The universe has good news for the lost, lonely, and heart sick.
The sugars are here, speaking straight into your ears.
I'm Steve Olman.
I'm Cheryl Strayed.
This is Dear Sugar's.
Oh dear song, won't you please?
Yeah, some little sweet days would be.
I check my bell vibes every day.
Oh, and this sugar, using my way.
Hi Steve.
Hi Cheryl.
Here we are going to do another rapid fire episode.
I love these because we get to answer so many letters.
I have this pressing feeling all the time when I look in our inbox of all of these letters.
It's like the letters we will never answer.
Listeners, I hope you know if you're one of those people who has written to us, what we
try to do, even if we can't answer every individual letter, we try to answer every kind
of letter.
So we hope that if we don't answer your specific question, there will be other questions
that are really applicable to yours.
Exactly.
And there's a certain kind of letter that we get a lot and the situation varies, but
it's what we think of as a, there's just this one thing kind of letter.
Right, everything's great, but one thing.
And the ellipses just get larger and larger and more ominous.
So that's what we're going to take on today.
Everything is fine.
There's just this one thing.
So I'm going to start with the first letter.
Let's do it.
Dear sugars, I feel so stuck.
My boyfriend and I have been together for four years and have lived together for three.
We've traveled the world together and even started a small business together.
I took it for granted early on that he was my partner for life.
But after a while, I started to feel self-conscious about that assumption.
My friends, family, strangers, and even my boss asked me regularly when we're going to
get married.
Social pressure is doubled as I see our friends progress in their romantic relationships.
I love my boyfriend deeply and I want to grow a family with him.
But when I bring up the topic of marriage, he shies away.
Last year, we were going to Paris and I was convinced he was planning to propose.
He wasn't.
I was crushed but respected his need for more time.
I suggested a six month time frame to make a decision as a team.
We've surpassed that deadline by several months.
He's still not ready.
He says he wants to see our relationship and communication improve.
I do too, but I also know that no relationship is perfect.
I want to be loved and accepted exactly as I am.
Something he seems unable to do, at least right now.
Do I continue to be patient and change for the only man I have imagined as the father of
my future kids?
Or do I walk away knowing someone else will love me as I am?
Signed four years and counting.
So four years and counting, I feel you, I think this is a situation that is painfully
common for men and women.
I want to just alert you to two sentences that are having an argument that you need to
acknowledge.
The sentences are, I do too, but I also know that no relationship is perfect.
And the next sentence, I want to be loved and accepted exactly as I am.
I hope you can see that those two sentences are having an interesting discussion that has
to do with the fact that love is not unconditional approval.
Marriage is not, I found somebody who loves me exactly as I am and we're going to make a
life together.
That's a beautiful myth.
It makes for great fairy tales, but it is lousy as a paradigm for real life.
What it is with marriage is this is somebody with whom I want to do the work for the rest
of my life.
Right?
I feel that I'm ready to do the work of loving them, supporting them, but also managing
a set of disappointments in myself and them and the life that we built together.
There's enough good stuff that you'll manage the imperfections and consequent disappointment.
I care not a bit about what other people think and the societal or social expectations
of when and if you're going to get married to this guy.
To the extent that you can, I would uncouple that from the real question here, which is,
does this person love me and does he want to spend his life with me?
Because I think I feel that towards him and that's a painful thing to face head on, but
that sounds like what the situation is.
You love him and know you can't even imagine somebody else being your partner and raising
kids together and he's ambivalent and uncertain about that.
He has said to you, I want our communication to improve, that's the thing that he says
he's troubled by.
And I would start there rather than a timetable for a proposal, I would say to him rather
than I want you to accept me exactly as I am, what is it that we have to work on in our
relationship to communicate more effectively?
Because that's really more important than a ring on your finger.
That's really the fate of a lasting relationship is can I communicate with this person?
Not just when it's easy and it's in Paris and he's going to put a ring on my finger, but
when you're back into buke and the kids are crying and the bills are due and somebody's
sick and dot, dot, dot.
I think that's all good advice, Steve, but I see it a little differently and I guess in
a less complicated fashion.
I do think four years in counting that your boyfriend has made a decision.
You say you suggested a six month timeframe to make a decision as a team, we surpassed
that deadline by several months.
He's made a decision.
He doesn't want to get married to you right now or in the near future.
You want to get married right now or in the near future.
So this isn't so much at this point a question that you have about your partner.
How do I convince him?
What do I do for him to make him feel more comfortable marrying me right now?
I think this is a really a decision that you have to answer for yourself.
Are you willing to stay with a man who's not ready to get married yet?
The question is very stark.
Do you want to stay with this man who you love and let that relationship progress as it
does not with any kind of timeline that you set on him where he needs to make a decision
and this and that and the other thing you've seen that doesn't work?
Or do you want to find someone who is ready for marriage?
Now of course the reason that's scary is you have to leave someone you love and be you
don't know if you're going to find someone you want to marry.
You could break up in a year from now you could be in love with someone else and engage
to somebody else.
You could break up with him now and it could be ten years before you find that person
again that's why it's scary.
We don't know really from the information you give us in this letter.
If he's being genuine when he says the problem is our communication it might be the problem
is not you at all.
It might be that he's just not ready to get married.
You don't mention how old you are.
You don't mention if the biological clock is ticking you talk about future kids but I think
that there's a different accounting that would be made if you're 35 versus 25.
I think that this I want to be loved and accepted exactly as I am.
I think it's really right that you're pointing this out Steve.
That isn't really what we get from our partners but I think four years in kind of what you're
saying is not that you want somebody to just love you as you are.
It's rather you want someone to be deeply committed to you.
Totally committed, yeah.
You know deeply committed in the way that it takes to say that you want to marry somebody
and you know your boyfriend is telling you he's not.
And so what I'm trying to say to you here is this question especially if you're a woman
in a heterosexual relationship is often set up like I'm waiting for the proposal.
Yeah.
Going to Paris.
You got it.
Is he going to propose as if this vastly deep decision to marry somebody is really about
what boils down to essentially a surprise party right.
And the fact of the matter is this is a big decision for both of you and what he has told
you is he is not ready to say yes to it.
If I were you it wouldn't be him I'd give the deadline to it would be yourself.
Yeah.
You know maybe it's if this doesn't look like a deeper commitment in a year I am going
to move along and you can share that information with him but the difference between sharing
that information with him about your life and you're giving him a deadline that he has
to meet.
Yeah.
Is that you're really empowering yourself.
You're making yourself an agent in your life and in this relationship you get to decide
what you want to do.
Dear sugars.
Just over a year ago I met a wonderful person with whom I clicked almost instantly.
I hadn't intended to fall for him but the more we spent time together and got to know
each other he and I were both struck by how similar we were.
It was easy to find ourselves falling on the same page when it came to compassion, relationships,
honesty and love.
Even when disagreements came up we were always able to work through it with great care,
respect and understanding for the other.
About six months after we began dating a serious question came up.
He's Christian and holds his faith to be quite foundational to his beliefs and sense of
self.
I am at best agnostic.
Both our parents advised us to break up because of our differences in faith.
We felt it would be too difficult to whether these differences and felt it was best for us
to avoid further heartbreak down the line when we were more invested.
But because he and I felt we could connect on many levels in such personal, significant
and intimate ways, we didn't want to break up.
It felt premature to break up when we hadn't even tried to talk through our religious differences
and understand what it meant for each of us to be with a person of a different faith.
It hadn't been a deal breaker for either of us, and since we were both willing to work
on tackling this difference together we decided to move forward in our relationship.
We've now been together for more than a year and in that time I've tried to reach
across the gap between us by asking him questions and reading relevant literature, but he hasn't
tried to bridge this gap in the same way for a number of reasons.
He wants me to try coming to church with him rather than speak in abstract terms.
He doesn't want to evangelize me, and he's simply not sure where to begin.
After speaking with other friends who are of faith, I don't blame him or his reasons.
I understand his concerns, and I'd very much like to go to church with him to address
at least one of these problems.
The only reason I haven't yet is because we don't live in the same town, but I'll soon
be moving closer to this area and I've promised him that I would go with him then.
This conflict has come to the forefront because my boyfriend has now realized he doesn't
know if he can ultimately marry a person who isn't of faith.
It isn't just because the Bible explicitly tells him to, quote, not yoke himself to
a non-believer, but because he fears what the ramifications of being in an interfaith
marriage will mean for us as a couple, supporting each other in personal, professional, and
spiritual ways, as well as what it would mean for him and us to participate in his church
and be part of his church community.
I don't know what to do.
I am not going to give him false hope and promise that I'll convert because I'm trying
to stay true to my sense of self and I don't currently feel inclined in that direction.
I am also trying adamantly to make sure we're on the same page in this regard.
However, I'm also very willing to try going to church to learn more about his faith and
to integrate myself into this part of his life, I'm committed to working through our
differences.
I don't know if this is enough for him and that scares me.
Should I stay in this relationship knowing he might someday say he can't marry me because
I'm not Christian or should I break up with him now even though I love him?
Your advice would be appreciated.
Signed non-believer.
Non-believer.
Wow.
So many interesting things in your letter and I'm not sure that you're entirely aware of
a dynamic that I found so strong that runs throughout your description of what's happening
in your relationship with your boyfriend.
The first one is this paragraph where you say that you've tried to reach across the gap
between us by asking him questions and reading relevant literature.
Now when I first read that, what I thought would follow was a description of the ways
that he's tried to understand your belief system, that he's tried to really inquire with
you why you are agnostic but instead what you say is he wants me to try coming to church.
He doesn't want to evangelize me.
He's simply not sure where to begin.
So what's happening is even in your own interpretation, what you're calling bridging the gap
only moves in one direction.
So you bridging the gap is learning more about his religion and him bridging the gap is
him teaching you more about his religion.
Okay.
Do you see that imbalance?
Non-believer?
To me bridging a gap when two parties are bridging a gap, you're both extending your
self across that divide in the direction of the other.
And the dynamic that seems very strong in your relationship is the one who needs to change
and the one who needs to be understanding and the one who needs to fix him or herself
is you.
The only way that you will come together is if you not only start doing things like understanding
his faith more deeply and attending church and becoming a part of his faith community
but also maybe even converting.
You say you can't promise you're going to convert.
The only way you could genuinely convert is if you start to believe in God that you take
this faith into your heart.
That's what Christianity is.
And that's a big leap.
I'm not saying that that's not possible.
I do think it's a great idea for you to attend church with this person you're in love
with.
I think that's a wonderful bridging of the gap.
But I think that it's problematic if you're the only one doing that.
And if there's pressure also, what experience are you meant to have at this church?
Is it to say yes, I now believe in the things you believe in because you want me to?
Or is it really just to be part of his life in a meaningful way?
And I think that's the ladder that you're striving for.
But I can promise you, you're not going to feel that sense of wholeness and connection
and intimacy.
I think that you want in a partnership unless you feel that your boyfriend is doing that
for you too.
As he said to you, what do you believe in?
Obviously, you have values and ethics and you have a moral core.
What informs those things in you?
And I want to tell you that that is possible.
I've had this experience so much as a writer.
I think I write what's ultimately very spiritual work.
I've heard so much from people of faith about that.
And one of the best conversations I've really ever had is that I met a minister who had
read one of my columns one Sunday at his church service.
And he said to me, this was an expression of the Christian faith.
And I laughed because, of course, to me, what I felt like it was an expression of my agnostic
or atheistic faith.
That is to say, I believe in the divinity of each of us, even though I don't believe in
a Christian God.
And what I find with the Christians and people of all faiths is there is a kind of ultimately
a very universal truth at the core of faith and non-faith alike.
And I don't see your boyfriend trying to find that ground with you.
So I'm concerned about that lack of balance.
And I do think that you're set up to fail here.
Yeah.
Look, I am Jewish by birth and maybe agnostic and even atheistic by temperament.
But I believe in the gospel of love as a revolutionary force.
I think the words of Christ in the Beatitudes, the sermon on the Mount are the most profound
and beautiful moral preaching and sort of spiritual advice that humankind has ever received.
Mm-hmm.
Which is by way of saying, I find deep meaning and value in religious scripture, in the stories
that are told in the Bible.
That's why it's the best seller, folks, right?
The Quran, the Bible, the Old Testament, New Testament.
These texts are sacred stories.
Whether we view them as parables or myths, or we view them as, you know, exact history,
they contain all of human thought and feeling and wisdom and struggle.
The real question here is whether you are, and I think Shilframed it just right, is
your boyfriend currently really saying, if you boil it away, if you want me, you have
to have God.
Is it that kind of soft evangelism?
Because I don't think you're saying to him, you can have God or you can have me, but
you can't have both.
I think you're saying, I accept that you have a profound spiritual life.
And I think the first thing you should do is go see his church community and go to church.
And I honestly, if I'm really honest, I don't buy the fact that you couldn't have done
that by now.
You certainly could.
You might be holding yourself back from that because you sense that it's kind of a gun
point that he said, you have to jump through these hoops in order to be worthy of my love.
I feel strongly that you need to act now on this.
You've sent us this letter because you know that this situation is out of balance.
And this person who you love and connect to deeply on some level has really just put
you in a terrible state of uncertainty and doubt.
I think your boyfriend has not done that because he's a bad actor.
I think he probably comes from a powerful family culture that is saying to him and has been
saying for many, many years that it is deeply troubling for him to get involved with a non-believer
for somebody who doesn't understand the culture of your church and your family and your
spiritual community and beliefs.
In other words, he comes by that honestly, but the time is now to act on this.
You don't verbalize this non-believer, but it's my sense that the feeling between the
two of you and certainly the opinion of your boyfriend is that he has his Christian church,
he has his faith.
And so it's something and you're agnostic and so that's nothing.
But what I'm suggesting is that's not true and what Steve's suggesting as well.
Both of us being agnostic, both of us have not just great respect for the religious traditions
but actually have learned from them.
Many of my own values are absolutely informed by the teachings of any number of spiritual
leaders.
Jesus Christ included.
And I feel very strongly about my ethics and my values and my moral core.
And I would expect anyone who I was intimate with who had his own faith to be really curious
about what I think and believe in.
And it isn't an absence if it doesn't happen to be that those beliefs and those values
don't happen to be channeled into a traditional religion or a church or a particular God.
So think about it this way.
It isn't an absence.
It's a presence what you have.
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Listen for all.
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Beyond all repair.
Listen and follow wherever you get your podcasts.
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You're digging in a place that's been very peaceful for a while.
Do it anyway.
Dig.
Dear Sugars, I'm an
interracial relationship.
I'm a black woman and he's a white man.
We have been together for two and a half years and we both want to spend the rest of our
lives together and start a family soon.
While we compliment each other and make a good team 99% of the time, it's that 1% of the
time when we don't that has me questioning our compatibility.
When it comes to race issues, my boyfriend and I are not on the same page.
I'm deeply impacted and saddened by today's tense racial climate.
Every time I hear about another unarmed black man dying at the hands of police, I get
upset and cry.
The events in Charlottesville shook me up and have created an uneasy feeling in the pit
of my stomach that won't go away.
The problem is that my boyfriend thinks I'm too sensitive and that I take these issues
too personally.
He finds the recent events such as Charlottesville appalling, but he doesn't say much about
it.
I try to explain to him that I need to discuss them and just because they aren't happening
to me directly, I still feel connected to these events.
These discussions never go well.
He often gets defensive and shuts the conversation down.
He often says to me, I don't always want to talk about race.
You're so negative.
As a black woman, race is intertwined with my daily experiences.
I need to be able to have these conversations with my significant other without censoring
myself.
He often makes the conversation about him and his feelings.
He displays classic signs of white fragility.
In addition to dealing with high profile events, we also live in a small city that's mostly
white.
I can go an entire week without seeing another black person.
I'm constantly experiencing microaggressions and my daily interactions with people, and
I don't feel like I can talk to my boyfriend about them.
I find it odd that as an interracial couple, we cannot have meaningful conversations about
race.
My question is, how can we get past this conversational block?
How can I approach this without making him feel like I'm blaming him?
Signed chaotic.
Chaiotic, honestly, I thought you were going to sign off whitewashed because I think that's
what's going on here for a white man to not allow you to have conversations about race
as an African American woman in this small town where you can go an entire week without
seeing another person of your race.
And to witness the kind of racial animus that's on display, psychically, as you say, you
need to be able to talk about this.
You have a boyfriend who, out of his own fragility, his own fear, his own anxiety, whatever
the reason is, he can't handle it.
He's trying to turn it on you and make it your problem.
You're so negative and you're too sensitive.
The idea that you want to talk about this stuff without making him feel like I'm blaming
him and the idea that he is defensive about this is to me curious.
You're not saying to him, this is your fault, but the way he experiences it is it's my
fault.
In other words, he's accusing himself of these things.
And I think it's because some part of him knows that he is not willing to acknowledge
that as most of us are, we part with our privilege and we even acknowledge our privilege
very reluctantly.
I think there are a couple of things that you might do, although overall I have to say
that I'm not optimistic based on what you've said about the way you have to sense yourself
about things that are really sacred and precious to you.
And it could be about race.
It could be about any number of other subjects.
If you said, this is a court of my being and I have to process this and I'm troubled by
this and I need to be able to speak with a partner who's supportive and understands or
at least will make an effort to understand.
I would say if the partner is not willing to do that, that's a huge danger sign.
That's not just a red flag, that's like a red cape.
But I would suggest that one thing you could do is ask him to read between the world and
me by Tanae Hasey Coates.
It's short.
I've read it twice and I was just astonished by how eloquently and succinctly Coates is
able to write about the African-American experience in the United States.
I think looking at the work of James Baldwin and asking him to read a Baldwin essay or
two, that is not saying to him, I want to process with you in a room.
But it is saying, I think you need to understand more fully where I'm coming from and what
it is like for me to live in this body, in this culture, in this time.
And I can't imagine a fully loving and supportive partner who wouldn't really honestly want
to hear what you have to say and how you're feeling.
If he's not willing to have those conversations open himself to what your experience is,
he is not the right person to be with.
Yeah, I agree with you, Steve.
And chaotic, I think that this is such a hard one because like you say, you feel like
you're a great team.
99% of the time, it's that 1% that you're not compatible.
But it's a very, very essential 1%.
As you say, this is who you are and your most intimate trusted partner is somebody who
refuses to see you for who you are and understand and hear what it's like to be in your body.
And that's a big deal.
That's not a 1% thing to me.
I really think, however, that there's hope.
What I know as a white person who has honestly been on my own journey throughout my life
at times when I've had to understand things that were once invisible to me, see things
that I couldn't have seen before, change can be made.
Your boyfriend is right now resistant to the idea of changing the way he views you and
the world.
But I think that if you really have a talk with him about how much this matters to you
that goes beyond what you've done in the past that is really kind of backed with an
ultimatum that you can't continue in a relationship with somebody who fails to understand
you on such an essential level that maybe he'll wake up and listen.
And maybe you might enlist some help in this.
I know that it's really hard to have those conversations when it's all about you essentially
having to defend your position and him undermining you by saying things like, why do you have
to take this so personally?
But I think that there's a whole world out there who might be informative to him.
It's not all your job to essentially wake this guy up.
It's not on you to be the agent of his change.
But it is on you to say, this is who I am.
And by denying me my story, by denying me the ability to process all of this stuff that's
happening right now, the stuff that is personal to me, you are denying an enormous part of
me.
Maybe even thinking about going to see a counselor to talk about these cross-cultural experiences
that you're essentially having and your most intimate relationship and to racial couples
I know almost all of them had to go on a pretty explicit journey of understanding.
And that that entailed not only an openness on the part essentially of the white person,
the person who has the racial privilege, but also really a mediator, somebody who could
take some of the pressure off of you, chaotic, in making every point, in explaining and
illuminating every aspect of what it means to be a person of color in this nation.
And so I really hear you about this notion that this guy is great.
You say without any doubt that he's the person you want to be with, you've been together
two and a half years.
This is an brand new relationship.
You want to have a family soon.
So I feel optimistic about the possibility of this relationship to survive, but not without
your partner truly understanding you.
Because I also want to say probably this has occurred to you when you talk about starting
a family soon, well then you're going to have kids that he doesn't understand.
You're going to have children with a father who is blind to his own white privilege, who
responds to every inevitable conversation you're going to have to have about race with
a kind of defensiveness.
And you don't want that.
So it is to me such a big deal that you have to kind of stop everything you're doing
and address this.
Yeah.
And we hope obviously that you can find a way to impress upon him that this isn't a 1%.
This is 100% of how you move through the world.
And so let's hope that he is braver and stronger than he's shown so far.
You can help him, but that's ultimately for him to reveal to you.
Okay, Steve, next letter, the last one.
Yeah, and this is kind of a rapid fire tradition.
We have saved the most wrenching for last.
Dear sugars, I'm a 25 year old female who lives in a big metropolitan area.
About six months ago I began dating a wonderful man, a 26 year old who truly understands
me.
He's compassionate, funny, and one of the smartest people I've ever met.
Not to mention, he's fabulous in bed.
There's one thing.
He has a terminal illness.
It does not currently affect him, but the typical lifespan of someone with this illness
is about 40 to 45 years old.
Around 35, their mental and physical capabilities begin to decline immensely, and they need to
be cared for full time.
Quickly, people with this illness lose their mental and physical abilities before they
inevitably lose their lives.
My boyfriend and I are very serious, even though we've had a rocky relationship, having
broken up several times due to the stunted future ahead of him.
He and I share most of the same values.
We hope to have a large family that begins in the next five or six years.
I've put a great amount of thought into the idea that if we create a life together, it
will not be, quote, till death do us part, but till his death do us part.
Our children would be young when his health begins to decline, and eventually they would
lose a father, they may or may not have spent much time with.
Additionally, I would be losing my partner.
I often imagine my wedding and life with my boyfriend, but then the idea that he will
die stops me from imagining.
I know that anyone can die at any second.
Life is fleeting, enjoy the time we have now and so on.
But it is hard to wrap my head around the idea that I will commit myself to a guaranteed
loss sometime in the near future, and also that I'd subject my future children to this
grief.
Sugars, what advice do you have for me?
Do I continue this relationship in the hopes that the illness will not take hold as quickly
as usual, that I am living in a narrative of the future that is not certain, or do I
leave him, even though we have a deep love and connection, unlike anything I've ever experienced,
signed living in his deathbed?
Wow, so there's not really an answer to this question, because of course, living in
his deathbed, nobody could possibly make this decision for you.
And my sense is that no matter which decision you make, whichever direction you move, you're
going to have some doubt.
It's like a question in a fairy tale that's impossible to answer, because of course one
path has you turning away from a deep love, and the other has you turning into it with grave
consequences.
One of the things that makes it really hard for me to give you an answer is I don't know
what your partner thinks.
Yeah.
You know, and I try to put myself in his position because honestly, I think that if I were in
your position, I would be in so many ways in a deep conversation with my partner about
what all of this means.
It sounds like you guys have been, you've broken up several times.
I was curious about that.
Does your partner want you to stay with him?
Does your partner feel like a good outcome for you would be to live with him for as long
as you have and love him for as long as you have?
And he would love you for those years and that you make a family together.
Or does he think that you would be better off setting off on your own and fulfilling
that dream with someone else?
I'm curious about that because I do think in some ways this is a kind of experiment
and intimacy, if you will.
You know, I can see a third path that is you stay together for a while and you don't commit
to that long term because there isn't probably going to be one.
That you know, you are only 25 years old.
Maybe you see where this leads you over the next few years and then make a decision
because I do know that there's probably nothing more brutal in a romantic relationship
than making the decision that you're being forced to make right now.
Both of the things that you have to choose from are awful.
So the best advice I would give you if you were my daughter at 25, I would say love him.
Love him without making permanent decisions.
Love him without getting married or having a child together just yet.
See where you are when you're more than six months out from this very new relationship
with a man who is an incredibly complicated future.
Yeah, I mean, it's one of those letters that strips away the myths that we tell ourselves
about love, about life.
Mortality is too unbearable for us to really face it.
As you know, living in his deathbed, we tell ourselves, well, you could go at any moment
live every day like it's your last and all that.
But those are just our meager attempts to imagine our own end or the end of somebody who
we love deeply.
What you are dealing with is the realization that barring some medical breakthrough that you
cannot bank on and should not bank on.
There is a limited time in 10 years or so.
You will be in the role of a partner, but also you will be a caretaker.
It may be at that time if you want to have a large family that you are then taking care
of him and caring for children.
There is a philosophy that would say love him as purely as you can in the time that you
have and love him for the next few years.
This Cheryl is counseling without worrying about whether you're going to get married and
start a family and so forth.
There is another school of thought that would say actually now is the time to start having
kids.
If you know, because you want to have the most number of years, you know, who is say,
when we think about our kids here, we think, you know, these are the years that we have
to bank memories.
When my mom was dying, we visited all the time because it was so sacred for us that she
be a part of their lives and a part of their memories and that the love that she was able
to transmit to them and them to her would live on in a sense.
When there is a time horizon, I think that's reasonable to think about.
It might also be reasonable to think about wanting to give yourself permission to recognize
as Cheryl, I think, is counseling that at 25, you're not prepared to make that big a
decision and you need a few more years to figure out whether you can handle it and whether
he can handle it.
But I think what's remarkable about this letter is that you're not looking away.
You're staring straight into it.
The only thing I would say is that one blessing of knowing that somebody is going to leave
this earth sooner than the sort of gauzy future that we envision is that it does essentially
force you to live more honestly and more purely.
You don't have as much time for delusion and avoidance.
I want to say, Steve, my suggestion that living in his deathbed simply just put this decision
on hold for a little while, has everything to do with the length of time they've been
dating and less to do with her age?
If she were writing to us and saying, listen, I've been with this guy for four years and
we want to get married and have kids, I think that I would give a different answer.
I would say, okay, do it and do it now because as you said, time is of the essence.
But one of the things that's very complex about this situation you're in living in his deathbed
is that on one hand, everything's different.
Most people don't date somebody who has a terminal illness that means that in about a decade,
they'll start to die.
Most of us never have to face this question.
But most of us do know what it feels like to be six months into a relationship and you
feel ecstatic and you feel in love.
So there's this way in which your relationship is really unique.
The stakes are high and you have to make big decisions.
There's also a way in which this relationship is just like every other relationship that
usually at six months, you don't really know.
You don't truly know that you're ready to marry somebody or you're ready to commit to
them for the long haul.
So part of the reason that I'm suggesting this way and see is that in so many ways, you
can't really know yet.
This could be something that you have a glorious relationship that ends in a very natural
way in four years.
And then what did you have?
You had a beautiful relationship with somebody who's really important to you and then you
go on to the next one.
And so does he.
What I'm suggesting is don't make the decisions yet.
Have fun in this moment.
You do have time.
You're right.
Living in his deathbed, it's been about six months.
And I missed that key fact.
Six months into a relationship.
Oftentimes we all feel bulletproof and we all feel invincible and that we can handle any
burden together because we have this love that's sort of red hot and beating.
The one thing that I think we can see through all these letters is that one thing, there's
just that one thing and that one thing really will not be ignored.
And that one thing that is lingering, whether it's an issue about commitment to a relationship
or religion or race or even mortality, is only going to be solved if you face it.
And I think these letters are heroically trying to do that work and I hope we provided some
help.
Hi listeners, we're taking next week off from Memorial Day Weekend but we'll be back
with a new episode of Dear Sugars After The Break.
See you then.
Dear Sugars is produced by the New York Times in partnership with WBUR.
Our producer is Alexandra Lee Young, our editor and managing producer is Larissa Anderson.
Our executive producer is Lisa Tobin and our editorial director is Samantha Henig.
We recorded this show at Talkback Sound and Visual here in Portland, Oregon with our
engineer Josh Millman.
Our mix engineer is Brad Fisher, our theme music is by the band Wonderly with Focals
by Liz Weiss.
Please find us at nytimes.com slash Dear Sugars.
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That's Dear Sugars Plural at nytimes.com or leave us a voicemail on our hotline at 929-399-8477.
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