Dear Sugars
A podcast that fields all your questions and offers radical empathy in return.
Episodes
This episode was originally published on March 3, 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.
Maria joins the Sugars this week 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 ...
This episode was originally published on March 22nd, 2017.
You wants kids; your partner doesn't. Or your partner wants kids, and you don't. Whatever the scenario, few subjects are as emotionally charged and potentially deal-breaking in a relationship as a disagreement over the decision to become parents. In this favorite episode from the archives, The Sugars take on this tricky topic with the help of the writer Danielle Herzog, wh...
When it comes to love, money is supposed to be no object. But there’s no disentangling love from anything in our lives, and income is no exception. So how do you assess the role money should play in a relationship, and what happens when your desires and means change over time?
In this episode, five letter writers want to know how to discuss money with their romantic and familial partners. How do I stop resenting my...
From the WBUR Podcasts team, here's a new kind of story — one that's all about choices and consequences. The Midnight Rebellion is a pick-your-own-path podcast set 100 years in the future, where the stakes are nothing less than the planet itself. It's fiction rooted in real science, built for the kids in your life (ages 7 and up) — and the ...
This episode was originally released on May 25th, 2018.
When two women in their sixties start losing interest in sex, their sex-starved partners become increasingly frustrated. Both women blame old age for their waning libidos. But is their diminished sex drive because of age or something else?
The erotic lives of senior citizens are typically made invisible by our culture, which can lead to confusion and misinformation. Dr. Pepp...
Seventeen-year-old “Struggling” had big dreams to leave his small town, but his living situation was at risk because he couldn’t stop using drugs. A letter writer who called herself “Bad Mom” loved her children, but could no longer bear the demands of motherhood. Both desperately needed to transform their lives.
In today’s update episode, we check in with some of our most memorable letter writer...
This episode was originally released on September 9, 2016.
In this favorite episode from the archives, The Sugars bring you another "Rapid Fire" episode, where they give brief answers to a handful of letters that are all centered around a theme. The theme for this episode is "stay or go" -- people who have a voice in their head telling them to leave their relationship, but who aren't sure it's the right move.
This episode was originally released September 23rd, 2016.
The Sugars often discuss letters dealing with very specific problems or struggles. In this encore episode, they take on a broader, more existential question: how to follow your heart. The Sugars discuss with the GRAMMY-winning singer/songwriter India Arie, who shares how she learned to be her own guide.
This episode was originally published on August 26th, 2017. In this episode, adventures in animal ownership! The Sugars, along with Julie Barton — author of the memoir Dog Medicine: How My Dog Saved Me From Myself — answer letters about pet dilemmas and the ways these creatures affect human relationships.
This episode was originally released on August 19, 2017. It’s never easy to talk to our romantic partners about their bodies, especially when it’s about weight. The Sugars, along with writer Ashley C. Ford, answer letters from people questioning their relationships because of major changes in their partners’ bodies.
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.
This episode was originally released on October 28th, 2017.
Sex-starved, meet sex-hounded. Recently, the Dear Sugars inbox was flooded with responses to the two-part episode “Sexless Relationships” with Esther Perel. In those episodes, the Sugars answered letters from people who were longing for sexual intimacy with their partners. But many readers asked why we didn’t address the other side of sexless relati...
In this encore "rapid fire" episode, the Sugars give brief answers to a handful of letters. This time, they challenge each other to make the call -- one way or the other -- on the questions they're discussing, rather than offer open-ended guidance.
This episode was originally released on September 30, 2016.
This episode was originally published on April 14th, 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, but when he published his confessional in GQ magazine he was labeled an “obsessive,” a “fancy man,” and a “shopaholic.” Only wh...
This episode was originally released on May 25th, 2018.
When two women in their sixties start losing interest in sex, their sex-starved partners become increasingly frustrated. Both women blame old age for their waning libidos. But is their diminished sex drive because of age or something else?
The erotic lives of senior citizens are typically made invisible by our culture, which can lead to confusion and misinformation. Dr. Pepp...
This episode was originally published on August 11th, 2018.
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.
Today, we’re sharing a special episode from the new miniseries “The C-Word: Stories of Cancer” from Say More, a podcast from The Boston Globe Opinion. ...
This episode was originally released on April 13th, 2017.
You love your partner, you love your career... but they're pulling you in different directions. What do you do? Is it foolish to put your career on hold for the sake of your relationship? Or is it more foolish to give up a great relationship for the sake of your career? Or, is there a way to have both?
The Sugars discuss two letters from women in relatively ...
Hi, Dear Sugars listeners, this is Amory Sivertson.. Host of WBUR's Beyond All Repair and co-host of Endless Thread. I'm here to share something special with you this week. It’s an episode of Other People’s Problems, from our friends at CBC.
Normally, therapy sessions are totally confidential, but this podcast opens the doors. On this season, the host Dr. Hillary McBride explores the transformative power of psychedelic...
This episode was originally published on July 28th, 2018.
Dear Sugars returned to Portland, Oregon, for an epic live show. Special guests Mitchell S. Jackson and Rebecca Skloot shared the stage with the Sugars to tell stories of personal reckoning and answer letters from the audience. To some extent, every letter the Sugars receive is a kind of reckoning, as it’s often the letter writer’s first attempt at taking accoun...
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