1331: Your Boyfriend's Wrath Is Blocking Your Path | Feedback Friday

Summary

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The Jordan Harbinger Show

Episode 1331: Your Boyfriend's Wrath Is Blocking Your Path | Feedback Friday

May 22, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this Feedback Friday episode, Jordan Harbinger and Gabriel Mizrahi take on listener letters, sharing advice, stories, and reflections on complex life situations involving relationships, faith, therapy—and one especially intense tale of life with an emotionally volatile partner. The recurring theme this week: the value and limits of advice, faith, personal boundaries, and how trauma and upbringing shape the relationships we choose (and tolerate).

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

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1. Opening Banter: Life in Brazil, Language, & Yoga Culture

[02:50 - 13:31]

• Gabriel’s Rio Adventures: Gabe describes his time in Rio and Florianopolis, reflecting on the perceived danger vs. his own relaxed experience, the friendliness of locals, and the ease of learning Portuguese through daily interactions and yoga classes in Portuguese.

• Yoga Mishap:

  • Memorable Moment – Gabe recounts a shocking yoga class incident where another student broke his leg:
    “I just hear this pop. … It was worse than a pop. It was like a snap, like a loud snap.” – [06:12]
    This leads to a discussion about how to respond to emergencies amid language barriers and cultural differences.

• Language & Culture:

  • Gabe muses on the challenges of intervening in emergencies abroad when language skills are shaky, and how that affects a sense of belonging.
  • Quote: “If you break your leg in your hometown yoga studio, you don’t really need—want some gringo and a quebenito hat in your face being like, ‘You bad mi call ambulance come.’” – Jordan [10:17]

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2. The Mailbag, Part 1: Religious Counseling – Varied Experiences

[14:53 - 42:00]

Letter 1: Leaving Faith, Finding Self

[16:24 - 23:15]

• Summary:

  • A woman shares how religious counseling (with her church’s pastor and his wife) offered only “trite and condemning” advice when she questioned her marriage and faith—her doubts met with suggestions to “pray and maybe have some chocolate.”
    • Quote: “I shared that I had deep misgivings about why I got married … the response was that I should pray and maybe have some chocolate because it’s probably just my hormones.”
  • Ultimately, she felt validated by leaving the relationship and, after pain and social loss—including excommunication—found a better path for herself.

• Jordan’s Take:

  • “It is not easy to interrogate the beliefs you grow up with … but it’s incredibly important if only to know that you are truly choosing your belief system.” – [21:54]
  • They riff on “pastor and wife” counseling teams as well-meaning but unequipped, doling out “Bible verses and thought-terminating clichés like candy.”

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Letter 2: Biblical Counseling vs. Christian Counseling

[26:16 - 42:00]

• Summary:

  • A listener explains the distinctions:

    • Christian counseling: A licensed, clinical approach where the counselor happens to be Christian, but may diverge only if advice contradicts scripture.
    • Biblical counseling: Strictly founded on the Bible, often unregulated and “wild west.”

  • Notable Quote:
    “The other big thing was that the counselor got right to the heart of the problem, which only a biblical counselor knows and believes to do.” – Letter Writer [29:47]

• Jordan & Gabe’s Analysis:

  • They query the claim that only biblical counselors can get to the root.
    • Jordan: “Dr. Margolis from Stanford doesn’t know and believe that she needs to get to the root of problems with her patients?” [30:32]
  • They highlight the risks of seeking support in unregulated spaces and the opportunity cost of not choosing professional, evidence-based therapy.
  • Jordan: “When you say, I will only work with people who believe what I believe … you’re already in an echo chamber.” [41:04]
  • They caution about echo chambers and advocate for “making the frame as big as possible” in therapy.

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Letter 3: The Pastor’s Perspective – Collaboration not Competition

[45:51 - 52:06]

• Summary:
  • A Lutheran pastor thanks Jordan and Gabe for their recommendation that a listener seek professional counseling rather than only church-based guidance, validating their approach.
  • Stresses the importance of pastors “staying in their lane” and not pretending to be licensed therapists.
    • Quote: “I give great life advice and I know scripture … But I am not a trained counselor. It is different. … That’s not to say that a trained pastor can’t do awful things … But some pastors don’t have training, don’t understand confidentiality, don’t understand their state’s mandatory reporting laws, and so on.” [46:57]
  • He values collaboration with mental health professionals and encourages members to ask questions, “wrestle with convictions … so faith can withstand questioning.”

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3. The Mailbag, Part 2: Your Boyfriend’s Wrath Is Blocking Your Path

[56:46 - 88:55]

Letter 4: Life with an Explosive Partner

[56:46 - end]

• Summary:

  • A woman (“Starting to breathe hard...”) is in a relationship with a man prone to intense, unpredictable, and frequent rage episodes (suspected BPD, bipolar, history of addiction and trauma, estranged from wealthy family).
  • She describes chaotic incidents: her boyfriend losing jobs or housing due to outbursts, self-medicating, being verbally abusive to her and others, and her own coping strategies (Al Anon, codependency classes, jiu jitsu).
    • Quote: “When he’s in a great mood, he is charismatic and funny. But when he’s suddenly triggered … he can immediately morph into the most verbally abusive and oppositionally defiant six foot four boy you ever did see.” [64:46]
  • She balances empathy for his trauma with concern for her safety and future, and seeks tips for better boundaries and de-escalation.

• Jordan & Gabe’s Response:

  • They analyze the deep-rooted reasons for her tolerance: her own traumatic upbringing (violent, chaotic mother), sense of mastery over chaos, the familiar dynamic of managing instability.
  • Quote from Jordan: “What this listener is doing is lighting a fire in her home … and then going, hey, guys, do you have any tips on fireproofing the house?” [75:04]
  • They emphasize: while her coping skills are impressive, they see her desensitization as a red flag; question what payoff she gets from the cycle of chaos/repair; and suggest the real growth lies in understanding, not tolerating, this dynamic further.
  • Gabe: “Their respective traumas seem to have created the ideal sockets for their puzzle pieces to fit into. … These two people didn’t just happen to meet and fall in love and stick together with this particular form of crazy.” [84:08]
  • Practical Insight: Recognize the difference between surviving and thriving; therapy may help to identify whether this template is worth continuing and what she’s truly getting from it.

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• On Yoga Mishap & Culture Shock:
  “What do you do? Do you keep working out? Do you walk over and check on the person? Do you give them space? Do you just sit there and hold good thoughts for them?” – Gabe [08:06]

• On Religious Counseling:
  “Absolutely never. Not a thing. This is God’s will.” – Letter Writer, on a pastor’s response to marital doubts [19:05]

• Therapy vs. Biblical Counseling:
  “When you say, I will only work with people who believe what I believe … you’re already in an echo chamber”. – Jordan [41:04]

• On Self-Deception & Trauma Patterns:
  “My impression of you, based on your letter, you’re a high functioning, very self aware, very resourceful person with some very profound wounds. … I’m also very concerned, for obvious reasons, about some of the choices that have required you to manage things in that way. Namely just the choice to be with a guy like this.” – Jordan [75:29]

• On Trauma & Relationship Patterns:
  “The parallels are almost one to one. She was raised by an unstable giant. She’s partnered now with an unstable giant.” – Jordan [84:13]

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Key Timestamps for Important Segments

| Segment | Timestamp | |-------------------------------------------------------|-------------| | Opening Banter: Life in Brazil & Yoga Incident | 02:50-13:31 | | Mailbag 1: Religious Counseling Letters | 14:53-42:00 | | Letter 1: Leaving Faith & Chocolate Advice | 16:24-23:15 | | Letter 2: Christian vs. Biblical Counseling | 26:16-42:00 | | Letter 3: Pastor’s Take on Faith & Therapy | 45:51-52:06 | | Mailbag 2: The Wrathful Boyfriend Letter | 56:46-88:55 | | Jordan & Gabe’s In-depth Analysis of the Relationship | 75:29-89:33 |

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Closing Thoughts

The episode’s throughline is the tension between endurance and transformation—whether in faith, therapy, or relationships. Jordan and Gabe model vulnerability, reflection, and humility about their own biases, and encourage listeners to examine not just what they believe, but why—and to question what patterns they’re living out, willingly or unconsciously. The mailbag’s last letter, both harrowing and instructive, is a powerful illustration of how early trauma shapes our sense of what’s acceptable in love—and of the difference between coping and healing.

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Recurring Themes

• The difference between seeking advice as validation vs. as a pathway to growth.
• The challenge—and, sometimes, the necessity—of stepping outside one’s echo chamber.
• The lasting impact of childhood trauma and learned patterns on adult relationships.
• The power (and limits) of resilience in the face of chaos.

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For more detailed advice and additional resources (including recommendations on therapy, codependency groups, and boundary-setting), listen to the full episode.
Next: [1332: Should You Break Up to Spare Him Your Baggage?]

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Transcript

[A]

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[B]

Hey sweetie. Your mother showed me this Carvana thing

[A]

for selling the car. I'm gonna give it a try.

[B]

Wish me luck.

[A]

Me again. I put in the license plate. It gave me an offer.

[B]

Unbelievable.

[A]

Okay, I accepted the offer.

[B]

They're picking it up Tuesday from the driveway.

[A]

I haven't even left my chair. It's done. The car is gone. I'm holding a check anyway.

[B]

Carvana, give it a whirl. Love ya.

[A]

So good you'll want to leave a voicemail about it.

[B]

Sell your car today on Carvana. Pick up fees may apply.

[A]

This episode is brought to you by Lufthansa. Lufthansa Allegris is an innovative elevated travel experience across all classes, focusing on each person with their own individual and situational needs. Look forward to your own feel good moment above the clouds. Visit lufthansa.com and search for Allegris to learn more. Lufthansa Allegris. All it takes is a yes. Welcome to Feedback Friday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. As always, I'm here with Feedback Friday producer, my bromad with a notepad, Gabriel Mizrahi. 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 and those around you. And our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker. During the week we have long form conversations with a variety of amazing folks. Gold smugglers, Russian spies, astronauts, rocket scientists. This week we had Javier Leyva on why we Obey. The psychology behind why people fall for. I don't even know if you can call it pranks. They're so harmful. Phone calls and scams. We also did a skeptical Sunday last Sunday on Psychic Detectives, which is about as real as you might expect. On Fridays, though, we share stories, take listener letters, offer advice, play obnoxious sound bites, and climb the favela caliber mountains of your most trying and intimidating life conundrum. Hey, guys, it's producer Jace here. If you want to skip Gabe's thoughts on Brazilian street muggins and the story of the weirdest yoga class of his life, you can take a vinyasa and jump straight to 30 minutes and 30 seconds. Namaste. Speaking of which, Gabe, you're still in Rio?

[B]

Yep, still in Rio. I'm heading to Florianopolis tomorrow, though.

[A]

I've heard good things. It looks really stunning, actually.

[B]

Yeah, I'm really looking forward to it. I already found a good yoga teacher through a friend of mine, and I got this Airbnb on a country estate of some kind with a cat who lives there.

[A]

So.

[B]

Okay, things are looking up.

[A]

That is so right up your alley. All you need.

[B]

Also, as much as I've enjoyed it here in Rio, it will be nice to not worry about being mugged for at least a week, maybe two.

[A]

That's what everyone says about Rio, including people from Rio. That I know. But do you actually feel like you're in danger there or is it just, you know, that you are?

[B]

Honestly, dude, I don't. Okay, I don't at all. But I can't tell if I'm being naive or the danger's overstated or the danger is real, but people just don't mess with me. I really have no idea. Maybe they see the yoga mat sticking out of my backpack and they're like, eh, better leave that one alone.

[A]

They see it's a manduka and they just go running for the hills.

[B]

Exactly. It's that eco friendly rubber really chucks people. But yeah, everyone I meet here keeps telling me not to use my phone when I'm on the street or by the beach. And they're all like, watch your back as anything could happen. People roll up on motorcycles, grab phones. I assume they know better than I do. I just got here. I am doing all those things, but I honestly, I just don't feel that edge that you feel in dangerous cities at all. And I'm tired of having to keep an eye out all the time.

[A]

Yeah, I get that you can't completely relax when you can't even leave your phone on the table while you're eating or in your hand. It's nice to be able to turn off that Part of your brain for sure.

[B]

But I really did like it here. I think I learned more Portuguese in 10 days in Rio than I did in like a month or more in Portugal. Or maybe just my Portuguese made a bigger leap here than it did there.

[A]

It's a good feeling. Is it because of the people you think, or what?

[B]

I think it's the people, yeah. I'm finding them very friendly for the most part. Maybe I'm also more open now after traveling a bunch. The accent is way easier to understand. They actually open their mouth and enunciate, so it's a little bit easier to learn. And I've been meeting Brazilians who don't speak English, so there's that.

[A]

Yeah, there it is. The best way to learn, get some local friends, get a long haired dictionary. Know what I'm saying? You'll be watching City of God without subtitles in no time.

[B]

Also, the yoga studio I've been going to. The classes there are all in Portuguese, so that has been a game changer.

[A]

Oh, yeah. Now you can order up dog and down dog in any restaurant.

[B]

Exactly. My favorite dishes. Yeah, hitting that duolingasana. You learn a lot of good words in yoga. You learn, you know, like stretch, turn, lift your leg, right elbow, left knee, stuff like that. But I'm also learning words that I will never use, like butterfly and pretzel.

[A]

I mean, I feel like you might use those words. It's not that weird.

[B]

I'm not really a pretzel guy. I guess that's why I said that.

[A]

Gabe, most people like joy. That's really the big difference here.

[B]

Oh, yes. I have heard about this.

[A]

Phrases like warm pretzel, pretty butterfly, they come in handy for some people.

[B]

Yeah. And phrases like, can I get a prison cot for one? Do not. I always forget that.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, it's okay. I suppose you'll learn one day.

[B]

Oh, yeah. Oh, dude. The weirdest thing happened at yoga the other day. I wanted to tell you about this.

[A]

What happened? You forgot to take a shirtless selfie afterwards and post it.

[B]

Much weirder than that. So we were like 10 minutes into this class. It was a heated class and we were still warming up. It was very chill. Not a hard class, not a crazy class whatsoever. And all of a sudden I just hear this pop.

[A]

Oh, in your leg?

[B]

No, not me. Across the room. Oh, no, Actually, pop is not the right word. It was worse than a pop. It was like a snap, like a loud snap.

[A]

Oh, that's ouch. Oh, no.

[B]

And then a man in the back row Started crying, Like, sobbing and groaning. It was so awful. Yeah. One of the worst sounds I think I've ever heard in real life.

[A]

So, what, did he just tear his ACL somehow, or. I don't even understand what you could do.

[B]

That was my first thought, because that can happen if you rotate your knee too far in a pose or you force it into a weird position or whatever. But it was so loud, I was like, how does an ACL make that sound? And it turned out he broke his. I don't know if it was his tibia or his femur, but he broke his leg.

[A]

Oh, my God. In yoga.

[B]

In yoga, dude. I have no idea how you do that, but he did it.

[A]

Yeah. So he. I don't know. He pushed his leg too far in a stretch or something. I mean, it seems like it shouldn't be that easy to do that when you're not moving, but I don't know.

[B]

I actually Googled it because I was curious, and they said it's extremely hard to do, but maybe he already had a stress fracture or. He was a young guy, though, so I don't think he had osteoporosis, but it's possible it was just waiting to happen. Or he already had an injury, but it was so intense. I felt so bad. It was really hard to hear him moaning on the floor and just crying. It was also a little bit awkward as well, because the teacher went over to check on him, and then class kind of stopped for about five minutes, maybe longer. And I was sitting there in the. I think we were, like, in a twisting lunge or something, and I was like, do we sit down? Do you stay in the pose and wait? Is that weird?

[A]

Yeah, that's weird.

[B]

Rubbing it in this guy's face. What's the protocol here?

[A]

Oh, were you trying to do this, pal? As your arm goes up a little bit higher and you bend your wrist back, was this what you were aiming at when you broke your leg while standing in yoga? That's fine. I'm sure that was actually the last thing on his mind as he's like, hey, am I gonna be able to walk again and do this? And super embarrassing, too.

[B]

I know, but really, what do you do? Do you keep working out? Do you walk over and check on the person? Do you give them space? Do you just sit there and hold good thoughts for them? I kind of did all those things.

[A]

You know what they need? They need those Japanese guys who bring out the barricades at the Olympics.

[B]

What is this? I'm not familiar with this.

[A]

Oh, you. Oh, dude, you've never seen this. Okay, so in Japan, I want to say it was Japan during the Olympics. You watch like powerlifting or something. You. An athlete gets injured, they go down and they're like, ah. And everyone's like, oh, my God. And then normally in every other country, the coaches run over and there's medical personnel and stuff. And the audience is just kind of like, dang, that guy got injured. Right. And then you're watching in Japan, a whole crew of dudes comes out with basically like a folding barricade, kind of like a folding table situation, but long. And they put it around the injured person and all the staff so nobody else can really see what's going on.

[B]

Oh, like when they're doing construction on the 405?

[A]

Yeah, yeah, pretty much, yeah.

[B]

Interesting. I've never heard of this.

[A]

Yeah, it's funny because they do this kind of. It's like an awkward shuffle because they're carrying this thing. And they also. They don't like, sprint in because other people are walking in that are more important, like medical personnel. And they set this thing up and it sounded like a South park ish kind of looking thing.

[B]

That's exactly what I was picturing. Like a 2D animation.

[A]

Yeah. The audience just can't see what's happening. And they're just very calm. Right. They're like. And here are the injury guys. They're not like, oh my goodness. They're just completely stoic. And they set up these barricades.

[B]

This is to give the person privacy.

[A]

Yeah, it's very Japanese. Somehow they give them privacy. Maybe there's a dignity element because you're on the ground. You're like, waaah. Cause your leg is dislocated from your knee or something. You know, you've separated your hip socket or whatever, lifting a ton of weight or your shoulders. So they just. Yeah, I get it. It's probably nice. You're like, oh, not everybody's watching me. There's not a camera in my face. Like, hey, how you doing over there? Nobody can take a photo of it.

[B]

That is Japan for you.

[A]

Yes, definitely.

[B]

Yeah, I guess the yoga studio could use some of those. Hilarious. But it's weird because my Portuguese is still pretty shaky, as you know. So I didn't go over there and check on him because I didn't know how to say, like, are you okay, dude? Do you need me to call someone? Can I get you something? Actually, I guess I do know how to say those things now that I think about It. But in the moment, I froze and I didn't want to overstep and then mess up my words.

[A]

No, it makes sense. I think if you break your leg in your hometown yoga studio, you don't really need. Want some gringo and a quebenito hat in your face? Being like, you bad mi call ambulance come.

[B]

Like, I love that. That's how you think I sound in Portuguese, but you are not wrong. That's how it sounds to them. If it were. Yeah, leg no funciona. I think the man was in enough pain, I was just gonna leave him alone.

[A]

Yeah. Meanwhile, he's like, you know, oh, good, I'm glad you asked. And he tells you something and you're like, hang on, I only understood half of what he said. Can you say that slower?

[B]

Yeah, let me get my translator, make a Google Translate. Say that again.

[A]

I gotta load this app that understands you. Yeah, look, I remember living in other countries, you don't speak the language very well. It's not just not having the words. It's like you don't really know how to participate in certain things. You see someone fall and you go to help them up and they're talking to you and you're like, I don't really understand.

[B]

You don't know how to participate, and you also don't know if you're truly welcome to. But if this happened in America, I'm pretty sure I would have gone over there and at least tried to help. Are you okay? What can I do? And instead I just sat there quietly in child's pose and wished him well in my head in English.

[A]

So what, did they cancel class and just cart him out or what?

[B]

No, some people helped him limp out of the room and I guess he went to the hospital. And then the teacher resumed class and a few minutes later we all seemed to forget that a guy just snapped his leg in half in the beginning of year. It was kind of bizarre, actually.

[A]

Yeah. Funny how that works. But it's also like, I can't do anything about this and I'm already here and I already paid for the class, so let's get down to business.

[B]

Yeah, now he has to just get a doctor. I guess it was funny because afterward the teacher was downstairs eating fruit from some kind of breakfast spread in the lobby of the studio. Which, by the way, another thing I love about doing yoga in other countries because in Europe and Brazil, I've noticed that they serve tea after class at a lot of studios and apparently also breakfast sometimes, which I've never seen that's

[A]

way to make us look bad. Take notes. Core power. I've never had a snack there.

[B]

Literally. Dude, can you imagine? Never charge you for water. So I was like, yes. Hey, I popped out. I was like, hey, thanks for class. Hope that guy's okay in Portuguese. And she was like, yeah, I'm teaching a handstand workshop at the Botafogo location next Saturday, if you want to come. And I just froze and just buffered for a few seconds. I think I know what she said, but I'm not 100% sure. And then, you know, I just said, like, okay, cool, thank you. And in my head I was like, okay, I'm going to go Google half those words later and decide if they apply to me at all. Which it turns out they kind of do. But I had other plans. And then I went to a cafe and I prepped the show.

[A]

It's. Oh, man, I hope that guy's okay. Should be. Anyway, it's $20 a person and it starts at 1pm that's literally what it was.

[B]

I was like, I hope that man survives.

[A]

And she was like, we'll never see him again. But you, on the other hand, can make it to my handstand workshop in Botofoco on Saturday morning.

[B]

You look like a man who needs to work on his inversions.

[A]

Am I right? Gosh, who needs duolingo when you have emergencies happening around you all the time?

[B]

It is a trial by fire every single day.

[A]

Don't break your shin in yoga. Your travel stories must continue. I genuinely worry about what would happen to the show if you couldn't work out. I feel like. I think my performance on this podcast would go down. If I couldn't be physically. I would just, yeah, be kind of a mess.

[B]

It is not pretty when I can't work out.

[A]

No.

[B]

I've been thinking about that ever since that happened. I will be careful. I promise.

[A]

I have this recurring nightmare where I can't use my legs anymore and I have to redo my entire workout.

[B]

Ah, interesting.

[A]

Here's what's interesting about it. Before I started working out, I had this dream or nightmare that I lost the use of my legs. And it was like my life was just over. I was so upset and sad, and it was like I had to install wheelchair ramps. And I was embarrassed. Cause I would go to do something for my kids or family, and I was the guy who was in the. And then when I started working out, the dream totally changed. I would lose the use of my legs and I would be like, all right, Chad, my trainer, I'd be like, we have to redo all these exercises. Cause I can't do leg stuff anymore. And I'm just gonna get a super jacked upper body and be. That guy walks in on his hands in the kid's class, and everyone's laughing and cheering.

[B]

You use a handstand workshop.

[A]

Yeah, you need a handstand workshop. But it's kind of funny because the dream changed to this much more empowering version where my life merely changes in a material way, but not for the worse. Whereas before, it was like a massive downgrade and I was just depressed about it, and then I'd wake up.

[B]

That says a lot about how far you've come and also, like, how important working out is to you.

[A]

Exactly. Love that. Exactly. Like, I just feel like I can fix anything. If I can lose 50 pounds of fat and get strong at age 40, I could survive not being able to walk. Like, it's just. You just change things. It's 20, 26. It's not the end anymore. Yeah. All right. So all that to say no pretzels for you, Butterfly.

[B]

Yeah. Percibido.

[A]

Mano. All right, let's dive on in. Gabe, what is the first thing out of the mailbag? Mano.

[B]

So about a month ago, on episode 1313, we took a letter from a listener who was asking why we. Well, mostly I. I guess on that one, steered another listener away from religious counseling. The listener he was referring to, just to remind everybody, was this woman who had terminated a pregnancy unnecessarily because she was very afraid of having a special needs child. She's religious, she's a Christian. She's struggling to talk to other people in her community about this. And so when she wrote in, I said, I would look for a therapist who's outside of your community. And this guy wrote in asking why we would tell a listener to turn away from her faith at precisely the moment she needed it most. And I clarified on that recent episode that I was not suggesting she turn away from her faith at all. Just that I wasn't sure she was going to receive the true therapy she needed. And also, hopefully, a more objective point of view from a pastor at her church.

[A]

Right. And that opened up a larger discussion about the risks of religious counseling, how it can often have an agenda or be way less rigorous or not be carried out with the same ethics and standards as, you know, clinical, licensed psychotherapy.

[B]

Yes. So after we took that letter, I got three fascinating letters from listeners who all had very different experiences with religious counseling. And so I wanted to share them because they're fascinating and I think they're also going to help round out the picture a little bit more and hopefully balance out some of our own biases or limited experience in this domain.

[A]

I love it. Three for one deal on religious counseling today.

[B]

So here's the first one. Hi guys, I just listened to episode 1313, then listened to the OG episode and it was honestly thought it was very balanced. Your response in this latest episode got me thinking about a time in my own life when I was deeply connected to a faith and faith community and I sought a religious counselor's help. I grew up in a very conservative, non denominational Christian household. In the 90s and early 2000s I could spend hours exploring that background, but when I was in my late 20s I had a real awakening when I went off hormonal birth control. Shout out to your episodes on that topic. By the way, that was the interview with Dr. Sarah Hill, episodes 1031 and 1032 and I realized I made a mistake in marrying who I did right out of college. The relationship was not abusive or anything extremely bad, just probably not the person I would have chosen had my brain not been influenced by the birth control. I also had a real crisis of faith and questioned everything from the marriage to my desire for children to Do I believe what I say I do? Or is this just me trying to please my parents and pretending about everything? During that period of about six months, my husband and I ended up, quote unquote, going to counseling, which was just meeting with a pastor and his wife from our church. I don't want to say anything negative about them because they are truly lovely people who genuinely care and are good examples of what a pastor can be. I went into these meetings questioning the efficacy of figuring out what was going on in my head and my marriage, but was genuinely open to changing my mind about the conclusion that I felt was inevitably coming. What I found was that when I opened up about my questions, emotions, doubts, etc. I received responses that seemed trite and condemning. For example, I shared that I had deep misgivings about why I got married in the first place to this guy, even though there was nothing objectively wrong with him. The response was that I should pray and maybe have some chocolate because it's probably just my hormones taking over my emotions.

[A]

Okay, yes, pray and maybe have some chocolate. I believe that's the current gold standard therapy for an existential crisis.

[B]

I'm just trying to imagine how this conversation went down. Listen guys, I don't know if I married the right person and they're like, we understand three Hail Marys and two Toblerones.

[A]

Yeah, seriously. Hey, I'm not sure if I believe in all this or if I'm just trying to please my parents. That sounds like a 70% cacao problem to me. Look, I hear you that they're lovely people. I'm sure they were doing their best.

[B]

Yeah, probably more naive than nefarious based on what we're hearing.

[A]

I think so. But still, it's crazy.

[B]

I asked if they ever had misgivings about who they married after the wedding. Their response? Absolutely never. Not a thing. This is God's will. Said with a weird smile and head nod. This from a religious woman who also had a Bible verse to share for everything. After about three or four of these conversations, both together and individually, I felt like we weren't making any progress. And it became clearer and clearer to me that this marriage was done and not what was best for either of us. These counseling sessions just further showed me that my thoughts and actions were aligning much more with who I was versus what I had been pretending to be most of my life. I didn't seek any other therapy, which honestly, maybe I should have looking back. But at the same time I felt a lot of clarity and conviction in the steps I took to dissolve things. Even though it was hard, I know I quote unquote let down lots of people through this process. I lost pretty much all of my friends from college and the church. Took a few years to really repair my relationship with my parents, and I was formally excommunicated by this church man.

[A]

That must have been very intense. Very hard. Sorry to hear that.

[B]

At the same time, it was liberating to finally express doubt in the face of extreme communal pressure and then to step out onto my own path.

[A]

I bet. Well done, my friend. It takes real courage to be clear. I don't mean giving up your faith. I know people are going to hear it that way. I mean to ask tough questions when other people aren't and forge your own path. I just think that's so important.

[B]

But I don't think this is how everyone's story goes. I did see examples of couples and individuals who sought church counselors and then seemed to stay in the fold, as it were. So just like with any sort of therapy, I suspect there can be good and bad gleaned from whatever path you take. It may help, it may muddy things a bit, it might bring new things to light. But we shouldn't be afraid to raise our hands and say, hey, I need help thinking through this thing. Even if it is ugly and hard to face. But then to also be brave enough to say this path isn't working so well for me. Let me try a different one.

[A]

Amen to all that.

[B]

It did take my parents some time to accept that I wasn't on the same spiritual path and to embrace my now husband. But seven plus years and two grandkids later, our relationship is stronger than ever.

[A]

That's great. I love to hear that.

[B]

And then finds those lessons she can carry forward and apply in her life down the road. Thank you amigos. Have a great weekend. Signed a gal who learned to be true when she bit off more both doctrine and chocolate than she could chew.

[A]

Great story, Gabe. These letters you're reading in this segment, I'm getting the sense that they're mostly going to speak for themselves.

[B]

I think. So I don't have a ton to add. I would actually kind of love to let our listeners do the teaching on this one because this is all new information for us.

[A]

That sounds good to me. The only thing I want to say about this one is it is not easy to interrogate the beliefs you grow up with. Religious, political, cultural, whatever they are. But it's incredibly important if only to know that you are truly choosing your belief system. It sounds like she made the right call here. Certainly separating from a person who simply wasn't right for her. And I'm happy that she did. It sounds like that led to a lot of joy, a happier marriage, more integrity, this very full life and also

[B]

an opportunity for her parents to get to know her as the person she is, not the person she was pretending to be for their sake. Which I think is very powerful for sure.

[A]

It's just really awesome to hear. And the other thing I just have to say is I feel like these husband and wife pastor team that is just a new breed of Lydia, man.

[B]

Totally dude. Lydia and Lydia over here.

[A]

Yeah. Doling out Bible verses and thought terminating cliches like candy. And what's interesting is that the whole

[B]

and then also doling out literal candy to fix deep seated problems.

[A]

Exactly. That will never not make me laugh. I know they're decent people. They probably thought she needed an aphrodisiac or something because they have just an insanely simplistic view of relationships. But I love that they were trying to solve her genuine spiritual and romantic crisis with a flipping Baby Ruth. That is just hilarious to me. Adding these two to the Feedback Friday pantheon as well. Grandmaster Carlos, Lydia and Lydia.

[B]

Yeah, speaking of candy, you want to unwrap the next one?

[A]

Yep, let's do it right after a quick ad break, you know it'll fix your marriage faster than a dime store chocolate bar. The sweet deals and discounts on the fine products and services that support this show. We'll be right back. This episode is also sponsored in part by BetterHelp. Everybody's got stuff no matter where you are in life, how successful you look on paper, or how well you think you're holding it all together, challenges come for all of us and you don't have to just white knuckle your way through it. BetterHelp is now accepting insurance in many states with average co pays around 23 bucks. I've been using BetterHelp for years now and therapy has become non negotiable for me. Working with a licensed professional helps me stay grounded, get out of my own mental spin cycle, handle life like a reasonably sane adult. Which is good news for everyone around me. Just fill out a quick questionnaire, check your coverage in minutes and they help you match with a licensed therapist based on what you need. They've served more than 6 million people globally, me included, and members rate live sessions an average of 4.9 out of 5 based on over 1.7 million client reviews. BetterHelp is in network with major health plans like UnitedHealthcare, Cigna, Aetna and more, with average copays around $23 for eligible members. Fill out the questionnaire and check your coverage [e-mail] Jordan that's betterhelp.com Jordan average copay is based on eligible members. Actual cost and coverage may vary by plan. This episode is also sponsored by chime. Traditional banks can make it feel really hard to get ahead financially. You're trying to save, trying to budget, build a little cushion. And then here comes the monthly fees, the overdraft fees, the ATM fees. It feels like you're getting charged for not having enough money, which is exactly when you need help the most. Bank fees are literally one of my biggest pet peeves. I've gone through hoops to get those frivolous charges removed. I've. I've stormed out of banks with all of my money before. That's why Chime is built differently. Chime is changing the way people bank with more rewarding fee free banking that is designed for real life, not just people who already have a ton of money sitting around. Honestly, my younger self would have benefited a lot from Chime. Getting paid early with direct deposit, avoiding ridiculous fees, having access to thousands of fee free ATMs. Tools like Spot Me that can help eligible members overdraft up to 200 bucks fee free. That stuff can make a real difference when you're trying to stay on top of things. Chime is rated 5 stars by USA Today for customer service. Real Humans 24.7chime is not just smarter banking. It is the most rewarding way to bank. Join the millions who are already banking fee free today. Head to chime.com jhs that's chime.com jhs it only takes a few minutes to sign up. Chime is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services and debit card provided by the Bancorp Bank NA or Stride Bank NA members, FDIC Spot and eligibility requirements and overdraft limits apply. Timing depends on submission of payment file fees apply at out of network ATM, bank and number of ATMs according to US News and World Report. 2023 time checking account required. By the way, if you haven't signed up yet, check out our newsletter, Wee Bitwiser. It's 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 the show and apply it to your life, I invite you to come check it out. Jordanharbinger.com News is where you can find it. All right, what's next?

[B]

Hey, Jordan and Gabe. One of my sisters, Katie, had a terrible postpartum experience when her first child was born two years ago and a friend's church offered biblical counseling, which is different from Christian counseling. In case you don't know, Christian counseling is largely just like secular counseling, but the practitioner happens to be a Christian. It's based on the same worldview. They go to the same schools with the same philosophy and largely follow the same process, only diverging from standard secular practice where it directly contradicts God's word.

[A]

Gabe, is that true?

[B]

I don't know. If she's describing licensed therapists in America anyway who happen to be Christian, then I would be extremely surprised if this were true. If they ignored professional duties and like best practices, when something a patient says or a topic that comes up goes against their faith, I mean, I'm sure it happens, but I'm just shocked to hear this.

[A]

Same here. That surprised me. But if this does happen a lot or a little, that one little difference would change the quote unquote same process dramatically, would it not? I mean, if a patient talks about, I don't know, being gay at that point, does the Therapist go, okay, well, my training taught me to accept people and let the patient drive. But now this contradicts God's word, and I have to encourage abstinence and try to convince them that they're straight again.

[B]

I would be very surprised if most licensed Christian therapists would do that, but I guess it's possible that they might frame things in terms of ethics, or maybe they would invite certain concepts into session. If the patient hopefully is open to that. I really want to believe that they would still put the patient first and they wouldn't lead with their agenda, though. But who knows? I don't know.

[A]

I'm also puzzled by this, because what is God's word? People disagree about that all the time. Christian scholars in the same denomination, they disagree about this all the time. So what counts as a contradiction? Doesn't that really just depend on the counselor's personal religious beliefs at that point?

[B]

Very good point. And what's the difference between a contradiction and attention? When does a patient go against Scripture? And when are they, like, appropriately challenging it?

[A]

This is very complicated, man. I really want to hear the rest of this story before I draw too many conclusions. So let's keep going.

[B]

Fair enough. So she goes on. Biblical counseling, the kind my sister sought out, is entirely different because its foundation is the Bible and it leans on what it says to guide the process, particularly regarding the nature of mankind.

[A]

Okay, so this is more like what Lydia and Lydia were doing, which is like, nope, it's the word of God. Next. Next question.

[B]

The fact that both Katie and her counselor started out in full agreement on several basic truths streamlined the process quite a bit. But Katie said the most important thing was that she learned about the service from a mutual friend of the counselor. So there was some automatic trust there, coupled with significant distance from her own social network, which she wouldn't have had going anywhere else.

[A]

Okay, I don't quite understand. She wouldn't have had privacy and trust by going to a Christian therapist who is bound by confidentiality. Of course she would have.

[B]

I think she meant if she had gone to any other biblical counselor, because it would have been too close.

[A]

So is that a feature or is that just a bug?

[B]

Interesting question. So she goes on. She doesn't think she would have ended up getting help anywhere if it hadn't been for that recommendation. She was just so vulnerable and ashamed. Irrationally, of course. But that was the problem, and we're all so glad she tried it.

[A]

I see. I mean, that makes some sense. So a lot of layers to this.

[B]

The other big thing Was that the counselor got right to the heart of the problem, which only a biblical counselor knows and believes to do.

[A]

That's what's going on here. Only a biblical counselor knows and believes it's important to get to the heart of a person's problem. Is that what she's saying?

[B]

I don't know if she meant in general or if she meant in contrast to these other more mainstream Christian counsel,

[A]

but either way, yeah, either way that's just not true. I'm so confused. I want to be open here. I genuinely do. I know we're doing this to learn, but does our friend truly believe that only counselors who are approaching people through the lens of the Bible know and believe it's important to get to the root of a problem. Dr. Margolis from Stanford doesn't know and believe that she needs to get to the root of problems with her patients.

[B]

This raises another question, which is how a biblical counselor defines the heart of a problem.

[A]

Yeah. If a patient tells them, hey, I might be gay, is the heart of the problem that they're not straight? Or that their family might not accept them? Or they might be wrestling with shame about it, or they might be in danger or just that, hey, they're doing something that's against the Bible? Boom, mic drop. See you next week or just never again. The problem is you're not living according to the Bible. Bye. That worries me.

[B]

And if they believe in getting to the heart of the matter, are they then guiding the conversation very quickly to that heart in like a heavy handed way with an agenda?

[A]

Well, sure. In a way that doesn't foreground the patient. Exactly.

[B]

And in a way that might not focus as much on like, empathy, trust, the relationship. Although I'm guessing a biblical counselor would probably say, hey, I empathize with my congregationists, but I'm here to solve a problem and these are the tools that I have.

[A]

Yeah. But then I would ask, is that truly therapy?

[B]

Katie said it was frustrating at first because she just wanted the days to get easier. And when you start at the root, it takes a bit longer to see the change. But of course, that's the only way for the change to last. And she and the baby are doing great now. She says the counseling helped her immensely.

[A]

Okay. I'm glad she feels it was helpful. I genuinely am. I'm not minimizing anyone's growth through this kind of counseling. I just have a lot of questions about whether this is actually therapy as I see it.

[B]

The whole question of when to seek out what kind of Help rests on whether you believe the Bible is true. If you believe the Bible is true, talking to a biblical counselor and following their advice is a good way to put that belief into practice. And from what I understand, putting one's beliefs into practice is a necessary component of happiness.

[A]

Putting one's beliefs, beliefs into practice is a necessary component of happiness. Huh. Okay.

[B]

Another very interesting stance.

[A]

I mean, I know tons of people who live passionately by their beliefs, religious or otherwise, who are totally miserable, but whatever.

[B]

Yeah, fair point. Also depends on the beliefs in question, I imagine. But okay, we digress.

[A]

Let's keep going. I think people get the idea here. Yeah.

[B]

If you do not believe the Bible is true, then I see no reason to go to a biblical counselor at all. Outside of curiosity, of course. The big threat is that you take your problem to someone in your church and they mishandle it, and then your whole social life is potentially in ruins. So I would never advise anyone to take a big leap there if they don't already have a strong, trusting relationship with someone who has proven themselves to be wise and discreet. I think it's fairly common to not have that kind of relationship within your circle of acquaintances where the stakes are incredibly high.

[A]

Okay, but we do understand that bind is precisely why professional ethics and confidentiality exist. Right? The kind of confidentiality that only a licensed clinician has a professional duty to uphold.

[B]

But biblical counseling is a largely decentralized, unregulated practice, which makes it kind of a wild west. Virtually anyone can call themselves a biblical counselor with or without wisdom or discretion.

[A]

Yeah, unregulated, thank heavens. Which means it allows and probably even attracts charlatans and bad actors and people who will mishandle your problem.

[B]

But okay, to be fair, I don't think she disagrees with that.

[A]

But that's why these agencies exist, to protect patients from people like that.

[B]

And she might say, to prevent counselors from helping people with the word of God.

[A]

And so that's a worthwhile trade off. Okay.

[B]

Presumably, for my part, I'm religious, and I've been struggling myself for some time, largely with motivation, depression, apathy, after some difficult stuff in my childhood. And the reason is that I don't obey the Bible. I keep choosing my own way instead of his. I'm miserable because my actions don't align with my beliefs.

[A]

There's that idea again.

[B]

The next time I take the plunge into counseling, it will be from one of these folks, meaning a biblical counselor, and he or she will challenge me on that and I'll hate it. But if The Lord is gracious, which he is. I'll face it and repent, and he'll fix it. Signed, getting to the bottom of how my sister healed postpartum.

[A]

Oh, that's quite an ending.

[B]

Again, I don't know how much we should dig in today.

[A]

I mean, same. Although clearly I can't help myself.

[B]

But okay, you're on one. And she's also not asking for advice, she's just kind of sharing. But yeah, this raises a lot of questions for me.

[A]

Look, despite my obvious beliefs, slash, lack thereof, I want to be clear. I really have no problem with people who seek religious counseling and find good results. I really don't. As long as the results are truly beneficial and the person is not being harmed in some way.

[B]

Dude, I'm in the same boat. There's something to learn wherever you go. I just. I keep thinking about the opportunity cost of this kind of counseling, the therapeutic experience that could have happened with a different approach, a different kind of training. Maybe more time, more space, more openness. It's not the only thing that concerns me, but it's one of the things that concerns me.

[A]

Is that a kind of harm?

[B]

Good question.

[A]

I imagine our friend here would say, of course not. This is the only true healing and it's the only healing I'm interested in.

[B]

But that doesn't mean it doesn't come at a cost.

[A]

Gabe, you know what this kind of reminds me of? I remember back when I was in college, I was like, oh, I want to find out more about Judaism. And I didn't really know what Hasidic Jews were, which is like these ultra Orthodox specific sect of Judaism. And you see them walking around with the curls and the fur hats that are kind of like this Russian looking thing in the black clothes. These are the Hasidim, right?

[B]

Black hat Jews?

[A]

Yeah, Black hat Jews, yes. And so that's what a lot of people think when they think Jews. They think all Jews are like that. And they're like, you're not Jewish, you don't have a hat, or whatever. That's what we're talking about. So I remember this guy, Rabbi J. He used to give talks. And look, he was a nice guy, he meant well. But like, I remember one person was like, hey, I want to know why bad things often seem to happen to good people. And he had this story of his sister had gotten murdered by someone. And it was this very emotional moment where he was just really vulnerable. And like, there's a lot of crying and we were all like, oh, God, I didn't know he was gonna go there, and I don't even think he even meant to go there. I think he just asked the question and then the story came out. It was upsetting and emotional, and I'll never forget this is the last time I did anything. At this particular house where we all gathered with the rabbi, he said, the reason bad things happen to good people is they're actually not good people when behind closed doors. So they've actually deserved whatever happened to them. You just didn't know what they did that caused them to deserve it.

[B]

Okay, you're sure that's what he said?

[A]

So he basically told this guy whose sister got murdered that she was actually secretly such a really bad person that God killed her or caused her to be killed.

[B]

This. Sorry, I thought the rabbi was telling the story about his own sister.

[A]

No, it was this, like, college student whose sister had recently been murdered. Yes.

[B]

And you're sure that's what the rabbi meant when he said that?

[A]

I clarified. I was like, wait a minute. And so did a lot of people, by the way, who walked out and never came back. Because we were like, wait, let me get this straight. The example he gave was, sometimes you find out that this person, they lost their job or something really bad happened to them. But what you don't know is that at home he beats up his wife and kids, and you're like, or he got fired. Because that's a thing that happens to people and it's not their fault when it doesn't mean they beat their wife. It was basically this crazy fallacy that the world is completely just. And that if something bad happens, they did something. And people were like, what about kids who get cancer? He had this crazy, drawn out spiritual explanation for why maybe they had done something or whatever. And I didn't even stick around for it. So I can't articulate it here. And it's also been 25 years, but I just remember being like, what the actual F are you talking about? This is despicably ridiculous, by the way. I'm not saying that this is what Jewish people believe. If you're Jewish and you're like, oh, my God, clarify this. We don't believe this. Or if you're not Jewish and you're like, jews believe this. I'm not qualified to opine on that. I had never heard this anywhere else before or since. This might just actually be his cockamamie interpretation of something in the literature or not even in the literature. I don't know. If you're a rabbi. Can you Please write to me and tell me why bad things happen to good people. Keep a 30,000 foot overview. Tell me if it's this or something wildly different, okay? Because that to me was so crazy. I just never went back. I was like, I am out this

[B]

story you just told, which sounds pretty absurd, I guess. I have a couple thoughts. One is people are flawed and they can say whatever they want and they can interpret their doctrine however they want. And so if that's the way this guy feels, that's the way this guy feels. It's not what I happen to know about Judaism. In fact, this question of why bad things happen to good people is one of the most interesting questions that gets explored in Judaism. I remember when I was in high school, I went to a Jewish liberal high school. Like, pretty mainstream, but Jewish. And so we had to take Jewish studies and philosophy and stuff. And I remember tackling that exact question. And the little bit we studied when we were 16 years old was much more nuanced and much more interesting than the take that you just shared with us. So I'm a little bit surprised to hear it. But again, people from all faiths can say all sorts of things. I guess it really comes down to the practitioners in question.

[A]

It does. The reason I'm bringing this up is not to be like, Jews believe this. It's to be like, wow, you could go to that guy for life advice and just find out that you're a bad person and you deserve it. Yikes. Gabe. I think I'm finding what I often find when I talk to people of faith, which is we are just talking to each other across an abyss. And actually, it's not the faith that creates the abyss. It's all the beliefs and assumptions around it. Our friend sees the world one way. She wants X set of things from life, and I see the world another way, and I want X and Y and Z and abc, whatever from life. I want somebody who calls themselves a counselor to be able to make room for all of these things for a patient. And she does it. Okay? So at a certain point, it's like, okay, we just exist in different realities, and that's okay. I'll still come over and eat casserole on Sunday.

[B]

Like we've been saying, advocating for conventional therapy is not about convincing someone not to believe what they believe. To me, it's the opposite in many ways. It's about how big can we make the frame? Can we embark on a journey that might take us to places we can't anticipate, but which will be fruitful and which will be rewarding and interesting. Instead of trying to get you to a specific answer or outcome according to the Bible, as I interpret it, can

[A]

your therapist help you grow even if you believe something different from them?

[B]

That just does not seem particularly controversial.

[A]

No. But I think we're hearing from somebody who is very committed to her beliefs. Right? And that's obviously her choice. I'm not super interested in trying to undo any of that. If she were asking for advice, I would definitely want to explore why it's been hard for her to live in alignment with her beliefs, what that says about the beliefs, and whether or not putting her beliefs into practice is actually the source of her unhappiness for real. What I do want to invite her to consider, though, is when you only seek out sources of help that align with those beliefs. When you say, I will only work with people who believe what I believe, who pull from the same sources that I do, who work in this way that I'm comfortable with, for better or for worse, you're already in an echo chamber. Any reasonable person would have to admit that. So you might meet with a biblical counselor and get something helpful from it. And if so, wonderful. That's not for me and Gabe to decide for you. But in a world where you could theoretically find a Christian therapist, a licensed clinician who is also a Christian, and get the best of both worlds, so to speak, then I do wonder why biblical counseling seems to be the only worthwhile path. So again, it's just a question. What are you looking for, from whom and why? That's a question I would just keep making room for as you seek out help. And now a quick break to pay some bills so we can keep fixing your life week after week. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Haya Health. Our kids are at an age right now where they just eat plain pasta, white bread, something shaped like a dinosaur. We get stressed out wondering how these tiny humans survive on three strawberries and a slice of plain bread. That's one of the reasons we're so thankful for Haya. It helps fill in some of the nutritional gaps without turning vitamins into candy. And a lot of kids vitamins. They are loaded with sugar and artificial junk. Haya is zero sugar, clean ingredients, and the kids actually still like taking them. The Haya bottle is fun. Kids love decorating it with the included stickers. They get excited to take their daily vitamins. Also, if your kids act personally offended by vegetables, Haya's new kids Daily grains and superfoods is kind of amazing. It's basically chocolate milk hiding a ton of nutrition. You just mix a scoop into milk or a milk alternative and suddenly your kid is drinking 55 whole food sourced ingredients without even realizing it. Hi, I'm Juni and we take High Divine Men every night. Damn, we love high vitamins. Yummy in the tummy. This episode is brought to you in part by Lufthansa. When people talk about travel, they usually focus on the destination, the hotel, the restaurants, all the stuff that happens after you land. But the flight is part of the experience too. Just like a great hotel can shape an entire trip, so can a great flight. That's exactly what Lufthansa Allegris is built around. On a long haul route, comfort matters more than people realize. If you're cramped, tired and can't relax, you feel it the second you land. But when a flight is comfortable, you can actually stretch out, rest, work, or just enjoy the ride. It changes the whole trip. I was thinking about that on my recent Intercontinental Lufthansa flight. I got so comfortable I honestly didn't want the flight to end. Which is not something you say very often after a long international trip. That's why Lufthansa Allegris stands out. It's built around the idea that people travel differently. Lufthansa Allegris Business class has five seat options. You've got the suite, the privacy seat and the extra long bed, the extra space seat and the classic seat. So you can choose what works for you. And that's what I like most. It feels elevated, but still practical. More privacy, more comfort, more thoughtful design for the way people actually travel. Now visit lufthansa.com and search for Allegris to learn more. Lufthansa Allegris. All it takes is a yes. Limited availability on select routes. More routes coming soon. This episode is sponsored in part by AT&T. You know why I love summer? All those plans we made. They finally make it out of the group chat. Seems like there's more time to fit everybody in. Whatever you've got in store this summer, capturing those memories is a must. That's why I love the iPhone 17 Pro I picked up from AT&T. Its center stage front camera auto adjusts the frame to fit everyone into group selfies. You don't even have to turn your phone. No awkward cropping or asking strangers to take it. Just the perfect group selfie every time. And AT&T makes sharing those moments with everybody easy. Because you gotta share the pic or it didn't happen right? Right now at ATT, ask how you can get iPhone 17 Pro on them with eligible iPhone trade in any condition requires trade in of iPhone 15 or higher excluding iPhone 16e and 17e requires eligible plan. Terms and restrictions apply. Subject to change. Visit att.comiphone or visit an ATT store for details. By the way, you can reach us [e-mail], keep your emails concise. Try to use descriptive subject lines. That makes our job a whole lot easier. If you're the victim of a predator who's following you across state lines, you're trying to figure out what hiring managers really think of you after a string of interview disappointments. Or you're wondering if you should break up with your amazing younger boyfriend to spare him the burden of your complicated past. Whatever's got you staying up at night lately, hit us up [e-mail], we're here to help and we keep every email anonymous. All right, now for letter number three in this extended series, I think I'm going to call Religious Counseling Kingdom of Heaven or bottomless Pit. Jury's still out, I suppose. Take it away, Gabe.

[B]

Hi Gabe and Jordan. Great episode today. The letter about whether you should have recommended a Christian counselor brought up so many thoughts and I wanted to offer a few comments regarding the woman struggling after an abortion from the perspective of a Christian pastor. Bottom line, you guys were spot on.

[A]

I gotta say, not the take I saw coming.

[B]

I would have recommended the same thing.

[A]

Great.

[B]

Abortion is a very sensitive issue and it's difficult because we don't know the woman's exact denomination. But I understand why she may be hesitant to speak with people in her church. Getting an outside voice in a professional counselor is exactly the right thing to do. As pastors, we are not trained therapists. I don't pretend to be a licensed counselor and will refer people in a heartbeat if they go down that road. I expect the same of the chaplains that I supervise in the Army. It's the whole stay in your lane thing, I think. I give great life advice and I know scripture really well, how to apply it, and the complexities of theology. But I am not a trained counselor. It is different. Different education and different skill set.

[A]

Man. Okay, this letter is giving me so much confidence in solid, responsible religious counselors and honestly, quite a bit of hope.

[B]

Totally different from Lydia.

[A]

And Lydia, yeah, just a complete 180. I'm glad this guy wrote in.

[B]

On top of that, not all pastors are the same. Saying pastor is like saying salesman or businesswoman. It's generic. Is that businesswoman running a Fortune 500 cutting edge AI company, or is she a businesswoman selling homemade candles at the farmer's market? It's the same thing with pastor. I'm Lutheran, and most of us in the mainline have a master's degree from an accredited seminary. Many mainline seminaries, including mine, do extensive psychological evaluations done by secular firms for new students. I also took one unit of clinical pastoral education working in a hospital under professional supervision. My seminary required that.

[A]

That's kind of cool. I like that.

[B]

That's one kind of pastor. But lots of people, charlatans, hucksters, poorly trained people, etc call themselves pastor.

[A]

Yeah, I sense a bit of a theme now.

[B]

That's not to say that a trained pastor can't do awful things. Some do. They are flawed human beings like anyone else. But some pastors don't have training, don't understand confidentiality, don't understand their state's mandatory reporting laws, and so on. There is a lot more to pastoring than just loving God, which hopefully every pastor does. It drives me crazy and makes me sad when I hear about abuse, coercion, manipulation, and the like done in the name of God. So when I hear stories like the one Jordan shared about the pastor who told the husband what the wife said in counseling, it drives me up the wall. And since you're gonna read this letter on air, I can't say what I said when I heard you tell that story.

[A]

Pastors can't drop F bombs, I guess. I don't know. But yeah, that's infuriating. This is the pastor who I think a woman had spoken with him and said, hey, I cheated on my husband. I want to know how to handle it. And he was like, okay. And then he went to the gym, saw the husband, and just told the guy what happened. He just told the guy what his wife told him and was like, yeah, she didn't follow the rules of the Bible. And the husband came home and was like, I'm divorcing you. And she was like, oh gosh. She sued him, I think, for doing

[B]

what that pastor did is pastoral misconduct. It's abusive, and it is not Christian behavior.

[A]

I totally agree, but I'm not really in a position to make that call. Super helpful to hear from you, though.

[B]

Moreover, morality from Scripture is more complicated than simply citing a verse. Christian ethics involves wrestling with the tenets of our faith and trying our best to apply them to modern life.

[A]

So this goes back to your point, Gabe, about what a contradiction is what he's describing, it just sounds a lot more like what you were advocating for

[B]

wrestling rather than reconciling process over destination.

[A]

Yeah. So this guy's on. He's good.

[B]

I am pro life, but I also acknowledge that there is no one specific verse about abortion in the Bible. Yes, my belief that it's wrong is based on scripture, but I also recognize that the nuances of modern life don't always lead us to black and white understandings. The woman who originally wrote in needs counseling. She knows what her faith says about her decision to end the pregnancy, and she needs to unpack that with a true counselor. A good therapist meets you where you are, respects your beliefs, and then works from that basis. A good therapist isn't going to try and convert her. So it's simple. See a counselor. In fact, I was taught in seminary that all pastors should have counselors. I have a counselor. She's a great resource to me to talk about what I'm going through and to help me process.

[A]

So glad you have that support. I hear pastors and chaplains carry a very heavy load. I can only imagine.

[B]

So it's healthy that this woman from the first letter is struggling. That was a major life event. She shouldn't look for simple answers or an easy way out.

[A]

But what about a semi sweet chocolate bar? Should she look for that?

[B]

No. Also too black and white.

[A]

Yeah, literally. But I think this is exactly the place we were coming from too. Right. She doesn't need her pastor to tell her that what she did was wrong.

[B]

Yeah. Or even right, for that matter.

[A]

Yeah. She needs somebody who can listen to help her process, help her work through her conflicts. Having someone say, well, Jeremiah 1:5 says this. You should have kept the baby. Now you need to repent. Even if you believe that's true, I can't help but feel that just sort of short circuits a much more important process.

[B]

So he goes on. It's healthy to sit in discomfort, struggle with convictions, and ask questions. I tell people in my congregation that I want them to always ask questions. I believe so strongly in my faith that I know it can withstand questioning and emerge stronger. It also allows me to better discern what is actually from God and what might just be my opinion, culture, or upbringing. And one last thing, if that listener is only going to be met with judgment and not compassion from her church or faith community, it's time to move on and find a church that reflects the love of God that Jesus taught.

[A]

Damn hot. Take. I don't disagree.

[B]

Thanks for all you guys do. Signed a chaplain Concerned about what happens when people don't take action to seek out the right interactions?

[C]

Wow.

[A]

Well, this makes me feel way better about telling that woman to see a proper therapist.

[B]

It does, doesn't it? I felt it was right, but I don't come from this background, so I always wonder if we're getting it wrong.

[A]

I know. I always feel like, oh, am I pushing too hard on somebody who believes things that are different? It just confirms everything we've been saying, which is that the best version of both traditions is that they are compatible with each other, but also that one is more appropriate than the other when it comes to certain conflicts or certain experiences. So I know I talked a bunch because I am lit up by the Holy Spirit on Feedback Friday.

[B]

You are praying at Our lady of the Dews cruise today, my dude.

[A]

I sit on the elder void there. There's so much to respond to. I find it hard not to dig in. But our goal was to mostly just let you guys share your experiences in this domain. This is a bit of a different Feedback Friday is you probably have noticed by now, but I'm really grateful for this last letter. I'm very grateful. What a nuanced and thoughtful take from a true expert. But also the other two letters as well. They were honest, they were vulnerable and very eye opening. And I'm happy to have some additional voices in the mix to give us more data points to correct from my bias and frankly, my ignorance when it comes to religion. In the spirit of doing what we were just talking about, which is making the frame as big as possible, well,

[B]

that is actually a perfect transition. So we'll hit the wreck of the week and then we'll read this last letter, which I found remarkable.

[A]

Sounds good. Now for the Recommendation of the Week. I am addicted to lit filler, so my Recommendation of the Week is super simple. It's called Hydro Colloid roll and it's this very basic thing on Amazon that's like 2 bucks, 3 bucks and it's basically a roll of tape that is almost like skin inconsistency and sticky on one side and soft on the other side. And my kids, they always get little cuts or they always want band aids. This stuff is so cheap, but it also sticks better. It can be washed. It's reasonably waterproof. I put this on all my little cuticle cuts or paper cuts. Like, oh, I was working on an RC car and I poked myself or I got a little whatever dry skin spot. I put this on there. It's amazing. It'll stay on for days if you want it to. It peels off. It doesn't hurt. You don't get the ripping of hair off like you would with a band aid and you cut it to size. So I keep this. I have it in the bathroom. I have it in my office. I have it in my night kit. I have it in the kitchen for the kids. And again, each roll is like 250 for like 10ft of this stuff. And it's just better than band aids in pretty much every conceivable way. Band aids blisters anything, any kind of scrape. So we'll link to it in the show notes. Again, it's called hydro colloid roll. I don't understand why they don't make band aids out of this. Instead. In fact, I found band aids that were similar and they were like two bucks each. And this is an entire roll of this stuff for 250. All right, y'. All. You might cut your finger, but you know what won't cut a hole in your pocket? 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 LinkedIn. Running a small business means every hire matters. A bad hire can cost you time, money, and momentum. A good hire that can help you grow your business. This gives me flashbacks to a nightmare hire in my previous company that really stunted the business. And even talking about it now makes my blood pressure go up. But the right hire is the exact opposite. Somebody who takes ownership, solves problems, and helps the business grow faster. And when you're small, that kind of impact is massive. But finding great talent isn't easy, especially when you don't have the time or resources to sift through piles of resumes to find the right fit. That's why LinkedIn built Hiring Pro, your new hiring partner that screens candidates for you. So instead of sorting through applications, you spend your time talking to candidates who are actually a good fit. With Hiring Pro, you can hire with confidence, knowing you're getting the best talent for your business. In fact, Those hiring with LinkedIn are 24% less likely to need to reopen a role within 12 months compared to the leading competitor. Join the 2.7 million small businesses using LinkedIn to hire. Get started by posting your job for [e-mail] harbinger terms and conditions apply.

[D]

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[A]

Thank you so much for listening to and supporting the podcast. All of the deals, discounts and ways to support the show are searchable and clickable on the [e-mail] deals please consider supporting those who support the show. And now for the rest of feedback Friday. All right, what's next?

[B]

So, just a heads up, this last letter is not part of the holy trilogy like the letters that we just read, but it is part of the larger dues crusade. So the letter goes. Hello, Jordan and Gabe. I'm 43 years old and I live with my sweetheart, who's about one and a half years younger than me. He and I have been together for three years. We are not married. We live in a rural area. He is the estranged prodigal son of a millionaire wheat farmer who owns thousands of acres of 19th century pioneer settled land. And he's been cut out of any role in his family's land which they have farmed for five generations.

[A]

Wow. Okay. I can confidently say I've never heard that sentence before.

[B]

I know. Doesn't happen very often, does it? Every once in a while.

[A]

I love that feedback. Friday somehow keeps serving up the most unusual stories ever. And it's, it's remarkable.

[B]

Always something new. So she goes on, the reasons he was cut out are complex, but suffice it to say that both son and father have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Both are suspected to have borderline personality disorder as well. And my sweetheart reacted to his father's cold, harsh, verbally abusive and critical parenting style by developing lifelong oppositional defiant disorder and losing himself in drugs, alcohol and madness from the age of 12 to his mid-30s.

[A]

Jeez, that is a lot.

[B]

Both the disorders and the fact that she calls her boyfriend sweetheart.

[A]

Yeah, so is that a Southern thing? Because I was like, okay, she said that maybe three times already and it's been 30 seconds.

[B]

I don't know, it might be. I've never heard this. I guess it's cute. I'm not sure.

[A]

My sweetheart sounds so old timey that I thought, oh, how old is this person again? And you said 40. Yeah. So I was like, oh, is she 78?

[B]

And this is something you would see written on the back of a black and white photo in a GI's pocket in 1942?

[A]

Yes, it's in the helmet that was found in the trench. Look, it's sweet. I've just never really heard this term of endearment that many times in the, I don't know, the age of Chatgpt I guess you would call.

[B]

Began with middle school marijuana use and car theft for funsies, then became rich kid cocaine use, then full blown meth addled insanity and living on the streets by his late twenties.

[A]

Oh my God. I don't want to judge too quickly, but you said the reasons he was cut out were complex. Could part of the complexity be that he was an insane meth addict and living on the streets?

[B]

I mean, I can understand why daddy might not want this kid near the family.

[A]

Wheat, yes, Daddy sounds like a piece of work himself, but yeah, if your son is out of control like this, are you going to make him an SVP of harvesting or whatever? I don't think so.

[B]

Your command of the family business, Jordan, is incredible. I see you've really brushed up on your agriculture. This guy weeds hard so she goes on somewhere. Before the homelessness, my sweetheart had a daughter, but he lost all parenting and visitation rights to her by the time she was 3 years old. She's now 15 and lives in another state.

[A]

My God, this just gets crazier and crazier.

[B]

All these broken relationships and losses have really haunted my sweetheart his whole adult life. And he still ruminates on the relationship with his father and the loss of his daughter on a regular basis through some combination of boys, wilderness reform schools, expensive for profit rehabs in three or four states, jail, dry cell, torture, mental hospital stays, AA12, step work, and probably just aging out of crime. My sweetheart eventually got to a place where he could more or less hold a job, keep housing and stay off all drugs except thc, which he is still heavily reliant on to cope with any type of mundane stress, anxiety or trigger.

[A]

For people who don't know, THC is one of the active chemical compound in marijuana. So some good news finally. It sounds like he still has a dependency, I suppose, which is unfortunate, but he's come a long way. Meth is not THC and THC is.

[B]

What a journey this guy has been on.

[A]

Yeah, novel, esque. This sounds incredibly chaotic.

[B]

Meanwhile, I grew up poor, often in trailer parks, gradually put myself through a BA and Ms. Over the course of 16 years while working retail and barista jobs and never did drugs harder than the occasional joint and a couple of mushroom trips. In my early twenties I was raised by a violent six foot tall mom who had undiagnosed bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder. So I have a hyper tuned ability to navigate people who have a lot in common with grenades and landmines. Though I myself was pretty emotionally chaotic and troubled in my younger years, educational opportunities, a decent work ethic for self examination and a love of rational thinking and Buddhist type takes on life have helped me find my way to a pretty peaceful state. I'm also fascinated by intelligent but troubled people. I used to teach college classes in a prison and my students were lifers.

[A]

Fascinating. Wow. Okay.

[B]

I met my sweetheart four years into his California sobriety and comparative stability.

[A]

Ah, okay. So for anybody listening from another country or place, maybe even a different state, California sober or Cali sober basically means you don't drink, you don't use hard drugs, but you still smoke weed, so you're not really sober.

[B]

Just one of our state's many iconic exports. So she goes on. I knew it was going to be a wild ride. I could tell from his stories and my observations of his current state that he had come a long way, but still had a long way to go in catching up on many lost years of emotional and social development moment. Still, I was not quite prepared for the reality of a testosterone pumped male version of my mother who in many ways still has the entitled rich boy attitude of a fifth generation millionaire wheat farming heir. By this I mean that the rich don't have to learn the interpersonal skills of being considerate of other people's feelings because money can ensure all their basic needs are met regardless of what they do to other people. Jordan, it is so funny to me that this guy has lost all of the trappings of his wealth and his claim to the family fortune. But like none of the entitlement, I

[A]

guess it's the last thing to go. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if he's compensated for losing those things by ramping up the entitlement. I feel like we've all seen examples of this, right? Because your ego wants to compensate somehow and then you don't have any money, you don't have any achievements, you've essentially done nothing but ruin your life. So you ramp up the one thing you can, which is being an asshole unfortunately. But yeah, it's like, hey bro, maybe don't talk to your girlfriend like she's a peasant standing in the way of your Lamborghini when she's paying for your THC cookies and listening to you complain about not being able to pay child support to the kid you can't see. I don't know. Just a thought.

[B]

This sounds like a hard guy to humble.

[A]

I guess it just goes to show how stubborn this conditioning is. In his head, he's the temporarily inconvenienced wheat prince. It's just. It's interesting to see how he's leaning on this.

[B]

My sweetheart blindsides everybody he knows with his mood swings. When he's in a great mood, he is charismatic and funny. But when he's suddenly triggered by any little irritation or perceived criticism, he can immediately morph into the most verbally abusive and oppositionally defiant six foot four boy you ever did see. I have never witnessed him being physically violent toward anyone. But when he can't regulate his emotions, he will punch holes through the walls, break dishes, go peel out in his car in a rage, say incredibly rude and theatrically extreme things to people, and that oppositional defiance rears its head if anyone dares suggest anything to him. He has mild rage outs at least once or twice a week, and usually a pretty big one on a monthly basis or so. He is an equal opportunity verbal abuser. It can be me, his mother, his boss, anyone, whoever happens to be in his proximity.

[A]

That's a little bit scary and not encouraging.

[B]

When we were first together, I took it very hard. I cried, felt scared, unloved, abused, and so on.

[A]

Yeah, it's abusive and super hurtful. This is terrifying that he would do this to you. Frankly, you're still there. That's something else we have thoughts on. Gabe, what did Dexter call his need to kill people?

[B]

The dark passenger.

[A]

Yes. This dude has a dark passenger. He's unhinged.

[B]

He clearly has trauma, compassion, and all of that to a degree, but my God, these rage spirals are happening once or twice a week, possibly every two or three days. She has to deal with something like this.

[A]

Yeah. Now this guy is out of control. Being in a relationship with somebody like this, I have no words. I don't know how you do it or why you do it for that matter, but we'll get to that. Gabe, you know what this reminds me of? On the way to the Disney cruise a few weeks ago, there was a kid in the airport in San Jose. And I don't know what happened, but his mom put something on the TSA scanner from him. He wanted to do it. This is like a 12 year old boy by the way. And he got so angry that he took a bag off the scanner and he slammed it on the ground. And he started screaming. And I was like, oh, I must have missed the context of what happened here. So then he goes through the scanner. The family goes through the scanner. His mom's like, don't act like that right now. And the dad says something like that, too. They go to the gate. And I hear, as I approach my gate, this screaming. And I'm like, is that the same kid? This is like 10 minutes later. Cause I get coffee and everything and get snacks for my kids at the airport. Cause it's early, and I still hear the screaming. So we get to the gate, and this kid is still on one. And I'm like, wow, something really bad must have happened. That bag thing triggered him and whatnot. During the plane ride, I take off my headphones because my ears start to hurt from the pressure. And I hear yelling and screaming. And I'm like, wait, has that been going on most of the time? And Jen's like, yeah, I think there's a kid in the back having. And I'm like, it's the same kid. And it's just unbelievable. And I'm like, wait, this kid gets triggered by something and he screams for literally hours. That's the child version of this guy, right? It was absolutely nuts. This kid would fight with his sister. He was, like, screaming on the plane. And the parents were just. I felt bad for them because of course you're like, hey, get your kid in order. But you're also like, there's something wrong with this person. This is not normal.

[B]

Who knows if it's his wiring or there's something going on at home, but I don't know.

[A]

There were other kids, and they were perfectly fine. And the sister was like, hey, he keeps taking my iPad. And then he would rowl at her and, like, go to bite her face and yell. And I'm like, no, you live with a rabid animal. This kid's going to prison.

[B]

So she goes on. We started living together a mere four months into our relationship and became fairly financially interdependent as we both work seasonal and or freelance jobs that come with peak seasons and layoff periods. And we have no financial support from our families and no real savings or safety net built up.

[A]

Sorry, but the fact that this dude is picking apples and driving a snowplow or whatever for a few months at a time while also acting like a Saudi prince on vacation in Macau is absurd to me. I cannot tell if it's funny or tragic.

[B]

Really, it's both. I mean, if you met this guy picking honey crisps in Wisconsin, you would probably laugh at him. But if you're his girlfriend, this is a Dostoevsky novel.

[A]

Yes, exactly, she goes on.

[B]

This could lead a person in my situation to feel trapped. But I found some constructive ways to protect and empower myself. Al Anon Some counseling, a class on codependency, and nearly two years of regular Jiu Jitsu practice, where Grandmaster Carlos's mantra to quote be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind unquote is becoming wired into my muscle memory.

[A]

Grandmaster Carlos filing that away under Amazing Feedback Friday Characters One thing, though, that comes to mind. I know a lot of jujitsu and martial arts guys because everyone's into it, especially around here. One of the main teachings of any martial art is get away from the conflict, not be so strong. Nothing can disturb your peace of mind. Not know how to handle every situation. It's get out of there. It's not here's how you handle a blade. It's get away from the blade. You shouldn't even be at the place where the blade is. Right? All this martial arts stuff is like, this is the last resort. So you're following Grandmaster Carlos's mantra to be so strong nothing could disturb your peace of mind, while also just subjecting yourself repeatedly to the stuff that you have to resist. Wouldn't say you're exactly following the advice to a T, but maybe ask him.

[B]

I'm increasingly unperturbed and resilient when my sweetheart has meltdowns.

[A]

I gotta say, the sweetheart thing? A little unsettling given the direction this letter is heading. It's like you're compensating by how much of a POS this guy is by just laying on the sweetheart thing ridiculously thick. Why?

[B]

I see through his predictable way of behaving now, and I've gotten pretty good at setting boundaries and removing myself physically when he's losing his shit. So I'm pretty okay these days. I've learned to take a very hands off, Let him spin his own wheels approach. My refusal to participate in his worst behaviors has seemed to shorten their duration in the moments they happen.

[A]

Man, I honestly don't know what to make of this. Like, bravo for finding all these ways of coping with the chaos for sure. Amazing. But I'm also hearing this and I'm just thinking, are you merely desensitized to this level of crazy? Why are you still here?

[B]

It's crazy to me, but I'm also increasingly aware of how persistent his mental health struggles are, of how he self medicates by sucking on nicotine and THC vapes like baby bottles instead of doing any kind of therapy or truly deep 12 step work or engaging with nutrition and exercise to mitigate mental health symptoms. The smell of cotton candy vape fumes is how I will viscerally remember this stage of my life.

[A]

Yeah, this is vivid. She's going to be at a Machine Gun Kelly concert in three years, standing behind some emo tween's vaping cloud mist and have a Vietnam style flashback to Tyler, the unhinged ex wheat heir, punching a hole in the wall of their Airbnb and peeling out of the driveway in his Acura Integra.

[B]

That was vivid, bro. Yeah, this is very much the Madeline soaked in tea of the oppositional defiant world.

[A]

I have no idea what that means.

[B]

It's fine.

[A]

I feel like I need to know what a Madeline soaked in tea. Okay.

[B]

No, it's fine. One of those references that I would be more embarrassed to explain how I know about it than to leave it alone.

[A]

Yeah, no one knows, Gabe. Maybe a Madeleine is a kidnap. Anyway.

[B]

All right, so about a year and a half ago, he raged verb at his boss and got fired, which made for a hard winter when the farmhand jobs he relies on only hire in spring and during late summer harvest. Then just last week, he raged at our landlord who was making a reasonable request of us, and he also went to our landlord's house a couple days later and yelled at our landlord's wife over the incident. Luckily for us, it's a small town and our landlord's wife loves me. So I was able to do some rooted in Al Anon principles, damage control. Basically explaining to the landlords what is and isn't within my control and what I personally am able to do as a tenant to comply with their reasonable requests.

[A]

What a chat that must have been. Sorry, I'm dating a man child. And he came here to yell at you after your husband, who owns the property we live in, asked him to do something totally reasonable. Unbelievable.

[B]

You ever take care of your side of the street so good you narrowly avoid being homeless?

[A]

Yeah, this is a great ad for Al Anon. I will say that truly.

[B]

I told them that I could not predict or promise how my sweetheart will behave, and they made it clear that if any verbal raging happens again, at least one of us will be evicted.

[A]

I don't blame them at all. Life's too short. Nobody needs this crap I made it

[B]

clear to my sweetheart and my landlord that from now on, any tenant landlord communications will go through me and not through my sweetheart.

[A]

Yeah, okay. The sweetheart thing, it's out of hand. Officially, this is more out of hand than sweetheart's meltdowns.

[B]

I believe we are all on the same page about this, but I'm also aware that my sweetheart, Jesus Christ, is a completely unpredictable wildcard. I understand that I'm taking a certain amount of risk by being willing to be his partner.

[A]

Yeah. Yes, you are.

[B]

And I'm doing some long hard assessment of all of that.

[A]

Yeah, good. Sorry. Not sorry at all. You need to reassess everything. This person is a mess, a giant mess, and he makes messes for you that you have to clean up.

[B]

My sweetheart can't really be communicated with about anything serious. The only way I can get him to listen to information I need to give him is if I wait several hours or even a full day until he is completely calm and then leave a letter for him before he gets home from work. When I am leaving for evening jiu jitsu class, he gets to read my diplomatically worded honesty and have his own private space to get angry about it if he wants. By the time I get home, he's calmed down and usually takes it upon himself to acknowledge what I have communicated. It would be easier if I could talk to him like a normal person, but I don't think that's possible with him. And this has proven to be the least stressful and least exhausting way for me to assert what I need to assert with him.

[A]

So you have to manage him and carefully orchestrate the circumstances for him to have a perfectly reasonable conversation about his behavior. Man, this all sounds exhausting and definitely not worth it.

[B]

It at all. I genuinely love him and would prefer not to easily give up on our relationship. Though at some point, I am willing to make that decision if this proves to be too much.

[A]

This isn't too much, but for now

[B]

I'm looking for some short term ideas for how to get even better at drawing boundaries, how to deescalate conflict, stuff like that. How can I do that? Signed, Starting to breathe hard. Because I'm finding this feat hard when it comes to my tricky sweetheart.

[A]

You rhymed hard with hard, Kanye. Nice.

[B]

Yeah, you rhyme. Breathe hard, feed hard.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Lame, isn't it? That was not my finest work.

[A]

It's too late now. It's on tape.

[B]

I think when I came up with that sign off, I was probably experiencing some secondhand post traumatic stress from this letter. And I just lost my ear for rhymes.

[A]

So what this listener is doing is lighting a fire in her home. She's allowing an arsonist into her home and then going, hey, guys, do you have any tips on fireproofing the house?

[B]

Literally? Yeah, not literally, but figuratively. Literally, exactly. That's figuratively. Literally, yeah. Do you guys have a good wreck on a fire retardant blanket? Any smoke alarms you like? I just. I'm trying to figure this out.

[A]

The answer could be much simpler.

[B]

Yeah, I agree. Does that cover it? Can we. Have we done it?

[A]

Should we done some good work here? Good luck with this guy. No. So, man, I need to take the deepest of breaths here because I'll do

[B]

it with you, man. This is intense.

[A]

Okay, so I'm very sorry that you find yourself in this situation with your boyfriend. I think you can already tell how I feel about this. I know that your boyfriend would not act this way, he wouldn't be this way if some terrible stuff hadn't happened in his childhood. You didn't tell us much about that. I don't know if you really needed to. His dad obviously did a number on him. God knows what else happened in this guy's home growing up, the family in general, perhaps amplified by extreme wealth. The most screwed up people I know are all rich. So you just don't turn to drugs and crime and rage at people and have these crazy mood swings and meltdowns if you're not in a lot of pain. So my heart goes out to your boyfriend in a lot of ways, to the young kid inside him that hasn't addressed his trauma and hasn't healed. But more importantly, my heart goes out to you for the similarly formative experiences, namely the mom you had, who. Sounds extremely challenging. These wounds that conditioned you to understand and choose and stick with a person like your boyfriend at steep cost to yourself. I don't really have words to express how sorry I am about that as well. My impression of you, based on your letter, you're a high functioning, very self aware, very resourceful, very driven person with some very profound wounds. And I'm impressed by the fact that you've sought out these ideas and these supports to get better and achieve and survive this relationship and that you've put them into practice. I really am. Okay. But I'm also very concerned, for obvious reasons, about some of the choices that have required you to manage things in that way. Namely just the choice to be with a guy like this. So it's interesting. I find myself in a weird position. This is A letter so extreme that I feel pretty comfortable saying, hey, you need to seriously reevaluate your relationship with your boyfriend. I would strongly advise you to end this. That's my take. That's my advice. We could talk about short term ideas for how to draw boundaries and deescalate conflict, but you already seem to be doing that very well. You're actually doing it too well, candidly. Ok. And I don't believe that's what you need right now. But I also hear you saying that you understand you're taking a certain amount of risk by sticking with this guy. I'm glad to hear that you realize that and you're in the process of assessing all that, which I hope is true, and that you genuinely love this guy and you would prefer not to, as you said, easily give up on the relationship and that at some point, if this ever got to be too much, you'd be willing to make that call.

[B]

The problem is her capacity for this chaos is significantly higher than most people's and not entirely in a good way, clearly.

[A]

Again, probably because of the mom. She had all the challenges that came with her childhood, so her sense of what is even just acceptable or tolerable at all is wildly miscalibrated. But then only she can decide what she's able and willing to put up with and what's actually too much or

[B]

what actually constitutes a serious risk.

[A]

Yeah. So I don't know if telling her to break up with this guy is really all that helpful if her experience of this relationship is very different from ours. So instead, I guess I would just ask you a few questions. My main one is, what is it really about this guy that's so meaningful and compelling to you? I'm struck by the fact that the only two positive things you said about him is that he's funny and charismatic sometimes when he's not being an absolute nightmare and or putting you or others in danger. How do you define risk? How do you define too much? Do you only want to go by your own internal barometer for this stuff, or do you maybe want to factor in some external benchmarks? I also wanted to ask you whether all this managing and diplomacy is slowly improving things or if it's just kind of minimizing the fallout? Does your boyfriend seem to be getting better in any way? Is he learning and growing and engaging with his life, with his work, with his family, or with you in a different way? Or is he just doing the same thing over and over and the only thing that's getting better is how you Pull the strings and patch things up, which. That's kind of what I'm hearing. I don't think she said one thing that suggests he's growing at all or is even interested in that.

[B]

Those are exactly the right questions, Jordan. And to those, I would add one fundamental one. I guess it's. That's another version of your first question, which is, what are you getting out of this situation?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

By which I mean in this dynamic you've created with your boyfriend, where he essentially melts down, lashes out, creates messes, drives people away, undermines himself at every turn, seemingly. And then you generally clean up those messes, manage his moods, calm him down, know when to engage, when to retreat, patch things up. In that dance you guys seem to do over and over again, what does that give you? What feeling or what experience does that leave you with and why? So when I ask you why, what I mean is a. How did your childhood, probably this, mom, whatever other early experiences you had, how did they prime you for this relationship? I think those are important forensics to do, although really they're only half the equation. The other is, why exactly does that feeling or experience continue to be so important to you now? So let me just be a little bit more specific, because I know that can be abstract. You and your boyfriend clearly have this dynamic we just described. I imagine that managing this guy, keeping things on an even keel, calming him down, winning him over, challenging him, but not challenging him too much, all of that smoothing things over with people like the landlord and his wife, everything that comes with this process, I imagine that feels, among other things, pretty gratifying. But what is gratifying about it, really? Is it the feeling of rupture followed by repair or what seems like repair? To be honest, I'm not totally clear on how meaningful these conversations are, but it sounds like it's a lot of chaos and a lot of instability followed by calm and, like, a return to baseline. And then it's like, oh, okay, we're good again. I did it. And crucially, that process happens in large part because of the way you architected it or the way you managed it.

[A]

Good observation. I do think that's crucial.

[B]

So I can imagine that that experience might leave you feeling like, yes, great, I'm good at this. I'm in control. I'm needed. I succeeded. That feels good. That's gratification, right? And maybe also relief, pride, comfort, familiarity, a sense of mastery. I'm sure it's a lot of things. Part of that package might also be another feeling or A conflict. For example, you might feel very gratified, and you also might feel a little ashamed. Like, oh, I feel really good when I can calm down my sweetheart down. But I also feel kind of icky that I'm chasing that feeling or that I'm chasing it from him. Or maybe you're very proud of how you handle these moments, but also maybe there's some anger in there. Like, I'm proud that I can handle this crisis, but I'm furious at my boyfriend for forcing me to. I think those conflicts are very meaningful. They contain very rich data about how all of this developed and most importantly, what it is bringing up for you now.

[A]

So what you're getting at is once she takes stock of all that stuff, it would be helpful to go, why is it so important to feel, I don't know, you name it. Relieved, comforted, like she achieved something. Like, she kind of knows how to win at this game called Unstable Boyfriend. What does that give her? And then what does that leave her with? This is a Sid and Nancy relationship, 100%.

[B]

And it's not just like, how do I know how to win at the game? It's almost like, why do I know how to play this game already? And the answers might start to feel recursive. Like, I want to feel gratified because I like feeling gratified, or I want to experience this relief because the chaos is so unpleasant. At that point, your understanding of your relationship will either become nonsensical and confusing and you will be lost in this chaos again and again, or you will get to a point where you go, oh, okay. I seem to be operating according to some model. I seem to be playing out some kind of script that has its own logic, its own urgency, its own mysterious needs. And so the answer resides, I think, in understanding and acknowledging that script. And then, and this is crucial, with more conscious awareness, deciding whether you still want to play it out, whether playing it out truly serves your needs, your goals, your best interests, including, by the way, your safety, which, by the way, I think you're also in the process of getting clear on.

[A]

So what you're getting at is this is ultimately about her mom.

[B]

Look, there's an easy take on her story, which is she got together with her mother and her boyfriend got together with the father. He didn't have.

[A]

Damn. Yeah. Facts.

[B]

I'm also confident that there's a lot more to it than that. But the roots of this dynamic seem fairly clear to me.

[A]

Pink Freud has entered the chat.

[B]

That's the dark side of Your mom, Brian.

[A]

Yes, exactly. Their respective traumas seem to have created the ideal sockets for their puzzle pieces to fit into.

[B]

This is not news to our friend. She clearly understands that her mom did a number on her.

[A]

The parallels are almost one to one. She was raised by an unstable giant. She's partnered now with an unstable giant.

[B]

Exactly. Different objects, but same eggshells. Probably what she might not fully understand is why that's been hard to rewrite, let alone heal, and how that has created this extremely powerful template that she seems to have recreated with the Wheat Prince over here.

[A]

Or, depending on how you look at it, that the Wheat Prince has created with her. They're doing this together. I'm sure most of this is unconscious. It's hard to know who's creating what

[B]

or whatever, how much of it is actually creating versus just falling into something that feels oddly familiar. But what I am sure of is this is not an accident.

[A]

No. These two people didn't just happen to meet and fall in love and stick together with this particular form of crazy. Gabe, a lot of people will say, like, oh, there's a metaphysical element to this. What are the odds these two people happen to meet? I met tons of crazy women. I just went out with them once, cut the date short, and never called them again because I was like, no, thank you. These people, when these puzzle pieces fit together, like we were explaining before, they feel something. They don't go, oh, they're crazy. And this is going to be dramatic. And I can't deal with that. Or even, wow, that's exactly what I've been looking for. They go, there's something familiar about this, right? I like it. It's interesting to me. And they end up in this situation because these patterns are something that they're probably unaware of.

[B]

Look, my quick theory a moment ago about this being gratifying, that might not be the right one, or there might be more to it. Maybe there are other things this relationship is giving you. Maybe the moments of love and connection with this guy, which I'm not fully clear on, but if they exist, maybe those are so compelling to you that the moments of chaos and pain seem worthwhile. Although I have a very hard time imagining how that could be the case. But I'm sure there's a lot going on here. But this is the kind of stuff you have to dig into. Frankly, I think you're already at least halfway there. But. But it's time to really take stock of this.

[A]

It's interesting, Gabe. Like I said, I'm very proud of her for seeking out all this insight and support and wisdom. It's kind of one of her superpowers. Although another way to look at superpowers is that they are adaptations to trauma. So there's that. But again, it's interesting the kind of analysis you're proposing. Gabe, I could be wrong about this, but my sense is that can be hard to do in, I don't know, say, Al Anon. Okay, I love Al Anon. I'm a huge fan of what they do there. I hype it on the show all the time. But I don't know how much psychodynamic work a person can do there or how much talking and processing over a long period of time. I think that's what therapy is for. So I'm very proud of you for all your self examination and your hard work. I really am. But if you haven't had the opportunity to work with someone and it's doable for you right now, I would highly recommend it. The only way to get better. But in your case especially, it's a very powerful way to get better. I feel like we could just talk about this letter for hours. This is just nuts.

[B]

Truly. Dude, we didn't even get to talk about the fact that she used to teach college classes to people in prison for life. I'm still fascinated by that detail.

[A]

Yeah, I forgot about that. Like she said, she's clearly drawn to intelligent but troubled people. And I love that she sees that so clearly. My general feeling about that is I don't think you need to work to get rid of that quality necessarily. Although interestingly, it might fade as you come to understand why that quality developed in the first place. But you do have to make sure that you're deploying that quality effectively and

[B]

responsibly, that you're using it rather than it using you and ending up in potentially dangerous situations.

[A]

Exactly. And that's the process of making the unconscious conscious. I think there's a world where she becomes an educator or a mental health practitioner or a writer and she turns these wounds and interests into kind of a calling. I think that would be beautiful and poetic. Or she just lets them be and doesn't feed them any more than she has to, which is also progress. But the awareness she brings to it, the agency to say, these are the kind of experiences I want to have. This is the kind of person I want to be. That's the key. And that like everything good in life is a process. But I just have to say, because I can't end this segment without keeping it real. I do not understand why you would want to stay in this relationship. It's one thing if you meet a troubled person who's demonstrably getting better and exhibits all these great qualities, lots of promise, they're on a path. It's a completely different thing if you've shacked up with a troubled person who's just creating chaos over and over again for pretty much no reason and isn't even truly working on himself. So I'm actually worried about you. I think you deserve a lot better. And I think your sensitivity and your curiosity and interpersonal skills would be so much better spent elsewhere instead of on this candidly unstable and damaging man child who hasn't come to terms with his trauma or his life circumstances. I'm sorry to say this, but whether you realize it or not, this guy's just a drain on your life. He might be a victim to some degree, but he's 42 years old. He just does not really have an excuse for how reckless and hurtful he's being to you, to himself, to everyone he comes across.

[B]

Wow. Yes. Well said, Jordan. Thank you for keeping it real. I also just want to point out that her subjective experience of this relationship might be that it's not too much for me to handle or the risk really is not that high. I'm okay. But what would happen if the landlord evicted both of them and then she has an eviction on her record because he went ham on the wife and they don't want that person on their property. Understandably. And she stays with him or she breaks up with him, but now she has an eviction on her record because she was associated with a person like this. This is not just about the emotional chaos, which is significant. There are also some very real practical risks that I don't know if she's fully appreciating.

[A]

I agree. That said, this letter was fire and that was a ride. This is a tasty burger, so I hope that gives you some new angles, friend. Please stay safe. Take good care of yourself. We're sending you a big hug and we're wishing you all the best. A few months ago, we mentioned a quote in our newsletter that I love. It's okay to have beliefs, just don't believe in them. And I can't say I live by that 100%, but of course I try to. I at least try not to believe too hard. The whole strong ideas loosely held concept. We've been walking an interesting line today in all the letters. I suppose between embracing people's beliefs and also challenging them to see beyond them, to make room for other helpful ones, to develop a clearer relationship with them, or to at least not let the things they do believe in appropriately, to get in the way of other important experiences. Learning, growing, collaborating with good people. And I feel like that's one of our central tasks in life. That's the dance. So I'm sure we'll be coming back to this theme many more times over the years. It's a very rich topic. So many ways to heal and grow in this life and so many candy bars to eat. Go back and check out our episodes with Javier Leyva on Scams and the Psychology of Scams and our Skeptical Sunday on Psychic Detectives. If you haven't heard those 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 something similar for yourself in our six minute networking course. The course is free. There's no catch. There's no shenanigans. It's not schmoozy. You can find it on the Thinkific platform at sixminutenetworking.com the drills take a few minutes a day. Dig that well before you get thirsty. Build relationships before you need them again. Sixminutenetworking.com show notes and transcripts on the website, advertisers, deals, ways to support the show, [e-mail] deals I'm JordanHarbinger on Twitter and Instagram. You can also hit me on LinkedIn. Gabe's on Insta 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 Mizrahi. Our advice and opinions are our own and I am a lawyer, but I am not your lawyer. Consult a qualified professional before implementing anything you hear on the show. Remember, we rise by lifting others. Share the show with those you love. If you found the episode useful, please do 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. What if the safest way to send a secret is something anyone can hear but no one can trace? You're about to hear a preview where former CIA officer Andrew Bustamante pulls back the curtain on a hidden world where global conflicts are quietly connected.

[C]

There's actually 161 active conflicts around the world right now where bullets are being fired and explosions are going off. When you look at each of those conflicts, it's not just one group against another group in the same country or even across a state boundary. It's multiple countries engaged in supporting one side or another side proxy conflicts. Right now in the United States, we're focused on Israel, we're focused on Ukraine and Afghanistan and Russia, and then sometimes we're focused on something else. When people think World War iii, the common misconception is that a nuclear weapon must be used. If you're waiting for a nuclear weapon to go off, that's not going to

[B]

be World War Three.

[C]

It's a whole different evolving landscape and that's what we need to understand. And I don't think our chances of a nuclear weapon going off are getting less each year. I actually think they're getting to be more each year. But I don't know why people think it's gonna look like a thermonuclear weapon being launched from a missile silo and going off in the middle of a first world country.

[B]

That's not what it's going to look like.

[C]

Israel's MO is to do incredibly brazen acts of violence and take public credit for it, and then air footage and everything else because they know that there's a fear mongering element that deters its enemies even further. Whereas China goes in and just breaks everything and they don't really care if they get caught. And Russia doesn't want to get caught. The United States also doesn't want to get caught, which is why the United States denies everything. It seems to me like we have more indicators that we are in a world war rather than we are not

[B]

in a world war.

[A]

To hear more on why Cold War tech still outsmarts modern surveillance and why Andrew Bustamante believes World War III may already be happening, check out episode 1220 of the Jordan Harbinger Show. This episode of the Jordan Harbinger show is sponsored by Castbox, a free podcast app for iOS and Android users. Like many people, I get frustrated with native podcast apps like Apple Podcast and Google Play. I'm always on the hunt for something better. Castbox is the solution with the right balance of clean, attractive design, easy usability, great features, and I know a lot of my listeners agree because we have over 100,000 of our listeners subscribed over there. When it comes to podcast apps, I like a clean, easy to use interface and most importantly, great searching capabilities that allow me to easily find the podcasts that I'm looking for. Castbox allows you to personalize your listening experience. For example, you can create and organize playlists without having to download all the episodes. You can categorize your subscribed podcasts. You can mark favorite episodes. Castbox really does have it all. And the best part? No ads. Other free podcast apps out there are notorious for pop up ads that can ruin the listening experience. It's no wonder CastBox is the third largest podcast player behind Apple and Spotify. Everyone's catching on to this, especially Android users. Castbox Listen Free Download Free what are you waiting for? Download Castbox today and don't forget to subscribe to the Jordan Harbinger show and leave us a comment while you're there.

[B]

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