Redux: There's Just One Thing
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The sugars are here, speaking straight into your ears. I'm Steve Allman. I'm Cheryl Strayed. This is Dear Sugars. Oh dear song, won't you please share some little sweet days with me. I check my love out for any sugar you send 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 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 really are very applicable to yours. Exactly. Right. 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. Every

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 ask 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

Mm-hmm.

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 in Dubuque 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 and counting that your boyfriend has made a decision. You say you suggested a six month time frame 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. You know, 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 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?

And, you know, the question's 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, A, you have to leave someone you love, and B, you don't know if you're going to find someone you want to marry. You could break up, and a year from now, you could be in love with someone else and engaged to somebody else. You could break up with him now, and it could be 10 years before you find that person again. That's why it's scary. And, you know, 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's 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. And I think that this, you know, I want to be loved and accepted exactly as I am. I think it's really important.

right that you're pointing this out, Steve. That isn't really what we get from our partners. But I think for years and counting, what you're saying is not that, you know, that you want somebody to just love you as you are. It's rather you want someone to be deeply committed to you. Fully 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

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. We're 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, is this is a big decision for both of you. And what he has told you is he is not ready to say yes.

Mm-hmm.

and, you know, giving him a deadline that he has to meet 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. They felt it would be too difficult to weather 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. Sugars, 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, Nonbeliever. Nonbeliever. Wow. So many interesting...

Yeah.

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. Yep.

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, nonbeliever?

To me, bridging a gap, when two parties are bridging a gap, you're both extending yourself 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. Yeah.

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. You know, the only way you could genuinely convert is if you start to believe in God. Right. That you take this faith into your heart. That's what Christianity is, you know. 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. Yep.

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 will 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 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

intimacy I think that you want in a partnership unless you feel that your boyfriend is doing that for you too. Has 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, you know, 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 words.

advice that humankind has ever received. Me too. 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 a bestseller, folks, right? The Quran, the Bible, the Old Testament, New Testament, these texts are sacred stories, whether we view them as parables or myth, 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 Cheryl framed 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 believe.

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 at gunpoint, 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, 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. Mm-hmm.

You don't verbalize this, nonbeliever, 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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Dear Sugars, I'm in 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 in 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. Chaotic, 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 and

And psychically, as you say, you need to be able to talk about this. And 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. And so he's trying to turn it on you and make it your problem. You know, 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.

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 censor 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 core to 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's 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 Ta-Nehisi 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.

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 things

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. So maybe even thinking about going to see a counselor to talk about these cross-cultural experiences that you're essentially having in your most intimate relationship.

interracial couples I know, almost all of them had to go on a pretty explicit journey of understanding. And that entailed not only an openness to

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, you know, I really hear you about...

this notion that this guy's great. You know, 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 isn't a brand new relationship. You want to have a family soon. So I, you know, 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

that you can find a way to impress upon him that this isn't a 1%. This is, you know, 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. And 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. No. 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

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 in 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. That 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 has an incredibly complicated future. Yeah, I mean, it's one of those letters that strips away everything.

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 online.

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 as Cheryl is counseling without worrying about whether you're going to get married and start a family and so forth.

You know, there's another school of thought that would say, actually, now is the time to start having kids. If you know that, you know, because you want to have the most number of years, you know, we 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 and

And 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. And 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. Yeah. And I want to say, Steve, that 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. You know, 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, you know, one of the things that's very complex about this situation you're in living in his deathbed is that, you know, 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. Okay. 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. And 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, you know, part of the reason that I'm suggesting this wait 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, you know, 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 for 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 Hennig. 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 vocals by Liz Weiss.

Please find us at nytimes.com slash dearshugars. You can send us your letters at dearshugars at nytimes.com. That's dearshugars, plural, at nytimes.com. Or leave us a voicemail on our hotline at 929-399-8477. And please check out our column, The Sweet Spot, at nytimes.com slash thesweetspot.com.