1406: Chase Forbidden Fruit or Stick with the Galoot? | Feedback Friday

He’s your best friend, but the spark’s long gone. Do you open the relationship to save it, or are you just postponing goodbye? Welcome to Feedback Friday! And in case you didn't already know it, Jordan Harbinger (@JordanHarbinger https://twitter.com/JordanHarbinger) and Gabriel Mizrahi (@GabeMizrahi https://twitter.com/GabeMizrahi) banter and take your comments and questions for Feedback Friday right here every week! If you want us to answer your question, register your feedback, or tell your story on one of our upcoming weekly Feedback Friday episodes, drop us a line at [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. Now let's dive in! Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1406 https://jordanharbinger.com/1406 On This Week's Feedback Friday: You’re nearing 40 and 12 years in with a loving boyfriend — but seven months without intimacy, his nightly couch-and-booze routine, and your growing urge to explore women and the wider world have you eyeing an open relationship. Can you raise it without blowing everything up, or is the real question bigger? Your sister rented your L. A. condo to a tenant who turned out to be a serial squatter armed with fake bank statements and borrowed identities. Six months, a trashed condo, and $25,000 in unpaid rent later, you want her held accountable. Is there a real path to justice, or any hope of seeing that money again? Years after your breakup, your ex and his parents are still family — daily chats, a group text, the works. But your serious new boyfriend has no idea, and they don’t know about him either. With marriage on the horizon, how do you come clean without making the whole thing look far shadier than it is? Recommendation of the Week: Big Brother: North Korea’s Forgotten Prince https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-big-brother-north-koreas-92974561/ — a podcast on Kim Jong-nam, the eldest son once groomed to rule North Korea, and the brazen airport assassination that ended his exile. How does the heir to a dictatorship end up a target in a crowded terminal? A few months ago, your life collapsed all at once — marriage, job, house, health, even your dog and your car. Now you’re back with one final update after a gauntlet of interviews, rejections, assessments, and maddening waiting. So where did all that rubble lead, and what did you learn about rebuilding? Have any questions, comments, or stories you'd like to share with us? Drop us a line at [email protected] mailto:[email protected]! Connect with Jordan on Twitter at @JordanHarbinger https://twitter.com/JordanHarbinger and Instagram at @jordanharbinger https://www.instagram.com/jordanharbinger. Connect with Gabriel on Twitter at @GabeMizrahi https://twitter.com/GabeMizrahi and Instagram @gabrielmizrahi https://www.instagram.com/gabrielmizrahi/. And if you're still game to support us, please leave a review here https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/id1344999619?mt=2&ls=1 — even one sentence helps! Sign up for Six-Minute Networking https://jordanharbinger.com/course — our free networking and relationship development mini course — at jordanharbinger.com/course https://jordanharbinger.com/course! Subscribe to our once-a-week Wee Bit Wiser https://www.jordanharbinger.com/news/ newsletter today and start filling your Wednesdays with wisdom! Do you even Reddit, bro? Join us at r/JordanHarbinger https://www.reddit.com/r/JordanHarbinger/! This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors https://www.jordanharbinger.com/deals/: Xero: Find out more: xero.com https://www.xero.com/Fabletics: 70 to 80% off everything: Fabletics.com/JHS https://www.fabletics.com/JHSProgressive Insurance: Free online quote: progressive.com https://www.progressive.com/ZipRecruiter: Learn more at ziprecruiter.com/jordan https://www.ziprecruiter.com/jordanSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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• 1:43Speaker 02

  Welcome to Feedback Friday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. As always, I'm here with Feedback Friday producer, the detachable European handheld shower wand to my American stationary shower head, helping me get into all your existential nooks and crannies, Gabriel Mizrahi.

• 1:57Speaker 03

  I never use that handheld shower thing. I just leave it in the clampy thing and I shower like a goddamn American.

• 2:03Speaker 02

  Same. I don't want to have to do more work in the shower. Just let gravity do the job. Come on.

• 2:08Speaker 03

  That's right. So undignified, the detachable shower head. It feels like you're power washing a car or something, like hosing down a dog. Not for me. I'm a human with a faucet, not a golden retriever that just dashed through some mud flats.

• 2:20Speaker 02

  That's right. Yeah, I mean, it is like a car wash, in that you can get your undercarriage. But glad to know Berlin hasn't taken your Yankee card, Gabe. Thank goodness. On the Jordan Harbinger Show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people. 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: former cult members, former jihadis, current gold smugglers and astronauts. I guess former astronauts, because they're not usually in space when we interview them. This week, we had Alex Davies, author of Kobuk the Destroyer and Other Tales from the Wild Unseen World of Test Engineering. This is, well, frankly, an unseen world most of us don't know about. We discussed the hidden work that keeps the modern world going safely

• 3:03Speaker 02

  and dependably, and how human ingenuity allows us to combat uncertainty and create reliability in a very fragile world. In other words, how we test products and make sure they don't kill us. Really cool and occasionally terrifying conversation. We also had an episode with Stephen Bridges. He's a card counter, so essentially, he robs casinos for a living. Really interesting guy. We talked about card counting, getting kicked out of casinos, how they can't just recognize him with facial recognition, of course, all the disguises and tricks he uses to get around it. Really interesting conversation here on the show. We also had a Skeptical Sunday last Sunday on restaurant food. On Fridays, though, we take listener letters, offer advice, play obnoxious soundbites, and compare ourselves to various international plumbing solutions. I hear we have a very full doos cruise today,

• 3:46Speaker 02

  so let's get right to it. Gabe, what is the first thing out of the mailbag?

• 3:49Speaker 03

  Dear Gabe, intuitive boy number one, and Jordan, judicious defender number one.

• 3:54Speaker 02

  Ooh, new nicknames. New nicknames just dropped.

• 3:59Speaker 03

  Guess we're both number one boys now, huh?

• 4:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, I see what she's doing there. I don't really like it, but I see it.

• 4:04Speaker 03

  I'm quickly moving toward 40 as a woman with a lot more life to experience, and reconciling seemingly contradictory parts of myself is becoming increasingly difficult to navigate. I have everything a modern person could ask for: relative health, a loving partner, a supportive and inspiring community, access to challenging ideas, and truly interesting opportunities. But I feel myself drifting dangerously away from all the things that could sustain a stable, satisfying life. I find myself dreaming and daydreaming of dangerously tantalizing scenarios and worlds I have yet to discover, in search of things I might never get to experience.

• 4:44Speaker 02

  Damn, that's quite a paragraph. If this were on the back of a romance novel, I'd buy it for my wife.

• 4:50Speaker 03

  I've traveled a lot in my life, but I still feel it's never enough. I want to take more risks and learn things about strangers in strange lands with even stranger stories, truths that will dissipate with time unless I get to capture them. This occupies my consciousness like a ripe fruit rotting away on the kitchen counter that I pass by daily, and yet somehow cannot bring myself to throw into the compost despite the smell and presence of fruit flies.

• 5:16Speaker 02

  Okay, that's quite a metaphor. So she's saying I either need to eat the fruit before it rots, or I just need to throw it away, but right now, I'm not doing anything? I'm doing neither?

• 5:24Speaker 03

  And now it smells weird in my brain.

• 5:25Speaker 02

  Sound familiar, Gabe? I don't know.

• 5:27Speaker 03

  Relatable. Highly relatable. Weird metaphor, but relatable feeling.

• 5:31Speaker 02

  That's right. She did write into the correct number one boys. All right, so let's hear it.

• 5:35Speaker 03

  I've been with my boyfriend for 12 years, and I love him. He is empathetic and understanding and puts up with all my intolerable quirks. He's my best friend and the first person I go to with inside jokes and the latest ridiculous encounters of my day. He is supportive, thank God, because I make a lot more money than he does, and I see that he struggles with envy, but he also never lets it overwhelm him. We've had a rocky history, mostly because of our deliciously bad habits and overindulgences, and now that we're a bit older, we've settled into a much more stable routine.

• 6:08Speaker 02

  What does that mean? They used to, like, party a lot? I don't know. What is that?

• 6:11Speaker 03

  That's the vibe I'm getting.

• 6:12Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 6:13Speaker 03

  I think so.

• 6:13Speaker 02

  And maybe cheat on each other? I don't know. Is that in there, or did my mind put that in there? I don't know. I'm confused.

• 6:18Speaker 03

  She's being vague. I'm not entirely sure why. I suppose it could mean all of these things, but let's see where this goes. She goes on. But I still can't help feeling that there's something I'm desperately missing that might pass me by. Or maybe it's simply the languishing and routine that's driving me absolutely bonkers. Lately, I find myself fantasizing about women quite a lot, wondering how strongly I need to squeeze a peach before the juice runs, and whether a rogue piercing will disrupt my focus in just the right way to make my hair stand on end. In that shocking way, an unexpected paper cut exposes the next layer of raw skin.

• 6:53Speaker 02

  Well, I am, okay. I'm lost again. I don't know. Just, I don't read this kind of smut online, or potential smut. So what's happening right now? What is going on?

• 7:01Speaker 03

  I am not sure that I understand it. Let's read that again, shall we?

• 7:05Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 7:05Speaker 03

  Lately, I find myself fantasizing about women quite a lot.

• 7:08Speaker 02

  That part I understood. Okay, but the rest of it, not so much.

• 7:11Speaker 03

  Wondering how strongly I need to squeeze a peach before the juice runs, and whether a rogue piercing will disrupt my focus in just the right way to make my hair stand on end. In that shocking way, an unexpected paper cut exposes the next layer of raw skin.

• 7:25Speaker 02

  This is like a fruit-based BDSM metaphor. I'm, I don't know. What, yeah, maybe?

• 7:30Speaker 03

  I feel like I'm at a slam poetry showcase.

• 7:32Speaker 02

  Yes. Okay. Is she describing a woman's body? This is like part of the vagina monologues that I'm just not picking up?

• 7:37Speaker 03

  Unclear. I don't know. Our girl loves a fruit metaphor. That's all I know.

• 7:41Speaker 02

  Metaphorical or not, what she's maybe saying is she's into girls, too, and that longing can be very intense. Okay.

• 7:48Speaker 03

  That's the headline. Let's go with that.

• 7:49Speaker 02

  Yeah. I don't know what a rogue piercing is, though.

• 7:51Speaker 03

  Me either. Maybe she's talking about clocking a lady's tragus ring in line at Starbucks or something?

• 7:57Speaker 02

  Is that part of the ear that's in the middle?

• 7:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think so. I think that's the piercing the cool baristas have.

• 8:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's gotta be it. She sees that tragus piercing, and she starts writing the lesbian version of Call Me By Your Name in her head? I don't, yeah.

• 8:10Speaker 03

  Which, by the way, also heavily features a peach, incidentally. Major plot point in that movie.

• 8:15Speaker 02

  I have not seen it. I don't want to know what happens with the peach, so don't tell me.

• 8:20Speaker 03

  I do not want to make judicious defender number one blush, but Timothy Chalamet does something unholy to it in his private time.

• 8:27Speaker 02

  Okay, so he [BLEEP] a peach. Cool. So Call Me By Your Name just stole the apple pie bit from American Pie. Got it.

• 8:33Speaker 03

  Wow, good point. I never made that connection. Probably, yeah. And then it won an Oscar, so.

• 8:39Speaker 02

  Very Oscar-worthy, yeah.

• 8:40Speaker 03

  I find myself wanting to take trips without him, so I can continue to experience the world on my terms. He tends to like the all-inclusive side of vacation, while I prefer backpacking with very few dollars to my name. That way, I'm forced to rely on people in a truly human way, and they can know me and rely on me in return.

• 8:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, this is so interesting. They sound like a sweet couple, but they could not be more different.

• 9:03Speaker 03

  So her boyfriend's like, babe, let's hit the sandals in Barbados. We never have to leave the property. They do a mean omelet at breakfast.

• 9:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, they do unlimited pours on the Robert Mondavi collection. Exactly.

• 9:15Speaker 03

  And meanwhile, she's like, I'd rather stuff two and a half outfits into my REI backpack and ride the night train from Delhi to a diabor without my Amex card. Let's go.

• 9:24Speaker 02

  Let's go, yeah. In the movie version of their relationship, she's played by Jennifer Lawrence, and he's like Ed Helms.

• 9:32Speaker 03

  I would actually see that movie. There's something there.

• 9:34Speaker 02

  Go write it. And then, once again, quiet, quit Hollywood, so they decide to actually make it.

• 9:39Speaker 03

  That's the winning strategy. That's what I've learned. Let's see where this letter goes, though, because we need a central conflict, and I'm not sure what it is yet.

• 9:45Speaker 02

  I'm over here like...

• 9:50Speaker 03

  I've tried in the past to broach the subject of an open relationship.

• 9:53Speaker 02

  Ah, there we go. Okay. There's the then.

• 9:56Speaker 03

  In fairness, I tried it once in my early twenties and while my boyfriend at the time used it as an excuse to cheat, I ended up with all the suitors. So he shut it down quickly and then became intensely jealous and abusive as a result.

• 10:09Speaker 02

  Open relationships famously smooth sailing.

• 10:12Speaker 03

  I'm willing to try addressing it again.

• 10:13Speaker 02

  Oh, okay. Well, I wonder how her boyfriend's gonna feel about that. I mean, anytime you have an open relationship, of course, the woman's gonna get all the suitors unless you're dating an A-list celebrity or something as a guy. We all know this, right? Even an average woman can have a 10 a day on the apps and an attractive guy might get that much in a month if he's actually playing his cards right.

• 10:34Speaker 03

  Cut to Ed Helms crying by the omelet station.

• 10:37Speaker 02

  Totally. While J-Log gets hit on by people of all genders at the sandals pool bar.

• 10:43Speaker 03

  My partner knows that I'm bisexual, but has still made disparaging comments such as, "I could never date a bi girl because then I'd have to compete with everyone," or "so-and-so is such a [bleep] idiot for not seeing what's right in front of her."

• 10:55Speaker 02

  I want to make sure I got that. So he knows she's bi, but then he's also going, "Oh, you could never date a bi girl," like just making sure you're not bi, even though I know you are. Weird.

• 11:02Speaker 03

  I don't understand it. That's an interesting stance.

• 11:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, just conveniently forgetting she's told him that or kind of hoping it wasn't true.

• 11:10Speaker 03

  Yeah. Does he not believe her? I don't get it.

• 11:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, but she's saying he knows.

• 11:13Speaker 03

  I think what we're hearing is that this is a difficult subject for him.

• 11:16Speaker 02

  Clearly. So he's really struggling with this part of her and the fact that she makes more money and et cetera.

• 11:21Speaker 03

  So he feels threatened by her, I guess, in a couple ways?

• 11:25Speaker 02

  I mean, by this and, you know, also the money thing. Those are both tricky. That's tricky stuff. And I suppose I have some compassion for his feelings about her orientation, but isn't this also something that bi people hate when straight people assume they're gonna be more promiscuous or less trustworthy because of their orientation? Like, I'm bisexual, so I just, I can't stop myself from having sex with people.

• 11:45Speaker 03

  Right. You do hear that a lot.

• 11:47Speaker 02

  Yeah. But, I mean, to be fair, it is a fascinating wrinkle to a relationship because if you did a straight person, your competition, so to speak, is everyone in your gender and you can commit and say, "Look, you're not competing with anybody anymore. This is over." But if you did a bi person, your competition is theoretically everyone. He's not totally, totally wrong here, is he? It's just, it's not, and I'm not saying, "Oh, there's just more people." It's that a woman is different in a way that you can never be. You can't like be the best man and the best woman for her. It's just, it's not possible.

• 12:17Speaker 03

  I gather that what rubs bi people the wrong way sometimes is just this idea that because they're into men and women, they'll sleep with anybody or they'll constantly get interest from all sides and it will just be a constant problem, which is not automatically the case. I mean, if they're in a monogamous relationship, theoretically, their orientation shouldn't matter, right? They're not gonna get involved with another person.

• 12:35Speaker 02

  But in this guy's mind, that's the fear. And if he's this vulnerable around the orientation stuff, I think his brain's gonna explode when she proposes opening up the relationship.

• 12:43Speaker 03

  We both grew up in fairly conservative communities and habits are hard to shake. We also both grew up as only children, so pleasing our very conservative moms is a constant battle between genuinely being honest about who we are and hiding the rest of ourselves so that we don't reveal too much, just in case we give them heart attacks.

• 13:02Speaker 02

  Yeah. Kathy from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania is gonna love that her bi daughter is in an open relationship. Man, so many layers to these two. All right.

• 13:12Speaker 03

  It's also probably important to note that I do not believe in marriage, as it has historically been the surest way to subjugate a woman against her will and keep her down. Therefore, I am completely against marriage, even though I think he would very much prefer it to how we're currently living, despite his protestations that he's perfectly happy with our life and the way it's structured.

• 13:31Speaker 02

  Yep. Yet another big difference between them. All right. Interesting.

• 13:34Speaker 03

  I want to tell my boyfriend that I have a lot more life to explore and maybe that includes meeting a few cute girls, especially because we're on month seven now of no intimacy.

• 13:44Speaker 02

  Ooh, crucial fact.

• 13:46Speaker 03

  He tries, I don't. Maybe because I've absolutely had it with his daily pattern: log into work, turn on TV, maybe play with dogs, maybe go on a walk, most likely get wankered on the couch in the evening.

• 13:59Speaker 02

  Getting wankered, I assume means getting drunk and is that a UK slang or something?

• 14:03Speaker 03

  Getting wankered, not winking on the couch. Different things.

• 14:07Speaker 02

  So he's envious that she makes more money, but his nightly routine slash daily routine is watching TV, maybe playing with the dogs you own, and then just getting schwasted on a lazy boy and passing out? I mean, okay.

• 14:19Speaker 03

  He's gained a lot of weight and won't do the things he needs to do to work it off. The worst part is that he expects me to enjoy doing nothing with him.

• 14:27Speaker 02

  Ooh, that's a tough sentence.

• 14:29Speaker 03

  That line might be the litmus test for a relationship. It's like, do I enjoy doing nothing with this person or am I just doing nothing with this person?

• 14:37Speaker 02

  A hundred percent. So this is not, "We can have fun no matter what we're doing. Even the boring things are fun." This is, "Hey, you're sleepwalking through your life and you just want me to sleepwalk with you. No thanks."

• 14:47Speaker 03

  I end up avoiding him as much as I can and working late so that we overlap as little as possible, a pattern that started during COVID and has only gotten worse. I also do this because I try to avoid his angry and crazed outbursts over seemingly tiny things. I'm not good with loud noises and intense emotions.

• 15:06Speaker 02

  Yeah. COVID was five years ago. This is not sounding good. He's volatile and she's avoidant.

• 15:13Speaker 03

  Which is understandable if Ed Helms is waiting for you at home in a rage because the remote control went out of batteries and he can't watch Slow Horses.

• 15:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, crashing out because he can't watch some of Gary Oldman's finest work on Apple TV. Yeah. No wonder she's fantasizing about backpacking and being literally anywhere else without him. Yeah.

• 15:31Speaker 03

  All my friends have told me to leave him, but they're all single and don't necessarily know what it's like to be in a relationship quite this long.

• 15:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:39Speaker 03

  And no, neither of us is parents, despite our old age and much to our parents' chagrin, but children are not in our future.

• 15:46Speaker 02

  That simplifies matters for sure.

• 15:48Speaker 03

  I do fear that I'm taking all of this for granted and that I should probably listen to elders and just succumb to social norms that I deeply disagree with, just because it would make everything so much easier.

• 15:59Speaker 02

  Okay. Yeah.

• 16:00Speaker 03

  Would it though?

• 16:01Speaker 02

  Yeah. Or would it just get a few people off your back and resolve a couple sources of tension while creating an even deeper one and imprisoning you in your relationship and/or an institution that you view as subjugation? I just can't see this being the solution. It's funny, Gabe, because she makes more money than him, right? So it's like, that money is then going to become his. So actually, I don't know, who's subjugated here? I mean, she still ends up subjugated financially. I don't, this is a mess, dude.

• 16:29Speaker 03

  I'm struggling with the idea of permanence in relationships and the continuity that is required in the implicit promises we make to others.

• 16:37Speaker 02

  Ooh, snap. She said the quiet part out loud.

• 16:40Speaker 03

  She sure did. So she takes us home. How do I tell my partner that he is wonderful and means the world to me?

• 16:46Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 16:47Speaker 03

  Didn't see that question coming.

• 16:48Speaker 02

  Why do we need to do that? But okay.

• 16:49Speaker 03

  How do I communicate in a loving way that I feel my creativity and youthfulness drooping ever further toward my knees and I'm determined to make the most of my assets while I still have some risk tolerance left in me? Signed, hating this loop and wondering if I need to regroup when every cell of my body is telling me to fly the coop.

• 17:09Speaker 02

  I thought you were gonna throw a droop in there, but all right.

• 17:12Speaker 03

  I wasn't about to plagiarize her own word from the closing. I gotta take it to a new place.

• 17:15Speaker 02

  I see. I feel like I lived a few lifetimes in that story.

• 17:18Speaker 03

  Very much the ripe peach of Feedback Friday letters.

• 17:21Speaker 02

  Yeah. Let's see if we can bite into it or if we need to throw it in the compost pile. And also, let's never use the peach metaphor again because it's weirding me out.

• 17:28Speaker 03

  Fine with me. Very on board with that. Continue.

• 17:31Speaker 02

  Man, there's so much going on in this letter. I'm not even sure where to begin, actually.

• 17:34Speaker 03

  Maybe we should begin by appreciating the various conflicts she's in right now because they're left and right and she's in a bind.

• 17:41Speaker 02

  That's the central theme, I think.

• 17:42Speaker 03

  Between stability and chaos, between responsibility and freedom.

• 17:47Speaker 02

  Between men and women, which maybe that's not a conflict, but there is a tension there, given that her boyfriend has complicated feelings about her orientation.

• 17:54Speaker 03

  Yeah. Between being married and being unmarried.

• 17:56Speaker 02

  Yeah. Conventional life versus unconventional life.

• 17:59Speaker 03

  Being authentic, hiding who you really are. Like you said, reconciling these contradictory parts of yourself is becoming increasingly difficult and that's very evident from your letter. And I guess, yeah, I really feel for you there. I have to say, we might be very different from this woman, Jordan, but I think we all struggle with these conflicts in some way. I know I do. But they sound especially stark for her because the fact is she is a fairly unconventional person and I guess in some way she probably is more complicated than your average person. And how do you work with that?

• 18:26Speaker 02

  And you have certain beliefs like this stance on marriage that raise the stakes in all this. Yeah.

• 18:30Speaker 03

  So I know you're asking about how to talk to your partner, how to broach the topic of basically living a bigger life, I guess. We'll talk about that in a minute. But I do sense that the deeper question here is how do I make sense of these competing goals, these potentially incompatible desires? How much do I prioritize my own wants and needs at this stage in our relationship, right? Like, how do I balance them with the interests and the feelings and I guess apparently the vulnerabilities of my partner?

• 18:54Speaker 02

  How selfish can I be, basically?

• 18:56Speaker 03

  In a word, yeah. I don't know. Is selfish the right word?

• 18:58Speaker 02

  No, not really.

• 18:59Speaker 03

  I don't know. It's interesting. I guess being quote unquote selfish in this way, becoming friendly with all of these parts of ourselves, as many as possible, is not easy. Tricky business and it can definitely come at a cost. But I'm, yeah, I'm not sure that's selfish, but maybe it feels that way sometimes.

• 19:14Speaker 02

  I hear that. I'm just bottom lining it because I think the bind she's in is how can I fully be me and enjoy this one life I've been given while I still have time when doing that is probably gonna impact some people, namely my partner, but also my parents and my friends and maybe the world in general and how those people see me, which is maybe where the whole, maybe I should just get married, it would just be easier kind of idea comes from.

• 19:35Speaker 03

  Like you touched on, that's the struggle of being authentic, right? We're constantly negotiating between like, this is who we are and we're gonna assert who we are, but also I'm gonna sacrifice and back away from who I am because it's too difficult.

• 19:47Speaker 02

  Right.

• 19:47Speaker 03

  You know that famous idea, Jordan, you see it on Instagram all the time, like, "The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are." Beautiful thing in theory, and I agree that it's part of why we're here, but we always pay some price for that, right? Always. Of course, the price we're willing to pay, the things that we're willing to give up to potentially enjoy the life we want, that tells us what these choices are worth to us. Like, okay, you want to travel, you want to have relationships with women, for example. If that's part of who you are, and that's important to you, and you want to explore that, great. But then, are you willing to potentially end your relationship for it? Because that might be part of the deal.

• 20:20Speaker 02

  Or, "I really want my friends and parents and society to get off my back, but I also want to be a digital nomad and start a vlog about my travels. Am I willing to potentially leave my job to make it happen? Am I willing to disappoint my parents even further?" So she has some big things to sit with.

• 20:34Speaker 03

  She does. I mean, she's already doing it, but I'm with you. These questions might be primary to the conversation she's trying to prepare for with her partner.

• 20:41Speaker 02

  So let's talk about that conversation. How do you tell your partner that, what did she say, "is wonderful and means the world to you?" I mean, look, that's a nice start. You just tell him, and you really mean it, and you be specific. You know, "When I come home and I tell you about the dumb fight I got into with Jeff at work, and we get to laugh about it, it means the world to me. I know my money situation can be hard for you sometimes, and I really appreciate that you don't let your feelings about it get in the way of my success." I mean, I think that's a pretty sincere and straightforward conversation.

• 21:07Speaker 03

  The hard part is what I assume comes after that.

• 21:10Speaker 02

  I understand, I guess, why she's led with that, but yeah, that's not the hard part. The hard part is, "You're wonderful and you mean the world to me, and I also want more, and I need more, and you're probably not gonna like it."

• 21:21Speaker 03

  So I don't think this is just like one conversation she's preparing for.

• 21:23Speaker 02

  No.

• 21:24Speaker 03

  Right? She might be thinking of this as the one big chat where she tells him, you know, like, "Memento mori. I want more out of my life. I want other experiences. I have to make the most of my assets while I can still..." I don't know if I'd frame it that way, but that's how you feel. "I have to make the most of my assets while I can still accept the risk." But I think a better approach, one that will potentially make this less painful for your partner, and one that will hopefully create some kind of process that you two can be in together, would be to start with something like, "I want to share some new things with you, some thoughts and feelings I'm having lately, also some big questions. I want your input. I want you to know where I am. I think you're gonna end up being part of these decisions in some way, and I'm curious to know how you feel about them, and if you have similar ones."

• 22:03Speaker 02

  I like that. I feel that's gotta be the better approach, because I just felt my shoulders drop. I mean, that's intense.

• 22:09Speaker 03

  I guess it's a question for her. Has she already decided that this is what she's doing, and she wants to give him the news while also letting him know how much he means to her? Or is she still figuring out what she wants her life and relationships to look like, and she wants to just start a dialogue with him?

• 22:22Speaker 02

  I'm kinda hearing both in her letter.

• 22:24Speaker 03

  I'm kinda hearing both. And so, yeah, she might be a little confused. If her goal is to slowly share these things and put these ideas on the table while also minimizing the hurt she might cause, this is one way to do that. But there's one huge question looming in this letter, which is like...

• 22:40Speaker 02

  Does this relationship even make sense anymore?

• 22:42Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 22:43Speaker 02

  Look, obviously, her friends think it doesn't, and, you know, they might be right.

• 22:46Speaker 03

  Her questions might just imply that it's already over in some sense, but there might be a version of all of this, the open version, I guess, where the definition of their relationship changes pretty dramatically, but they don't break up.

• 22:57Speaker 02

  So my feeling there is, we can't tell you whether to break up with your partner. The picture you've painted, it's a mixed bag. There's some very sweet and touching stuff in your relationship. There's some objectively concerning and very dysfunctional stuff. The concerning and dysfunctional stuff to me is your partner's lifestyle. I mean, not so much being a homebody, that's whatever, his choice, fair choice, if that's what he genuinely enjoys. But they're getting hammered on the couch most evenings, and the weight gain, I mean, that's just not a good sign. You haven't told us much about him, but I'm gonna guess he's numbing and coping and escaping with these habits. He's got some other stuff he's not dealing with. Equally concerning, though, the fact that you're avoiding him as much as you can, and you have done so for what sounds like five years plus. I mean, COVID, again, was a long time ago. And you do that so you don't have to deal with his

• 23:41Speaker 02

  angry and crazed outbursts over seemingly tiny things. Man, okay, that's an interesting dynamic, because, well, it's a dynamic. You're not good with loud noises and intense emotions. Okay, fine, but I also wouldn't like angry, unhinged outbursts over nothing. I don't think anybody would. It sounds like he's not good at regulating himself and expressing his feelings in a more productive way. We'd need to know a lot more about you guys to really understand what that dynamic consists of, and how it developed, and what it says about you guys. But my questions for you are, what conflicts and what feelings are you avoiding? Specifically in him, but more importantly, in yourself, when you stay away from him? Is this something you can talk to him about? Do you want to work on this

• 24:25Speaker 02

  with him? Or is the relationship essentially over in your mind, and you're just kinda hanging around?

• 24:31Speaker 03

  It's interesting, this dynamic. It might point to the fact that there are problems in your relationship that you no longer want to deal with or work on. Or, this dynamic is the problem. And leaning into it would breathe new life into your relationship. For example, staying late at work and avoiding your partner, that might be a reasonable response to an unpredictable person, and a symptom of being in a relationship that doesn't really work. It might also be a response to your partner, a way of communicating something to him when you don't actually want to say it. And that could be depriving you of the intimacy and the aliveness that you say you're craving. So if you went to him and said, "Hey, when you get worked up about relatively small things, I get overwhelmed, and then I want to stay away, and then there's distance between us. So I want to get better at maybe tolerating some of this intensity so we can stay connected, and I want to ask you to

• 25:15Speaker 03

  get better at regulating yourself and communicating differently, so I can hear you." Like, can we try that? If you said something like that, I do wonder what would happen. Would it bring you closer together? Would it remind you that there's still life in this relationship? Would it give you guys a chance to evolve? Maybe.

• 25:30Speaker 02

  Definitely a possibility. But then I wonder, if he's prone to these outbursts, does she even feel safe enough to share this stuff with him? Like, is this conversation even doable?

• 25:39Speaker 03

  If it's not doable, then that is also very crucial information.

• 25:42Speaker 02

  Yeah. Look, I should've said this earlier, but Gabe, I used to avoid my former business partner and his girlfriend. I lived with them, and I would go to, I think I've said this on the show before, I'd go to Denny's after working out in the evening. So she'd come home from work, and I was like, "Oh, here we go." So I'd go work out, and then I'd go to Denny's or whatever, like, stay for like three, four hours working on my laptop. And Denny's Wi-Fi is not the best, right?

• 26:07Speaker 03

  They're not known for their Wi-Fi. Yeah, they're known for the steak and eggs.

• 26:09Speaker 02

  Nor for much else, yeah. $2.99, are you out of your mind? Remember that? And I was out of my mind. And the thing is, what's funny is, I remember telling my therapist what my routine, she's like, "What's your routine? You know, you're working out now." I'm like, "Oh, I work from home." And then as soon as she gets back, they, you know, it turns even worse. And then I go work out, and then I don't go home for five hours, and I sit at Denny's in my sweaty gym clothes and eat, you know, Grand Slams, or whatever. And she's like, "This is crazy. You need to move out." And I was like, "Oh, I don't know. I mean, it's just..." And she's like, "No, you're avoiding them. You need to move out." And what's funny, man, I moved out, and they broke up. I don't even know if it was a month later. And I remember telling my therapist, like, "Of course, right when I move out, they break up, and I didn't need to move out." And she's like, "No, they broke

• 26:54Speaker 02

  up because they couldn't blame all their problems on you anymore, and they figured out it was actually their relationship." Years later, I spoke with his ex-girlfriend, actually, it was like last year. She confirmed all that was true. She's like, "Yeah, once you moved out, we realized we actually hated each other. We didn't hate you. Like, I blamed it all on you, and he blamed it all on you, but no, you were just there, and we hated each other, and we didn't want to face that." I thought that was a really interesting insight from my therapist that turned out to be correct.

• 27:19Speaker 03

  Cut to her sitting in the booth across from you at Denny's. Now you're both riding the Wi-Fi at night.

• 27:23Speaker 02

  And I'm like, "Can I go home now? Because if you're gonna be..." Yeah. So, yeah, that, to me, this isn't a direct application, right? But if you're avoiding somebody by sitting around, not, you're staying in your office late, or you're working from a coffee shop until 11, so you don't have to deal with your, the people at home, there's something wrong at home, and you need to address that. And sometimes, addressing that means saying goodbye, like I did. And like you possibly should. Anyway, look, it's possible these two simply aren't right for each other. They just seem to have very different needs, very different interests, very different ways of communicating.

• 27:55Speaker 03

  Yeah. I'm also just remembering that they had that rocky history she alluded to. So what was that about?

• 28:00Speaker 02

  Yes, the deliciously bad habits and overindulgences, which I still don't understand what the hell that means, but okay. I don't know why that's stuck in my craw, but it is.

• 28:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, you're a little worked up about it. I think when people dance around something in a Feedback Friday letter, you get angry, and I get it.

• 28:16Speaker 02

  I get worked up. I'm direct. I don't know if you guys noticed. I don't use flowery language to hide shit.

• 28:21Speaker 03

  You're like, "I love a metaphor if I know what's going on, but if it's just the metaphor or some vague language, then..."

• 28:27Speaker 02

  Yeah. What is this, a Harlequin romance novel? She means penis, Jordan. She means penis.

• 28:33Speaker 03

  Whatever that chaos and drama was about, I wonder how much that played a role in bonding them earlier on in their relationship and also maybe allowed them to avoid some big things in their relationship that are impossible to ignore now that they have settled into a much more stable routine.

• 28:47Speaker 02

  And now she's like, oh, this is what our relationship is actually like. And meanwhile, they're evolving in very different directions. Could opening up your relationship be the solution? Maybe. It seems to be for some couples, although that's not without its challenges, as I'm sure you know. Is he gonna go for that? I have no idea. I'm guessing he's not gonna be over the moon about it. I mean, he can't seem to fully accept your orientation. I'm not sure he's gonna cheer you on from the sidelines while you go off and have flings with men and women from around the world. Who knows? It's possible. It's a conversation. But here's what I think is gonna happen. She's gonna work up to saying, I wanna open up our relationship. And he's either gonna go, ah, absolutely not. In which case, she's either gonna have to let go of that idea and stay and be miserable and trapped, or

• 29:31Speaker 02

  they're gonna break up. Or he's gonna come around to the idea and give it a shot, and she's gonna be gone half the year backpacking and having sex with a bunch of people, and it's gonna kill him and highlight all of the things that she already finds frustrating about him.

• 29:44Speaker 03

  Oh, boy. I can't wait for her update in six months. It's gonna be a good one.

• 29:47Speaker 02

  Look, you know me, I'm on the reddits, and when people talk about open relationships, yada, yada, that seems to only work for people who have always been ethically non-monogamous, right? They date that way. If they get married, it's from the jump, right? It's not like, oh, something, something in our marriage isn't working, let's open it up. Those are the ones where people go, oh, my God, this is gonna be a disaster. And I think there's a whole subreddit for this called Open Marriage Regret. And it's essentially, the cliche is, guy wants to open up the marriage, screws his secretary once or twice, finds out that nobody wants a 56-year-old overweight dude who, you know, is on dating apps, and wife gets banged by, you know, three dudes a week barely trying. And then the guy's like,

• 30:32Speaker 02

  hey, can we close it back up? And then wife is like, no, actually, you're a disaster, and this is great, and makes me feel young again. I'm out. Or they can't close it up, and there's all this jealousy and regret from the guy, and he basically says like, you're a whore. And she's like, dude, you told me to do this, so you could sleep with your secretary. Anyway, like you said, can't wait for the update in six months. Like, I'm not sure opening up the relationship solves any of these problems anyways, really.

• 30:53Speaker 03

  Again, I think the questions that she's asking are not the real questions, or not quite the right questions at this stage.

• 30:59Speaker 02

  Agreed. Here's a question I think is much more helpful. If you lived in a world where you could not sleep with women at all, would you still wanna stay in this relationship? I'm gonna go ahead and guess the answer is no, because these problems with him exist independent of your orientation and your hunger for more life experiences. Gabe, I think she wants to leave this guy, and she wants to date women, but she's conflating the two things somehow, and she needs to separate those things. So here's another question. What form of freedom do you want, really? Is it freedom to have some time to yourself? Is it freedom to do things like travel without your partner? Is it freedom to have relationships with other people? Or is it the freedom to just not have a partner

• 31:41Speaker 02

  at all and do whatever you want? Look, you have some work to do in getting clear on that, because you seem to be flirting with several different forms of freedom, and I'm not entirely sure that you know which one you truly need, which is, I understand why, but I don't think you're that clear on this.

• 31:56Speaker 03

  I'm also curious about what her friends are seeing and why that's hard for her to take in.

• 32:00Speaker 02

  Yeah. Okay, so they're going, he sits on the couch, he has drunken outbursts, you're avoiding him, you haven't had sex in seven months, what the hell? And she's going, well, you guys don't know what it's like to be in a relationship this long. And they're like, yeah, because we don't stay with people that long when it gets like this. Like, how is that a response?

• 32:16Speaker 03

  I think she means you guys don't understand how hard it is to think about saying goodbye to somebody you've been with for this long.

• 32:21Speaker 02

  Okay, or she's like, oh, all relationships degrade to the point of absurdity, and you guys just don't understand that, and you're supposed to put up with it. I mean, ugh. But she's also saying, we have some major problems, and I want more out of life, so...

• 32:34Speaker 03

  So, another conflict. But this one is born from perhaps some willful blindness about the problems in their relationship, or her unwillingness to confront the end of this thing, basically.

• 32:44Speaker 02

  Agreed. And her loyalty to this guy, which I appreciate, but which I'm also a little confused by, it's not more important than whether they are actually compatible.

• 32:52Speaker 03

  Exactly. And she's not doing him any favors by sticking around if she does not want to be there, which seems to be the case if she's avoiding him this much. That's not ultimately kind to him. It's just kind of protecting him in a weird way and avoiding the pain.

• 33:05Speaker 02

  Exactly. But my feeling is that you have to answer these deeper questions first, before you throw the proverbial peach into the compost.

• 33:12Speaker 03

  I thought you were done with the peach talk. I thought we were done.

• 33:15Speaker 02

  I would like to be done with the peach talk. Talk to your partner, share courageously, listen generously, move slowly and go from there, one step at a time. I hope it's a productive conversation, and good luck. And now, some peach-fuckingly good deals on the fine products and services that support this show. We'll be right back.

• 33:35Speaker 02

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• 34:39Speaker 02

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• 35:23Speaker 02

  support us. Now, back to Feedback Friday.

• 35:27Speaker 02

  Okay, next up.

• 35:28Speaker 03

  Hey, guys. My sister and I co-owned a condo in Los Angeles. We are not rich by any means, and we tried for a while to keep our heads above water on it. Over the years, I lived there for a while, and we also rented it out to some long-term tenants, as well as on Airbnb. Then, last year, a prospective tenant, we'll call her Jenny, responded to my sister's listing on Zillow. Immediately, Jenny was trying to negotiate the security deposit lower, and she wanted to move in within the next week. She said it would just be her in the two-bed, two-bath condo. My sister, who was stressed about finding a renter and is also heavy on the people-pleasing, agreed before consulting me.

• 36:07Speaker 02

  Perfect condition for something bad to happen, yeah.

• 36:09Speaker 03

  As soon as Jenny came to view the place, drop off the security deposit, and prorated rent for the last few days of the month, and grabbed the keys, I got a sinking feeling. She was definitely strange.

• 36:21Speaker 02

  Hmm. Sometimes you gotta listen to that feeling, but man, it's really hard once the train's moving.

• 36:26Speaker 03

  But the background check that Zillow claims to do came back clean. She provided references and pay stubs and bank statements, so we figured she was just a social media influencer or something. Cut to a day or so after she moved in, and my sister and I went over there to replace the air filters. When we walked in, the place reeked of weed. The lease and building rules clearly state no smoking of any kind. And a man and two small children were clearly at home there.

• 36:53Speaker 02

  Wow, she didn't waste any time, did she?

• 36:55Speaker 03

  We sent her an email explaining that everyone who was living there needed to be on the lease, and to please send us everyone's names. She assured us that everyone else was just visiting for the holiday. We also told her there was no smoking allowed, which she never responded to. My sinking feeling sunk even lower after that visit. When the five-day grace period for the first month's rent came and went, I immediately knew we needed to start eviction proceedings.

• 37:20Speaker 02

  Ah, this is awful. Good for you for starting that process immediately and not letting it drag out even longer.

• 37:25Speaker 03

  The process worked its way through the courts. That took three months, and then through the sheriff's office, which took another three months, until the squatters moved on.

• 37:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, sadly, that's how the process works, at least in California. I've heard of landlords waiting a year or more for an eviction. Six months is probably, maybe it's about average.

• 37:43Speaker 03

  They left the place completely trashed, and the walls and carpet were saturated with weed smoke from their incessant hotboxing of the condo. Yes, even while the young kids were in the home.

• 37:54Speaker 02

  Such trash. So sorry about this.

• 37:56Speaker 03

  During this process, I did a little investigative work of my own, and found a property owner who had dealt with Jenny the previous year, and they had literally the exact same story. I am 100% certain that when Jenny left our place, she went and did the same thing to some other unsuspecting property owner. I also found out that all of her bank statements were falsified. We briefly consulted with a private investigator, and he found that she's a really shitty wannabe rapper slash OnlyFans operator, is using multiple people's social security numbers, and is definitely defrauding the welfare program. Zillow claimed to have performed a background check, but none of Jenny's prior three evictions came to light. It's almost like they're lying about the value they provide to property owners.

• 38:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, wow, I can't with these kind. How did these people live with themselves, seriously?

• 38:46Speaker 03

  You have to be like clinically antisocial to be okay living somewhere for six months without paying rent and damaging the property and causing all of these problems. Ugh.

• 38:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, knowing that the landlord and probably all the neighbors know you're a nuisance and a scammer and you have to just not care. You have to be such an antisocial idiot.

• 39:02Speaker 03

  Either that or there are some people who are so desperate for housing and can't get it together, they just don't care.

• 39:08Speaker 02

  No, there's being desperate and there's being a parasite. You can be desperate for housing and lie and falsify pay statements and then be like a normal tenant and try to pay on time and not destroy the place. No, this person is a parasite. Most of these people are just defective pieces of crap. If somebody fakes bank statements because they need housing, I have a little bit of sympathy for that. That's fraud, by the way, and illegal. But like, I don't know, you work your butt off and you pay rent. Eventually we forget about the whole thing and you turn yourself into a decent tenant. No, no, no, this is not what this woman did. I hate people like this.

• 39:38Speaker 03

  All in all, she cost us $25,000 in unpaid rent, $10,000 in property damage and another few thousand in cleanup fees and lost rental income while we got all the damage taken care of. It was one of the most demoralizing things I have ever had to experience. It put enormous strain on my sister and my relationship, ruined both of our credit, which we had worked really hard to maintain in good standing, and put both of us in serious financial trouble. The only way I got through it was by taking out a credit card with a 0% APR for 18 months as soon as I started to sense trouble. I maxed it out during this process and am just now close to paying off that balance.

• 40:17Speaker 02

  Again, I'm so sorry to hear all this. I can't believe this woman compromised you guys personally like this. I feel like a lot of people think, oh landlords, they're just all rich. Screw them, it's a business, they'll be fine, they have insurance. But in the US, 70 to 85% of residential landlords are mom and pop. They're just people. It's not their LLC with 500 grand in the bank that takes a hit when a tenant refused to pay rent. The Jennies of the world can bankrupt families, they can ruin their lives and they don't care. It's awful. So my heart goes out to you and your sister. I'm glad that credit card came in handy. Well done for almost paying it off in full. Really, that's an accomplishment.

• 40:51Speaker 03

  I'm so angry that someone would do this to someone else intentionally. And I'm super angry that the law protects professional scammers like Jenny. Not only is the process to evict someone extra tedious, I mean, what more do you need than we have a contract in which I provide you housing in exchange for money and you haven't given me the money, so you need to leave. But it was also insanely slow.

• 41:12Speaker 02

  I get it. I mean, look, the law also needs to cover all situations and offer protections for tenants against dangerous landlords and stuff like that. You know, there's people who fall behind on rent and they should not be homeless because they need an extra 30 days or something like that to pay when they're in a dire situation. That's not what happened here. I mean, this was fraudulent, there's multiple crimes here. But so I understand your anger. And in a situation like this, it is insane that it takes so long. I mean, that once you can prove fraud in the inducement with the bank statements and stuff, I mean, they should just be like, oh, in that case, the whole contract is void. Sheriff, go kick their ass out and one, you know, give them 72 hours to get their ish out of there.

• 41:48Speaker 03

  I know it's highly unlikely that we will ever recover the money Jenny owes us. But is there a way to hold her legally accountable? Is there a way to prevent other unsuspecting property owners from falling prey to her scams? What about alerting the people whose social security numbers she's using? Can anything be done about Zillow not catching the prior evictions? How can I hold a professional squatter accountable for the $25,000 that she owes me? And the rest of the money she owes all the other property owners she scammed? Might there be a way to recover any of this money? Signed, wondering what I'm owed after I got totally snowed by the straight up scammer who took over our boat.

• 42:27Speaker 02

  What a nightmare. I'm so sorry you and your sister went through this. I know it's not just the money which is significant, it's the feeling of being manipulated and screwed by a scammer, a straight up scammer. It leaves you with some really awful feelings, I know. And this desire for justice, which you deserve. If I were in your shoes, yeah, I would be livid. And I'd think I'd have a dartboard with Jenny's picture on it. I'd be throwing darts at it all day while imagining how I could recover my money and hold this criminal accountable. I mean, this is the kind of thing where you're like, hey, do I know anybody who's like a paid thug that will go break her kneecaps? I would be so pissed about recovering this money you absolutely deserve. First off, your unlawful detainer judgments of the eviction, it produced a judgment for possession of the home. It may have also produced an enforceable money judgment against Jenny, meaning she owes you the rent she never paid.

• 43:12Speaker 02

  So my first idea for you is to turn that debt into a judgment or enforce the judgment that you already have. California's real estate laws specifically account for obtaining a money judgment for unpaid rent. And a writ of execution can then be used to collect. Look, a judgment is not just a piece of paper that says Jenny's squat owes me 35 grand. It gives you enforcement machinery. Once they know where the money is, California allows things like wage garnishment, bank levies, liens against real estate. Look, I doubt she has that, but maybe she has other assets. A bank levy is particularly interesting if Jenny is self-employed and she has money periodically landing in identifiable accounts. You know, I know this person is a total frickin' loser, obviously.

• 43:55Speaker 02

  But look, if OnlyFans is making transfers to her Chase account every five days for the crappy homemade porn her and that guy are making in front of their kids, that's real money. You could be entitled to it, with some exceptions that we just don't need to get into right now. Now, let's say you enforce a judgment against her, but you can't find the assets. Theoretically, you could haul her into what's called a judgment debtor examination. That's a court proceeding you can use to find assets that you can legally seize. And basically, this allows you to ask her stuff, your attorney to ask her stuff, under oath. Like, hey Jenny, where do you work? Where do you bank? What property do you own? What businesses do you have? Who owes you money? You could subpoena her financial records. And look, she again is a total parasitic loser, so she might not show up. Fine, the judge will issue a bench warrant for Jenny for failure to obey the court order.

• 44:40Speaker 02

  Then, one day, she's going to be driving around in the lease car she stopped paying for. And she's going to get pulled over, arrested, brought before the court, and a judge would address the failure to appear and could order her to participate in the examination. To be clear, the examination itself probably won't get you paid, but it would give you the information you need to pursue collection. And in some cases, apparently the court can order certain property or money turned over towards satisfying the judgment. Now, if your judgment didn't encompass all the rent and property damage, I would absolutely book a consult with a California landlord attorney and ask them whether it's worth bringing a separate civil action for the remaining damages. I would also ask them whether the evidence in this case, which you seem to have a ton of, whether that supports a fraud claim, not just a breach of the lease agreement.

• 45:24Speaker 02

  And Jenny's like, sorry, I have no money right now, tough kishka. That doesn't mean the judgment is worthless. California judgments generally remain enforceable for years. They could potentially be renewed. It depends on the kind of judgment. And if I'm in your shoes, I'd put every renewal deadline in my calendar and I'd stay on top of that, so this doesn't just go away. Which is probably what a lot of landlords end up doing. That's why the Jennies of the world often get away with this crap. California specifically treats judgments arising from fraud differently from certain ordinary personal debts, which is another reason I would definitely explore the fraud claim. She can't just be like, I don't have any money, sorry, I'm gonna let the clock run out on this. It's like, no, no, no, you committed a crime. We're not just gonna let you sort of write this one off and notify everybody. It gets treated differently in a way that's prejudicial to her.

• 46:07Speaker 03

  All sound advice, but I might actually go a step further because one deadbeat tenant failing to pay rent, that's like a garden variety civil matter, right? But what Jenny did, falsifying bank statements, apparently using stolen social security numbers, making false representations to get a lease, doing this to multiple other landlords, possible welfare fraud? Like, this is a much bigger deal.

• 46:28Speaker 02

  Yes, I know that Jenny's an, again, a total loser dumbass, but this is a repeat fraud operation. The one thing she's good at, besides making raps or whatever and her OnlyFans, which it sounds like she's not that good at, is fraud and identity theft. You've gathered all this evidence through the process. I would do what we often recommend, which is create one big binder of evidence. The lease, the application, the allegedly falsified financial statements, the screening report, the eviction judgment, photographs and invoices for damage, communications, whatever your private investigator found out, the previous landlord's information, the evidence they collected. In fact, you might even want to get together with the other landlord and make this a group project. That'll only strengthen your case. It'll divide up the work, I'm sure it'll give you a much needed ally in all this, which would be nice for all of you.

• 47:13Speaker 02

  And then you take that package to the LAPD and you file a police report. And when you talk to the police, I would specifically frame the allegation against Jenny as rental, application fraud and identity theft. Not, wah, she didn't pay rent. Because it sounds to me like there's several potential crimes here. Theft, potentially by false pretenses, potentially grand theft, forgery, identity theft, which is potentially very serious if you actually have proof she used other people's social security numbers, and welfare fraud. And who knows what other crimes, honestly? Depending on what the investigation uncovers, this could be the tip of the iceberg.

• 47:48Speaker 03

  I would also highlight all of the evidence you have that there are repeat victims here. When I was looking into this earlier, I saw that the LAPD has publicly looked for additional landlords in previous rental fraud investigations before because multiple victims means a larger pattern, which means a bigger case, which means stronger enforcement. And hopefully that'll also make them prioritize you. The LAPD also has something called the Commercial Crimes Division, which specifically investigates rental fraud schemes involving people using other people's identifying information to obtain apartments. So the person you talk to should give you a report number. Take that police report and that report number, add them to the binder and send that copy to the LA County DA's Real Estate Fraud Section. That section explicitly accepts real estate fraud complaints and basically

• 48:32Speaker 03

  You're going to fill out their real estate fraud complaint form. It's a downloadable PDF on the website. You snail mail it to them with your package of evidence and hopefully they look into it. And by the way, that form specifically asks whether there's already a civil case and for that case number, which to me is another sign that pursuing multiple avenues here is going to increase the likelihood of any one agency taking action.

• 48:52Speaker 02

  Smart. Yeah. Also, you said Jenny is definitely defrauding the welfare program. I don't know which welfare program, what evidence you have, but the LA County Department of Public Social Services, they have a welfare fraud prevention and investigation unit where you can report suspected fraud involving LA County benefits. I would file a report with them too. Again, as many channels as appropriate, sticking to the evidence that you have. As far as warning other landlords, all right, this is kind of where my dark Jordan mind went, but you have to be really careful about this because even if your story is true and provable, publicly accusing an identifiable person of crimes, that can get dicey. Suddenly you're exposing yourself to claims of defamation, harassment, privacy violations.

• 49:34Speaker 02

  So I would not, you know, make a hosting or page called Jenny is a professional squatter dot com, or send emails to her temp job employer, or try to contact her family, or post her alleged crimes on Instagram, or try to get her OnlyFans account shut down. You want that money anyway. The smartest strategy is to work the system. And if you do that, it is very possible that future legitimate tenant screening will actually pick up these public court records. Now about Zillow, I'm stunned that their background check failed so spectacularly. I mean, she had three previous evictions and Zillow didn't catch any of those. What the hell, man?

• 50:10Speaker 03

  That is crazy, dude. How did that happen? That's their job.

• 50:13Speaker 02

  That's they have one job. Yeah. Turning up previous evictions filed in civil court is like just the bare effing minimum that these reports should be able to do. That is the entire point. But then I do know that these record searches, they have a lot of restrictions, like certain older records and non-judgments and vacated cases and appealed cases. They often get left out and federal law, state law, local law, that can all change what turns up in these things.

• 50:39Speaker 03

  So maybe your beef is with the state of California, not that you need more reasons to hate the Golden State after all this, but hmm, maybe that's where the fault lies.

• 50:46Speaker 02

  I do understand that Zillow almost certainly uses a third-party screening provider for these reports, but so what? That's not okay. I'd be super pissed at Zillow for this. Come on.

• 50:56Speaker 03

  This might also speak to how low-level criminals can very easily fly under the radar, especially if other landlords didn't pursue judgments or criminal charges against her and then it just doesn't show up when you pull the records.

• 51:06Speaker 02

  Here's another half-cocked dark Jordan idea. Next time you get a renter, you can just casually say something like, hey, quick heads up because we've had rental fraud before. Applications that raise authenticity issues get escalated beyond the Zillow check we're about to do. We've had fake pay stubs, fake employment records, identity fraud. Anyway, that all gets documented and we've had to refer it to law enforcement. So you don't seem like the type, but if anything you've submitted isn't genuine, now is the point where you should withdraw the application, no questions asked, and good luck in the future. You could even say like, hey, funny story. We actually had someone try to scam us and, you know, I looked into this and there was a California tenant who used fraudulent information to get approved for an apartment and they got two years and eight months in state prison.

• 51:51Speaker 02

  Oh my God, apparently rental application fraud that can turn into identity theft and false financial statement and grand theft charges. So anyway, I'm just extremely careful of how I verify everything. Do you want to send the documents via email or do you have them right now?

• 52:04Speaker 03

  Clever.

• 52:05Speaker 02

  And they're going to waddle off and scam somebody else.

• 52:07Speaker 03

  That's a nice way to avoid this in the future.

• 52:09Speaker 02

  I think so. But really the best thing you can do now is file all these reports and complaints because if these agencies pursue these crimes, that might show up on future background checks and that's really the most reliable way to help other unsuspecting property owners from falling prey to this woman. That said, if there were three recent reportable eviction judgments under Jenny's correctly supplied identity and Zillow literally said, oh, search for them, nothing there, she's good. That is sus. I would have your attorney maybe investigate that and I would preserve everything Zillow showed you guys when you pulled the report and then have your attorney review it. You could theoretically have a case against Zillow or its screening provider and you, you know, who knows, maybe other landlords. Maybe it has the potential to be a class action. You could try to hold them civilly liable for your losses, but an attorney might also

• 52:54Speaker 02

  look into this and go like, uh, Zillow complied with its obligations. There's no viable claim. Here's the document. My feeling is that's just a whole other legal battle that you do not want to fight right now. It's going to cost you time. It's going to cost you money. I'm guessing it's a long shot. You're going to want to focus your efforts on going after Jenny. She's the real POS here.

• 53:11Speaker 03

  Well, she's angry and so she's looking at all these different entities from Zillow to the California court system, to everyone else who failed them that should have protected her and her sister. I get it.

• 53:20Speaker 02

  Yes, which I totally get. You could argue that they all failed her because they did.

• 53:23Speaker 03

  But I also think it's important that she and her sister, her sister especially, owned their role in all of this. There were red flags from the start. Jenny trying to negotiate the security deposit down, wanting to move in weirdly quickly. Her sister was stressed about finding a renter. She's a people pleaser, so I'm guessing she did not appropriately push back on Jenny or maybe challenge her a little bit if necessary and fully vet her. She also agreed to rent to Jenny before consulting our friend here, which I just find that detail interesting.

• 53:50Speaker 02

  Yeah. What is that about? Does her sister often make decisions alone? Did she know our friend would have questions and push back? And was she afraid of that conflict? What's going on?

• 53:58Speaker 03

  That's what I'm wondering. All of these things are possible, but they owned this condo together. They are partners, so they should be making those decisions together unless they have some other arrangement. And when Jenny came to see the place and drop off the check, our friend got that sinking feeling. That sinking feeling is very significant. Like we say all the time, it's not always right, but it is absolutely worth factoring in. So they made a few mistakes before Jenny moved in. It is not their fault that Jenny scammed them, but I think it's really important that they use this terrible experience, which severely compromised them, but apparently did not ruin them completely, which is a wonderful, thank goodness. They can use this to learn, to learn hopefully to be savvier landlords if they still have this property. It's a little unclear.

• 54:40Speaker 03

  To communicate and collaborate with each other better, to pay attention to these gut reactions and social cues. And in her sister's case, I think to manage her anxiety better and to work on tolerating conflict, whether it's with prospective tenants or with our friend here, because that's where this vulnerability to Jenny really began. If those qualities were not there, Jenny probably would not have moved in.

• 55:01Speaker 02

  That is a really important point. Careful people also get conned, of course. It's not foolproof, but that's why it's important to build a process, like a checklist, that'll work for you even when you're eager to fill a vacancy. All the anger our friend here feels is absolutely legit and it might also be a way to avoid sitting with the anger she feels at her sister and maybe at herself to some degree for not clocking this scammer parasite before she moved in, which I know can be really hard to feel when you've been conned. At the same time, I think she can hold her sister accountable for making this decision alone without making her responsible for being defrauded by a professional scammer who does this for a living. But this is how you learn. Every landlord I know has at least one of these nightmare stories pretty much, and

• 55:46Speaker 02

  every single one of them taught them something crucial. How to vet tenants, how to manage problems, how to navigate the system. But here's the great news. You didn't go bankrupt. Maybe you still have the condo. I'm not totally sure, but that's a blessing. You're still in the game. So my advice to you is hold Jenny accountable in all these ways, but also try to shift your lens from who can I get mad at to how can I learn from this and what can I learn from this? And I know in time Jenny's going to become the villain who turns you and your sister into much better landlords. Sending you both a big hug and wishing you all the best. All right, now we're going to hotbox you with the dank 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 ZipRecruiter.

• 56:31Speaker 02

  The holidays are coming and somewhere a business owner is trying to hire a real bearded Santa. Meanwhile, somebody else needs a Grinch. Very different interviews. One candidate needs to be great with kids. The other needs to steal Christmas without making anybody cry. It's funny, and so you're the person who has to fill these jobs. Whether you need a convincing Santa or a snowplow driver with a special license, specific skills matter and those people aren't always easy to find. ZipRecruiter helps you find qualified people who are excited about your role. And right now you can try it for free at ziprecruiter.com/jordan. ZipRecruiter has a new feature that shows you the most interested qualified candidates first, so you meet the right people faster. Candidates can even tell you in their own words why they're excited about your job. That gives you more to go on than just a resume alone.

• 57:13Speaker 02

  Let ZipRecruiter find the right people for your roles, seasonal or otherwise. Try it for free at ziprecruiter.com/jordan. That's ziprecruiter.com/jordan. Meet your match on ZipRecruiter. This episode is brought to you by Xero. That's Xero with an X. Running a small business means there's always something competing for your attention. Managing your finances shouldn't make your day more complicated. Xero brings accounting, payments, payroll and analytics together in one connected platform, so you spend less time piecing together the numbers and more time actually building your business. We've been using Xero for nearly a decade now and honestly, we don't know what we'd do without it at this point. That's meant clear reports, dashboards we can actually read, forecasts and AI-powered insights that help us understand our own cash flow and see how the business is really

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• 58:29Speaker 02

  Okay, what's next?

• 58:30Speaker 03

  So, over five years ago now, we took a letter from a recent college grad who had moved in with her boyfriend and his parents during COVID after their neighborhood became unsafe. And the four of them got along really well, but living with his mother had become apparently extremely stressful. She was intense and petty and passive aggressive about relatively minor problems. The woman writing in tried to be sympathetic to this person and helpful and generous and basically a considerate house guest, but the constant negativity and the drama made the house feel suffocating to the point that she actually dreaded leaving her home office to go have dinner in the common area. That was episode 478, by the way. And so, her question was, "Beyond being thoughtful and accommodating, what can I do to build a better relationship with my boyfriend's mother and make living together less stressful?"

• 59:16Speaker 03

  Well, she just wrote in with an update and it goes, "Hi, team. An update and follow-up almost six years later. My relationship with my boyfriend ended amicably after two years when I moved to New York City, but we've been pretty much like family ever since. His parents became my second parents as they helped me navigate my early career in the US as my parents live in Asia. I've been to family events and I talk to them almost every day. We have a family group chat with the four of us."

• 59:44Speaker 02

  Wow, that's really sweet. So this mom who is driving her nuts, actually, apparently not all that bad, huh?

• 59:49Speaker 03

  I guess not. This is rare, though, to break up with somebody and but still be adopted by their parents and talk to them every day. That's really, that's cute.

• 59:55Speaker 02

  It is, but look, guys, this is Feedback Friday, so there's a problem right around the corner. I mean, again.

• 1:00:04Speaker 03

  "The awkward thing is, I've been dating my current boyfriend for over a year. Things are getting serious and marriage is definitely on the horizon, but I haven't told him about my second parents yet."

• 1:00:17Speaker 02

  Interesting. Okay, and it's been over a year?

• 1:00:21Speaker 03

  "He also doesn't know that I talk to my ex."

• 1:00:24Speaker 02

  Oh, okay. This is a thing. Wow, stressful.

• 1:00:28Speaker 03

  "There's nothing shady going on. I talk to my ex-boyfriend almost every day and we're best friends, but there's nothing romantic or flirty there. I would be happy to show my current boyfriend our entire convo history, but my boyfriend doesn't keep in touch with any of his exes and is a very stand-up guy in that regard. You can imagine how this adds to my guilt. I also haven't told my ex-boyfriend and his parents about my new boyfriend. It's like they all know all parts of my life, except for one another."

• 1:00:56Speaker 02

  Okay, so yeah, nothing shady going on, except for all the lying, which, I mean, come on, that's a little shady. What's going on here?

• 1:01:02Speaker 03

  "I guess I wanted to wait until things were more official with my new boyfriend to share the news, but I never found a good time. And now it seems kind of late. It feels like anything I do would seem shady. What is the best way to navigate this? Signed, struggling to hit the mark and hoping for a better arc when all of my people are in the dark."

• 1:01:23Speaker 02

  Wow, okay. Well, first of all, sorry that you and your ex broke up, but it sounds like that was a peaceful breakup. There's still a lot of love there, both from him and from his parents. It's sweet, it really is. And the fact that y'all's chat history is normal and you're happy to show it to your boyfriend, that suggests that your ex and his parents are just solid people, you guys have a special bond, everyone's on the same page, so it's all in the up and up. Congrats on also finding your current boyfriend. Sounds like the relationship is heading in an exciting direction. This guy might be your husband. Amazing. But, there's this little secret you've been keeping, so let's get clear on one thing. It wasn't that you never found a good time, or whatever, to tell your boyfriend about your relationship with your ex's family. You were afraid to tell him, so you kept kicking the can down the road. And now it feels like this big secret, like there was something shady when it didn't need to be this way.

• 1:02:08Speaker 02

  So, my question for you is, what were you avoiding by not telling your boyfriend about this sooner? Were you worried that he would get angry, or jealous, or insecure? Was it scary to just think about saying this to him out loud? Were you afraid that he'd tell you to stop talking to them? I would sit with this and be very specific about what you were dodging here. Whatever it is, even if it seems to be about your boyfriend, his feelings, his reactions, ultimately, I think you'll find it's really about you. For example, if you were worried that your boyfriend would be angry and jealous, look, I'm making that up, I have no idea if he would be, it doesn't sound like he has any reason to be, but if that were his response, by avoiding this conversation, you were probably avoiding having to feel fear and guilt, or a more general tension with your boyfriend.

• 1:02:52Speaker 03

  Or avoiding having to defend the relationship. Like, I can see that you don't like it, but this family is really important to me, I saw I'm gonna stay close with them, so we can talk about it and I'm gonna help you understand why, but I'm not saying goodbye.

• 1:03:03Speaker 02

  Good point. And again, this might not have even been a problem at all. The reaction she feared, it might have been entirely in her head.

• 1:03:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, it might have been, but that doesn't make it less meaningful, right? What she fears her boyfriend's response would be, what she anticipates her response would be to his potential feelings, that's still very relevant to all of this.

• 1:03:20Speaker 02

  Exactly right. Point is, those reactions would be yours, not just his. All of that leads to avoidance, and that's what created this secret. And so, that's the first part of this, getting clear on all that. Then, what you need to do is, you need to tell your boyfriend about all this, for sure. You cannot keep these huge parts of your life hidden from a partner, especially if you guys are thinking about getting married. But since this might be a sensitive topic now, you might want to start this conversation by saying, "Listen, I want to tell you something, I should have told you a lot sooner, but I didn't. The fact is, I was afraid to tell you because I was worried that you wouldn't like it, even though I don't believe there's any reason you would object, other than my own secrecy. And so, I put this conversation off to avoid my own, I don't know, you can fill in the blank based on what you learn about yourself, my fear that you wouldn't like it, or my

• 1:04:04Speaker 02

  own guilt, or my discomfort with conflict, whatever it is. But I don't want there to be any secrets between us, so here goes." And then you just tell him. "I'm still best friends with my ex, I'm still super close with his parents, we talk every day, we have a group chat together, they're like my adopted family. They're very important to me for this reason and that reason. There's nothing shady going on with my ex. I'm happy to show you the chat history. He and his parents are a big part of my life, I believe that our relationship is very clear. I'm really sorry for not telling you sooner. I see now that I avoided this conversation for, you know, this reason and that reason, and I created a secret to avoid facing that. That was wrong. I apologize and I'm ready to talk to you about all this." And then you listen. And maybe your boyfriend says, "Wow, okay, I don't know how I feel about this, I need to think about it."

• 1:04:48Speaker 02

  Maybe he says, "Wow, I don't like that you kept that a secret, but I trust you and I hear these people are important to you, it's all good, thanks for telling me." Or maybe he doesn't react well at all, and then this becomes a larger conversation and you guys have to navigate that, but this is kind of your bed and you need to, you know, make it slash sleep in it, whatever that phrase is.

• 1:05:04Speaker 03

  However he responds, I have a feeling this is gonna be a very pivotal conversation for both of them.

• 1:05:08Speaker 02

  This is definitely the kind of fight you want to have before you get married, that's for damn sure.

• 1:05:13Speaker 03

  Absolutely. They're gonna be better for it, no matter how he reacts, if they work through it the right way. But look, if your boyfriend is uncomfortable with you being close with your ex and his parents, then maybe this is about helping him understand what these people mean to you and what your friendship with your ex is about, and what about the situation makes him uneasy, whatever it brings up. If he's ultimately fine with you being close with them, but he's angry that you kept it a secret, then I think it's probably a conversation about why you did not tell him. Which means opening up about the part of you that is not great at transparency. And to be fair, maybe acknowledging the parts of him that you correctly anticipated and wanted to avoid triggering, namely, whatever feelings he has about remaining close with an ex, which he does not do, and which you feel makes him a stand-up guy, which is interesting.

• 1:05:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, I caught that. That's a good point. I thought, I think that goes back to her stuff again, right? That not talking to his exes is just about being a stand-up person, and then using that to confirm that she might be guilty of something.

• 1:06:09Speaker 03

  Right. She's implying by saying he's a stand-up person that she's not a stand-up person by being friends with her ex. But being friends with her ex does not make her a bad person, it's just the lying about it that makes this complicated. So, I think this is a really good point. So, I'm just thinking about this interesting theme on today's episode, owning different parts of yourself, integrating different parts of your life, which is so much of what we call, you know, authenticity and transparency. She is keeping a lot of secrets here.

• 1:06:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, this isn't just one secret, it's a pattern for her.

• 1:06:36Speaker 03

  What did she say? It's like, "They all know all parts of my life, except for one another?", which is a funny sentence, because that's not true.

• 1:06:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, they don't all know all parts of her life. She's saying, "They all know everything about me, except for one another, which are the most important people in my life." I mean, come on.

• 1:06:51Speaker 03

  So, she's quarantining all of these pieces, right? She's putting them in silos.

• 1:06:56Speaker 02

  Yes, they're behind emotional firewalls, exactly.

• 1:06:58Speaker 03

  Yes. And so, we're back to your question, why? Like, what is that accomplishing for you? Where did you learn that? And why does it feel necessary?

• 1:07:05Speaker 02

  Dot, dot, dot, childhood, mommy, daddy, early experience, culture, whatever.

• 1:07:09Speaker 03

  Sure, always, right? But we'll let her figure that out. I'm just appreciating how many problems this fear of integrating different parts of ourselves can cause, and even when we see that clearly, how scary it still feels to do. And so, why is that?

• 1:07:23Speaker 02

  I think it's the fear of hurting people, hurting people by fully owning who we really are and what we really want. Like, if she told her boyfriend, "Hey, I'm with you, I love you, but I also love my ex as a friend and his parents, and we have a great relationship and that means a lot to me," he might feel some type of way about that, and she just doesn't want to do that to him.

• 1:07:40Speaker 03

  So, a couple things about this. He might feel some type of way about that, but that doesn't mean that she is doing that to him.

• 1:07:46Speaker 02

  Crucial distinction, yeah.

• 1:07:47Speaker 03

  Taking responsibility for creating other people's feelings, trying to manage them in advance, or even in the abstract, that is a really good way to end up in this situation.

• 1:07:56Speaker 02

  Facts, oh my gosh.

• 1:07:58Speaker 03

  But then by turning these things into secrets, she's also shifting the pain to herself, right? And then she pays the price in the form of guilt, and shame, and anxiety, and stress, and this fear.

• 1:08:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, the mental burden of maintaining all the secrets, yeah.

• 1:08:12Speaker 03

  When most of that could just be avoided by saying, "Hey, everybody in my life, here's something about me. I have a new boyfriend, I have an ex-boyfriend who's also my good friend, I have adopted parents, I want you to meet them, I want you to know about these people, and it's all in the up and up. And if this brings up anything difficult for any of you, let's talk." Talk about it.

• 1:08:28Speaker 02

  When you put it like that, the calculus hardly makes sense.

• 1:08:31Speaker 03

  I mean, I guess it only makes sense if you believe that it's better to take on difficult feelings yourself than invite the possibility of someone else having a difficult feeling.

• 1:08:39Speaker 02

  Bingo. Yeah, I think that's the assumption she needs to really investigate and hopefully rewrite by having these chats.

• 1:08:46Speaker 03

  I'm also realizing that the other cost of quarantining like this is we probably increase the likelihood that people cannot accept all of the parts of us because we aren't creating experiences that show us that they can. And that only confirms for us that we do need to keep these pieces separate.

• 1:09:01Speaker 02

  So true. Like by hiding this from her boyfriend, she hasn't given him a chance to understand her friendship with her ex and accept this part of her life. And then she thinks, well, I've never seen him accept me like that. So I'm probably right that he can't handle this.

• 1:09:12Speaker 03

  Exactly. Plus now there's a greater chance that when he finds out, he goes, well, I might have been able to accept this if you had told me immediately. But now it's this huge secret. So I don't know how I feel about this guy.

• 1:09:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, like, okay, there's nothing shady going on, but you waited a year to tell me and we're talking about getting married. Like what other secrets are you hiding? And why was it such a big deal if there's nothing, if it's not a big deal? I don't know. We inadvertently create the very outcome we fear. We keep the secret and that makes it a secret worth keeping. It's, I mean, worth and air quotes.

• 1:09:41Speaker 03

  That's really nicely put. I think a version of that might be happening with our friend who rented to the squatter as well. Like what was she not integrating by being angry at all of these outside forces instead of her sister? And what was her sister not owning by being a people pleaser?

• 1:09:55Speaker 02

  Yes, exactly.

• 1:09:56Speaker 03

  I guess also our friend from Q1, she's literally asking, how do I reconcile these contradictory parts of myself? Like, how much do I assert these needs if some of them are going to make people uncomfortable and might hurt my partner? Right? It's just, this is a huge theme. It's very powerful stuff today.

• 1:10:10Speaker 02

  It really is. Fascinating how that popped up again and again today. Man, I love Feedback Friday. Stuff happens all the time. So now we've unpacked all this. I think there's a really big opportunity for you here. Telling all these people about one another, that's not just about coming clean, repairing any conflicts that result. This is about learning to say, this is me, this is all of me. I have several meaningful relationships in my life and learning to trust that if all these people truly love you and there's nothing problematic about these relationships, of course, then they should welcome and accept all these parts of you. And it doesn't have to come at anybody's expense. And I think a helpful question to answer would be, what am I afraid will change if everyone knew about each other?

• 1:10:49Speaker 03

  Oh, that's exactly the question.

• 1:10:51Speaker 02

  If she can really name that thing, I think she'll have the key to the predicament that she finds herself in. Now, what I think you'll find in the process is honestly pretty profound, that you don't need to segregate these parts of your life in order to protect people or secure their love. I mean, that's what I'm hoping for, anyway.

• 1:11:06Speaker 03

  Or if you find out that is not the case, then that would also be really good for you to know. Like if the answer to Jordan's question about what would change turns out to be, well, my ex's parents wouldn't really have as much of a stake in my life. They wouldn't stay in touch if they knew I was dating somebody new. That's painful, but that would be important for you to know. So you have a more honest picture of that relationship. And you might end up using that information to redefine some of these relationships, or maybe adjust your feelings, or adjust your expectations of them. But you don't need to worry about that yet. This stuff comes first.

• 1:11:35Speaker 02

  Agreed. I also think that your relationship with your boyfriend, your ex's parents, they're only going to get deeper and more rewarding when you stop hiding because you'll be bringing more of you to them. Like ideally, your ex's parents get to meet your new boyfriend, celebrate your relationship. Ideally, your boyfriend comes to appreciate your friendship with your ex. And who knows, maybe even they become friends and you get to let go of the stress of keeping all these subplots separate. That weighs so much better. I was just at, Jen's brother got married and there's a woman I've seen a bunch of times and she comes to all these family events and big parties, super nice. And I'm like, how do you know her again? And she's like, oh, that's my ex-boyfriend's mom through high school and college. Like they just became really close and now she's like part of the family. It would have been

• 1:12:18Speaker 02

  so weird if that was the first time I learned about it. And even though I've been married to her for 10 years, right? But early on, I was like, oh, who's this lady? And she's like, oh, that's my ex-boyfriend's mom. And I was like, oh, okay, cool. Like, there's nothing weird about that because it was out in the open for a long time, you know? And I just think this is the way to do it. You shouldn't have your you-know-what clenched every time there's a family party. You're going to want to invite these people to your wedding. You don't want your groom to find out on the day of the wedding, oh, how do you know my, you know, she dated her son, we've been in touch. I mean, that would just be really bad. And then what are you going to do? Not invite them to your wedding? I mean, come on. You know, this is a massive problem that you have to handle. So it's time to have these conversations, my friend. It's not going to be fun, but it's the right thing to do. They might go a lot better than you think. Huge growth ahead, my friend,

• 1:13:00Speaker 02

  and good luck. Now let's start a secret group chat with you, us, and the amazing sponsors who support this show. We'll be right back.

• 1:13:13Speaker 00

  At Lowe's, this Veterans Day and every day, military members, veterans, and their spouses get automatic Milo's Rewards Silver Status benefits. Plus, 10% off eligible purchases with no annual limit. It's one way we honor and give back to those who have served and still do. Learn more and verify now at lowe's.com/military. 10% discount can't be combined with another offer. Exclusions, terms, and conditions apply. Loyalty programs subject to terms and conditions. Details at lowe's.com/terms. Subject to change.

• 1:13:41Speaker 02

  By the way, you can reach us Friday at jordanharbinger.com. Keep your emails concise, use descriptive subject lines. That makes our job a whole lot easier. If you're wondering how many of your partner's affairs to put up with, you're trying to set boundaries with a volatile and withholding parent, or you're finally free from a predatory neighbor, but you're still wrestling with grief and complex PTSD as a result, whatever's got you staying up at night lately, hit us up, [email protected]. We're here to help and we keep every email anonymous. Now for the rest of Feedback Friday.

• 1:14:10Speaker 02

  And now for the recommendation of the week.

• 1:14:12Speaker 05

  I am addicted to Litville.

• 1:14:15Speaker 02

  My recommendation of the week, this is not a new podcast, it's quite old in fact, but it's called Big Brother, North Korea's Forgotten Prince. And this is about the assassination of Kim Jong Nam. And that's Kim Jong Il's older brother. I know, if you're not a North Korea watcher, you're like, who, what, why? Anyway, this is such a weird, wacky event that happened that I, you guys, even if you don't care about the inner workings of North Korea, it's just such palace intrigue. So basically, Kim Jong Nam, he's Kim Jong Il's son. So he's older than Kim Jong Un, the current dictator of North Korea. And he's supposed to kind of be the leader later on. Like he's supposed to be running the place right now. But years and years and years ago, because he's a little bit of a strange

• 1:14:59Speaker 02

  duck, he gets caught traveling on a fake passport and he goes to Japan, the arch nemesis of North Korea, like the big bad guy besides the United States. And it's because he's trying to go to Tokyo Disneyland. And so it's so embarrassing for the whole country that he basically gets put into a trust fund and they're like, move to Malaysia, you effing weirdo, or Macau, or wherever, right? And they're like, don't ever show your face here again. And he's like, fine. So he's living this sort of life of like a weird, rich North Korean guy who's being watched by the intelligence services, but is largely harmless. And then one day, he gets murdered with a chemical weapon in one of the strangest ways in that anyone has ever heard of, in an airport, and I believe Malaysia. And this

• 1:15:43Speaker 02

  story is crazy because the people who killed him theoretically didn't know they were actually going to kill someone. They were tricked into it. The North Korean intelligence services were responsible for. I mean, the whole thing is just so stinking weird that it should be, if it was the plot of a movie, people would go, eh, it's a little contrived. It's a little too, it's a little too out there. This is real life. It's just such a strange tale. And this podcast does a really good job of documenting the whole thing, even if you're not weirdly obsessed with North Korea like me and Gabe. Again, it's called Big Brother, North Korea's Forgotten Prince, and we'll link to that in the show notes. It's a free, you know, it's a podcast, it's free, like most podcasts. All right, back to Feedback Friday. What's next?

• 1:16:23Speaker 03

  So a couple of months ago, we took a letter from a 48-year-old woman in Texas whose entire life seemed to be falling apart all at once. Do you remember this one, Jordan? Her marriage had ended.

• 1:16:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was like a country song. Yeah.

• 1:16:34Speaker 03

  That's right. What was it? She's like, because this part of my life wanted a verse in the country song or something like that?

• 1:16:39Speaker 02

  I don't remember that phrase, but it really was. Like her marriage ended, she lost her job, her house is in trouble, her finances were in trouble, her dog died, her kid totaled the car.

• 1:16:47Speaker 03

  Kia Sportage.

• 1:16:48Speaker 02

  Right. Kia Sportage.

• 1:16:50Speaker 03

  That's where it all started. Exactly.

• 1:16:52Speaker 02

  Super intense letter. Didn't her ex also transition genders and then?

• 1:16:57Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:16:57Speaker 02

  But that also, that person said weird stuff in her sleep, like, I'm going to kill you. And it's like, what? And they're like, I don't remember. Sorry, I was asleep. Like, it was just so bizarre. The whole thing was bizarre.

• 1:17:05Speaker 03

  That was a whole other subplot. She supported her ex through the transition, but she also caused her a lot of stress. But then they also promised to always stay close. And then she felt that her ex abandoned her when she found somebody else.

• 1:17:16Speaker 02

  That's right. And all the losses which happened basically at the same time left her feeling foggy and exhausted and insecure and disconnected. It was a really tough story.

• 1:17:24Speaker 03

  So her question was, how do you rebuild when several parts of your life fall apart simultaneously? Like, how do you prioritize?

• 1:17:30Speaker 02

  Yes. We ended up talking a lot about grief, if I recall.

• 1:17:33Speaker 03

  Well, she just wrote us and I really loved her letter, so I wanted to share it with you guys. Hi, Jordan and Gabe. I figured after everything you guys have heard from me, I owed you one final update. I got a job.

• 1:17:45Speaker 02

  Nice.

• 1:17:45Speaker 03

  Like an actual job, a good job, in my field, a management position with salary and benefits and everything. Apparently, those still exist.

• 1:17:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was going to say, okay, I guess those are still around.

• 1:17:56Speaker 03

  When I first wrote to you, I had been unemployed for what felt like approximately 700 years. My marriage had fallen apart. I was losing my house. My health was a mess. And every time I thought I had finally hit the bottom, life seemed to locate a previously undisclosed basement. This woman and the metaphors.

• 1:18:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:18:14Speaker 03

  The metaphors are out of control today, guys. You really delivered with the metaphors.

• 1:18:18Speaker 02

  They're peachy, indeed.

• 1:18:19Speaker 03

  Then things were maybe, possibly, perhaps, starting to move. I had some consulting work developing, interviews were happening. And for the first time in a long time, I could at least see a path forward. There were still a few plot twists after that because apparently my life has contractual obligations to remain interesting.

• 1:18:38Speaker 02

  Funny.

• 1:18:39Speaker 03

  I interviewed, I got rejected, jobs resurfaced and disappeared again. I interviewed some more, I took assessments, interviews got rescheduled. I tried very hard not to lose my mind, waiting for people to make decisions about my entire financial future, while they casually went about their Tuesdays.

• 1:18:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, that must have been maddening. Waiting can be the worst.

• 1:19:00Speaker 03

  And then this job happened. The first interview went incredibly well. Then came assessments, then more interviews and more interviews. And I kept walking away thinking, I think they actually like me? Turns out they did.

• 1:19:13Speaker 02

  Amazing, so happy for you.

• 1:19:15Speaker 03

  And maybe the best part is that this isn't just a job I took because I desperately needed one. It's a job I genuinely wanted. It's a management position in the field I've spent years building my career in, doing work I actually care about. And they saw value in the experience that I was starting to wonder if anyone was ever going to give me the chance to use again.

• 1:19:34Speaker 02

  Man, that's gotta feel great.

• 1:19:35Speaker 03

  There are still things in my life that need rebuilding. Getting a job doesn't magically undo the last few years or tie everything up with a perfect little bow. But holy shit, does it change a lot. For the first time in a very long time, I'm not just trying to survive whatever happens next. I'm making plans again. And I wanted to thank you guys for being part of this incredibly weird chapter of my life. When I originally wrote in, I think I mostly needed somebody outside of my own head to look at the whole situation and help me figure out what the hell I was supposed to do next. Turns out, the answer really was just do the next thing, then the next one, then the next one.

• 1:20:14Speaker 02

  Yep, that's the name of the game.

• 1:20:15Speaker 03

  Eventually, one of those things was accepting a job offer. So unless something truly spectacular happens, I promise this is my final update. You don't need to promise that.

• 1:20:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. No, your, your life can still fall apart. Don't count yourself out just yet.

• 1:20:29Speaker 03

  Although, given my track record, maybe don't hold me to that.

• 1:20:32Speaker 02

  Exactly, exactly. We will not.

• 1:20:34Speaker 03

  Thank you, seriously. Signed, finally enjoying a new dream after my life came apart at the seams.

• 1:20:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, great letter.

• 1:20:41Speaker 03

  Isn't that awesome? I loved this.

• 1:20:43Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, I'm so happy for her. I mean, it's about time we got some good news on the show.

• 1:20:47Speaker 03

  Obviously.

• 1:20:47Speaker 02

  I mean, if it's too good, we can't air it. Nobody wants to hear that. But, but, you know, we're here for you.

• 1:20:53Speaker 03

  We needed this verse in the country song. And it's the redux where they have like four additional bridges and all these new parts. I loved it. Obviously, I wanted to celebrate her big win and share the update with people. You guys seem to enjoy these updates, like I said, and we do too. And it's fun to hear how people's stories go. But I also thought that there was some real wisdom in her letter. Simple wisdom, but profound wisdom, you know? And also hard earned wisdom, I would say, that was just worth sharing today.

• 1:21:17Speaker 02

  Well, the whole do the next thing over and over. I mean, relatable. I remember when the biz fell apart, I was like, okay, just make a list of crap you can get done today. Don't worry about like your five year plan. I just, I, it's so relatable and I think that's huge.

• 1:21:30Speaker 03

  For sure. I feel like that idea keeps coming up on the show. Like, do not disturb yourself by imagining your whole life all at once, that famous chestnut. Her life is a perfect case study in that. Right? Your mind can worry about every single problem at the same time. I think that's what Jordan calls, what was it, being a blender with a top off?

• 1:21:46Speaker 02

  Blender with a top off, yes. That was the same thing when I felt like a blender with a top off. And then I was like, no, focus on the, do one thing at a time. Cause that's all you can do anyway.

• 1:21:55Speaker 03

  Which is the only thing you can do, exactly. And so a lot of the game of life really does come down to getting clear on the handful of things that truly need your attention and then only doing those things. And it's just doing that over and over and over again.

• 1:22:08Speaker 02

  It sounds like one of your lame-o meditation retreats, Gabe. It's like Buddhism in action. Don't think about yesterday, don't think about tomorrow.

• 1:22:15Speaker 03

  Truly.

• 1:22:15Speaker 02

  Except insofar as it helps you decide what to do today. Be here now and act, but act with discipline, with focus and trust that your inputs, like continuing to show up to all these interviews for jobs, that will lead to different outputs.

• 1:22:28Speaker 03

  Which is the other big gem in here, I think, just this idea that no problem or feeling lasts forever.

• 1:22:33Speaker 02

  Right, sometime you'll die.

• 1:22:34Speaker 03

  Something's gotta give.

• 1:22:35Speaker 02

  Oh, sorry, no.

• 1:22:37Speaker 03

  Also that.

• 1:22:38Speaker 02

  Yours, you'll eventually be dead. Yeah.

• 1:22:39Speaker 03

  You really were inside my inner monologue during the silent meditation.

• 1:22:42Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 1:22:43Speaker 03

  That's great. But yeah, something's gotta give, right? New opportunities always enter the picture. We can always make choices that change the equation somehow. And even when you're in the depths of your despair, that always shifts eventually in some way. I mean, dude, when she wrote in and we talked about grieving and letting all of these old structures in her life fall apart, right? I was thinking, okay, if she really takes this to heart, this is probably going to take months. This could take years, right? Like, this might be a two-year-long period where things are kind of brutal and she'll come out of it eventually. But here she is, two months later, and everything looks different. I just think that's a really good reminder to keep perspective and, you know, like you said, trust.

• 1:23:21Speaker 02

  I had the same thought. My money was not on amazing management position coming her way and getting her out of survival mode into the next eight weeks.

• 1:23:28Speaker 03

  Totally.

• 1:23:28Speaker 02

  But also, look, this was not divine intervention or whatever, right? This was not just pure luck. Luck plays a role, it always does, but she worked for this. She's stuck in the process and she kept showing up. And none of these nice ideas work without that effort. So kudos to her for that.

• 1:23:42Speaker 03

  Agreed. But you know, the other thing I appreciate about this letter is this part where she said, there are still things in my life that need rebuilding. Getting a job does not magically undo the last few years or tie everything up with a perfect little bow. I like that.

• 1:23:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, that jumped out at me too, obviously, of course.

• 1:23:57Speaker 03

  She's not saying, well, I have a paycheck and benefits and an identity again, so everything's actually fine. Like, I don't know what that was, like in a kind of manic way or in a defensive way. She's saying, the stability massively helps and I can actually contemplate the future again. And that's a very, obviously a very real thing in our system. And I'm still in touch with my sadness. I'm still in a grief process. There are still parts of my life that require attention. Both are true.

• 1:24:21Speaker 02

  For sure. Having a paycheck makes tomorrow something she can plan for, not just brace for. In all the mental bandwidth she was spending on looking for a job and freaking out about the uncertainties, she can now use that to, you know, actually do a job and live her life. But yeah, I'm with you. She's not cherry picking the parts of her life that are convenient or telling herself a story about how things are going. Her story seems to be, there's a lot of new good, there's a lot of previous bad, there's a lot in between, and I'm here for all of it. Which I just have to point out, I think that's also a version of this big theme that we keep coming back to today.

• 1:24:55Speaker 03

  Ah, good point, yeah.

• 1:24:56Speaker 02

  So she's integrating all these parts of her life, all these parts of her story, all the notes in the symphony, and you know, look where that's gotten her. That's pretty great.

• 1:25:03Speaker 03

  So true. It's very inspiring, I agree.

• 1:25:05Speaker 02

  So congratulations, my friend. Thank you for the update. Thank you for keeping us in the loop. Thanks for those contractually obligated plot twists that make Feedback Friday juicier than the ripest of peaches in that woman from Q1's weird secret heart kitchen for Timothy Chalamet.

• 1:25:20Speaker 03

  What a metaphor. I thought you were done with the peaches. I really, you just, you can't stop with them.

• 1:25:24Speaker 02

  Clearly I am not. Look, keep up the amazing work. Best of luck with the new job. I'm sure you're gonna kill it. We're sending you a big hug. We're all rooting for you. Go back and check out Stephen Bridges, Alex Davies and our Skeptical Sunday on restaurant food, if you haven't done so yet. The best things that have happened in my life and business have come through my network, the circle of people I know, like and trust. If your kid totaled your car and your life is falling apart, try to rebuild it as best you can using our free course, available at sixminutenetworking.com. These drills are designed to take just a few minutes a day. I wish I knew this stuff 20 years ago. Dig the well before you get thirsty, folks. Build relationships before you need them. That's all, again, at sixminutenetworking.com. Show notes on the website, advertisers, deals, discounts, ways to support the show, all at jordanharbinger.com/deals.

• 1:26:06Speaker 02

  I'm at Jordan Harbinger on Twitter and Instagram. You can hit me on LinkedIn. Gabe's on Insta at Gabriel Mizrahi. This show is created in association with Podcast One. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogerty, Ian Baird, Todd Isidlouskas and of course Gabriel Mizrahi. Our advice and opinions are our own. And yeah, I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer. Consult a qualified professional before implementing anything you hear on the show. Remember, we rise by lifting others. Share the show with those you love. If you found the episode useful, please share it with someone 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.

• 1:26:44Speaker 02

  Chess isn't just a game. You're about to hear a preview where Danny Wrench shares how building chess.com put him face to face with cheaters, death threats, and a past he had to rewrite to survive.

• 1:26:55Speaker 06

  I was born into a cult. As I've talked about it more and more, I've gotten better at just saying that, naming it for what it was. The collective itself was called the Church of Immoral Consciousness. My generation, within a couple of years, was part of the first group of kids that were being born into the collective, which, again, at that point, it was full communism. People's finances emerged. When you came to the collective, you gave up all of your material belongings. You just sort of look at it and go, this was fucked up. This was not okay. There is no excuse to be made for this. And then Western media was paying attention to chess for the first time, maybe since Bobby Fischer in the seventies. This movie had come out and these two kids trapped in a cult were basically under house arrest and didn't have anything else to do.

• 1:27:38Speaker 06

  And anything that Stephen Camp was fond of, everybody was into, right? He was literally in charge of every human being in the collective. I went from zero to being one of the top kids in the country. Within two years, I was already an All-American. I was one of the top rated players. And I've worked very hard to heal my relationship with my own abusers, not because I'm trying to excuse their behavior, but because I really do believe that forgiveness is not rewriting the past, it's freeing yourself from it. And so with chess.com, accidental success 15 years later. So we have 25 million games a day, 623 games finishing every second. You can have a different relationship with your experiences if you want to. The obstacle can be the way and you can overcome hard shit. That was my goal with this.

• 1:28:24Speaker 02

  To hear the story of how Danny Wrench got on the hit list, check out episode 1289 of The Jordan Harbinger Show.