Dear Sugars

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.