The universe has good news for the lost, lonely, and heart-sick.
Sugar is here.
The both of us.
Speaking straight into your ears.
I'm Cheryl Strayed.
I'm Steve Almond.
This is Dear Sugar Radio.
Oh dear song, won't you please Share some little sweet days with me Hi, Cheryl.
Hi, Steve.
How are you?
I am doing good.
I'm terrific.
We're going to do another of our rapid fire episodes today.
And the theme, we're going to talk about love and doubt.
Yes.
People who quite clear about their feelings of affection or love or lust or compatibility.
Yeah.
But they have that one question that they're struggling to answer.
It's like the love train is chugging along and gaining momentum and it just crashes into the giant boulder of doubt.
How's that for a terrible metaphor?
It's a pretty good one.
So the question is, can we help them get back on track?
Okay, we're going to leap right in.
I'll read the first letter.
Do it.
Dear Sugars, Thank you.
Thank you.
We talk about everything.
He shares his ambitions, his insecurities, and whenever we have a disagreement, we talk it out.
He's more open about his feelings than anyone I've ever dated.
He's told me that I'm the person he feels closest to.
But there's one thing he hasn't shared.
His love.
While I feel it from him, he hasn't uttered those three little words to me.
I love you.
Each time our relationship has moved to the next level, I've been the proactive one.
So on this front, I've held back.
Signed, I love him.
Hmm.
Cheryl, I love you.
It's on the record.
And I love him.
You know, it's so important to you to hear those words.
You have the right to hear those words.
They're meaningful to you.
But I'm having trouble making sense of your letter because I'm having trouble squaring.
We talk about everything.
He's more open about his feelings than anyone.
I've ever dated with the feeling that you have that language that you need is being withheld from you.
And I think that requires that you figure out how important hearing those three words are versus the actions that are really the embodiment of the enacting of love in one another's lives.
It's also significant that you are on the brink of moving in together, or you've decided to move in together, and that nowhere in that conversation did you express to him.
I need to hear you say that you love me.
I think you need to somehow rectify the part of your boyfriend in this relationship that is moving full speed ahead.
He's the best thing that ever happened.
We talk about everything.
He's more emotionally available than anybody I've ever been with, with the part that's saying.
But somehow, despite all of that, his not saying these three words is lighting that flame of doubt within me.
And so he needs to know that because he's your guy.
Yeah, I agree.
You have to talk to him.
And I want to say, you know, welcome to a long-term relationship.
You know, it...
There's the way that you want the other person to be or behave.
And then there's the way that they are and behave.
And you need to negotiate these things.
And so to me, it just sounds like that he loves you and that you love him.
And he just assigns a very different value to those three words.
I have a good friend who is the mother to two kids who are now grown up.
They're in their 20s.
And a few years ago, we were talking about being parents.
And she mentioned to me that she never said to her children, I love you.
She had overheard me talking to my kids on the phone.
And we say I love you literally like 20 times a day to each other.
That's just the culture of our family.
And the culture of her family is that they didn't say it.
But what was interesting to me is that it didn't mean that she didn't love her kids.
And her kids knew that she loved them, but she just didn't say it.
And I think that maybe this is what's going on with your boyfriend.
I love him.
Maybe for whatever reason, that's just not a thing that he has –
I want to underscore this because I think it's such an important point.
I come from one of those families that did not say I love you.
And I literally had to train myself to say to Aaron and to say to even friends of mine when they say I love you, I feel uncomfortable.
It's as if there's been a sudden kind of intrusion of love intense, direct emotion that makes me feel frozen.
I get stage fright.
Interesting.
Yeah, and it's terrible.
I mean I really literally.
Now I can say I say it all the time to Aaron I love you, because I know it shorthand for all the things I love him that your boyfriend does for you.
Yeah.
And I imagine that if you explain to him that it's personally meaningful, even if it makes him feel a little uncomfortable, you'll find out what his relationship to that phrase is and whether it's something you should be unsettled by.
I don't feel I'm at a point where I can say that.
Or, of course, I love you.
We're moving in together, but that's not how our family or I didn't realize it was so important to you, or?
Dot dot dot.
It doesn't sound like there's any problem with commitment here.
He's full speed ahead.
Let's move in together.
Yeah.
I think you just need to revise your ideas about what this exchange is going to be like.
The two options I see you taking are either just go ahead and say I love you and see what happens, and you are going to just have to let go of this really sort of archaic, sexist notion that he be the person who says first I love you, so that it's Spontaneous and real.
Yes.
And you're just not going to get that probably.
Or you just say I need to talk to you about something.
I... love you.
And I am perplexed that you haven't said you love me.
And I've been waiting for you to say it.
And I don't know why it's important to me that you say it first, but it is.
When my husband and I decided to get married, it was a perfectly mutual decision that we made together.
But I wanted him to then ask me to marry him.
And I completely see that for like the sexist bullshit narrative that it is.
And yet, I still wanted that piece of it to be in my life.
Like I wanted him to do that asking.
And maybe it's rooted in what you have to say about this feeling that you are the proactive one, that you're the one who compels emotional growth in your relationship, deepens the relationship at each juncture.
And so that's something really important for you to unpack.
And I think that this I love you conversation can be a great portal into that deeper relationship.
Right.
Yeah.
It's really the question is, are we both moving in together?
Did we decide that together?
Are we going to make decisions mutually rather than me having to kind of drag you along?
Because that's not you know this.
Not hearing I love you is standing in for a larger resentment that you're having to do that work of pushing things deeper.
And that should be work you do together and happily.
We love you.
I love him.
Yes.
Okay.
Next letter.
Here we go.
Dear Sugars.
I've been with my girlfriend for about a year now and I've never felt such a strong connection to someone.
She and I have more in common than I've ever shared with a partner, and our relationship has progressed very quickly.
The only problem is when we first met, I didn't feel as much of a physical attraction to her as I thought I should, but I decided that my attraction to her on all other levels was deep enough to overcome that.
I've even felt some of my male friends imply or say outright that they thought I could quote do better.
My question for you is am I doing the right thing in pursuing a relationship with this wonderful person and ignoring what I perceive to be totally invented standards of beauty?
Or is physical chemistry the first and most important part of a real relationship?
Sincerely, struggling with standards.
Cheryl, I am so curious to hear your take.
Struggling with standards.
I think that you are up against two things that you've conflated into one.
Okay.
And you mentioned them both. in your letter as if they are one.
There is your physical attraction to your girlfriend and the physical chemistry you have with her, the sexual chemistry you have with her.
Yes.
And the invented standards of beauty and this idea that your friends have put into your head that you could quote unquote do better.
Now, what I take that to mean is that your girlfriend might be attractive, but she's not a beauty.
She's not a stunningly gorgeous woman.
And your friends think that you could be with somebody who's prettier than her.
Right.
And what I want to say to you, first of all, is those are two different things, okay?
The person that you're attracted to and you have chemistry with is not necessarily the person who fits into these standard conventions of beauty.
Right.
And this has – Steve has talked about this in his own sort of sexual trajectory really like that you – when you're young, you sort of think like oh, the hottest person is the person that meets those conventions.
Right.
And then what happens in life is you – start dating people and you start sleeping with people.
And you find that actually, sometimes the person you connect with the most doesn't fit so neatly into that box, even that box that you've sort of invented in your own mind.
And so the first question I want you to think about struggling with standards is are you having a really powerful physical bond with this woman?
Or are you sort of hung up?
Like is the thing that's inhibiting you from having that bond or having that chemistry?
Is it this idea of what women should look like?
And if that's the case, the great news about that is it can be revised.
You know, you can say, you know, fuck those standards.
I love sleeping with her.
I love, you know, this relationship.
Now if, on the other hand, it is a chemistry issue rather than a beauty standards issue, then I do think that you're right for asking this question and that it's an important one, because
Part of a relationship, part of a romantic relationship that sustains itself over time, is dependent on you being able to have that kind of intimate physical, erotic connection with somebody.
And of course, as we've discussed many times on this show, how hot that is wanes over time and then it reignites and it can shift in all these ways.
But if you don't have a basic real attraction to your romantic partner, I do think you need to rethink the relationship and maybe break up or become friends.
You know, I will say...
If you decide to end this relationship struggling with standards, I really don't think you should say to your girlfriend it's because she's not physically attractive enough for you.
Because that is an absolutely – first of all, that's a really subjective opinion.
And it's one that will hurt her for a long time and probably affect her for many relationships.
Yeah.
The pattern in my life has been when I get involved with somebody, as I find out more about who they are and all the hidden beautiful things within them – they become more attractive to me.
And what's really unsettling here is that, for whatever reason, after a year she has not become more attractive to you.
And that to me is the trouble sign.
But I do think that you are right to feel ashamed and troubled by the fact that it seems to be linked in your mind.
The first place you go after that realization is these friends of mine who say that I could do better.
Because I think this is what being steeped in this kind of culture, that is beauty, youth and beauty worshiping it mixes up our internal lives.
We can't separate those.
It wouldn't be wonderful, Cheryl, if we could separate those two parts.
How much is chemistry and how much is this external standard?
The problem is we've internalized these things and they become false sacred texts inside us that we should be able to get a 10 or an 8 because we're a thus and such.
And that is something that you should probably question yourself about.
But at the bottom of it, you cannot fake chemistry.
You cannot be.
You know, and a friend of mine said to me years ago, before I was married.
He said you know Steve, you want to marry a woman that you're just attracted to enough that you want to sleep with them, but no more than that.
You know, like you shouldn't be crazy after them.
And at the time I thought I don't, you know, isn't the idea to just be with somebody who you're just crazy about all the time and you think they're just, they're a 10?
And I've realized like well that's, the reason that I feel that way towards Erin and I'm desirous of her is because I've gotten to know her and we've made a life together.
And I feel like my chemistry responds more to her the longer I've known her and the deeper our relationship has become.
A year isn't a short amount of time to kind of figure out whether you're getting past the superficial signifiers of desire and the real chemistry, the underlying chemistry, is there.
And if it's not, it's not.
And don't waste her time or yours sort of trying to fake it, because that is its own kind of form of humiliation to stay in a relationship where you know it's not the only ingredient but it is an essential ingredient.
If it's not there, be honest about it.
I agree with Cheryl.
I would not make it precisely about beauty, but I would take stock of the part of yourself that might be mixed up about how much is about beauty and how much is chemistry, and how those two things have become linked in your mind and heart.
Okay, next question.
Dear Sugars.
I recently met a great guy I'll call Richard on a dating app and we've been seeing each other pretty regularly for about a month.
Recently, he shared with me that he would like our relationship to become exclusive and for us to be boyfriend and girlfriend.
I've been single for about four years.
I'm 30 and I'd very much like to be in a committed relationship.
I told him that I wanted the same things, but I'm still in the process of getting to know and understand him and I needed more time.
Since then, we've both shared with each other about our past relationships, and he revealed to me that when he was in college and in law school, he cheated on every girlfriend that he ever had.
He says that he has not acted this way for about seven years, and he has since had other girlfriends to whom he was faithful.
When he told me this, I tried to remain open and nonjudgmental.
I asked him how he was able to rationalize this behavior to himself.
And he said, to be honest, I just turned that part of my brain off.
He emphasized that he was much younger then and he was sowing his wild oats, and that he wouldn't cheat on me now, because that simply isn't what he wants.
He wants someone to spend time with and to be in a committed relationship with.
He's a very matter-of-fact type. and he doesn't mince words.
So I take him at his word that he doesn't have any plans to resume his cheating ways.
However, there are a couple of things that concern me about this.
One thing is that he didn't express much regret or self-reflection.
It seemed as though he was saying his bad behavior suited his desires back then, but they don't now, and so he has cut out those behaviors.
But what I want is a man who has values and principles that guide him through life, not someone who picks and chooses when doing the right thing suits him.
The second thing is that some of his friends, who he hangs out with, continue to cheat on their girlfriends or spouses.
While he acknowledges that their behavior is scummy, it's odd to me that he can be friends with people like that.
I know this might sound super self-righteous, but I can honestly say that the people I surround myself with are good people and do not cheat on their significant others.
Am I judging him too harshly for cheating all those years back?
Should I be giving him credit for being forthcoming about it?
Or is it obvious that he doesn't have a strong moral compass?
I so would like for this relationship to work, but I'm not willing to commit to someone I don't deem trustworthy.
Sugars, what should I do?
Signed, too judgy or not judgy enough?
That's a great sign-off.
You know this is a sticky one, because what it sounds like too judgy or not judgy enough what's unsettling you is that this guy doesn't have an adequate capacity to self-reflect and to tell you I not only did I do these things, but I know they're wrong.
And they're not wrong because they're not what I want now.
They're wrong because that's that was hurtful to who I was with.
You say he's very matter of fact and doesn't mince words.
So you sort of believe his declaration.
But there's something untrustworthy about how he's saying it.
It's sort of like when you say to somebody, oh, I'm sorry that you were upset by that.
I'm sorry that upset you as opposed to I'm sorry that I said something that was clearly hurtful to you.
I did that.
It's more – it feels like he sort of disassociates a little bit.
I feel like a month into this thing, you need to have a talk with him before it goes any further and say I know we talked about this and I know you think the issue is over, but it's not for me.
I'm also a little bit curious about why it came up because –
I don't make an assumption that everybody has been faithful to everybody they've been with, especially in the late teens, 20s.
I feel like the landscape out there, you don't know what sort of the world he was moving through.
I don't have the expectation that somehow he should have been faithful to all of his partners.
And I think, frankly, that's the part of you that's being too judgy.
The part of you that maybe isn't being judgmental enough is the part that feels unsettled by the way that he discusses his personal morality, especially as it relates to being faithful to you.
If you move further into it.
What do you think?
I think you're being too judgy.
Too judgy.
Oh, okay.
Or not judgy enough.
And when I say I think you're being too judgy, I don't mean to say that you don't have some valid concerns.
And I absolutely think that you should talk more deeply to Richard about those concerns.
It seems to me that the most important concern is that his sense of regret, or his sense of I believe him, that it's true that he just put that out of his brain and did what he wanted to do at that time.
But now, as the 30-year-old or 30-something that he is, I would want to know if he's reflected upon those things and really thought about the consequences of his actions.
I will say, though, to me, that's implicit in A, the fact that he's told you about these things.
B, the fact that he then spent the last seven years not cheating on girlfriends.
You ask if he's trustworthy.
You say, I'm not willing to commit to somebody who I don't deem trustworthy.
And yet, maybe you should think about what does trustworthy mean to you?
Does trustworthy mean never having made a mistake?
Or does trustworthy mean telling you the truth about his life?
And if it's the latter, you've got that.
This is somebody who has admitted his past mistakes to you, even though he knows you feel judgmental about them.
He's also shared with you that his friends some of his friends are cheaters, and he knows that that disturbs you too.
Would you rather that he covers that and doesn't tell you those things?
When you say that you surround yourself with people who are good people and don't cheat on their significant others, what I wanna say is you don't really know who's cheating on their significant others.
And sadly, what you're going to find out, probably over the next few decades, is some shocking information about people you love.
You're going to find out.
People you thought were committed and being honest with their partners deceive them at times.
Life and love are complicated.
And I'm not saying that it's okay to be without a moral compass.
I'm not saying it's okay to deceive and lie and cheat.
I am saying however, that a lot of people make a lot of mistakes in this realm of life, and it doesn't necessarily mean that they're immoral.
I absolutely think you're right to put a high value on honesty and fidelity and faithfulness and committed relationships.
But I think that what you have on your hands here is a man who's actually willing to have an open, and honest discussion with you about it.
You know who I'd be so much more afraid of?
The guy you met on the dating app at the age of 30, who claimed to have an absolutely pure background, who claimed to have this moral, righteous high ground.
I would never do this.
I would never do that.
And you know what?
Those are the people who actually have and do and will.
And so I think that lower those judgments, open that mind, open that heart, have some real discussions, make yourself vulnerable.
Tell him that it scares you that he's done this in the past.
Ask him for a deeper search.
I bet he's telling you the truth that he hasn't thought about it much.
But that's the cool thing about a relationship is you get to then discuss things in a more deep way.
I will tell you, My husband, my dear husband, who I've been with for almost 21 years now, was in this very same situation.
In fact, worse.
When I met him, he could say to me, I've never been faithful to anyone.
There wasn't the seven years that he said, well, I was always faithful during that time.
He'd never been faithful to a girlfriend.
And this was hard for me, too.
I really thought, OK, what am I getting into with this guy?
But what I found is what I got into was a man who was really struggling with his relationships with women and really struggling with how to be monogamous.
And that's been a journey.
And I am really glad that I decided to undertake it with him.
And a huge key point for me wasn't, is he perfect?
It was, is he honest?
Is he open?
Is he willing to grow?
Dear Sugars, while traveling for six months, I met a guy.
When we met, my heart melted and I instantly developed a hardcore crush on him.
He's a tall, dark, handsome, motorcycle-riding musician with a nice accent.
We had a great fling.
I became emotionally attached to him, but since we were only in the same place for a month and there was no long-term potential for the relationship, I did my best to keep it light and emotion-free.
We've been messaging, sending pictures and sexting ever since I left, and I've been fantasizing about meeting up with him again in some foreign place, and now the opportunity has arisen for that to actually happen.
He will be house-sitting in Sicily for a few months and working on his music.
I'm waitressing stateside as I wait for graduate school to start.
He hasn't actually asked me to join him, but I think he might say yes if I propose the idea.
Here's my question.
Do I go and spend a few fun-filled weeks with him, even though it will leave me broke, jobless and possibly heartbroken?
Or do I continue down my logical, responsible path and be grateful for the fun we had?
Steve said that crushes leave you crushed, and I know how painfully true that is.
But Cheryl says, to put yourself in the way of beauty.
And what's more beautiful than a hot boy on a Sicilian beach?
I would be deeply grateful for your perspective and maybe even your blessing hopelessly.
Wanderluster.
I have only one thing to say.
Oh, my God.
And that is there is nothing more beautiful than a hot boy on a Sicilian beach.
I pretty much knew you were going to say that.
Wanderluster, go.
Don't even think.
Don't even look back.
Just go.
Have fun.
You said you signed up for this.
Don't use any birth control.
You're going to be broke.
Just go.
You're going to possibly be heartbroken.
You know those things.
As long as you know those things, go, honey.
I think absolutely.
This is fun.
This is the moment of your life to do these things.
Do not look back.
Go to that beach.
Go to that boy.
Have a blast.
Lick your wounds later.
Wow.
I can't believe you even are thinking there's another answer to this question.
The only caveat I would add is try to do a little bit of a, self-inventory.
No, no, just go.
Just go, man.
Do the inventory later with the hot memories of this fabulous guy on a beach in Italy.
Okay.
All right.
Okay.
What inventory could possibly be taken?
Please try to remember that I am Jewish.
So I'm sitting there going oh my, but what if she goes over there and he's recording music and he's got another one on the side and she's not really the person you know who he's going to spend time?
If you know That he has signed up for you to be there and that you're going to have this wonderful ecstatic experience where at least his interest, other than being in the music studio, is to be with you.
And that is co-mutual great.
But unless she's due a little bit of prophylactic.
No, no.
We are gathered here today to celebrate this thing called life.
In the great words of our dearly beloved and recently departed prince, and this is what life is.
Yeah, what if?
What if she goes and she shows up and he's fucking the neighbor?
So be it.
I think that this is the beauty of life.
No, no, I don't agree.
I don't agree.
That's the beauty of life.
I show up in Sicily for my hot boy to have this ecstatic experience and he's fucking the neighbor and I'm getting sloppy seconds and an STD.
She's going to ask him.
She's going to say, do you think it's a good... She says, I think he's going to say yes.
So of course if he says no, don't come, don't go.
But if he's like, yeah, go.
Okay.
It sounds great.
Go with it.
Let's go crazy.
May we rest in funk.
I get it.
But she's really proposing to spend a whole bunch of money and, more to the point, invest like a big part of her heart.
I think she should know that Two things.
One that he wants her to be there and is going to spend time with her, because we have all been in situations where it seems great and romantic and wonderful.
And then that hot Sicilian boy is off with somebody else and you're left in the shadows.
I have not been in that situation.
I know because men adore you.
But just imagine for a moment that there is a world in which a young woman who is telling us in her letter that she is emotionally vulnerable to this guy.
She's kind of in between things and ready to throw her heart fully into it.
And she throws her heart into it.
It lands with a thud on the hot Sic And it sizzles around while he's making music with some other senora.
And then another hot Sicilian dude comes walking up.
Oh, my God.
Hope springs eternal here.
But she wants him is the point.
But she's not saying.
I believe people when they tell Like what she's saying.
Yes, she likes him more than she probably should.
Heart melting.
But she's also saying...
You know what, though?
This moment isn't about protecting my heart.
This moment is about leaping into the fire.
Okay.
I agree with you, Cheryl.
But I do think that, within that general, I'm going to do this thing.
The way that she asks has to make sure I'm going to be staying with you.
Are you going to spend time with me?
I expect this to be a particular kind of experience so that she doesn't spend...
4000 and a significant sort of outlay of her hopes and expectations in her heart, and then wind up in a situation where she feels really neglected or undermined or sort of where you get the rug pulled out from underneath you.
Now you would say, hey, that's part of life.
That's what the 20s are for.
That's what you learn from.
But she might not be a world famous memoirist who's like hey, I'm really interested in having an experience that crushes my heart.
Neither was I when I was in my 20s or 30s.
If she were writing to us and saying, listen, I'm madly in love and I'm not sure if it's reciprocal.
And I would say, you know what?
Stay home and Invest in yourself and onward.
She wants to run into the burning building.
I got you.
Run into the building.
Right.
That's really hot and on fire with a nice Italian dude.
I know.
I wish she would call him a Sicilian man or stallion even rather than boy.
She had a pocket full of Trojans.
Oh, my God.
Wow.
Some of them used.
You are out of control.
Little red Corvette.
Get into that Corvette, baby, and ride to Italy.
All right.
Okay.
Here's our next letter.
Dear Sugars.
I'm writing you because I'm not the person or lover that I want to be.
I'm a 29 year old man in love with an amazing woman, S, who is 28.
We met a year ago while casually dating.
I've been a serial monogamous for most of my adult life, which included a six year relationship.
I wasn't looking for love when I met S, but from the very first date I was completely taken with her.
She's one of the most interesting people I've ever met.
Everything about our relationship is wonderful.
We support each other, we have shared interests, the sex is amazing, and we're moving in together.
Despite this, I've not been able to dampen my desire to sleep with other women.
This desire manifests itself only when S is not around, which wouldn't be an issue, except that she travels regularly for work.
A couple of times I've initiated contact with other women in order to hook up, but I haven't followed through because I don't want to cheat on S.
I'm excited by the idea of sleeping with other women and being desired.
While I haven't had physical contact with another woman while I've been with S, I believe I've cheated on a psychological level.
S has been cheated on in the past and I don't want to cause her that pain again.
We're so good for each other and I don't know why I would be jeopardizing our relationship by these desires.
Sugars, do you have any insight on why I have become this person?
Signed, Bad Partner Bad partner, I'm going to offer an educated guess.
I think that your cold feet are taking the form of hot loins, basically.
The fact that you have escalated this relationship, that everything seems to be lining up, that you're moving in together, has consciously or probably more so unconsciously triggered a kind of panic.
And it is taking the form of doing the one thing that you know would sabotage the relationship.
Because, after all right Cheryl, you could have a conversation with a partner ostensibly, and say well, I know we're moving towards moving in together and getting more committed.
And let's talk about the relationship and what fidelity means and what the nature of our relationship will be, and so forth.
That's not what's happening.
Instead, it's choreographed in a way where they talk about moving in together, the commitment ramps up and he immediately does.
The one thing that he knows is guaranteed to break her heart and to send her in the other direction.
That's my guess.
Yeah, I agree with that.
And since you took a psychological approach, which I think is very much, I encourage you, Bad Partner, to ponder everything Steve said.
I also want to address just the biological answer to your question.
And that is the reason that you desire other women is that's just perfectly biologically natural for you to be doing, I think, throughout your life, but especially at this point in your life.
You're a 29-year-old man, you know, and I think that science has proven to us over and over again that human sexuality, we aspire to monogamy.
Many of us really value being in monogamous partnerships for the emotional things that that can offer us.
But physically, we...
You know, that doesn't shut off sometimes our desire for other people.
And so the way that most people manage to make a monogamy work is that they don't give in.
They do what you've done so far.
Right.
That you see the desire and then you don't act on it.
You make sure not to put yourself in a situation that would cause you to act on those desires.
And I think over time you learn how to get better at doing that.
Right.
So my answer to you really is just like, listen, you're not alone in this.
You're not a bad partner because you sometimes think about having sex with other people.
You're a bad partner if you act on it and lie to yourself and your partner and deceive her in some way.
And you haven't done that.
What you're doing is really struggling with that. essentially an internal conversation.
I will say though, that there are some red flags for me when you say a couple of times you've initiated contact with other women to hook up.
So you are at least reaching toward acting out, um, against your better judgment.
And then you, you know, something else intervenes and you, and you stop yourself from doing it.
But, you know, I think that this might be something worth exploring in a a sort of deeper way, either with a therapist or with us uh, really openly, because the way to get rid of this kind of stuff that's really rooted in shame is to bring it into the light and explore some of the reasons that you're, You know, at odds with yourself.
Most men and women, for that matter, but since we're talking to a male letter writer, bad partner feel that when they start to move towards a happy, successful relationship and they move in together, there's a kind of panic, because what's happening psychologically, but also, as Cheryl points out biologically, is you're essentially saying I'm going to be just with this one person.
From now on.
And so you have this set of desires the idea of sleeping with other women, other bodies, other forms of pleasure being desired by other women.
Those are now implicitly and explicitly being forbidden.
Yeah.
And I will say.
We all want our Sicilian boy on the beach, don't we, Cheryl?
We do.
But I was going to say Steve, longtime listeners of the show will know I am not a polyamorous person myself.
But I'm going to put in a word here for all of our poly listeners who are right now like shaking their fists at us as we have this incredibly like heteronormative, monogamous sort of like talk, as if monogamy is like the great thing that we should all aspire to.
Another solution to the I want to have sex with people other than the one person I'm in a committed relationship with is to open a relationship up and to –.
Talk honestly with us and decide the terms.
And maybe those terms will include having other lovers.
You never know.
It doesn't sound like from this letter you don't mention that.
But I will say that is another path to the mountaintop.
To the Sicilian beach as it were.
Or at least the Sicilian beach.
Yes, exactly.
Okay.
Abundanza is our last letter.
Final letter.
Dear Sugars.
I have found the most incredible woman.
She's smart, beautiful, warm, caring, and my friends and family think she's fantastic.
We haven't been dating all that long, so I'm not going to rush into anything.
It's too soon.
But we see eye to eye on everything.
We've had some pretty significant talks, things like where we'd like to live, views on life money work relationships sex, et cetera.
Big conversations.
All the major items on our respective checklists are sorted.
We match up splendidly, and I cherish our time together.
Here's the issue.
I'm divorced.
I broke up with my ex four years ago and I've learned a lot since then about myself, about relationships and especially about life.
At 35, I finally had healthy relationships, and I found forgiveness for my ex.
I feel ready to be married again.
But the question that lurks at the back of my mind is, how do I really know?
Divorce was the worst thing I've ever experienced, even though I'm the one who initiated it.
There's no way I want to do that again.
I rushed into marriage the first time I see now, but when it comes to doing it again, I don't want to wait forever.
My girlfriend and I have plans to take a trip to Europe later this year.
I see that as a perfect time to ask her to marry me.
At that point, we won't have been together a year yet, but it'll be getting close.
Is that long enough?
Why am I worried about if it's seen as long enough?
Am I worried that others think I'm rushing into it again?
Hmm.
Hmm.
Love.
Yeah.
Love.
So... help me be ready.
You know, one of the things I often ponder is when people ask us a question, it often arises because they're asking themselves that you are feeling doubt about doing this thing you want to do.
You want to ask your girlfriend, but you do feel like it might be a little early.
And so I say, trust that.
I'm not thinking that you need to wait terribly much longer, but I do think that a European vacation is not the only cool place you can make a marriage proposal.
Why not just give it a few more months to sort of quell that doubt that you seem to have, the doubt that compelled you to write this letter?
Let it ride.
It's not going to make a difference if you propose 18 months into your relationship, as you would 10 months into it.
And I think, because you're feeling this doubt, because you have this fear of doing again what you did before, why not give it a little more time?
That would be my advice to you.
And then do it.
If you still love her, it doesn't matter if people think you're rushing into it.
You know what's in your heart.
You know that marriage is never a guarantee.
You know that you could get married again and divorced as much as you don't want to do that.
And so you need to enter into it with that, I guess, embracing that sense of doubt and certainty.
You're never going to know for sure, even if you tell yourself you do.
In fact, that's kind of a setup.
You know, I agree.
And I think that it's significant.
Help me be ready for one that you're asking us to help you be ready.
I wish we that's above our pay grade.
You have to help you be ready.
But we can certainly suggest some things that stand out in the letter and are a little not fishy exactly.
But there was a question in my mind in a couple of places.
One is that you said I you know we've had talks, the big conversations about life and money and work and relationships and sex, everything.
And I say, well, but not about marriage and divorce and children.
Have you had those discussions?
Have you told her, I really feel good in this, but I also And so I'm twice shy.
And what's been her response?
Have you thought about the events that led to your divorce and what the arc of the relationship was, and whether there are similarities or whether there are distinct differences in how you've conducted yourself with this relationship?
Cheryl's right.
If there is doubt that's arising, it's not coming from nowhere.
It's coming from some identified part of yourself that's looking to external factors.
Your friends and family love her.
Your best friend says she's good for you.
Is that enough?
Yeah, they can't answer that question for you because they're not going to be in the marriage with you and they're not going to be in the engagement with you.
So you need to spend some time within yourself discussing that and also having big conversations with this woman who you love so much.
And the other thing to think about is the idea of kind of choreographing the perfect moment is a setup.
There's no perfect moment.
The moment that's perfect is when it feels like you can say I am ready, not because my family and friends and the checklist says yes, but because I, in my heart and soul, am ready to take the risk of saying let's do this thing together.
And Cheryl's right.
It is a risk.
No relationship, no matter how good it looks on paper or how good it looks to everybody around you, is guaranteed.
Right.
And you ask, how do I really know?
You don't.
I mean.
What I've come to understand in my own life and my own decisions about romantic relationships is that you
You can really know what's true in a moment or an era of your life.
And we also really know that those truths will change over time.
So, yeah, I would say listen to the doubt, the doubt that compelled you to write to us.
That doesn't mean that you won't marry this woman someday.
It just means maybe like just listen to those doubts, and we wish you all kinds of love and luck in this relationship.
That's right.
We do.
And that brings us to the end of Love and Doubt.
Love and Doubt.
I think they kind of lived up to it, all of these people struggling towards it.
It's such a beautiful ideal, and it's like nobody has a clear path.
I wouldn't even trust a clear path.
Doubt is love's ally.
It is.
If it's properly understood as something that's telling you you need to think more deeply about making a life with this person or making a hot European vacation with them.
Indeed.
Well, in many of these letters, they were fearful that the fact of the doubt meant – that this relationship isn't sustainable or they should get out of it.
And, you know, in some cases it is.
Like if you're really doubting something that's essential and deep about a relationship, you should absolutely listen to it.
And it might be the doubt that guides you out of the relationship.
But it many times is the thing that takes you deeper into it.
Right.
We must, we must, we must tell you that Dear Sugar is produced by WBUR. in Boston.
We are produced and edited by Lisa Tobin and we're recording today at Talkback, Sound and Visual right here in Portland Oregon.
Josh Millman is our engineer.
Theme music by the Portland musicians known as Wonderly and the vocals are by Liz Weiss.
She is terrific.
Listen and subscribe to Dear Sugar Radio on iTunes and write to us, if you would, at dearshugarradio at gmailcom.
