Dear Sugars

Every family has its secrets, but it's how those secrets are dealt with that determines the power they hold. In Part 1, the Sugars consider the implications of keeping a secret within a family system. They take a letter from a woman who, since her early teens, has kept a dark and powerful secret from her mother about her stepfather.

Father's Day is a fraught and complicated day. In this episode, the Sugars take two questions on fatherhood — from a new father who fears that his depression will be felt by his baby daughter, and from a young woman who yearns for a deeper connection with her distant father.

Most of the questions the Sugars receive about weddings are about the drama that precedes them — the expectations in the build up to the big day. But that doesn't mean Wedding Day is drama-free. There just isn't much to be done about it at that point. As Cheryl says, it's like a ball rolling down a hill. The Sugars bring in the ultimate witness to wedding-day drama: Lois Smith Brady, the founding columnist of the Vows section in The New York Times.

It's wedding season, and the Sugars have been getting all kinds of letters that reflect the anxiety and expectation that accompany preparations for the big day — from a difficult in-law demanding extra invitations to a homophobic mom at a gay wedding to a dramatic friend of the bride who's making it all about herself.

The Sugars take a letter from a 62-year-old divorced woman who is shocked to find herself considering a reconciliation with her ex-husband, after years of unhappiness inside the marriage. The situation is further complicated by the fact that he is engaged to another woman.

The Sugars wonder if romantic relationships can survive profound political differences. They take a question from a young woman who prides herself on being a strong feminist, and worries her boyfriend doesn't share her views. They also hear from a progressive Democrat who has married into a conservative Oklahoma family and is finding it increasingly difficult to stay silent about her true beliefs.

It's election season, and while politics may not seem like the domain of Dear Sugar Radio, it can become deeply personal. In Part 1, the Sugars look at how politics can get in between our relationships with friends and family—whether it be our parents voting for a candidate we despise, or our friends sharing views we find abhorrent on social media.

Being a mother means feeling conflicted in some way about the balance between raising one's children and the rest of life. The Sugars take two letters from women in the midst of such conflicts—one from a career-driven young woman who cannot fathom going back to work after the birth of her son, the other from a daughter who feels caught between the needs of her dying mother and her newborn baby girl.

We revisit an episode about compulsive lying with guest Leslie Jamison. The Sugars take on a letter from a young woman telling her friends about imagined experiences of rape and loss.

The Sugars return with another installment in the Infidelity Episodes — looking at the often-overlooked experience of the other woman. After the Sugars had taken on the Betrayed and the Betrayers, they received dozens of letters from women struggling to make sense of what it means to be involved in a cheating situation, while being neither the one who cheats nor the one who is cheated upon.

The Sugars take on jealousy — the fiery, irrational kind we feel toward our lovers and friends. They read a letter from a woman struggling with her competitive instincts toward an attractive new friend of hers, and from a man having trouble with his wife's close friendship with an old lover.

The Sugars take a letter from a young woman who was raised in a deeply Christian household. As she has grown older, her beliefs and values have become increasingly at odds with those of her parents. She loves and respects her mom and dad, and doesn't know how to tell them that she is no longer a Christian — which to them will mean her eternal damnation.

What if the man you love wants to break up but keep hooking up? What if he wants to see other people? How should you handle your jealousy toward a long-distance lover's friend of the opposite sex? What happens when a foursome between couples reveals hidden feelings? If someone isn't over an ex, should you stay close or walk away?

There's a long tradition in fairy tales of the wicked stepmother. And the archetype endures in contemporary life. The Sugars take on two real-life versions of the tale — a mother whose ex-husband's new wife wants the children to call her "mom," and a stepmom who feels trapped in the role of the storybook villain.

The Sugars take a question from a newly married woman who is facing a nightmare — the man of her dreams has turned out to be someone else entirely. They are joined by the writer Julie Metz, who tells the story of discovering her own husband's double life following his unexpected death. She helps in answering the letter writer's ultimate question: do I stay and make a life with a man who is not the person I thought I married?

Are we doomed to repeat the patterns of our childhood? The Sugars hear from the child of two alcoholics, who cannot tolerate her new boyfriend's drinking; from a young woman whose partner is reminding her more and more of her emotionally damaged father; and from a daughter who is stuck in a co-dependent relationship with her mentally ill mother.

The Sugars receive a pained letter from a young woman whose ex-boyfriend was recently murdered in an altercation at a bar. His death came not long after she had cut off communication in an effort to move on. She's grappling not just with feelings of sorrow and guilt, but jealousy — toward a young woman who came into his life after they'd broken up.

In this episode, the Sugars take two questions on the dynamics of gender, power, and love — one from a man and one from a woman. A young man struggles with jealousy when his girlfriend gets a career opportunity he wants for himself, and a woman finds she's no longer attracted to her husband now that he's not the breadwinner.

We revisit an episode about friendship with one of our most beloved Sugar guests — the writer Ann Patchett. In this episode, the Sugars take a question from a young woman whose best friend since childhood is about to get married to a man she's known for only six months. The two friends are very different, and the letter writer worries that her impulsive, drama-prone friend is rushing into another bad situation.

The Sugars look at one especially painful form of love: the crush. They take questions from two letter writers struggling with illicit love interests — one from a career-oriented woman who finds herself drawn to her boss, the other from a recently married woman fantasizing about her husband's younger brother.

The Sugars are back for another batch of shorter questions and answers. They take on six quick questions, ranging from a letter writer who is jealous of her sister's wealth to a young woman who is growing impatient for a proposal from her longtime boyfriend to a woman still pining after her girlfriend from a decade back.

The Sugars consider the way forward for their single letter writers. For many of the women they hear from, finding "the one" has become the all-consuming focus of their lives. The anxiety and the reality of their situations makes it hard for otherwise confident, successful women to esteem anything else. The Sugars are joined by the writer Kate Bolick, who suggests a new way of thinking about life as a spinster.

The Sugars have been avoiding the most frequently asked question they receive from women: Will I ever find the one? In the first episode, they explored the anxieties around that question. In Part 2, they focus on a particular anxiety that comes up over and over in letters from advice-seekers who have begun to question their past and present relationship decisions — should I settle?

The Sugars have been avoiding the most frequently asked question they receive: Will I ever find the one? In this first episode on the theme, the Sugars explore the anxieties of the women who write in — I'm happy, I'm successful, everything else in my life is going great. But I can't find a partner. What's wrong with me? Will I ever find someone? Is it too late? Lena Dunham joins the conversation with her trademark candor.

The Sugars look back at some of the most memorable letters of 2015. They check back in on a young gay man who was agonizing over whether to come out to his homophobic family, and a new mother who was struggling with boundaries after her alcoholic father relapsed during his first visit with his granddaughter.

The Sugars often tell advice seekers: You have to go back to the beginning to get to the bottom of it. So, as 2016 begins, to mark the first year of Dear Sugar Radio, we're revisiting the pilot episode where it all began.

The Sugars take on some of the big questions of the holiday season. How do we balance the competing demands of families? How do we act like adults when we return to our childhood homes? And, what if we aren't sure we should return home at all?

Motherhood has a near-sacred status in our society. If we dare speak negatively about it, it's only to say: "Motherhood is hard, but it's worth it." But for some mothers, it isn't. In this episode, the Sugars take on the taboo.

The Sugars explore the fraught relationship between body image and romance. In one letter, a married woman reconsiders her priorities after losing 100 pounds. In another, a young man wants his girlfriend to lose weight, but does not understand why she’s so upset when he broaches the subject.

The Sugars are taking Thanksgiving weekend off. We'll be back next week with a new episode. This week, we revisit an earlier episode — The Deal Killer.

The Sugars record the show in front of a live audience at First Parish Church in Harvard Square. Taped on the occasion of Cheryl's new book of quotes, Brave Enough, the Sugars discuss the importance of quotations in their own lives. The questions come from the audience — from a Harvard grad student who just lost a loved one to suicide to a young person gripped by jealousy in romantic relationships. They are joined on stage by rock star Amanda Palmer.

The Sugars take a question from a single father who's just dropped his oldest son off at college. He is seized by feelings of guilt — that his attention was often elsewhere, that he didn't do enough to prepare his sons for the world. They are joined by the writer Brad Watson, himself divorced with two sons.

The Sugars get a letter from a young woman who has fallen head over heels in love. She and her boyfriend only met a month ago, but they are already in deep. Everything seems perfect, and yet the letter writer can't help but wonder if the traumas of her new love's past are hiding somewhere under the surface, threatening to resurface. The Sugars do something new — and get the letter writer on the phone to speak with her directly about her fears.

The Sugars take on sibling rivalry. The mother of an only child wonders if she should have another but fears cruelty and conflict between the siblings. And a young man is caught between his parents and his brother, who is refusing to let the family spend time with his son.

If someone smokes pot multiple times a day, but is still a highly functional partner, parent, and worker — is there a problem? That's the question to the Sugars from a letter writer whose husband has been a habitual marijuana smoker for years. If it is a problem, she wonders, is it his or hers?

The Sugars try something new — answering more questions, more quickly. While they always give their hearts and souls to the letters they receive, some questions are just a little more straightforward. The Sugars take on six quick questions, from siblings discovering incriminating texts on their father's phone to women reeling from encounters with sociopaths to this single sentence — "what do I do if I can't stand to stay with him but I can't stand to leave him either?"

The Sugars are taking this week off, to focus on answering new letters. We'll be back next week, but in the meantime, we revisit this conversation about the traumas of our past and their role in our present.

The Sugars grapple with a difficult question — how do we make sense of the fact that very bad things can happen to people who have done nothing wrong? They take letters from a visual artist who has just learned he is losing his sight, and from a woman whose life has been transformed by her daughter's life-threatening condition.

The Sugars exploration of infidelity culminates in Part 3, a conversation with Esther Perel. The relationship therapist is focusing her attention on the subject of infidelity - what it is, why we do it, and what it means to us. They also take a question from a married man who longs for lost intimacy with his wife, while also engaging in multiple affairs on the side.

The Sugars exploration of infidelity continues with Part 2: The Betrayers. They take letters from a desperate wife, whose husband gave her a second chance after an emotional infidelity, only for her to do it again; and from a young mother who has gotten herself tangled up with the next-door neighbor after years of unhappy marriage.

The first in a multi-part exploration of infidelity. In Part 1, the Sugars consider letters from the Betrayed; in Part 2, they'll consider the Betrayers. They're also joined by the writer and performer Lauren Weedman, who experienced one of the more nightmarish clichés of infidelity, and tells the story.

Dear Sugar Radio is taking off Labor Day 2015 weekend. We'll be back next week with new episodes. In the meantime, we're reposting this episode from March 2015, "How Do I Survive The Critics?" with special guest George Saunders. We thought, going into the new school year, it's a good time to revisit the topic — how do we handle judgment about our work, even the harshest criticism?

There are those moments in all of our lives — sudden and radical — when we get spun around and everything feels out of our control. The Sugars take questions from two letter writers who have come to such moments.

The Sugars take a question from the mother of young twins. Her own mother left when she was two years old, and her stepmother was a controlling and manipulative presence in her life. The letter writer is afraid that these toxic experiences being mothered make her destined to fail as a mother.

In this episode, the Sugars take a question from a young woman whose boyfriend recently broke up with her because of questions about his sexuality. The letter writer is heartbroken and confused — and trying to figure out what it means and whether to wait around while he figures it out.

The Sugars take a question from a young woman who takes great pleasure in socializing. Her fiance, on the other hand, dreads group settings and gets very agitated every time she wants to go to an event together. She wonders what is so unpleasant for him about spending time with her and her friends.

In this episode, the Sugars take questions exclusively from teenagers. They answer two letters that get at the universal themes of adolescence — the sense of being alone, the fear of being left out, the desire to please others — and one letter from a teenager for whom outside forces have marked her teenage experience as different from her peers. The Sugars are joined by Tavi Gevinson, the 19-year-old founder and editor of Rookie, a digital magazine for teenage girls.

The Sugars take a question from a young man whose mother has metastatic breast cancer. He is spending a month back home in Kentucky over the summer, then returning to graduate school in the fall. He is wracked with guilt about not being with her, but also at the thought of her dying without knowing who he really is — a gay man in a family where homosexuality has always been condemned.

Love is complicated in the digital age. Many of us go online in search of connection, but those interactions often leave us feeling profoundly disconnected. The Sugars take on two questions that explore different ways in which we try to connect online - one from a married woman who finds herself caught up in an illicit relationship on Facebook, the other from a young woman who is obsessed with tracking her boyfriend's ex on Instagram.

The Sugars take a question from a young woman whose best friend since childhood is about to get married to a man she's known for only six months. The two friends are very different, and the letter writer worries that her impulsive, drama-prone friend is rushing into another bad situation. She wonders whether to confront her. The Sugars are joined by the author Ann Patchett

In this episode, the Sugars take a question from a young woman who came to the United States as an 11-year-old undocumented immigrant. After years of uncertainty and limbo, she is now poised to become a citizen, but wonders how she can ever make up for the time she lost. The Sugars are joined by the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Ruben Vives, who grew up under similar circumstances.

The Sugars take on a letter from a young woman who is a habitual liar — telling her friends about imagined experiences of rape and loss. The lying always seems to happen at a moment of emotional connectedness, when the letter writer wishes to share her feelings of sadness and depression, but struggles to find the right language to do so.

We all know the narrative of the good father. That's the father we all want, but it's not the father we all got. The Sugars take two questions on fatherhood — from a new father who fears that his depression will be felt by his baby daughter, and from a young woman who yearns for a deeper connection with her distant father.

Money makes us crazy. In this episode, the Sugars take questions from two letter writers struggling with complicated relationships to money. The first, an aspiring playwright, feels guilty about all the advantages that her parents' wealth has provided to her. The second, a divorced mother, is unable to control her spending and on the verge of bankruptcy.

In this short episode, the Sugars take a question from a young woman who is engaged to the man she's been with since she was 19. As a child of divorce, whose parents were married young, the letter writer knows that there are risks.

Are we ever able to fully let go of our past? The Sugars address a letter writer grappling with that essential question. At 68 years old, she is troubled to recognize that her life is still being influenced by her early experience with an alcoholic father. The Sugars are joined by a Freudian psychoanalyst, who also happens to be Steve's father.

Entering into another family is like entering into another culture — with its own codes, expectations, and set of rules. Naturally, it's a situation ripe for conflict and contention. The Sugars field questions from two letter writers dealing with fraught in-law relationships.

The Sugars take a question from a woman in her forties who lives a second life. She is known as a professional, PTA-going mom — but she's secretly sleeping with significantly younger men. She's beginning to question whether her behavior is healthy. Meanwhile, her "real" life is in a state of crisis.

Friendships are different from any other type of relationship in our lives. They are purely voluntary, and so can feel more tenuous. Do you tell a friend if you are unhappy with the relationship, or do you just leave? And if you do leave, how do you break up with a friend? In this episode, the Sugars field questions from two letter writers who both feel exhausted by a friendship, and want out.

The Sugars respond to a letter from a woman whose teenage son has discovered her high-school yearbook — filled with stories of bad behavior from her past life. In answering the letter, the Sugars are joined by the poet and author Mary Karr, who has written three memoirs about her reckless youth and raised a son who was intimately familiar with those years.

In this short episode, the Sugars take a question from a young man whose ex-girlfriends have felt blindsided when he ended the relationships. He is questioning his intuition - having ended the relationships because he felt there wasn't a future with these women, but wondering if he just wasn't articulating his needs to them.

The Sugars field questions from two letter writers in polyamorous relationships, facing two very different challenges. One woman is feeling guilty that she is taking more advantage of the arrangement than her husband; the other has fallen in love with her polyamorous boyfriend and now longs for monogamy.

The Sugars take a question from a woman whose brother has recently come out to the family. He and his boyfriend sit on each other's laps and kiss in front of the family - which bothers the letter writer's sister, who doesn't want to explain homosexuality to her two-year-old son.

Many of us spend huge amounts of our emotional resources hiding the things we feel guilty or ashamed about. In this episode, the Sugars field questions from two letter writers beginning to acknowledge some hidden shame - a woman who is obsessed with the time she spent caring for a sick friend and a woman who has spent 15 years uncertain if a sexual encounter was rape.

The Sugars take on the pain that comes with being judged for one's work, and the ways in which we can learn from even the most brutal of judgments. They're joined by the writer George Saunders, who helps field a question from an author feeling crushed by first reviews. Saunders recalls his own first experience of being publicly condemned, which sent him down to his basement for three days.

The Sugars field questions from a new mother who walked in on her alcoholic father relapsing in her home, and from a woman grappling with how to be childless in a society in which parenthood is so revered. They're joined by the writer Elizabeth Gilbert, who made the decision not to have children.

The Sugars celebrate Valentine's Day by fielding questions from a married woman whose long-dormant passions have been reignited by an old high-school boyfriend, and from a young woman struggling with whether to leave behind her cheating, closeted girlfriend.

The Sugars explore the deal killer — the thing that turns out to be the limit, that is too much for a relationship to withstand. They field questions from a woman tiring of her boyfriend's severe anxiety, a grieving young woman whose boyfriend is jealous of her dead ex, and a man deeply ashamed of his obsessive desire to make a woman pregnant.

The Sugars explore the two stories we tell — the story of how we want to be seen, the public self, and the story of who we really are inside, the private self. They field questions from a feminist struggling to reconcile her stories in the wake of an emotionally abusive relationship, and from a twenty-something virgin who has spent her life letting her family write her story.

The Sugars take a question from a new mother who is secretly addicted to painkillers, but afraid that she can't be the mom and wife she wants to be without them.

In the pilot episode, the Sugars field questions on a father’s infidelity, how many children is too many, and whether a relationship can survive when one partner is smarter than the other.

Introducing Beyond All Repair,a new WBUR podcast from producer emeritus of Dear Sugars,Amory Sivertson. This series tells the story of a murder, but also the woman who was accused of that murder, Sophia. Sophia was newly married and 6 months pregnant when she was charged with murdering her mother-in-law in 2002. She gave birth to a son in jail that she hasn’t seen since, and for the last three years, she’s been telling me her story in hopes of getting justice for her mother-in-law, of having a chance of meeting her son, and of finally being believed. This is the first chapter of Beyond All Repair.Episode 2 is already waiting for you. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Our loved ones are the people who are supposed to understand us. But what if they just...can't? Where do we turn then, and how do we fight the feelings of resentment that this lack of understanding can stir up? This episode was originally released November 11th, 2016.

The Sugars' conversation on friendship continues with a handful of letters concerning male-female friendships. Is there such a thing as a platonic relationship between a heterosexual man and woman? Can male-female friendships be as emotionally satisfying as same-gender relationships? What do you do when a friend crosses a romantic line? The Sugars discuss it all in rapid-fire fashion.

Everyone has had a friendship quandary of some sort in the past, right? This week, the Sugars take on frequently asked questions in "rapid fire" fashion – from hating your best friend's significant other, to hating her politics.

Whether you’re 5, 15, or 50 years old, it can be difficult to usher a stepparent in and out of the family unit. In today’s episode, the Sugars answer letters from stepchildren who have fraught relationships with their stepparents. What is a stepparent’s responsibility to a stepchild after divorce? And what can be done if you don’t like the person your parent chooses to marry? This episode was originally released on April 28th, 2018.

Buzz Bissinger owns more than 100 pairs of leather pants and over 200 pairs of leather gloves, having spent more than $600,000 on leather goods in the span of three years. Mr. Bissinger has a spending addiction, and he joins the Sugars to offer guidance to a letter-writer whose therapist and family don’t take her spending seriously. This episode was originally published on April 14th, 2018.

How many times have you heard this: "I love him, we're great together, but..."? There's always room for doubt, even in the happiest of relationships. So this week, the Sugars take on some of those doubts in rapid-fire fashion. This episode was originally published on January 5th, 2017.

Most of us have days when we don’t feel attractive. But in this episode, the Sugars read letters from people whose faces are at odds with conventional ideas of beauty. Writer Ariel Henley joins to talk about her own facial differences. Henley was born with Crouzon Syndrome, and underwent dozens of surgeries that changed the shape of her face.

Privilege comes in many forms: socio-economic privilege, gender privilege, heterosexual privilege, to name a few. In this episode, the Sugars reply to two letter writers who are facing different forms of privilege. They discuss with Catrice M. Jackson, a leading voice for racial justice. This episode was originally published on August 11th, 2018.

At age 18, we are granted the rights and responsibilities of adulthood in the eyes of the law. But for parents of young adults, it’s not so clear cut. When is the right time to wean your children off the family payroll? The Sugars tackle this question with the help of Dr. Kate Gale. This episode was originally released on December 23rd, 2017.

Produced by WBUR, Boston’s NPR, in partnership with The Trace, The Gun Machine looks into the past to bring you a story that most Americans never learned in history class: how early partnerships between mad scientist gunsmiths and a fledgling U.S. government created the gun industry in the Northeast, and how that industry has been partners with the government ever since. Host Alain Stephens examines how this 250-year relationship underpins all Americans’ interactions with guns — including our failures in dealing with the fallout of gun violence. The Gun Machine episodes drop every Wednesday, starting Oct. 4, 2023. Listen and follow on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts. https://link.chtbl.com/thegunmachine

Snooping on your spouse is generally ill-advised, but what if he or she has an addiction and is constantly lying about it? The Sugars and writer Ariel Levy answer this question in this episode, originally released on December 2, 2017.

This is part two of the series on early childhood death. The Sugars read letters from parents who worry that their grief may overshadow their surviving children. They are joined by the writer Emily Rapp Black, who decided to have another child after learning that her son had a fatal congenital disorder.

Her grandmother always introduced her as the “chubby one.” Now, she vacillates between moderation and binge-eating. “It’s only when my pants are nearly impossible to button that I force myself to lose weight,” writes the letter-writer who calls herself Body Negative. “And then the pattern starts all over again.” The Sugars discuss and share their own struggles with body image.

"What do I want?" This is the question Oprah Winfrey finally asked herself, after years of struggling to say "no" to people in her life. In the second of this two-part series, the Sugars continue their conversation with Oprah Winfrey on when, why and how to say "no."

In this episode, the Sugars answer letters from letter writers who want to have sex less frequently than their partners do.

In the Empty Chair series, the Sugars discuss early childhood death, an absence that can be ever-present. In Part 1, they read letters from siblings who live in the the shadow of their parents’ grief. This episode was originally released on November 4th, 2017.

When the Sugars answered a letter from a woman who felt trapped in the role of "wicked stepmother," dozens of listeners wrote in asking the same question: what about the stepchildren, who have no control over the restructuring of their family? This episode, the Sugars respond with an episode devoted to the other side of the story.

Divorce is always a painful process, but it's especially so when there are children in the middle. In this favorite episode from the archives, the Sugars discuss situations of parental alienation caused by divorce. They answer letters from a mother and a father whose daughters have cut off all communication with them after taking the other parent's side. This episode was originally released October 14th, 2016.

Dear Sugars fans: We wanted to share with you an episode from Love Letters, hosted by Boston Globe advice columnist Meredith Goldstein, that we think you'll enjoy.

There’s incredible power in saying “yes.” It opens up avenues and allows us to be brave. In Cheryl's case, it’s what led to her becoming Sugar. But saying yes to life's opportunities can also have its risks. In this favorite episode from the archives, The Sugars are joined by Oprah Winfrey to discuss when to say no, how to say no, and what happens in the wake of that. This episode was originally released July 15th, 2017.

A damaged parent can cast a dark shadow over our lives, especially when we inherit some of that damage. In this favorite episode from the archives, Steve’s father, the psychoanalyst Dr. Richard Almond, joins the Sugars to answer letters and offer a way out.

In this favorite episode from the archives, the Sugars, along with fiction writer George Saunders, field letters from people who are chasing their creative dreams but frightened by the practical and financial risks that come with that pursuit. This episode was originally released on August 5th, 2017.

"Whatever" -- that's how the actress Maria Bello describes her sexual orientation. Her "love who you love" attitude toward sexuality, regardless of gender, is often referred to as fluidity. In this favorite episode from the archives, Maria joins the Sugars to discuss a couple of letters having to do with the confusion and complications that can accompany a shift in one's sexual preferences and partnerships. This episode was originally published on March 3rd, 2017.

Our loved ones are the people who are supposed to understand us. But what if they just...can't? Where do we turn then, and how do we fight the feelings of resentment that this lack of understanding can stir up? This episode was originally released November 11th, 2016.