skilled pros for the projects that matter. Angie, the one you trust to find the ones you trust. Find a pro for your [e-mail] welcome to Feedback Friday. I'm your host, Jord Harbinger. As always, I'm here with Feedback Friday producer, the supercharger powering this electric vehicle of life, wisdom in a world where the price of self help fuel is skyrocketing. Gabriel Mizrahi that is true.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

One barrel of self help is at record highs, I'm reading.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That's right. Nearly impossible to get a crate of Byron Katie books through the Strait of Hormuz right now. Thanks a lot Ayatollah Khomeini or whoever, whoever's in charge over there by the time this airs, that is the main

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

product being affected by this war.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That's right. Don't you hate it when you take a nap and you wake up three ayatollahs later? It's just a little disorienting.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

That was all very, very.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah. Giving it to you straight, bro. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you. Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker. During the week we have long form conversations with a variety of amazing folks. Folks from arms dealers and military officers, astronauts, cold case homicide investigators and spies. This week we had Mariana Van Zeller. She's the host of Trafficked on Nat Geo and the host of the Hidden Third podcast. She's just an amazing journalist. If you know her, you probably love her. We talked about her meeting with some of the most dangerous people in the human and weapons trafficking underworld and what it takes to create a hit TV show. She's just a gem of a person. I've one of my, probably one of my favorite guests. I just amazing. Talking with her, meeting her, becoming friends with her. She's just great. I think you'll love this episode, especially if you like the show traffic. You're going to dig it. On Fridays though, we share stories, take listener letters, offer advice, play obnoxious sound bites and duck for cover while this existential ordinance falls all around us. Hello there, show fam. It's producer Jayce here.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Just a heads up in case you

[Jordan Harbinger]

want to skip Jordan's Middle Eastern adventures and Gabe's travel updates, you can jump ahead to 21 minutes and 20 seconds. Enjoy the show.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

By the way, I don't know if you guys can tell, but Jordan and I are both sick this week, so. Yeah, if we sound a little weird, that's why Jordan has some undefinable plague. And I have something I picked up at, I'm pretty sure the Pilates studio in La Quinta near my dad's house.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That almost sounds like a joke. But we know you, so it's not.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

That's just a fact.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, I picked something up. The Pilates studio in La Quinta. Oh, que bonito, Gabriel.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

You know how that reformer plague be. You just, you pick it up from the carriage. Straight from the carriage.

[Jordan Harbinger]

God, that's the most west side of LA thing you've said in a long time. Honestly.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

But the irony was it was way east because it happened in the desert where my dad lives. He had shoulder surgery. Shout out to Victor for being a champion through shoulder surgery and listens to the show every week. I love you, dad. And I was out there hanging out with him while he recovered and I went to go do a class, and I think that's probably where I got it.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Super spreader events, man.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Super Spreader events.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Pilates and our live show back in 2022 or whenever. That was with Ryan Holiday.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Oh, I forgot about that. Was that a super Spreader?

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, everyone got Covid. That was one where everyone was being super careful. And then at the end, I was like, I can't just, like, walk away from all these show fans that showed up. They came out during a pandemic to hang. Everyone was like, either masked or not. Like, whatever. It was one of those things where I was like, I'm not going to, like, be a dick about this. And it was sort of the tail end of this thing. And I was like, yeah, everyone here is lasted. Or some people had already had it. They weren't worried about whatever. And then after the day, I was like, oh, okay, cool. This went really well. And the next day, I was filming a commercial for the Hyundai Ioniq 5 because the whole event was sponsored by Hyundai. So I'm in an ionic 5, literally on the beach. And they're like, pretend like you're driving, right? So there's a cameraman that's inches from my face, and there's a director behind me talking to the cameraman also in the car. And then there's a producer or something in the other seat. So they're all off camera. This is how they film car commercials, right? It looks like you're leisurely driving and enjoying yourself, but really the car is ass to elbow full of people with the windows up so the sound doesn't get screwed up. And they're all breathing in each other's faces, including me. And as soon as I went home to my hotel, I was like, I'm not feeling so good. What's the incubation period on getting something? And after that, everybody on that whole shoot got Covid. And a bunch of the people at the live event also said they got Covid. So who knows where we got it, but it was just like, yeah, like 40 people got it.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

I did not remember that. I did not get a Covid of that event. Event. So I don't know what happened. I lucked. I dodged it, but I got it later.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Lucky you. You're one of the few. I think it was the commercial shoot combined with the super Spreader event, potentially.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

But anyway, anyway, that's why we sound like this.

[Jordan Harbinger]

This is why we sound like this. I probably do have Covid again. I don't know who has Covid. Tests in 2026, I'm not sure. Do you even bother testing unless you're flying home? Speaking of flying home, I went to Saudi Arabia on February 26th. So that went well.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Went there? I was gonna say. Can you even say you went. It feels like you went to the airport. Airport lounge later and you came home.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yes. So this is my birthday trip, right? I was going to Saudi Arabia and Egypt and then crossing over via Jordan. And I get to Saudi Arabia, it takes me like, 30 hours, literally, right? Because there's not exactly a direct flight from here to Riyadh. So I fly. There might have been, like, 25 hours. I fly there, and I've got, like, overnight hotels. It's like that kind of trip. And I go to Tabuk, which is a city in the west, and then they pick me up at the airport, and they drive me two and a half, three hours into the Neom Desert, which is actually just super incredible. It's like an amazing sort of wonder of the world. And we camp one night, and overnight everyone's too cold, so they're like, oh, we got to do something about that. And I was like, hey, was I sleeping or in hallucinating or did, like, airplanes and missiles and drones go overhead and people are like, oh, I think I heard planes. And I'm like, yeah, those are some really, really fast planes then. Because that was like, right. And I talked to my friend who's a weapons expert, and he's like, those are cruise missiles. Based on your location, like, they're almost certainly cruise missiles. Maybe they were fighter jets.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

We should explain as well. You didn't have a cell phone service. Right?

[Jordan Harbinger]

Right.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

So you were not, like, following the news fully.

[Jordan Harbinger]

There's no cell phone service. But I did have a Garmin inreach because you need communication 2026 if you're going in the Middle east, in the middle of nowhere. So I had a Garmin inreach, and I had. I had my DoD contacts. I was like, hey, guys, if anything happens, can you send me a message here? And I give it to my family, I give it to you. But I get this message that's like, there's an attack on Iran. And I was like, oh, let me look at a map and figure. Oh, yeah, okay. So these. That was like, missiles and jets coming over me from the Gulf to Iran. And you could see drones on the horizon, because what else moves Like a drone, right? It's like this weird loitering thing. And I was like, what's over there? And the guy's like, that's an air force base. So I'm like, okay, so there's a loiter. There's like a surveillance drone over it probably. I don't understand what that is all about. And then there were helicopters and jets everywhere. So it just felt a little bit unsafe. And I also had this, like, little medical issue, like a small infection.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Not.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Not a huge deal. But I was like, you know what? This is my cue to gtfo. So I left in the trip organizer. It's Wayfinders. It's like the guys that go to the folks I go to, like Peru and Morocco and all these different crazy place. Bhutan. All these different crazy places. So they were like, I'm surprised Jordan's breaking point is this early. And I'm like, you know what? I'm not feeling good. I've got this medical thing. We're going to be doing a ton of hiking and there's an attack. I'm just going to bounce and I'm going to act as a point of contact for you all because I have everyone's in reach. I know where you are. Like, I get the vibe. I'll tell you if you got to go. So I get back to Tabuk and like that day, my defense contact is like, you should go. They're going to evacuate everybody. And that means every expat is going to book a flight in like an hour and a half. Book a flight now. So I booked my flight back. I went to dinner because it was Ramadan. And I came back and I was like, maybe I'll change to an earlier flight anyway. And just. And I looked and everything was full, everything for days. So I told my people, I was like, you guys should book flights right now. And they're kind of like, well, we might cross into Jordan and go to Egypt. It can't be that bad. Later that same day, they were like, oh, yeah, we can't even cross because there's like missiles going into Jordan and the border is, like, iffy.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

So the rest of the people on the trip were just stuck.

[Jordan Harbinger]

They were stuck for a while. There were a bunch of people who were supposed to meet us that couldn't meet us because they were going to arrive a few hours later. And they had a separate ride. They were on their plane in Dubai, took off, turned around, landed, got off the plane because they were like, you can't even be in the air right now. They went to go get their luggage. They're like, there's so many planes and so much baggage. You can't get Your stuff. So they went to a hotel in Dubai thinking, like, okay, we'll fly out tomorrow or later today. And then days later, they're like, okay, come get your bags. You can't fly out. You're going to have to figure this out later. Come get your stuff. So they drive to the airport, and as they're driving to the airport, the police stop them and are like, the airport has been hit by a drone or whatever. You can't go there. And they're like, but they have all of our stuff. So they're in Dubai in a hotel, and they're like, okay, I guess we'll go to the mall and go shopping, because we have only the clothes on our back. No toiletries, no clothing. And we're going to be here for like a week.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

That sucks.

[Jordan Harbinger]

They went shopping, bought a bunch of stuff, and then it didn't. The airspace never opened during the time. So they ended up driving to Oman. And we have a sort of highly placed Thai friend. So he had some kind of hookup on Thai Silk Airways for, like, Thai citizens and diplomats to get out, and he placed them on that flight. So they went from Oman to Bangkok.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Wow. Imagine flying to the Middle east for a curated trip, spending half the time at Zara in Dubai.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, exactly, In Dubai.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

And then ending up at an expat bar in Bangkok.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yes.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Such a weird trip.

[Jordan Harbinger]

They had this massive hotel that was like something out of White Lotus, this villa in Koh Samui or something like that. And they sent me a photo. It is my buddy Vojak and Carolyn and Katie. And they were all, like, in robes, laying out of the couch. And I was like, it looks like you guys just filmed a threesome. Like, what is this? They're like, oh, war. Be like. And I was like, yeah, let's pour one out for the people who are still stuck. Man, you guys got off really easy. More be like, that was the cat.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

More be like White Lotus.

[Jordan Harbinger]

More be like White Lotus, except kinky.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

What you just described is better than every season of White Lotus I've ever seen.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I know you're not a fan. So the rest of the group ends up going to Istanbul. Because I was like, you guys need to fly to Jeddah and fly to Istanbul. It's one of the only routes that's open. Everybody else is trying to go to Cairo. It's not. That airport is backed up like, two days. Go to Jeddah. It's a regional but still international airport. I don't know. That's a contradiction. But you know what? I mean fly to either Charm or to Istanbul better. And then you're out of, like, immediate drone range. And Istanbul is, like, a major international hub. So they flew, like, one dude flew Istanbul, Jakarta because he was going to Australia. I mean, it's just a freaking mess. But you know what? We're all alive and we're all healthy because they're. I have other friends in Dubai who are just like, hey, I still can't get out. But the only people I know that got out were them. And I've got a buddy who works with the Royal Family, and they got him to London. So there are people stuck in Dubai and Qatar and Bahrain. It's icky out there, and it makes you just sort of grateful that you live in the United States or in the west, who started this whole mess in some ways. But also that we're out of, like, immediate missile range. Although they say that sleeper cells are going to attack California, I have my doubts, but I wouldn't put it past it. And also, I think the whole FBI squad that was monitoring Iranian threats got canned by Kash Patel a couple months ago. I hope that's not true. All I know is what people are sending me from news sources, which is, you know, always depressing. But either way, it makes you grateful to be in one piece, alive in the United States. So I can't really hate too much. And hopefully travel insurance covers it because I left for a medical reason and not just because it was chaotic. Yeah. Oh, and the whole time I was getting emails like this on my Garmin, which has a little screen. Right. And I have, like, these emergency emails, and they sound like this. This is a real one. There's a threat of imminent missile and UAV attacks over the city that we were near. Do not come to the U.S. consulate. Take cover immediately in your residence on the lowest available floor and away from windows. Do not go outside. The U.S. consulate in its Duran urges U.S. citizens in Iran to shelter in place, review security plans in the event of an attack, and to stay alert in case of additional future attacks. U.S. consulate personnel are sheltering in place. So you're getting that. And you're just like, in a car driving along the highway thinking, maybe I should not hang out in Jeddah for an extra few days because that was my original plan.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Yeah.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And then they give you instructions on what to do if you hear a loud explosion. Sirens like, seek cover. Go to the nearest basement. Watch out for falling debris. Meanwhile, I'm like, can I get a burger? Because it's Ramadan and nothing is open until 6.30pm I will keep it a little bit short, but I gotta say, Saudi Arabia is fascinating. I wish I could have stayed longer. We were eating Ramadan meals, first of all, they were like, hey, do you have a reservation? And we're like, no, but we have nowhere else to eat. And they were like, you know what, we feel bad for you guys, so come on in. It's like, you know, whatever. 50 bucks to eat. Because it was. The spread was insane. Like Vegas buffet insane. And like chocolate fountain insane. And you walk in there and there's all these dudes with the head covers and stuff, like looking legit and women with the veils on. And they're eating with the veil. So they'll take food, like a piece of cake or whatever, or a chicken, whatever, lamb, and they'll lift the veil out a little with one hand. And then they stick the meat under their veil or the spoonful of rice or whatever, under their veil and eat. And I just, I'm thinking, like, that's a skill, isn't it?

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

I've never seen somebody with a niqab have lunch.

[Jordan Harbinger]

No, I mean, either, but. Because I always thought, oh, they just go in a separate room and eat. Or like, there's a rule where, hey, you can take this off while you eat. Kind of like Covid masks on a flight.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

It's like Covid, right? It's like an N95. Really? For your soul.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, it's like a N95 on an airplane. Nope, you just eat under it. And it's a thing and it must be a pain. So going out to dinner is like, probably only fun for guys, right? Because it's like, I got to wear this and I got to eat like this. Whereas if you eat at home, obviously you don't have to wear that. And we would be flying over Mecca. We flew over Mecca a couple of times. And there would be like an announcement that was pre recorded. So clearly this route has this all the time. And it would go, we are approaching Mecca. Please have your prayers ready, and may Allah accept all your good deeds. And you're kind of like, wow, this is intense. You know, like, people are ready for this. And then I look back in the plane and everyone just stared at their phone like, nah. And I was like, okay, okay, cool, guys.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

You guys hired the movie trailer guy?

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, no, it was. It was funny. Like, dudes are watching soccer games and they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, for flying over Mecca, whatever. It's not like a Nair. So I thought that was Kind of. That was kind of funny and. But it was. There's a prayer that comes on just like a safety video on the airplane. It's like really intense. And then the super low deep voice says this prayer that's for travelers flying. And it's kind of neat. Like the whole thing is really actually kind of cool. Islam goes hard, dude. Like, they're intense. They pray certain times they don't eat and then they eat at certain times. But it's an interesting way to structure your whole society. I mean, I know we have our issues with that now. I'm not talking about any of that. It probably feels really cool to go to a place like Mecca with Muslims from all over the world. If you're Muslim, it would be like if you're Jewish and you go to the Western Wall or something, except less weird because it's everyone, not just like ultra Orthodox Jews praying, which kind of is at the Western Wall. Anyway, in Saudi, I did know that some of the women had their whole face covered. But like a lot of younger women were kind of like, no thanks. And they would face or even some parts of their hair. Sometimes you'd be like, damn, that is a really good looking lady. And you could tell there's like certain ways they can flaunt stuff. Like they wear a little bit of makeup or they do things a certain way. Or like the hijab is pushed back a little so more hair is showing. It's. You can sort of get a feel for. There's different styles. They'll be walking with somebody who's got like their face covered and then the older lady with them has their eyes covered and you're like, oh, look at this generational difference in, in, in modesty.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Sometimes you walk through those international airports, it's like Arabia's next top Model or something.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yes. Yeah. If you walk through Qatar Doha airport, you'll see that. You'll see smashing hot women that are dressed in western stuff. And it's like, oh, she's going to Germany. And then you'll see people that are coming home. And I saw a woman with a jeans and like a halter top and she just threw a giant, I guess abaya. She just threw that on in the airport over her clothes. And I was like, oh, she's going home, right? She's, she's got to dress modestly. And I've seen that here in the United States. L. A you'd meet. I met a girl from Saudi Arabia and I was like, you're allowed to dress like that. She's like, no, I have a burqa in my luggage that I will put on at the airport.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

That's my travel burke.

[Jordan Harbinger]

There's my travel burke. Yeah, exactly. There's a lot with Saudi. I would have loved to have stayed longer. I noticed they, again, they go hard, right? There's prayer rooms everywhere separated by gender. There's all kinds of, like, special things that you can do and can't do. And like, a lot of the rules are kind of flexible because I remember being like, hey, I need to go to the bathroom. But we have a female guide on this hike. And he's like, just pee on the side. She's used to it. And I was like, really? We're in Saudi Arabia and I can just whip it out and pee like I'm in the United States. And he's like, yeah, dude, whatever. She doesn't care. But like, in the city. Nah, full coverage. Because other people might see it and like, those people might say, so. It's weird. It's kind of just like, this is a hot take. But that's what makes me think some of this stuff is more repressive, right? Because it's like when they can get away with not wearing it, they don't wear it. Not everybody probably, but certainly a lot

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

of them take the vacation where you can get it kind of thing.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, maybe. I don't know. One thing I thought was fire. And we'll get to the show, there's this poetry slash. It's kind of a rap battle. This is an ancient tradition. And it's not young guys who are like gangster looking, rapping. It's old guys, 60 plus, wearing suits. And if you look at the translation, there's all these tiktoks somebody sent me. And we'll play a little sample of one here before we transition to the show. But it's older guys and they're rapping and they're just. They're dissing each other. It's a diss track. And it's funny because it's all in Arabic, of course, and the translations are funny. And it's like it was, I stand you before you like a mountain and all you brought was a pomegranate seed. And the other guy's like, oh. And then like. And then it's the guy's like, your only job is to stand before me while I sit on my throne and get me a glass of water so I can prepare my blood for the melodies. And I'm like, that probably sounds hella aggressive and sick. In Arabic. And they'll. They're laughing at each other, right? Because they're slamming each other in. The audience is all dudes with like plastic chairs, not a woman in sight. Kind of a funny tradition. Apparently this goes back a long way. It's called zajjal. So it's a traditional Arabic poetry duel. It's kind of a Lebanese thing, Levant thing. They improv verses back and forth in front of a crowd. It's. It's really like an old school rap battle, verbal sparring. It's insults and wordplay and crowd reactions, but it's not vulgar. So I don't know, I just think it's fire. All right, Gabe, you're back on the road too, I see.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Yeah, man, I've been in New York all of this week. It's been amazing. And I'm flying to Brazil tomorrow.

[Jordan Harbinger]

All right, what's the plan? Buy a compound in Baya, Start a breathwork cult. Live off Maracuya or whatever it is for the rest of your natural life.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Maracuja.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

That compound, Maybe Breathwork. Yep. Bit of that. Cult. No way. Too much work.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Exactly, too. That's where I've fallen on cult. So just too much work. Who has the time?

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Too much admin. Not me. 100% to the Maracuja. Yeah, you know me well. So the plan is I'm going to start in Bahia and then I'm going to work my way south. Rio de Janeiro, Florianopolis. I might check out Uruguay. I've never been. I've heard good things. I know very little about it. Possibly Buenos Aires. We'll see. And then I'm going to go to Chile. I have this friend, Sebastian. Dude, speaking of your travels, I think you can relate to this. This is one of those people. I've met this guy once while I was traveling three, four, five years ago, and we are just bonded for life. We still talk on WhatsApp all the time, but I've only seen him once in my life, and he and his family live in the countryside on a lake, and it looks beautiful. So I'm going to go see him and then maybe explore around Chile, which I've never been to. And then after that, it's just kind of up in the air. I might finally do Machu Picchu, which I've. I've been to Peru so many times. I've never done those big things or, you know, hike the Inca Trail or something. Might stop in Mexico City and hang with my family there for a few days. It just all depends how much energy I have and I don't know if work pulls me back to LA sooner, but I will be back in LA by June.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Nice. Maybe you can check out Patagonia since you're going to be in Chile and Argentina.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

I'm thinking about it, yeah. I wanted to talk to you about that. It looks incredible. We'll talk more about that. Anyway, if anyone listening right now lives in any of these places, these cities, or any other cities in these countries that I'm visiting, please say hello. I would love to connect with listeners in South America. I've only met one or two of you guys in person, so that would be really cool. You can email me fridayordanharbinger.com or just find me on Instagram at Gabriel Mizrahi.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I would love to link Living the dream, Gabe. Or a dream. I know nomading is also. I can't even say nomading because my nose is totally closed up. It's all it can nomad. Nomading is also kind of a nightmare sometimes, but what a nightmare to have, eh?

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

I'm excited man. I'm grateful to be doing this while I can. I don't know if I always will be able to. And yeah, in the meantime, the breath work does help.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yep. Get that O2, bro.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Get that O2 in those nose baby.

[Jordan Harbinger]

One last thing. Big shout out to Annabelle, Charlotte, Oliver and Madeline show fans from Toronto who are probably listening to this in the car on their way to sports practice or something. Appreciate you guys listening so much, spending so much time with us. It does mean a lot. No trigger warnings for today's episode. Sorry to disappoint everybody. Nothing too dark here so you guys can enjoy the dues cruise today stress free no matter who's riding with you. All right Gabe, what is the first thing out of the mailbag?

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Dear Jordan and Gabe, for about a decade my fiance and I lived in a small German town where we were part of a tight knit friend group. One member of that group, let's call him Steve, is a classic high energy extrovert.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yes, Steve, a classic German name.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

He's a big ideas guy who's always launching a new business plan and loves giving unsolicited advice. He's a nice guy, but he can be a bit much.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Kind of sounds like every coked up banker or crypto bro that I knew in New York. Carry on.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Four years ago we moved to a major city to start our careers. We've since gotten engaged and are currently in the thick of family planning. During this time we invited Steve and his wife to visit several times, but we were met with two years of radio silence. Then out of the blue, Steve recently reached out. He expects to start a new job in our town near us and without asking, informed me over the phone that he'll be living with us and at the same time maintaining his residency back home in order to commute back and forth between his new job and his wife. He has decided that it's quote unquote unnecessary to get his own place and just assumed our couch was his new HQ for the foreseeable future.

[Jordan Harbinger]

This person is insane. The balls on this guy, man.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Chutzpah. The gall.

[Jordan Harbinger]

The gall. Yes.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Ghosts you for two years and then pops up like, hey, I'm squatting in your house now.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Thanks.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

You stock the fridge for me.

[Jordan Harbinger]

By there's something. Yeah, exactly. There's something wrong with this guy. This is a level, and I know this word, gets thrown around a lot. This is a level of narcissism or misattunement that is just pathological. Like how unself aware and or shamelessly self interested do you have to be to pop up out of nowhere like, hey, I'm just going to crash on your couch. Not even like can I crash on your couch? But I'm just. This IKEA couch is my new headquarters rent free. Oh, and btw, my bad on ignoring you for two years. I just had better things to do than keep in touch with friends I later planned to mooch off of.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Having a permanent guest is a non starter for us.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, that's called a roommate by the way. Not a permanent guest. That's just a roommate that doesn't pay rent.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

We both have busy full time jobs and love to come home to our peaceful nest. On top of that, we live in a quiet suburban community of curious retirees. As an interracial couple, we already stand out. And bringing a third adult into the house would definitely set the neighborhood gossip mill grinding.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Oh, that's hilarious. Hey, did you see the brown guy and the white girl are in a throuple with some German guy. Now that's the gossip you want around town. Down.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

That HOA is going to be interesting. Yeah, plus we're trying to start a family. The last thing we want is Steve and his boxers in our living room while we're navigating this chapter.

[Jordan Harbinger]

No kidding.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Seriously. Yelling from the living room, hey Chelsea, you ovulating?

[Jordan Harbinger]

Are you ovulating?

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Are you ovulating? As he goes to town on a bowl of cinnamon toast crunch in his

[Jordan Harbinger]

fruit of the lodge.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

No, thank you.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Exactly. While they have conception sex on the other side of inch thick drywall. Half inch thick drywall.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

It's going to be a no for me, Doc.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah. This is going to be a nine for Meinhundt.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Meinhund.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Oh, I love that.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Meinhund.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I don't know if you could actually say that in German. My dog.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

I don't care. It's perfect. That's my new nickname for you, my friend. So he goes on. Steve is the type of person who finds a way to get what he wants once his mind is made up.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Okay, so Steve can also be the type of person who has the door slammed in his face when he tries to move into your home without being invited.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Just saying. Correct. Yep. We've considered using a white lie such as the landlord.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Let's be PC here. It's a mixed race lie.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Oh, good catch.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Thank you.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Glad you got that. We've considered using a mixed race lies such as the landlord's not approving of such an arrangement, but we want to handle this without unnecessary drama and as honest adults. Right. How do we tell a high steam idea man that his plan. This is so funny. This is. The idea man has an idea that he's going to mooch off of us. Like, this is not. You can't chalk this up to the fact that this guy just gets excited about his notions.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Right.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

How do we tell a high steam idea man that his plan is a no go without nuking the friendship? Signed, finding the words to make this guy infer that he cannot be our third.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Okay, I feel like this might be a short one. I know it's going to go longer because I'm so worked up about this.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Dude, you have hound face.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I do have hound face. I'm sorry you have to deal with this. Obviously, super weird, incredibly awkward, but this guy is so out of pocket here that I actually, I don't think this is that hard. If this were me, I would literally be like, sorry, Steve O. It's a no go. I understand you want a convenient place, but you're gonna have to figure that out on your own, man. We're engaged. We're starting the next chapter of our lives. We want our place to be our place. I'm sure you understand that's really all you have to say if you wanted to. And what I would love to do if I were in your shoes, I would also say, and honestly, man, the way you've framed this arrangement, this request really is bizarre and presumptuous. Just announcing that you're moving in, not even asking if we are open to having a roommate, especially after ghosting us for two years. And I respectfully encourage you to consider how this might come across to people you consider friends.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Oh, nice. Yeah, I'm with you. I think this dude needs to hear that from somebody. Somebody needs to check him, because this is legitimately insane.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Agreed. And then I'd be prepared for a timeline where the friendship is just over. I have a feeling this guy's not going to respond well to this. Gabe, a guy who ghosts you for two years and then does something like this. He didn't reply for two years because he didn't have a need for you. You were not useful to him. Then as soon as he decided to live in your area, he was like, oh, yeah, I need to use these people for something. So here's what I'm going to do. It didn't even occur to him that you also have agency and could say, no, this person is damaged. You don't want somebody like this in your house.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

What kind of friendship is this in the first place? This is the opposite of digging the well before you. This is digging the well when you're very parched and also when the well is a couch that you want to sleep on. Honestly, good riddance, dude. I don't really understand why you would feel the need to stay on good terms with a person like this in the first place.

[Jordan Harbinger]

No. At first he sounded annoying and inflated, misattuned. But now he sounds manipulative and presumptuous straight up. I just.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Ugh.

[Jordan Harbinger]

No.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

I thought it was interesting when our friend said that they've considered using a white lie to get out of this when they don't need that.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I think that's telling.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

First of all, they're on such solid ground and saying no here. To your point, I don't think they need a white lie. But the answer is no. We don't want to form an asexual polycule with you, Steve. Find a studio apartment close to work. Leave us alone. But second, I understand not wanting to cause unnecessary drama, and I think Jordan's script is a really good way to do that. But if what you're saying is that you want to avoid any conflict whatsoever, which I do, get the sense that you're hoping to sidestep with this landlord excuse idea, then I would encourage you to lean into that because it's called for.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Exactly. And the only way to lean into this is to do it with a Steve and find out that it's more than okay to have a perfectly reasonable boundary.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Of course, I do wonder if the desire to keep the peace and avoid drama and all of that might be, in part what made Steve think he could get away with this in the first place.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, I think that's likely. A person like Steve probably isn't going to pull this move with somebody who gently checked him in the past or called him out at a dinner party for giving unsolicited advice or gave up trying to be friends when he ghosted for two years. He's going to do this kind of crap with that sweet couple who's super accommodating and never says no.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Not that those aren't virtues in the right amounts, of course. But if they don't have a limit, if they're not balanced by a basic ability to stand up for yourself in some basic ways with a person like this, then they can leave you quite vulnerable.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Exactly. For sure. My feeling is that it would be reckless to allow a person like this into your home, even for a few days. And honestly, my fear is that if you're like, okay, man, we'll give you three days, maybe a week, whatever it is, he's just gonna show up, he's gonna stall, and then he's gonna stay, and then suddenly you're in a nightmare. I wouldn't even open the door to this guy, but I'm actually kind of excited for you to tell this guy no, both because he desperately needs to hear it and because I think it' for you and your fiance. Congrats on getting engaged. Enjoy that highly orchestrated time boxed hanky panky, and good luck. All right. You know who won't make aggressive eye contact with you while you try to knock up your lady? The amazing and respectful sponsors who support this show. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Pocket Hose. Now, at first glance, this thing looks small, compact, unassuming. You might even think, oh, that's it. But once it's turned on, suddenly it grows long, strong, ready to handle some serious pressure. And when the job is done, it shrinks right back down again, easy to tuck away. Relax, y'. All. I'm talking about the world's number one expanding garden hose and their brand new product, the Pocket Hose Ballistic. What did you think I was talking about? Look, I used to have a hose that kinked constantly. Nobody likes a kinky hose. When you're trying to get the job done, you're out there in the driveway twisting it, fighting it, wondering why it won't cooperate. But the Pocket Hose Ballistic? Nah, no kinks. Just performs when you need it. It's reinforced with a liquid crystal polymer used in bulletproof vests. Incredibly tough. Comes with a pocket pivot that rotates 360 degrees at the spigot so you can move freely. The water just keeps on flowing.

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[Jordan Harbinger]

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[Jordan Harbinger]

listening and supporting the show. All of the deals, discount codes and ways to support this podcast are searchable and clickable on the website@jordan harbinger.com deals please consider supporting those who support the show. Now back to Feedback Friday okay, what's next?

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Hey Jordan and Gabe. I'm from Minnesota and I met my husband Jim in the summer of 2017 through my best friend at the time. I got to know Jim over Snapchat texting and phone calls and after a few Months, I flew to North Carolina to meet him.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Him.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

After doing long distance for the better part of a year, I ended up moving there in 2018, and we are still here together, happily married now. While getting to know Jim, who was 25 at the time, I learned that he still lived at home and was very close with his family. His mom, dad, and two younger sisters all lived in the home as well. His sister Mandy is the middle child and is four years younger than Jim. Before I met Jim, they did everything together to the point that if you didn't know they were siblings, you'd think they were dating. Those behaviors carried on well after I moved in with Jim, which caused some friction in our relationship. Jim never had any serious girlfriends before me and always said it was because he never found anybody worthwhile. I could see right away after meeting Mandy that it was because of how overbearing and overprotective she was coupled with Jim's extremely close relationship with her. When I was first introduced to her, it was clear that she was trying to intimidate me. She was loud, always talking about the fights she'd been in or how she told someone off, making inside jokes with Jim that I wouldn't understand and just generally trying to make me feel left out. And it worked. I did not feel welcomed or accepted, and I have a feeling that was her goal, her way of marking her territory with her brother. After years of reflection, I feel like she was jealous of another woman having a relationship with her brother. So she was trying to scare me away like she had done to others in the past.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Interesting. Hard to tell if this was truly designed to box you out or just them being weirdly close and you feeling like the outsider. Always hard to know how intentional this stuff is. But I hear you. Mandy's challenging, and it sounds like there's a history of this, all of which is interesting.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Mandy has had a pattern her whole life of overreacting to little things that most people would brush off or acting out aggressively when faced with conflict. By the time she reached her early 20s, Mandy had been in many physical altercations where she was the aggressor.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Okay?

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

And those stories are always shared in a joking manner by her and her family.

[Jordan Harbinger]

This is weird, man. Physical fighting is a grown ass woman. That is crazy work. And the family's just like, oh, my God. Remember the time Mandy threw a beer on someone at the Tigers game and then she kicked him in the face? Oh, Mandy, you're such a kook. That is weird as hell.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Her family has always excused her behavior by saying, that's just how Mandy is.

[Jordan Harbinger]

You know what? I could have predicted that, dude.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

I can't with that.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, that's just my favorite justification for somebody being out of their mind. That's just how Mandy is.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Yeah, that's just how she is. And that is the problem.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That's literally the problem. How far do you take that logic? Oh, remember when cousin Andy murdered three people in Reno? That he's such a. That's just how he is. That's just how he is. Never saw a homeless person he didn't want to kidnap and put in the trunk of a car. I don't know. Andy. What a wild card.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Nope. Andy's a psychopath and his brain needs to be studied in a lab.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Exactly. Didn't feel like paying my taxes this year. That's just how I am. You know what I mean? It's such a ridiculous cop out. And it doesn't explain anything in any way whatsoever. All it just says is we're just enabling this because nobody has the guts to say anything.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Yeah. It's not just how she is. It's how you are for seeing it as the fact that that's just how she is. Yes, she's also notorious for sending mile long text messages to people she has an issue with and does not shy away from petty insults. She has done this to countless friends of Jim's and mine and has done this to me more times than I can count. To her, it's always the other party's fault. Her reasons for lashing out and being aggressive to people are always justified. And she never apologizes.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Okay, well, it's official. Mandy's a problem. Kind of take back what I said before. I can see a person like this actively trying to drive away her brother's girlfriend, not just sort of accidentally doing it.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

What a sister in law. Man, that's a lot to be up against.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Gabe, you have armchair diagnosis face on right now.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

I think you know which acronym I'm circling.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Circling the B in cluster B. That stands for biatch.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Exactly. Biatch Personality Disorder. The most. The most elusive of the DSM labels.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That's right. We're good. Give us those. Give us those white coats. We got this.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

We ended up becoming friends shortly after I moved to North Carolina. But then the conflict started. While there are far too many to recount here, I assure you that I could easily write a hundred page dissertation about all the hurtful things she has said and done to me.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, these people, they don't just do one Crappy thing occasionally. This is like their whole personality.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

My God, I love that she has a PhD in Mandy. Yeah, and her dissertation dissertation would still be shorter than a text message from this woman.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That's right. Just drop them into chat GPT like summarize my psycho sister in law's latest beef text. Craft a response. Polite but firm. Yeah, chatgpt be like, whoosh. This one's a spicy meatball.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Yeah. This isn't emotional caretaking. This is strategic family management.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That's right. Straight up. Let me know. If you want one way to dramatically reduce the chance of setting Mandy off at Thanksgiving. Just say the word.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

So she goes on. But just like her family, I'm also guilty of bending the knee and placating her. I apologized when I shouldn't have, just to keep the peace.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So common, the definition of walking on eggshells.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

I let her gaslight me into thinking I'm a terrible person and that nobody likes me. I truly feel as if she's given me PTSD from all of the times she's mistreated me. I feel uncomfortable in her presence a lot of the time. I feel like I'm under a microscope when she's around, like she's just looking for something to get upset at me for. I struggle with anxiety and usually tend to be more reserved, but that's especially true if I'm around people I don't feel safe or comfortable around. In the past, she often interpreted my quietness as rudeness and has lectured me on it before. There have been numerous times where I've received long texts from her belittling me for my anxiety and calling me rude for it. I pride myself on being a pretty self aware person. I'm very cognizant of how I come across to people. Even when I'm anxious, I know that I'm not rude or snappy. I'm just quiet sometimes. And I really don't see that as a bad thing. She's the only person in my life that has taken this much of an issue with my personality and tried making me feel bad for it.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, sadly, very common with this personality type.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Yeah. Very blamey, very projecty.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah. Looking for problems and everything is always the other person's problem. The worst thoughts and feelings get located in the other person because maybe they're too intolerable for her. And it's sad, but it's just very unpleasant. Yeah.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Fortunately and unfortunately, Jim has always been the neutral party and the conflict diffuser in his family.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, no surprise. Also very common.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

He's always been responsible for calming Mandy down and making her feel comfortable. It wasn't until I heard other episodes of your show that I learned what enmeshment was.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yes, this is textbook.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

That perfectly describes Jim and Mandy's relationship, and it gave me a name for the dysfunction I was witnessing. I brought this up with Jim and he was pretty receptive and agreed that it sounded like him and Mandy. He's done a lot of reflecting recently and has come to the realization that his family dynamic is not what he thought it was. His religious and political views have shifted far away from what he grew up with, and he's been feeling distant from his family.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, it can be very jarring to suddenly see an old family dynamic. Clearly, things can get bumpy when you pull away and try things in a new way, but it does sound like progress.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Although things have been okay for a while, we were recently faced with conflict regarding his family. I am very outspoken on social media about my distaste for the Trump administration and the recent activities by ice. Unbeknownst to me, Mandy has been harboring ill feelings about what I've been posting and taking it personally since their side of the family are Trump supporters. It wasn't until, ah, this is interesting, Jordan. So everything we've been talking about up till now has been about like just basic family dynamics, but there's a political dividend right here that is probably driving a huge wedge between them. She said that Jim has been moving away from his family religiously and politically, so this is a whole other layer to the conflict. They probably feel like she is influencing him and taking him away from them, and that's probably making everything worse anyway. She goes on, it wasn't until last week when Mandy shared a picture of Trump in our family group chat with the caption Happy President's Day, that I felt like there was an issue. Given her past behavior, I felt like she shared that picture as a direct digit and to try to get a rise out of me. Jim felt the same. I ultimately ended up ignoring it because starting an argument about politics in a family group chat is not my style, but it brought up a lot of painful memories and feelings. It wasn't even about the Trump picture. It was that I felt like she had cruel intentions when sharing it.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, again, I'm fully on your side here with the relationship dynamics, but I also wonder whether that was truly personal. I mean, maybe it was. I wouldn't put it past Mandy at this point, but I also think, think when things are this bad with someone, it's easy to personalize and read certain things into behavior like this. And if the whole family supports the President, then, you know, maybe that had nothing to do with you.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

She could have just bang and saying it for all of them.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Right.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

It was about their team, not about her.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Exactly.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

And then that feeds a narrative that's getting stronger.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, I think. And again, look, you may be totally right, but it's something to keep an eye on because it's, it's really easy to find fault with people who are finding fault with you constantly. If you're, I mean, you're going to find what you're looking for. And it doesn't mean you're wrong, but it also might mean that you're super highly attuned. Your, your Mandy detector is over calibrated at this point, you know, so you're going to see a lot of that.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Jim ended up calling Mandy the next day and told her to keep politics out of family stuff and that if she starts conflict with me over this, he's taking my side and will be done with the family.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Damn. Okay, Jim, that's one way to do it. My man's had enough. From the sound of it, I don't know if I would have drawn the line, particularly right here, but he's probably just had years and years and years of this and that was the straw.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

That was the first time Jim ever truly put his foot down and drew a boundary with his family. And it gave me a confidence I didn't know I needed. Mandy surprisingly received this boundary well, but was still angry with Jim for quote unquote letting me post the way that I do.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Wow, that's a loaded statement.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Letting her post, damn, that's loaded. Especially from a fellow woman.

[Jordan Harbinger]

No, all I can say is it's an interesting window into her values and beliefs. Fascinating. I mean, or it's, I don't know, maybe it could be a typo. Right? I don't know. Now we're reading into it.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

After all was said and done, the call ended amicably, the boundary was set, and we are letting things cool off for a while before we do any family related things in person.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Wow. Okay, so not too bad. This sounds like a win, all things considered.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Yeah, not too bad. That sounds pretty good.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Maybe Mandy's a bit of a paper tiger, at least when Jim stands up to her, who knows?

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

I've been dealing with Mandy for eight years now. I'm pleased that Jim has finally reached this point. But as someone who has cut off her own family members before, I know how challenging it is.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So she's had pretty serious conflict with her own family members. Okay, there's, there might be something there.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Let's come back to that. Given Mandy's personality and history, what is the best approach if when she violates this boundary, Jim is close to cutting ties with his family as it is. But is that really necessary? Right away? Signed a sister in law who's sensitive, looking for the right sedative to deal with this volatile relative without being argumentative.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Oh boy, lots going on here. So goes without saying, having a relative like this, anyone in your life like this, extremely challenging. It's unpleasant, it's stressful. It's not just the conflict, it's the coming up against a very delicate, fragile

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

personality and the feeling of having to adjust around their many pressure points to keep things on an even keel.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, like I said, a very common template. Sadly, obviously it's not our place to diagnose anyone. We only have your story to go on. But it sounds like Mandy has some real personality stuff going on here. And I agree Jim's family does sound quite enmeshed and that creates its own challenges. But that's not all that's going on here. If you want to know more, I would read up on BPD and the cluster B in general. I'm sure a lot of light bulbs are going to start to go off once you do. But ultimately your question isn't so much about Mandy, it's about how you interact with her, what she brings out of you, how to deal with her in a way that minimizes your conflict and pain. The first thing I think you need to understand is Mandy is not going to change, certainly not because of anything you do or say. I think you know that. But I want you to step into that reality fully here. I think the temptation with people like this is you want to stand up to them, you want to convince them of your point of view. You want to make them see what it's like to be on the receiving end of their rage and their criticism. And I get it, but that's not going to happen. When somebody like Mandy is activated, they are dealing with an intense emotional dysregulation, not a lack of rational evaluation, trying to logic them into calming down or being kinder or, you know, not throw beer at people at the Tigers game and kick people in the front row. That makes them feel invalidated or abandoned and that just escalates the anger. So the only answer with people like this is to just be, you got to be very neutral. Basically validating and just draw simple boundaries if you talk to her at all. I wouldn't escalate with her. I wouldn't get into anything with her. The best thing you can say when conflicts flare up is stuff like, I can see you're really upset right now. I can see how hurt you feel. I hear you. That you have a different opinion from me, whatever it is. And I know that can sometimes just sound like nice words. Ideally, you actually mean this stuff. It can take some work to get to a point where you validate somebody like Mandy and you actually mean it, even if you completely disagree with her and the boundary you're looking for. In my view, it's pretty simple. It's basically, I'm happy to talk about this so we can hopefully resolve it, but I won't stay in the conversation if I'm being yelled at or attacked or criticized or whatever she's doing. And if the yelling or attack or criticism continues, then you follow through and disengage. Okay, I'm going to step away now. If you want to talk about this in a different way later, I'm here for that. That it's probably not always easy, especially for somebody who runs anxious like yourself, somebody who has a long history of traumatizing behavior from this person. But it's at least simple.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Certainly easier than being attacked by someone who isn't actually trying to get anywhere productive with you, who just wants to project and rage because it apparently makes her feel better, for sure.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And the more you do this, the easier it'll become. I promise. You're going to be building important muscles here, and those muscles are essential to existing peacefully with a Mandy.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Well, let's talk about some of those muscles for a moment. First of all, I just want to say something about Mandy. I know we're coming down down hard on her here, and obviously I think her behavior is atrocious. She deserves to be challenged. She deserves to be held accountable. None of what you're describing is okay or healthy, but as we talk about all the time, anyone who behaves this way.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Well, yeah, obviously they're in pain themselves.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Severe pain. Right. All personality disorders are ultimately caused by trauma early in life. I don't know what happened to Mandy, but I'm sure something did or some combination of what happened to her and her wiring, whatever it was. And that sucks. Bpd, if that is what's going on here or if. Even if it's something adjacent to it or whatever that is, it often gets very stigmatized and criticized. And I get It. It can be scary. It's a lot to handle, but it is all a response to pain. And so as much as I'm saddened by Mandy's behavior and the mark that it's left on you, I also want to make room for the fact that this person is a very troubled person, probably a very scared person. And she does have my empathy for that to some degree. Not for the behavior, but for the cause.

[Jordan Harbinger]

No, I appreciate that, Gabe. You're right. I just struggle to understand how somebody like this could walk around shaming people for being quiet and sending 10 page texts about minor hiccups and not go, huh, what's going on with me? I should talk to someone, right?

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Like, how do you not go? I'm so angry. And I'm pretty sure that I'm right and I'm the. You know, I have a good case to make. But if I'm feeling this angry, there must be some reason. Maybe I need to figure that out. No, for sure, sure. But the thing is, for most people with bpd, specifically, the central preoccupation is abandonment. Like you said, Jordan. Right. Relatively benign events can feel like rejection. You know, any kind of distance feels like abandonment, especially if it's with a brother you've been close with, overly close with your whole life. And what we would experience as disagreement can feel like attack, like betrayal. So the person's system is constantly scanning for signs that someone is about to leave or withdraw love or paint them as a villain or whatever. And the central beliefs are, there is something fundamentally wrong with me. If people really knew me, they would leave. And then, you know, there's this whole, like, unstable identity, peace and shifting values and rapidly changing feelings. So it's really hard. So a lot of people have this feeling that the person with BPD is intentionally manipulative. And sometimes they are. But more often, what seems intentional is mostly an automatic response born from a lot of pain and specifically, like, a difficulty tolerating shame and the swimmy sense of self that is kind of a hallmark of bpd and just a general lack of tools, really, for regulating distress. So I just wanted to take a moment to say that, like, Mandy is very hurt, and remembering that is not just, you know, a compassionate thing to do. It might make it easier to cope with her when she acts like this.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Good point. So little of her behavior, arguably none of it really has to do with you. But then, Gabe, it's aimed at her, so it's kind of personal, right?

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Yeah, so that's true. And to be fair, it is kind of personal to a degree because she seems to be getting the brunt of it. And she's attacking her for these very personal things like being quiet or whatever. All that said, I also think that your responses to Mandy are very meaningful. Like the ease with which she gaslit you. Or actually, I like how she put it, I let her gaslight me. Which is a good distinction into believing that you're a terrible person, that nobody likes you. Your general discomfort in her presence, this constant scanning for the next conflict, which I can't say I blame you for after all of this. And you know, like the way you grow quiet around her because you don't feel safe. Which again, I totally understand. I think I have a very similar response around people like this. So I think that's normal. But the particular pain that Mandy seems to have wrought on you when so much of her behavior is ultimately revealing of herself. I think all of that is very useful for you to explore. Because yes, you could say this is an unhealthy person who has brought out parts of me that are foreign and weird and stressful and just like not like me. And maybe that's true. But I also find that certain personalities are particularly susceptible to the Mandys of this world. And even that the Mandy's often look for certain personalities to project onto. And yours might be one of them.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Because she's kind. You mean because she's sensitive?

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

That's part of it. But also because Mandy probably sees that she has a unique ability to get in with our friend here. To pierce her right with her words. I'm kind of wondering if maybe our friend here is a little too permeable herself.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, I could see that. Like Mandy sees that she easily absorbs her emotions. So she keeps picking fights and projecting onto her because she's an ideal vessel for all that stuff.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

You know, vessel is a really interesting word. That's exactly it. Yes.

[Jordan Harbinger]

She just wants to dump her emotions into somebody, like into someone else.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

And it's not just absorbing the emotions, but also taking blame easily. Prioritizing harmony over self protection. Feeling responsible to some degree for making sure Mandy is okay.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Which, by the way, it sounds like Jim and the rest of his family have learned to do too. So she's not the only one who's falling into this dynamic.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Good point. It's another hallmark of certain personalities that they almost unconsciously and implicitly train a number of people around them to adjust to them in these ways. They end up kind of controlling the other objects in their lives. Sometimes without Even realizing it. So, yeah, this does. Does sound like the family way or whatever. But an interesting thing about people who project in this way also, they tend to both look for people who are natural vessels to project into, and they often bring out that quality in people, including in people who are generally pretty sturdy and grounded in other parts of their lives.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Wait, explain that. Like, they make people permeable.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Yeah, basically, there's a process, and it's especially common with projecty personalities like Mandy's, where the Mandy project and that starts to chip away at the other person's sense of their own boundaries, their own reality, at which point it becomes much easier for that person to start to identify with the projections. So the Mandy goes, you're an awful person. You're cruel. You're rude, whatever it is. And the other person starts to go, wow, maybe I am awful. You know, maybe I am cruel. Was I rude? I must be rude. If she feels that way and might even start to be cruel or rude or assume that that bullying role or rude stance to some degree, in other words, to start to take on the very qualities and opinions that the other person is projecting.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Holy smokes. So fascinating. So when our friend here said, I let her gaslight me into thinking I'm a terrible person and that nobody likes me, that could be an example of what you're describing, I think.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

So she called it gaslighting. There is a bit of that, but that's more of a. Maybe an intellectual process. Unconsciously, it might be a dance between the two of them.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Them.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

The dance might be Mandy can't tolerate a particular feeling or quality in herself. Shame, aggression, hostility. She projects it into her friend. You're the hostile one. And through a very subtle, almost imperceptible process, but which is probably made up of, you know, like, tone and behavior and these two people's personal histories, Mandy essentially induces our friend to feel or behave in a way that fits her projections.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I feel like this explains exactly the feeling I've had when I've brushed up against people like this. It's like. Like they blame you for being somebody you know you aren't, and, you know you're not that person, but you somehow end up feeling like that person, and you can't figure out why.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Yes, exactly. And it takes a lot of awareness and strong boundaries to not fall into that dynamic. And it's hard. It's really hard for everyone. It's even hard for therapists. I mean, there's, like, a whole body of literature in the community about how therapists deal with their clients projections. Cause it's very tricky.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Fascinating how these two puzzle pieces fit together.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

All that to say, anyway, yes, validate Mandy as appropriate. Draw boundaries with her. Absolutely. Most experts agree that that is really the only way to relate to people like this. But I think what's really going to help here is building stronger internal boundaries, which means learning more about how this projection works, noticing how it feels as it happens to you, and then learning to be a less accommodating home for it.

[Jordan Harbinger]

As for Jim, no, I don't think it's really necessary for him to cut ties with his family right away. In fact, as difficult as Mandy is, I really hope it doesn't come to that. Cutting family members off completely. That should really be a last resort, really. So much of the progress you guys are looking for is in A, understanding these dynamics better and B, learning to protect yourselves, which I think you're already seeing promising signs that that approach is working, which is excellent news.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

I would also add, given Mandy's personality and probable wounds and how close she is with her brother, I think cutting her off would be extremely painful for her to. And it would probably set them back quite a way. I know it's hard. I know it doesn't feel like she deserves it. But what Mandy really needs is consistency of connection along with these boundaries. She needs to feel that you guys are not going to leave her, even as you say, I'm sorry, but I won't keep engaging with you if you're going to rage at me.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Interesting. Yeah. My instinct would be to pull away hard from somebody like this, but I could see how that might work against their progress. But then I ask myself, how likely is progress anyway? And is it really their job to help Mandy get better?

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

It's a fair question, I guess. I would say, like we often say, it's not their job exactly, but the way they relate to her can make it easier or harder for her to realize that she needs to check herself and get better.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I hear that. I also feel like she might benefit from realizing she's driving them away. True, but I don't know. That might be dark Jordan talking. Also, I'm just now remembering that you cut off some family members, too. Obviously, we don't know the details there. Maybe that was necessary.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Didn't she also say that she met Jim through her former best friend?

[Jordan Harbinger]

Her best friend at the time. That's right. Former best friend. Interesting.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Yeah. I mean, who knows what happened there could have been anything. Maybe that friend moved away or maybe they. Whatever we don't know the details, but I think we're hearing a pattern in this letter of not having contact with people she used to have contact with. So it's fair to ask, you know, what is that about?

[Jordan Harbinger]

Well, that's where I was going with this, I guess. I wonder if maybe you're in the process of learning about a whole spectrum of approaches to difficult people between being enmeshed and cutting someone off completely, and if maybe cutting people off has felt like the only option in the past when these boundary approaches can do wonders. Just something to think about.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Jim is also in the middle of an important shift of his own out of this enmeshment and into what sounds like his version of individuation, which is really great news. So important he might be in a phase where he feels he needs distance from his family, like in terms of pure contact. And also maybe ideologically and fair enough, but maybe his own distaste and frustration, maybe that's also making him feel he needs to take a very militant stance, which I'm not entirely sure that he really needs. But my hope for him is that he finds this boundaried closeness as well in his own way, because I think that'll change things for him and his sister.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Which reminds me, if you guys didn't catch it, I definitely go back and listen to our episode with Dr. Ken Adams. He's an expert in enmeshment, especially enmeshment between mothers and sons. But I think his insights apply to all kinds of enmeshment in families. His books are really great.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Episode 942 is one of my favorites.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Man, we went hard in the paint on this one. Thanks for letting us go deep here. I'm very sorry you're dealing with Mandy. I'm sorry that Mandy's dealing with you this way, but I also think she's teaching you some really important stuff about yourself and how to be with people like this, which is ultimately going to be super valuable. Sending you and Jim a big hug and wishing you all the best. By the way, you can reach us [e-mail] Please keep your emails concise. Try to use descriptive subject lines. That makes our job a whole lot easier. If you're finding dead squirrels in your mailbox, you've been kicked out of your own company for an ambiguous mistake you paid the price for decades ago, or you're struggling to forgive your friends for neglecting you after you lost your spouse while giving birth way too early. Whatever's got you staying up at night lately. Hit us up up Fridayordanharbinger.com we're here to help and we keep every email anonymous. And now enmesh yourself in the amazing deals and discounts on the fine products and services that support this show. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Marathon At Marathon gas stations, every stop is the start of fun. Like the awesome fuel savings you can get with Marathon Rewards. Join Marathon Rewards today and start earning rewards on every gallon of gas. You can redeem rewards at any time, saving up to $1 per gallon. And don't forget, Marathon stations are packed with all the conveniences you need to stock up and live life on the Go Marathon, where fun runs on full Available at participating Marathon locations. Terms and conditions apply. See marathonrewards.com for details. This episode is also sponsored by Mint Mobile. I don't know about you, but I like knowing I'm getting a good deal for what I'm getting. And for years my wireless bill was one of those things where I'd look at it and think why is this so expensive? You get the base plan but somehow the bill just keeps creeping up every year. That's why Mint Mobile caught my attention. They basically flip that whole model. Plans start at 15 bucks a month. You still get premium wireless, high speed data, unlimited talk and text on the same major 5G network. What I really like is how simple it is to switch and save. You can keep your phone, keep your number, set everything up with ESIM in minutes and you're done. There's no contracts, no jumping through hoops. Compare that to what people are paying with the big carriers and you could be saving a serious amount of money every month just by switching. If I were looking to cut unnecessary expenses, this is one of the first places that I'd start. If you'd like your money, Mint Mobile is for you. Shop [e-mail] jhs that's mintmobile.com jhs upfront payment of 45 bucks for a 3 month 5 gigabyte plan required equivalent to 15 bucks a month new customer offer for first 3 months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. C Mint Mobile for details by the way y', all, if you haven't signed up yet, come check out our newsletter, Wee Bitwiser. It is a bite sized gem from a past episode from us to you delivered to your inbox on most Wednesdays. If you want to keep up with the wisdom from our thousand plus episodes and apply it to your life, I invite you to come Check it out. Yeah, you can sign [e-mail] news okay, next up.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Hey, guys. I live in a suburban neighborhood, community of about 100 houses, and have a very problematic neighbor. Let's call him Chad. Chad has a lot of resources and free time. He's now following his neighbor to and from work just for existing. He's tormented countless neighbors and has made vague threats of violence, insinuating that there are firearms or concealed weapon permit reinstatements coming soon.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Soon. Reinstatements?

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

I don't know if he meant reinstatements or reinforcements maybe.

[Jordan Harbinger]

No. Or renewals, but reinstatement. I don't know how this works in their state, but that almost implies that maybe he lost the permit at some point.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

That's what it sounds like, yeah.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Makes me wonder if he did something to lose it. I mean, maybe it lapsed, right? But I don't know. That could be useful somehow. Anyway, carry on.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

This neighborhood is less than 10 years old, and he's forced multiple neighbors to sell and relocate. He has cameras all over the place, so I'm sure he's recorded his own shenanigans, but none of us can truly catch him in the act. Local PD are well aware of this man because of the many calls he's made. They keep saying they can't do anything about just being a jackass, but we all fear something will eventually escalate and one of us will become a sacrificial lamb. I've tried sending Latter Day Saints to his house in hopes he finds Jesus, as well as anonymously signing up for real estate services, saying he's actively looking to find a place with property and a space for his exotic imported cars.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Wow. Even the Mormons couldn't help.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Dang, no. This guy's beyond saving, I think.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Have you tried Jehovah's Witnesses? I hear they're quite persistent.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

I don't know if that's gonna do it, Jordan. Something tells me this guy loves celebrating his birthday. So the letter goes on. I've reached out to plenty of neighbors who all have had experiences with Chad. The neighbor he followed filed a protection order, but no one else is willing to stick their neck out for fear of retaliation. This man has enough resources to just litigate stuff into infinity. I'm trying to figure out the most effective way to get the charges to stick and send him a message without exposing us all to retaliation. We all just want to be left alone so we can live our lives and play with our kids outside without the yammering and spewing. As he perches on his balcony. What are your thoughts? What can we legally do to get this guy to leave us all alone and allow us to go outside in peace? Signed, wondering what you would do here if you could, when in all likelihood this guy is going to keep terrorizing the neighborhood.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Ugh, what a piece of work. I hate stories like this. Super upsetting.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Yeah. I hate the fact that the police often can't or maybe won't do much until something truly terrible happens and it's like, thanks a lot, guys. Thanks for waiting.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, exactly. At which point, it's too late. I mean, you hear this all the time. Basically, the police, they'll be stalkers or something. And it's like. Like the people are like, the police refuse to do anything, and basically they'll only come when there's a body in the yard, you know, like, they'll really only help with stuff like this when it's just too late. It's like, do we really have to wait for this psycho who might have done something to lose his concealed carry permit, no less, to shoot one of us, for you to actually do anything? If this were my neighbor and I was playing with my kids in the street, I would be very concerned. We wanted to run all of this by an expert, so we reached out to attorney and friend of the show, Corbin, Pennsylvania. Pain. New soundbite there felt appropriate. And the first words out of Corbin's mouth were, yikes. Direct quote. Another direct quote. The cops are being lazy or they're being wimps. They absolutely can charge Chad over threats, assault, of course, states title these crimes differently, but whatever version of putting a person in reasonable fear of harm, if it's specific and pointed or personal enough off, Pretty sure that's a crime. Now, that doesn't mean a charge for Chad will stick. He can still defend himself, of course, but to quote Corbin again, getting arrested has a way of acting as a lovely blue light intervention.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

I had never heard of that phrase, by the way.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, me neither. Apparently it's a term in the addiction world. The idea being some people get their wake up when they get arrested. It's like an intervention, but done by the cops. Hence the blue lights. So Corbin had a few ideas for you. One idea, and I like this one. Hire a private detective. A PI can follow this guy, document his malefactions, then testify to them either at a criminal hearing or at a civil restraining order hearing. Corbyn said a good one should be able to do most of this incognito. So it's not like super obvious and going to blow back on you. Now, Chad might be a little on the paranoid side, so there's a good chance that he spots the PI eventually and that'll likely up his paranoia. Corbin's other recommendation, no surprise here. Document, document, document. Whatever happens, whatever Chad's resources, Corbin said, y' all will absolutely need to create a record of what he's been up to. And the cops could definitely bring charges based on a credible report from a credible victim. But even then, Corbyn said that this is the sort of case where a defense attorney, they're going to try to raise all kinds of Cain, which is another great Corbynism, by the way. Basically poke holes in the state's handling of things. And lacking physical evidence, that's one good way to poke holes. So you got to get as much documentary evidence as possible. If that means investing in GoPro cameras or something like that to put on your chest every time you go out, he would do that. That if it means pulling your cell phones out and recording his ass every time he approaches or steps out in public, do that. You know, whoever lives near him can put a camera facing his house. That's not illegal, actually. Asterisk. Consult your attorney.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

But yeah, maybe you could use those meta ray ban glasses Jordan mentioned a few weeks ago. Because if you had those on and he popped off and you just hit tap the side of the glass, you start recording, you probably won't even realize that you're documenting all this.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That is a great idea. Anyway, whatever it takes to get hard evidence of this psycho popping off, off. Corbin said that if you can bring a tailor made case to a police officer, prosecutor or civil attorney, before anything gets off the ground, the odds of getting somebody to take you seriously goes up tremendously.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Another way to document all of this is to just keep a running tally of Chad's crazy through what attorneys like to call a contemporaneous record of events. In other words, you can make a report of what happened shortly after it happened and date it to show it happened near the events in question. So Corbin had a cool solution for this. This, he said, set up an email account that the neighbors can send Updates to Chad, poppinoffmail.com or whatever it is. That way everything is in one place. It's automatically time and date stamped. And it's a low risk, low friction method for people to start subtly documenting and pushing back on Chad's crazy.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I love this. Every time Chad pops off, take a picture, type up some notes, email it to this email Address and bam. Documentation, time, date, all confirmed by the server in one easy place. We can hand to a prosecutor. Big fan of this idea.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

And if Chad is getting. Getting consistent pushback in the form of you guys recording him and documenting all this, he might just back down because he's no longer able to bully people with impunity. He might be crazy, but he also might not want to end up in jail.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Could put him on notice that he doesn't have carte blanche to just act like this whenever he wants. Yeah, and if you can't get any officials to take you guys seriously. Corbin said there's always the option of going to local media. If multiple people have complaints against Chad and. Or there's video of him menacing you guys. He said a local reporter may want to run with it as a human interest store. I think we've all seen those local news segments. Sometimes they go viral about a bunch of neighbors complaining about the Karen or the psycho down the street. People love that stuff. So let's see how Chad feels with TV cameras shoved in his face. Or maybe even better, let's see how the local cops feel while being asked why they're doing nothing about the guy criminally harassing everybody on his block. How about that, Chad? Catch me outside.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

How about that?

[Jordan Harbinger]

Corbin's last idea for you. It's worth talking to a local civil attorney. He would advise you to look for somebody with litigation experience, probably somebody who does divorces and family law. Those are the lawyers who do the most restraining order litigation cases. A lawyer can advise you all on how to proceed. They can also advise you all on what protections exist for people who file one of these cases.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Corbin also said that if you guys come in with a request for a restraining order, you can generally get one put in place while the case is pending. And if Chad violates it, then there are serious penalties involved, including convincing the judge that he is, in fact, a risk who needs a restraining order against him. So Corwin pointed out that just knowing about some of these protections might make your neighbors feel safer about going on record.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I bet that would go a long way because right now they feel naked and ignored, and Chad has all the power. But that could change real quick. You know the drill. Call your state or county bar association. Get referrals for those attorneys. They're out there. I do have some final Dark Jordan ideas, which I think you would expect for me to have of this particular kind of thing.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Let's do it.

[Jordan Harbinger]

One idea is every one of you files a police report and. Or a Restraining order against him, one for each of you. As long as he keeps doing stuff until there are so many the police actually have to intervene. Or when he finally does commit a crime, there's just a huge file on him and he gets in real trouble. You could even request a group meeting with your local police to show them. Look, here's the incident log and documentation. Here are all the police reports we filed. Here are the 11 restraining orders we had to take out. This isn't neighbors squabbling. This is one crazy, dangerous guy versus the entire neighborhood. You guys got to do something. Another idea is you could foia, so Freedom of Information act. You could FOIA request Chad's own police reports. My guess is he's abusing police resources at this point. Lying and saying, oh, trespassing, noise violation. And it's like, no, this is all bullshit. It's just fabricated nonsense. And so you could FOIA that and you would know exactly what he's saying about it.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Right? So if you call the cops a million times on your neighbors for stuff, that isn't really a problem, that's a crime.

[Jordan Harbinger]

If it's meant to harass. Like, if you're just saying they're being loud, again, that's probably not a crime.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

But if you're fabricating information or there's really nothing going on.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Exactly. The kids are trespassing on my lawn. Yeah, they've been on vacation for a week. You're just calling so that there's a police report in the system or that they're doing this and this. No, everyone's asleep. You just wanted the cops to knock on their door so that they had to wake up in the middle of the night and deal with it. You're just using the police to harass your neighbors at this point, that is a crime. That can lead to fines, mandatory restitution for wasted emergency resources. It can even lead to jail time if you keep doing it. Also, I don't know if you guys have an HOA where you live. Neighborhoods less than 10 years old, seems like a new build, possibly has an hoa. But look, if you've got that his cameras and other BS, that might violate the CCNRs. He could be fined, he could be penalized. If he doesn't pay, you can put a lien on his house. I realize that could antagonize him more, but that's an option. HOAs don't mess around like you can. If he doesn't pay those fines and remove the cameras or whatever is violating the CC and rs you can foreclose that guy's house, then he's the one who's moving. I would also look into your city codes and see if any of his cameras, balconies, lights, property modifications, even where he parks his cars or how much noise he makes. If any of that violates city codes, then you start filing regular city code complaints. Eventually, somebody from the city should respond, and they're going to enforce the rules ruthlessly because they don't care about neighborhood politics. Last idea. When you talk to an attorney, ask them if they can send Chad one formal harassment warning letter from multiple households. Then Chad's going to know, like, oh, snap. These people are organized. They have documentation. They're going to legally escalate. They've already found somebody who will help them with that. Maybe I need to pipe down now. I'm very sorry that you're dealing with this piece of work. Work. People like this really are a cancer. But you gotta fight cancer to beat it. So I hope you find some easy and safe ways to do that soon. Good luck. All right, now for the recommendation of the week.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

I am addicted to Litvilla.

[Jordan Harbinger]

My recommendation of the week. I mentioned this earlier. The Garmin Inreach Mini. I had the Mini 3 on my trip. A lot of people rely on their cell phones for hiking, but we don't have service everywhere. Especially if you go to national parks or something like that, or if you're outside North America a the SOS on your phone. If you have an iPhone and you're like, oh, I, I, I have the satellite thing on my phone. That won't work if you are not in the right place. Also, the antenna on that thing is not the same. So if you get into a scrape or you get lost or whatever, you're in a real pickle. You're in real trouble. Garmin uses a global network of satellites instead, so you can stay connected even if you're off grid. You're in a remote area in a random country. It's pretty clutch if you're an adventure traveler, a hiker, mountain biker, mountaineer, thrill seeker, camper, boater, anything that'll take you to some weird places. Also, Garmin has $40 a year search and rescue insurance. They have higher plans if you're planning to get rescued off of mountains above, you know, 5,000ft and things like that. But if you need to get extracted from someplace, they will cover the cost of that up to 100 grand. So if it costs 80 grand to get medevacked out of, I don't know, Some desert somewhere. They'll cover that up to a hundred grand, I think. I brought one of these to Saudi Arabia. I was able to stay in touch. Didn't end up needing it for more than a few days. But I'll definitely be bringing this thing with me again if I ever go off grid again in the future. They're not super cheap. It's like 300 to 500 bucks, depending on the model you get. But you can't really put a price on, you know, being found alive and staying in touch with your family in a real emergency. We'll link to the model I used in the show Notes. I'm a big fan. It's a great company as well. Good customer service, good product, and I definitely recommend this if you ever go off grid. It's just cheap insurance in all respects. All right, now we're going to yammer and spew some deals and discounts on the fine products and services that support this show. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Deleteme. Deleteme makes it easy, quick and safe to remove your personal data online. At a time when surveillance and data breaches are common enough to make everyone vulnerable. Most of us have no idea how much of our information is just floating around out there. Your name, your phone number, your home address, even details about relatives can be collected by data brokers and sold online like nothing. Your data is a product, and it's a pretty unsettling thing to realize. For me, with an active online presence, this stuff matters a lot. When your information is easy to find, it can open the door to phishing attempts, scams, all kinds of unwanted attention. Even if you're not a public figure, your information can still be out there without you realizing it. That's why I use Deleteme. I recommend you look into it. Deleteme's team will remove your personal data from hundreds of data broker websites, which helps you take back some control over what's out there. And it's been named a top pick for data removal services by the New York Times. Wireless.

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[Jordan Harbinger]

This Episode is sponsored in part by Little Sleepies. If you got kids, you already know the truth. Bedtime can turn onto a full on negotiation. But one thing that's been a reliable win in our house is Little Sleepy's Pajamas were fans of Little Sleepies for years before they even sponsored the show. Jen fell hard for the adorable prince, grabbed a couple pairs and then it basically spiraled from there. Now we got a whole drawer full of them. The kids have the cutest matching sets. And yes, we've even gone full family matching pajamas. Kind of fun, not gonna lie. And the fabric is the real deal. Ridiculously soft, super stretchy. The kids like wearing them, which means fewer complaints when it's time to change. Plus, we've had ours for years. And I can say with confidence these things hold up. That matters when you're buying kid clothes that get worn constantly and washed because you, you know, lots of stuff gets on those clothes. I'll leave it right there. And they also make a great gift. The prints are adorable. The sizing is easy. Parents are always happy to get something cozy that'll actually get used.

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[Jordan Harbinger]

If you like this episode of Feedback Friday and find our advice valuable, I invite you to do what other smart and considerate listeners do. That is take a moment and support the amazing sponsors. They're all linked, searchable and clickable on the website at Jordan Harbor. If that doesn't work, email us jordan harbinger.com we'd love to dig up codes for you. It is that important that you support those who support the show. Now for the rest of Feedback Friday.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Okay, next up, dear Senor Bonita and handsome boy number one. That's Senor Bonito. Just FYI, please do not misgender my Bonito. If you would.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah. Come on. Gabe fought long and hard to come to terms with his Bonito.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Exactly. Benitex didn't come all this way.

[Jordan Harbinger]

You can put the X on there.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Let me start by saying that I truly love and appreciate what you both do. I value your practical advice, the applicability of your episodes and the overall work you put up.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I take it back. You can call him Benita if you want. I didn't know you were a super fan.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

I've listened to every episode, including ones where I may not fully agree or even like what a guest is saying. I see those moments as opportunities to open my mind and possibly shift my perspective.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That is awesome. I love that. I wish more people thought that. That way.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

I'm 26 years old and have been with my boyfriend, now, fiance, for nine years. We just got engaged this past December and are planning our wedding for November 2026. And yes, you are both invited.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That was obviously my first question. Also, nine years, man. Holy smokes. You are patient.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

That means they met when they were 17.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, that makes sense. You didn't rush into things. Good for you.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

My question actually about the wedding is can I wear my Cabonito hat?

[Jordan Harbinger]

I'm sure you can. You're going to look so bonita in that hat at the wedding. Or your suit.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Thank you. I appreciate it. I'll go with the black, though, not the yellow. You know, class it up a bit.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That's right. Let us know what the dress code is and if we need to book our own room. Or if we can just crash in you and your fiance's room. That only seems fair.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

I mean, since she loves the show so much. That's right.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Least she could do. Let us sleep on the pullout couch in your matrimonial suite.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Give him a front row seat to the Bert and Ernie Show. They'll love that. She goes on. He is my first, in many ways, my first serious relationship. I've never really seriously dated anyone. To be clear, I'm reading the letter again. I'm not talking about Jordan.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yes, thank you for clarifying. I was like, wait, what is there. We need to talk about this. Off mic. Gabe. Yeah.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

He is my first, in many ways, my first serious relationship. I've never really seriously dated anyone else. My first love and the first and only person I've slept with. Actually, that part is kind of true.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Hey, what happens in St. Louis stays in St. Louis.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

I'm also his first in every way. First girlfriend, first kiss, and first and only person he's been with. He's my everything. He's supported me through everything you can think of over those nine years. My mom being sick, college and being lost after it. A sexual abuse case in which I am a victim and which is still ongoing. Car accidents, pets passing and family problems.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Oh, man, you've been through a lot. I'm very sorry to hear about all this. Your mom and this sexual abuse case especially. Actually sounds very intense, very special that he's been there for you. Y' all sound like a solid couple.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Even now. He's supportive as I work a sales job with 100% commission instead of using my degree in computer Science and engineering. He's helped me stumble through life and deal with the overall hiccups. But all of this brings a few questions and fears to my mind. One is having dated other people, I've never had the desire to. But I often hear that experimenting is important. Important. At the same time, I've seen relationships like ours work. So I'm curious about your thoughts. My second question is about preparing for a successful marriage. We plan to do couples counseling to make sure we're on the same page and a prenuptial agreement as recommended by your guest, James Sexton.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Smart. Very few people have the. What's the word? Pragmatism, Courage, the level headedness, I guess, to actually do a prenup even when they know it's logically the right thing to do. But that episode with James Sexton, episode

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

1035, by the way, very eye opener, I would say.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Super eye opening. The stats on divorce are so clear and yet, well, you know, no one wants to acknowledge they might feel differently about their spouse one day. But if you're just being rational, practical, it's almost certainly the right thing to do. Emotionally, that's another story. I know it's tricky.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

I have a lot of fears about what could go wrong. What if he dies? What if he gets curious about other women? What if one day he decides he wants kids?

[Jordan Harbinger]

Oh, wow, that took a turn.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

I've never wanted kids for many reasons. I've discussed this with my fiance multiple times over the years. Years. And he's always said he's okay with it. It's also something I plan to revisit in couples counseling.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Great. You absolutely have to pin this big stuff down early. There can't be any ambiguity about stuff like this or things get very messy.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Yeah. I'm so glad you guys are doing couples counseling before you get married.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Same.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

That's super smart. I feel like most people should do that same.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I'm sure everyone would benefit from that train before the marathon.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

That said, I don't see my stance on kids chains. If I were to end up with a child or two, so be it. But it's not part of my plan.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That's confusing.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Yeah, she's never wanted kids, but if she ended up with them, she's cool with it.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah. So does she not want them or not? I'm confused.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Usually people who don't want kids are pretty militant about it, right? Not gonna happen.

[Jordan Harbinger]

She's talking about it like it's not entirely up to her or something. Like, oh, crap, here's two Kids.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

I mean, if she doesn't want kids. I know. I know a few good ways to not have them.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, I also know one good way to have them. So maybe just avoid that if you don't want kids. This is interesting.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Yeah, but what's interesting about it? That there's a part of her that might in fact want children.

[Jordan Harbinger]

You know, I'm honestly not sure. I suppose it's a possibility. Or at least she isn't totally against them.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Or is it that there's a part of her that's willing to just leave this huge thing up to chance? And what does that say?

[Jordan Harbinger]

But then she's saying, I don't see my stance changing. So I'm just confused. Definitely something to pin down in therapy. There's something about that. It feels swimmy and conflicted somehow.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

My entire family knows this and is supportive of my decision. My mom especially. I feel like I've made my position very clear over the years. But his parents still talk about him having kids and their plans for when he does. It can be annoying, but at the end of the day, it's not causing direct harm. I've talked to my fiance about it. He's noticed it too, but doesn't think much of it.

[Jordan Harbinger]

All interesting data.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Takes some real doing to not think much of your family expecting something huge that you definitely don't plan on giving them.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Though I agree. It's not that he necessarily needs to discuss all their plans with his family, but if they're expecting grandchildren and he doesn't plan on having any, I mean, that conversation is probably coming one way or another.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Or he's hoping they're just gonna figure it out when 10 years go by and they haven't bought a bigger car in the one bedroom. I don't know.

[Jordan Harbinger]

We obviously don't know her fiance. The picture I'm getting is that he's being a little wishy washy too. I know it's hard with family. He probably doesn't want to disappoint them.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Or it's just super awkward to talk about.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, but I wonder if they're both tap dancing around something in different ways. Ways.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Do you think it's important to date or be with other people before getting married? Do you think we need to sit down and clearly discuss our decision around having kids with my fiance's family? Or should we just let it be and allow them to say what they want? Beyond that, what do you recommend we do before and during our marriage to make it successful? Signed, trying to plot the things we Ought to give good thought before we tie the knot. Wow.

[Jordan Harbinger]

All super interesting. So, first of all, I love that you're asking these big questions now, doing this work like in couples therapy before you guys tie the knot. You strike me as a very thoughtful person, a very diligent person. You've got your head on straight. You want to be responsible, you want to be fair to yourself and to your fiance.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Really fits with what she said about treating different opinions as opportunities to open her mind, possibly shift her perspective.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Totally. Yeah. I think it takes a certain curiosity,

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

a certain humility, empathy, I think as

[Jordan Harbinger]

well, and empathy for sure. All of which are such great qualities in a marriage, and all of which I imagine will make couples therapy very productive. Productive. So I really appreciate all that and well done on cultivating this mindset. So about dating other people before you get married, do I think that's generally helpful and healthy to some degree? I do not. Because I think that, you know, everyone has to go through a whole phase before they settle down. But just because having a few relationships, I think that kicks up a lot of useful data about a person, about how you operate in relationships, about your particular pressure points, about your needs, your values, values, other people's, where they align, where they diverge, and how to navigate all that. And that could be very helpful. I think it can also avoid some regret. And what if thinking down the line, like, what else am I missing? Should I have enjoyed being single? Is this for sure the right person for me? Stuff like that. However, do I think dating a bunch of other people and sleeping around is essential to having a successful marriage? No, I don't. And I also think that being in one serious, deep, long term relationship during a formative time, that also kicks up some really useful data about yourself. So either way, you get a valuable experience. If you found your person early and you guys are on the same page and you love each other and you share the same goals and values and all that, then, hey, you just found your person early in life, you could have a terrific marriage. I think the things that make a successful marriage, they probably have less to do with how many other people you dated and way more to do with the quality of your relationship. The process you guys tap into when you go through difficult situation stuff, how you guys handle certain questions or feelings, including this whole topic of being each other's firsts.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Yeah, I totally agree. But that also depends on the personalities and the values and the backgrounds of the people involved, right?

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, that's true. That's a huge variable.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

I mean, for some people, having a variety of experiences or developing an identity without a romantic partner, that's super important to them. For other people, finding the right person early and being in a partnership and investing mostly in that, that's the priority. So that changes the opportunity cost for the person for sure.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And so it's hard to know what our friend here needs. Is she asking this question because intellectually she knows it's a fruitful question to ask a responsible thing to get out in front of early, or is she asking this question because there's a part of her that's longing for these other experiences and she knows it might eat away at her down the line?

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Yeah, that's a really good question for her to ask. Although she said, I never really had the desire to date other people, so that might be the answer. Right.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Right there.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

And also, nothing she said in her letter suggests that she might pump the brakes on getting married or end this relationship so she can go be single for a while. No, it's not going to happen.

[Jordan Harbinger]

No.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

So I guess I wonder where that leaves her. I mean, if we had come back and said, yeah, you definitely need to date other people before you get married, what would she have done with that?

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, that's an interesting question. I mean, I guess she could have thought about it and disagreed, or she might have heard that and gone, well, shit, now what do I do? I don't know if I can get married.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Let's assume that she is not going to end this amazing relationship to go be single for a while, which I cannot say I advise based on her letter. And let's say that they go through couples counseling and they come out even stronger and there are no huge problems in their relationship. TBD on the kids thing. We'll talk about that in a second. Then maybe part of their journey together will be working through some of these feelings when they come up, whatever they might be, regret, conflict, guilt, confusion, just like a vague wondering. I think they could have an amazing marriage and still contend with those feelings from time to time. And so I guess the question for me is how do they process them? What conclusions do they draw from the them? Can they explore them safely and satisfy them in other ways together, or do they just kind of need to make peace with them together?

[Jordan Harbinger]

I don't know the answer, really. I think most people, no matter their history, deal with these feelings and conflicts to some degree, even when they're in a happy relationship. I hesitate to say this because I know I just said it's not essential to having a Great marriage. But avoiding regret, conflict, guilt, confusion, the kind that can eat away at you or chip away at a relationship. That's just a huge reason. I think dating around actually is an important. Maybe I'm contradicting myself a little bit, but I just want to keep it real.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Yeah, I hear that, and I actually agree. But I guess what I'm saying is how much those feelings eat away at somebody, whether they really chip away at a great relationship, I do wonder if that's largely up to them. And by that, I mean it's up to them to understand themselves before they get married. And it's up to them to develop a language and a process to talk about this stuff when it comes up. Which, by the way, might include just being able to acknowledge these feelings with each other. As strange as that might sound. Sound. Because I imagine that one way these feelings can corrode a relationship is when one or both parties feel that they're taboo somehow, like they're too hurtful or scary to call out with the other person. Whereas being able to say, hey, I love you so much, I want to be married to you. I'm so glad I found you when I was 17. And I don't know, sometimes I wonder what my hoe phase would have been like. You know, sometimes I wonder if I developed enough as a single person before I met you. Although I would hope you guys would talk about this before you get married. Of course, but. But, like, if that's a thought that's coming up, that's a legitimate thought, and it might be fruitful to explore with your partner, whatever it is.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Oof, that's real. But that's hard.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

It is hard. I totally get that. And also, not everyone wants to have those conversations, so that's fine if you don't. But I guess what I'm saying is just being able to say something like that, not in service of breaking up or, I don't know, opening the marriage or anything like that, just in service of being fully honest. That might close the gap that these thoughts and feelings can create between two people. That's not all they have to. To do to survive them. But I do wonder if that's a big part of it.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I hear that. And if they respond well to those chats, like, if he can go meet those feelings in a helpful way, that might make her go, man, this really is my person. I'm so lucky I found him early.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

That's actually what I'm saying is that it might go a long way in resolving that same regret. Or guilt or shame that she's worried about encountering because she was never single before him. Exactly.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So interesting how that works. Just one of the many things they can explore in couples things therapy. So let's talk about how to handle the kids thing with your fiance's family. Gabe, I'm way less sure about this one.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Same, not as clear cut.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Part of me is going it's not really their business when or whether you guys are gonna have kids. You don't have to keep them apprised of your procreation plans. And another part of me is like, well, they keep bringing it up so they obviously think it's gonna happen. And if that's not in the plans, it would probably be nice to let them know so they can let go of that idea. Not to mention it's gonna be way less stressful for you guys. Cause it's not gonna be like, when are we having kids? It's like, okay, we talked about this and we can all sort of accept reality now.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

What concerns me most about this isn't so much that the parents might have a different wish for them, kids wise, but what it might say about her fiance's true feelings about children. And what it might say about his way of handling tough conversations with his family in general.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Bingo. Like, does this mean he secretly wants them but he's afraid to say that because he knows she doesn't? Or does this mean that he doesn't want them either, but he doesn't have the stones to tell his parents? Parents, sorry, guys, that's not what we want. Just wanted to let you know.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Exactly. But either way, couples therapy. Yeah, I'm really glad they're going. Even if they're totally aligned on the kids thing in the end. Which is still a bit of an if for me. But even if they are, these skills are still going to be so important in the marriage.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Agreed. Even more, I hasten to add, than having banged a bunch of people before you met. Just to put you at some ease there. But look, if you guys talk this out and decide, yeah, we definitely don't want kids. Kids, then I think you probably need to tell your in laws at some point. Because like I said, that conversation is coming one way or another and it is awkward and it's kind of sad. They're hoping for grandchildren. They might not get them. I feel kind of like they deserve to know at some point.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Well, by not telling them, they're also making it worse. Right. Because one day this is going to come to a head. His parents are Going to ask point blank or they're just going to figure it out and then they might go, oh, cool, so you just lied to us about this for 12 years. Appreciate that.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Rip off the band aid, I say, and maybe that'll be an instructive conversation for you guys, or at least for him. Him. How you communicate your decisions and values to other people, how you navigate conflict. But I wouldn't do it. So you guys are truly clear on the kids thing? I'm still confused by that thing you said, how if you ended up with kids, so be it. Maybe I'm missing something, but if that speaks to any confusion or indecision here, I'd run straight toward that in couples therapy and try and figure it out. And look, if you're like, well, we're 90, sure, we don't want them, but who knows, maybe in five years we'll feel differently. We're leaving room for that. That's very too. I'm not saying you need to be militantly or black and white, sort of pro or anti having kids, but that's a position.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

And is that a position you would share with these in laws?

[Jordan Harbinger]

They could. They could say, look, guys, we know you're excited for us to have kids, but we're 90% sure we don't want them. We don't want to get your hopes up, but we're leaving some room that will change our minds, but probably we won't. And we wanted to let you know so you could know where we stand and adjust your expectations. I think that's fair. So you're telling me there's a chance?

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Yeah. I think it also depends on what his parents are like. If they're the type of people who hear that there's a 10% chance that they'll change their minds. And then for the next decade they send them articles about how important it is to have kids and they point out all the cute babies at the restaurant and guilt their son into doing it for them, then I would say maybe don't share all the nuances with them. Maybe you just say, I'm really sorry, guys, not in our place plans. But if they're generally cool and respectful and, well, boundaried, if you think that they're going to respond okay to this, I don't know if they will, but if they're those kind of people, then there's less risk in letting them in on every nook and cranny of your position on kids.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, good point. Although knowing what I know about older parents, I think most people who hear there's a chance their kids will change their minds about this will probably hold out hope that they'll do it and might use that 10% to kind of crowbar their way in and push them to do it, even if they're not overtly manipulative. So just keep that in mind. As for what you guys should do before and during your marriage to make it successful, big question. I'm getting a little sweaty over here. Is this really all on us, Gabe? It's a bit much.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

She did invite us to the wedding, so.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And as you've heard on the show, we are the gift. Okay, so I guess it is on us. So I just really. I have big picture thoughts, and we've already touched on the most important ones. First and foremost, get on the same page about the kids thing. And also get clear on how you would handle it if one of you changes your mind, if that's maybe in the cards. Always a risk. Second, I would focus in therapy on developing good conflict resolution muscles. How to listen, how to empathize, how to make room for the other person's feelings and positions while staying connected to yours. Any couple needs to have that process to succeed because there will always be challenges and conflicts. You guys have already been through some big ones and how you move through them. Them, that's everything.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

I'm also just thinking about everything they've been through together. Her mom being sick, this sexual abuse case, which sounds very intense, family conflicts, physical accidents, some existential stuff. Again, very special that your fiance has supported you through all of that. And by the way, another point in the why it's awesome to find your person early in life column, by the way. But I would also make time in couples therapy to talk about how those experiences might have shaped you guys as a couple, how they might be showing up in the relationship now.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And anyway, I know we talk about this idea all the time, and I don't mean to beat a dead horse. Unfortunate turn of phrase. Trout this horse out again. But one of the themes of their relationship is grief. Grief around mom and her illness. Perhaps some grief around the person she was before this tragic abuse. Grief around pets, around family. How a couple moves through grief together, that's also huge. And that's another thing you guys might want to continue to focus on, making lots of room for mourning in all of its forums, big and small.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

You know, I'm really glad you brought this up because. Because I do wonder if one source of grief our friend here is dealing with isn't just not having had a hoe phase for the sake of having a hoe phase, but grief around not having an experience of herself as an unattached person who could have any number of experiences for a while. And that's a question not just of romantic variety, but of identity. She's talking about another self and how that self might have shaped the self she is now and this time timeline. So I think there's a good argument to be made that this self, this timeline that she's in is pretty great and that she's very lucky to have met her future husband so early. A lot of people would kill for that, but that's absolutely compatible with mourning these other versions of her life. What now can never be because she met her Future husband at 17 years old.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Interesting. I do think getting to move through these developmental stages, in a way that's our birthright. So I can understand why not having that period would bring up some big feelings for her, even if she found her back person. And I actually think it's appropriate and actually quite healthy for her to make room for that.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

She gets married, there's mourning even in joy, you know, for all the other joys that are incompatible with this one.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And so that regret, guilt, conflict, confusion, those feelings we were talking about earlier, those might be symptoms of precisely this grief that you're talking about. And me advocating for the ho phase, so to speak, now that you frame this as grief, I guess being single AF for a while, maybe that's largely a way for people to sidestep this future grief.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Yeah, that's a really good point. I do think that's a big part of it and why couples therapy is probably going to be a great space for them. But also, you can't sidestep that grief completely. It just exists alongside all of the happiness that they're going to get to share.

[Jordan Harbinger]

But listen, congrats on finding your person so early. Congrats on becoming the kind of person who's doing the work to be with your person in the best way. It's really cool to read about. Very inspiring. I do have high hopes for you guys. And yeah, you can consider this my rsvp. Yes to your wedding, Gabe. I don't know. He looks TBD to me right now. Probably dealing with some grief about what other event he left to give up in order to attend yours. There's a sound bath in Playa del Carmen or something the same day, an outdoor screening of a snuff film from the Weimar Republic.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

You know what? That is more My speed these days.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I know.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Absolutely correct. But what are you talking about?

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, by the way, we're totally kidding about crashing your wedding, but thank you for the invitation.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Also, about the snuff film.

[Jordan Harbinger]

No, that part was real.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Oh, okay. Cool, cool, cool. No, the Weimar Republic famously fire snuff films. Epic.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Look, I'm not allowed within 100ft of an open bar. Anyway, it's probably out of range for my ankle monitor, so we can't go.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

What does that. Ankle monitor, Garmin?

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, weirdly, they don't make ankle monitors yet, but they'd probably crush that segment, too.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

What if she let us give a toast at her wedding and we just read her Feedback Friday letter?

[Jordan Harbinger]

I think that's a great idea. When Annie wrote us saying that Greg's parents didn't know they don't want kids. Hey, y' all have had that conversation, right? You took our advice, right? Anyway, since they're for sure going to be dinks and yuppies, this toast is going to crush.

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

Grandma is going to love it.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, yeah. Look, Gabe and I can be your kids. Just put us in the will. Happy morning, happy marriage. Sending you and your dude a big hug and wishing you all the best. Go back and check out Mariana Van Zeller if you haven't done so yet. The best things that have happened in my life and business have come through my network. The circle of people I know, like and trust. I'm teaching you how to build the same thing for yourself in our six Minute Networking course. The course is free. It is not gross. There's no shenanigans. There's no hitch. There's no catch 22. It's all free. And the Thinkific platform at 6minute networking.com. the drills are designed to take a few minutes a day. I wish I knew this stuff a couple decades ago. Dig that well before you get the thirsty folks. Build relationships before you need them again. All [e-mail] show notes and transcripts on the website, advertisers, deals, discounts, ways to support the show, [e-mail] deals I'm at Jordan Harbinger on Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. Gabe's on Instagram at Gabriel Mizrahi. This show is created in association with Podcast One. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Ian Baird, Tata Sidlowskis, and of course, Gabriel Mizra Rahi. Our advice and opinions are our own. I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer. Consult a qualified professional before implementing anything you hear on the show. Ditto Corbin Payne. Remember, we rise by lifting others. Share the show with those you love. If you found the episode useful, please share it with somebody else who could use the advice we gave here today. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn. And we'll see you next time. You're about to hear a preview with Jamie Mustard, who signed a billion year contract at age five while he still believed in Santa Claus. Santa Claus. And spent his childhood inside Scientology's Sea Org where kids were warehoused like livestock and denied even basic education.

[Jamie Mustard]

The story of the lost children of Scientology has never been told. And I really do believe if people knew what happened to us in the 70s, 80s and 90s, what happened to us kids in that environment, they would stop it. There's a line for the suffering of children. By the age of five or six years old, I just basically started. Started to go completely numb. These thousands of kids, they have autoimmune disease. They're all doing construction, most of them. Some of the more successful ones get lucky because they become contractors. But if people knew it would happen to us, which is the story that I wrote, that people would stop, it would be the end. On the day of my birth, I was handed over to a religious paramilitary organization, high control authoritarian group in a slum 10 tenement where I spent the first two and a half years of my life with little to no human touch. And that would be the beginning of pretty much a 20 year gauntlet where I wouldn't go to school and I would literally be animalized. We weren't looked at as anything of value until we could work or contribute labor. I never went to school. The age of 20, I could barely write characters and I didn't know how to use a comma or construct a sentence or a paragraph. The reason I never spoke after is what I write about that happened to me. It's humiliating. I don't want anyone to know any of the things that we've talked about today. I mean, I think Scientology is the most sophisticated mind control system probably in the history of the human species. I'm starting for the first time in my life to be shame free to

[Jordan Harbinger]

hear what happened during the largest FBI raid in U.S. history. Which makes you wonder how this all stayed hidden in plain sight. And when he finally escaped, nearly illiterate at age 19, check out episode 1270 of the Jordan Harbinger show,

[Gabriel Mizrahi]

The Bleacher Report app is your destination for sports right now. The NBA is heating up, March Madness is here, and MLB is almost back. Every day there's a new headline, a new highlight, a new moment you've got to see for yourself. That's why I stay locked in with the Bleacher appliance. For me, it's about staying connected to my sports. I can follow the teams I care about, get real time scores, breaking news and highlights all in one place. Download the Bleacher Report app today so you never miss a moment.

[Jordan Harbinger]

If you work in university maintenance, Grainger considers you an MVP because your playbook ensures your arena is always ready for tip off. And Grainger is your trusted partner, offering the products you need all in one place, from H VAC and plumbing supplies to lighting and more. And all delivered with plenty of time left on the clock so your team always gets the win. Call 1-800-GRAINGER visit grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.