Dear Sugars

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.