119. It’s OK to Want What You Want: Cheryl Strayed as Dear Sugar

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Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things.

We are extremely lucky because we have one of the wisest people in the whole universe of universes here with us today.

And she's going to answer all of our questions.

Her name is, of course, Cheryl Straid.

And if you have not listened to our first episode with her, you must.

It's not optional.

It was one of our favorite conversations we've ever had here.

So make sure you go back and listen.

And Cheryl, thanks for coming back.

I am so thrilled to be here.

I'm a big fan of y'all.

And I wanted to come back for two.

Hey, you know, anytime.

So glad.

We're so lucky.

We want to talk to you today about advice and wisdom and offering it and how we do it and how we don't do it.

And one of the things we find fascinating about you is that you are a preeminent advice giver, as Dear Sugar, of course, the whole world knows.

But you say that everyone who comes to you for advice already knows the answer.

You just help them understand what they are really asking.

This feels helpful.

Can you tell us more about that?

Yeah, I believe this in my heart.

I think that most people who write to me know what they need to do or they want to do, but they're really afraid to know it or want it.

I came upon this because I started to write the column and I just started to notice that there would be very often a sentence right at the core of the letter that would that would just say,

I know this relationship is wrong or i know what i really want to be is fill in the blank a teacher instead of a doctor or whatever you know they they would say but you know here are all the reasons i can't know that or want that because it will cause trouble in my life it will disappoint my family it will somehow be against the story i've told myself so far that i don't deserve this or i i'm not allowed to to to want that right and so so much of i think my work is dear sugar is about being an illuminator and i think this is what we do anyway, when we have conversations with our friends.

Like when you have a problem and you talk to someone you love or trust about that problem, what you're trying to do is shed light.

And I think in my work as Dear Sugar, it's not so much about me saying,

absolutely, you should do this or that.

Though, of course, sometimes I do.

I do say those things.

It's not like I don't give advice.

I do.

But I think my most important work is to show people what they already know, but are afraid to know.

When you were talking about how they know what they need to do, but they list the thousand reasons why they can't have it,

you talk about how that suffering comes from

believing that a lie will keep you safe and the truth is where the danger is.

Yeah, why are we like that?

That is such a huge one.

I mean, because it doesn't come from nowhere, right?

We, we are,

almost all of us are steeped in communities and cultures and families that say, you know, telling the truth is dangerous.

Telling the truth will cause trouble.

Telling the truth will hurt other people.

Telling the truth will cast you in some way out of that sort of circle of belonging.

And I think that the reverse is true.

Truth always leads us.

in the direction of who we are meant to become.

My mind spins with so many examples of this, it's hard to land on one.

But think about every LGBTQ kid who was told growing up, you're not allowed to be that.

You're not allowed to want that.

And

how toxic that is to hold that lie and how liberating, how beautiful, how powerful, how illuminated it is to say, no, that's not true.

I'm going to tell the truth about who I am.

Or a lie of an addiction.

This is what I need to live.

This is the thing that makes me feel okay.

When we really tell the truth about what it is we need and want, what is going to ease us in our suffering, that is where the healing begins.

I think that the lies never keep us safe.

They only lead us to harm.

Yeah.

And we're always told that the lie will keep other people safe.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that even if we believed

that it would free us, we still can't do it because the thing that will free us will hurt everyone else.

Mothers specifically.

Right.

So I mean, I'll never forget Liz saying to me when I was like, I can't, because the truth for me was like, I shouldn't be in this marriage.

I am gay.

I, you know, all these truths that would break everything.

And I remember Liz saying to me, well, there's no such thing as one-way liberation.

So if you free yourself, eventually that will free

Chase Tish, Emma Craig.

And I was like, are you sure?

Because I feel like they're going to be pretty pissed off.

Right?

Seems like a stretch, Gilbert.

Well, and the thing is, maybe their first reaction will be.

One of the most famous popular dish sugar columns is called The Truth That Lives There.

And when I was writing it, I didn't realize that it would strike such a chord, but I should have known because it was the first letter I answered that I had actually so many letters from readers on this same subject that I chose like three or four and answered them together.

And in each letter, the situation was slightly different, but they were all at root the same thing.

And it was somebody writing to me saying, I love my partner.

My partner is not a bad person.

We have all kinds of good things in our relationship, but

I want to break up with him or her.

I want to go.

I want to leave.

I want to end this relationship.

And here's all the reasons.

The letter was, here are all the reasons I can't do that.

And very many of them, Glennon, were about not wanting to hurt hurt people, not wanting to disappoint people.

And I wrote back and I told the story of my own first marriage where my

first husband was a wonderful person and I truly, genuinely, deeply loved him, but I didn't want to be married to him anymore.

And even that sentence I just said, I didn't want to be married to him anymore.

It took me years.

to say that out loud, even after we divorced, because it felt like such a betrayal.

It felt so mean.

But it was the truth.

And what I say in my letter to these people is it's okay to want what you want because in it in part is exactly what liz said lennon is in part you know your partner also deserves to be free of you yes like you get to you get to go but also you get to free your partner of somebody who doesn't really want to be there yes who wants to be in a relationship with somebody who kind of wants to leave nobody you know not craig melton he is living his best life these days, Cheryl Straight.

I'll tell you what.

He's like, hot damn, liberated.

That's right.

That's right.

It's, and it's like, you set him free.

And maybe that's the thing, too.

Maybe at the beginning, there was hurt.

Yes.

There was anger.

There was fear.

There was a sense of betrayal.

All that stuff, all that complexity.

That doesn't mean that that's the final answer.

You move through that to something

better.

And you have.

Is this the one where you said you have to be brave enough to break your own heart?

I said that in the column Tiny Beautiful Things, the title column of the book, but that's what I was talking about.

I was talking about this scenario.

So what's interesting to me about that, at the time that I wrote that column, The Truth That Lives There, about like, I give you permission to leave your relationship because you want to, and wanting to go is enough is what I said.

Is in the decade since that was published.

when I'm out and about, I can't even now, it's in the thousands, the people I've met who've said that column changed my life.

It is the thing that compelled me to leave my partner.

And for at first, I was like, Great, I am a homewrecker.

I feel that too, Cheryl.

Yeah, I feel that too.

But this brings us back to that question you asked at the start, which was like, oh, guess what?

The reason it wasn't that I told them to leave.

It was, I said, I hear what you're saying.

And what you're saying is true.

You want to go.

You want to go.

I'm simply telling you what you already know.

And I'm saying you are allowed to know it.

You are allowed to know the truest thing about yourself and you are allowed to act on it.

And so it wasn't me homewrecking at all.

And this is a great example of like really the function of advice is that.

To be somebody who says, I will hold you.

I will see you.

I will say to you, it is okay to be the truest version of yourself and to live out of that truth.

And that is why the best advice givers and the only people who should be giving advice are the best listeners and the deepest listeners.

Because if you're coming to somebody with your own agenda, you should not give advice.

Why you are magnificent is because you're listening deeply to what the person already knows.

And you're pointing them back to themselves.

Yes.

That's right.

The truth lives within you.

Yeah.

And I think, too, one of the things I realized early on is I really,

so much of advice has been framed,

all the time, and people recoil from it because it's framed in judgment.

You know, what should I do?

Here's what you should do.

And you should do it because I, from my vantage point, higher up than you, wiser than you, more righteous than you, I'm going to tell you what is the right way.

That kind of advice is absolutely not just useless, it's destructive.

And what I early on knew that I was going to love everyone who wrote to me.

I was going to love everyone whose letter I answered.

I was going to hold them in unconditional positive regard.

I wasn't ever going to judge anyone for their problem, even if sometimes I gave them some pretty straight talk that maybe sounded a little harsh.

I was always doing it from a place of no judgment.

When you hold someone in unconditional positive regard, you're always, you're rooting for them, even if you have to say hard things, not just do hard things, say hard things to them.

I think this is from that column.

I was struck yet again by how many of the people were asking, in essence, the same haunted question.

Is it okay to be who I want to be, to do what I want to do, to live how I want to live?

The ghost inside us who knows the answer is yes, is the scariest ghost of all.

So by listening, you're really just telling the people to listen.

to themselves, to listen to that scariest ghost and not be afraid.

Yeah.

That's right.

It is the scariest ghost of all.

Yeah, because if you know, then you might have to do.

We always do.

Of course.

I mean, that's it.

The scariest part of life is like the difference between knowing and doing.

The time between, yeah, the space between.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Which is why I think it's super important that people liberate themselves from that connection.

Because if you believe that and the doing is the bridge too far, then mentally you will never acknowledge the ghost.

That's why Cheryl said you are allowed to know the truest thing about yourself.

Right.

Yeah.

Beautiful.

I am a listaholic.

You say that every problem you've ever had has been solved by a list.

Okay.

Can you talk about your list sorcery?

Because it really is.

It's so,

when you talk about the lists for the lists, it's a very logical, beautiful way to deal with things that seem intractable inside of your head.

Yeah, going from the knowing to the doing, I think requires some steps and this list idea.

Lists are powerful tools.

I believe in them entirely.

I've made so many good decisions based on them.

I think that for me, the trick is to really like go outside the box in terms of the questions you answer.

on your lists.

So for example, make a series of lists.

What are the things you're afraid of if you do this?

What are the things that you'll lose if you do this?

What are the things that you'll gain if you do this?

What are the things you don't know about doing this?

Which sounds like a crazy list to make,

because how do you make a list of things that you don't know?

But I promise you,

things will come.

And I talk about this in one of my columns called The Ghost Ship That Didn't Carry Us.

A man wrote to me, he's like, I'm approaching 40.

Do I want a kid or not?

Do I want to be a father or not?

I don't know.

I really don't know.

And I said, you know, get out some big pieces of paper and make a list of the life you imagine without kids and make a list of the life you imagine with kids.

What won't you be able to do if you if you have kids?

And what won't you be able to do if you do?

And have the good things in your life happen because of ease or hardship.

You know, all of these ways to

use lists essentially as prompts to get your kind of unexpressed feelings out on the page so you can look at them analytically.

When I was turning 40 myself, my husband and I were talking about having a third child.

And we made a list and one of them was all the reasons not to have a third child.

And one of them was all the reasons to have a third child.

And there was one thing on the reasons to have a child and there were like 300 things on the not.

And, but that didn't necessarily like what I want to say is even though we didn't end up having a third child, like that didn't, that doesn't necessarily mean like, oh, there's 300 things on this list and one on the other.

It's, you also then like look at what's most important on your list.

And so, for example, these people who wrote to me in that letter, the truth that lives there, and the people who've written, who continue to write to me with the same question, should I leave?

I want to leave my partner who's wonderful.

Should I go?

It's like, there might be only one thing on the yes list because I want to go, but that might be more important than all the other things, right?

And so you make the list to generate your thoughts and ideas.

And then you kind of rank the list, circle the thing that's the circle the truest things on those lists

and

see where that puts you, see where that lands you.

I think of them as self-therapy.

Like you just draw out from deep within yourself everything that you can imagine that's true.

And then you get to look at it.

You get to let it be a map.

of where to go next.

So this is like a, instead of a to-do list, this is like a to-know list.

I could get into this.

I wasn't with you about the lists because I effing hate hate a list because I always think of them as to-do lists.

But I could do these lists.

To-know lists.

To-know lists.

It's a to-know list.

Yeah, it isn't a to-do list.

It's to know and what do I feel, and what do I fear?

And what do I imagine?

Like, what's how do I visualize if I do this path, walk down this path versus the other path?

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Okay, so Cheryl, we have about 400,000 people who want to ask you questions.

Yay!

Our first friend is Maria.

Can we hear from Maria?

My name is Maria, and I was calling because I do have a question about fidelity.

So I actually

just found out that my husband is cheating on me and has been for about four months.

I'm pregnant with our third child.

And my question to you, what are your thoughts on like reaching out to the other woman?

And I'm not, I don't want to reach out in like a hostile way.

Obviously, like she's wrong too, but my husband is more wrong.

But I just want to get some answers from her.

Like, do you think that's a good idea, bad idea?

Or should I like not even sit to her level and reach out anyways thank you i love you guys

this is a deep hard big one we're starting off really

intense here good luck sugar yeah

good luck

okay first of all i'm so sorry so sorry that you even have to ask us this question because it's really painful.

And it's made especially more painful that you're pregnant right now.

Having to grapple with this at this time of your life is incredibly difficult and hard.

And I'm sorry for it.

I think that

we were just talking about lists.

And I think in this,

I'm going to really, really ask you, please, Maria, to make a list.

Before you act, do some time reflecting with yourself on the page.

And the first question I have, and this would be the first list I'd advise you to make, is, what do I hope to achieve by talking to this woman your husband's having an affair with what is it that you're seeking what questions do you have for her i think that where it gets a little bit tricky here is my sense of what you had to say is that you want to mend your broken heart and you want her to say to you i'm so sorry i was absolutely wrong i should have never done that um i've never i should have never had an affair with your husband and i'm so sorry that you're in pain like that you're in some ways seeking from the wrong party, the wrong source,

somebody who's going to ask forgiveness and try to make amends and also somebody who will stop hurting you.

And if that's what you're seeking, you're probably not going to get it from her.

I think that the only good that could come from this, maybe you're seeking information about what happened and when and the nature of the affair.

And my sense is that

your husband should be the one answering those questions, that this other woman is not going to at all give you what you need and can only probably amplify and magnify the sense of betrayal and pain that you feel.

You said at some point in your question that you didn't, it wasn't that you wanted to seek revenge or express anger.

I don't remember the exact words.

I'm sorry.

But then you use this phrase

about stooping to her level, which tells me that you actually are angry and probably rightly so

at this woman.

And I don't think that what you need to heal your heart right now is expressing your anger to her.

I think that the problem that you need to solve is within yourself.

What do you want to do in the face of this information of your husband's betrayal?

And what do you and your husband want to do when it comes to co-parenting the children you have and the one you're soon to have?

Yeah, I was just thinking about

when years after I found out about my ex's infidelity,

a woman came up to me at a book signing

and said,

I'm one of the people that,

I know, Sister Sleuth.

I don't think I've, have I even told you this?

Yeah.

Nope.

Yeah.

Someone came up to me.

I was at the table and she said, I am.

She's from the Love Warrior.

You were touring the book, Love Warrior.

I just want to tell Maria that that was years later and I made it through that moment, but I felt so shaken up.

There just wasn't any like peace or closure in that moment.

And so I think that whatever Maria is looking for, even right now, when it's so fresh, I can only imagine it would be worse.

Yeah.

And I just remember thinking, this isn't about me.

This isn't about her.

This isn't about us at all.

It was about my ex and it was about me and it was about my kids.

And I think it's sometimes easier to deal with the other person

because you can hate that person

than deal with your person

and yourself.

Was that person, Glennon, asking, was she like apologizing?

Yeah,

looking for a moment.

She was apologizing.

Yeah, she was looking for absolution.

Sister's looking for a name to put no.

Yeah.

But, and even that, it's like, I mean, that's why my first question to Maria was like, what are you seeking?

Yes.

Like, what is it that you want?

I can almost promise you, Maria, that you're not going to get it.

Yes.

And even if you do, it doesn't feel good.

What, what's the woman going to say?

I'm so sorry that I slept with your husband.

Like, does that make you feel better?

Not really.

It'll probably even enrage you more, right?

I think there's nothing this woman can give, Maria.

I don't think so.

I do understand Maria's desperation, though, having been in a similar way where you're in a vacuum of information, your head is spinning thinking of the million things.

And did they have sex here?

And was I home?

Was that, was that night, a night they were together?

You know, it's just you're desperate for anything that you can hold on to.

That's real information.

But I think you're right.

She's never going to get it.

I remember the woman reached out to me in my situation and nothing was good about it.

No, other women can help you through infidelity, but it's other women who have been through it and you can read their stories and you can get wisdom from them.

It's never the the women who are involved in it who are sleeping with your husband.

Yeah.

Amanda.

That's a category.

That goes on the list of people who aren't helpful to your healthy treatment.

Yeah.

And Amanda, I know exactly that feeling that you're describing and that Maria is having, which is essentially...

I think that one of the mistakes a lot of us make when we're in some kind of infidelity situation we've been cheated on is like that information is power, right?

That if I know everything, if I know every detail of what they did and when and how, that somehow i'll hurt less or i it will it will make sense to me and i think that that's false that it that more information only leads to more pain you you maria have the information you need right your husband lied to you

had or has a relationship with somebody else and now what you have is the information you need to make decisions for your own life.

And that's to me always

the core

problem about infidelity, right?

Is somebody who deserves information about their own lives is denied that information.

You have a husband who, I'm going to assume, vowed to be monogamous with you, who broke that vow.

So what are you going to do as a person now?

What are you going to do as a couple now?

And the answers to

those questions are completely wide open.

There's a big range of things you can decide to do, but none of them involve talking to this other woman.

Yeah.

I think we all vote that.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

And it's actually in her quest to get more control.

She's actually seeding a discussion.

Yes.

Because she is giving that person a voice and a role in where she has already overextended herself.

She is putting her more central than she's already made herself.

So Maria.

No, thank you.

No, thank you, Maria.

Okay.

We love you, Maria.

You can do it.

Good luck.

I'm so sorry.

Okay, let's hear from Kelly.

This is Kelly.

I'm divorced three years.

When my son was two years old, I found out my husband had been having a years-long affair with his coworker and was in love with her.

We separated, and shortly after, I filed for divorce, and the experience was traumatic and devastating.

And truly what has brought me to this point in my life, which is the most independent and awake I've ever been.

Regardless, my ex and the other woman now own a home together 15 minutes away, so we can co-parent.

our son and we do this pretty well.

When I send my son to his dad, he's often with the girlfriend and she bathes him, she feeds him, she loves him.

And I know I'm lucky to have someone who treats my son with love, but I cannot get past my anger and the pain the two of them have caused me.

So, when I start to move past it all, a vacation gets planned with the three of them, or a milestone event my son experiences without me.

And the pain is so palatable, but I cannot get to a place where I see her as my ally.

I don't know that I ever will.

How do I rise above?

Because my son is what matters here, his joy.

My blues are not his blues, and I have vowed to not make this situation his problem as my parents did to me.

Thank you for all you guys do.

Sometimes in my work as dish sugar, somebody writes to me and

they are presenting a problem, something that is painful or difficult for them in their lives.

But what I see is all of

the growth and strength and courage.

And I see that so much, Kelly.

I hear that so much in your voice and in the story you tell about what you've been through since your, as you say, traumatic breakup with your ex-husband that led you to this beautiful place that your life is now, right?

I mean, very often, very, very often, the best things come from the worst things.

And you live through that.

And what I hear from you is that you are free of a marriage that wasn't the right one.

You're no longer married to somebody who was willing to lie to you for years on end.

You have managed to be a great co-parent with this man.

You have managed even to allow that the stepmother who was part of your ex's betrayal, that she is a loving force in your child's life.

And the fact that you have accepted that and you even feel lucky for that, you use that word, you feel lucky for that.

Those are all victories.

Those are all beautiful, important,

really great things.

That's what I feel when I hear.

your voice is

yay you

well done

the next thing i hear is that you use this language.

How do I rise above these feelings of anger and hurt and jealousy and rage that I still have?

And what I think is maybe let go

of this image of yourself rising above.

The image that came into my mind when I heard that phrase was this,

float down the stream.

You floated this far.

You let your husband go.

You forgave him to the extent that you can be a great co-parent.

You've accepted this other woman as your, your child's loving stepmother.

Keep floating.

Keep floating down that beautiful, complicated, raging, cold, glorious stream of life.

And know that maybe it'll take another year or another 10 years before you let go of that anger.

It'll take another while to maybe start to feel that this woman can be your ally as the stepmother to your child.

Your work here isn't to immediately relinquish the very real, very understandable feelings you have about the end of your marriage and this woman in your child's life.

Your work is to keep the faith that if you give it time, that maybe someday you'll feel differently.

And so keep floating in the direction of your own life.

I love that.

And I also want to just add

when this divorce happened and the trauma happened, your son was young and your son will get older and your son will keep watching you process through this.

And the way in which we've heard that you are going through this makes me know that your son will at some point in his life go, wow, my mom is amazing.

That's right.

Because he will understand all the complexities

at some point.

They will know.

Yeah.

I am just going to put in just a little bit of a petty.

I'm a little pettier than sugar.

I just want to say one thing.

Just when your kids are little, you just don't think they'll ever know.

You look at them and you're like, but look, this is happening at that house.

And I'm doing all the hard work and I'm swallowing it.

And all they see is what's on the surface.

But what they eventually know.

And Kelly, he's going to know what a warrior his mother has been the whole way through.

If I were Kelly, I would.

Save this question on a piece of paper and I would accidentally make sure that when he's 20, he finds it in his drawer.

When he's over she's a little

than dear sugar.

Yeah, maybe.

She's beautiful.

Kelly's a warrior.

I want to say, trust me, just wait.

Time will heal it.

Everything.

Kelly, I want to say, yeah, I understand those feelings.

I'm not, it's not that I'm not petty too.

If I had to live through something like that, it would be a hard thing to do.

But like with all hard things,

I think the fact that Kelly is trusting your instincts so well and knowing that

your problems aren't your son's problems.

Like you're just keep going in that direction and you will do no wrong agree yes and don't beat herself up i mean what i hear is that she's saying i should be feeling more gracious toward this person i should be but i'm with you i mean kelly you are doing ridiculously amazing there's no one to say that you should be planning tea parties with this lady it's fine like give yourself time as it develops it develops but certainly don't add to your list of things that you've had to deal with a shame over not feeling a higher level of enlightenment about this.

It's very, very rational what you're feeling.

And this is very fresh.

It's been a few years, but it's still, there's a long way to go.

On this show, we talk a lot about resilience and what it really means to support one another.

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Okay, let's hear from another Maria.

Hello, my name is Maria.

My question is how

the heck do you

go about a conversation with my roommate who's also been my best friend for eight years

and whose boyfriend moved in with us to our

two months after they started dating officially six months he was like hey you know if this is my situation i need to move in we had a conversation about it and i agreed to it unknowing not knowing what it was going to be in reality and now that I am about to renew the lease with them I need to have a very important talk about boundaries and how I

notice this growing resentment inside of me and I want to save the friendship and I don't want it to be revolved around her boyfriend so please help me thanks bye

please help me

yeah Maria I think in some ways friendship problems are among the hardest problems because they are in a category of people that we tend to be a little

more afraid to express our true feelings.

You know, a lot of us, it's easier for us to fight with our partners and to say what we're really feeling than it is to fight with our friends and say what we're really feeling.

Would you all agree with that?

Yeah, absolutely.

But so, Maria, first of all, what I want to encourage you to do is you can't let this

go.

What you told us is you need to have an important conversation with your friend, period.

Okay.

So you are going to have a conversation with your friend.

And what I recommend you do in preparation for that is to write a script.

Okay.

This conversation will go best if you can be really clear

in a kind, calm, not angry, not accusatory manner, just to state what has been difficult for you to live with your friend's boyfriend.

And maybe even don't get so specific about the boyfriend.

Just talk about the dynamic as here you are a singleton living with a couple there are some dynamics inherent in that and try to be as kind of analytical and calm and collected as you present and speak the things that you want going forward that you'd like to change

um that is the only way that you will get what you want is to say what you want and so i think it's really important that you find a way to do that and i know that's going to be hard but hey,

we can do hard things.

And you could think of it as leveling up with your friend.

Because if she's your best friend, you should be able to have this conversation.

And if you can't, that gives you good information either way.

Yeah.

I would suggest to Maria that she avoids what was maybe a little bit apparent in the first sentence she said, which is that maybe she thinks this, they move too fast.

Like it sounds like there's some other thing.

Like he moved in two months after they got together.

Like maybe just think of a few things that you're going to keep off the table.

Because sometimes for me, when things get heated, I start grabbing other issues that maybe aren't my business and bring them into the conversation.

So I would just make a list of things you're going to bring to the table and then a list of things you're definitely not going to bring into the conversation.

When I go into these conversations, sometimes I feel like I need to have all my decks draw.

I need to decide.

what is fair, what the rent should be, what our rules are going to be for making sure things are all set.

And I think that often doesn't go as well as just bringing it and saying

what do you think would be fair here

what do you think we need to do to make this work best going forward

it actually puts more responsibility on that person as opposed to only having the job of being like

she's an asshole listen to what she said to me and listen to what she said we should be doing that's she's you know, so controlling as opposed to, she asked me what I think would be best.

You know, so that works better.

It's good.

I hear like a little fear that she's getting kind of pushed outside, right?

I'm hearing a little fear in that.

So just maybe start considering the option of finding an alternative place to live with maybe a different person who you also regard as a friend, because you know, sometimes these relationships move in that direction, and maybe they would appreciate or want to live on their own.

I don't know.

Plus, it feels a little bit like there's a little jealousy, fear in there that maybe you're getting sidelined.

Yeah.

I mean, honestly, my gut sense of this situation, Maria, is that you should find a new roommate.

Yes.

Like, that's my real advice.

Same.

You don't mention it as an option.

So I think we're all trying to address like how you can possibly fix this.

I do think that you should really ask yourself, do you believe that a conversation with your friend will result in both her and her boyfriend having the kind of boundaries and respect for you that you hope to get from them?

Or do you think that will just be something they'll say, yeah, we'll do that, we'll do better.

And then it will be the way it is.

And

maybe you really don't want to live with the two of them anymore.

And you'll be happier if you're free of them so that you either move out or ask them to move out.

Yeah.

Dear Sugar is better at explaining things.

That's it.

Get out of Dodge, I'm saying.

Yeah, that's it.

Get out of there.

Okay, well, we've all been there, I think.

Absolutely.

It's also awful.

I just, Maria, it's terrible to like not, you know, be happy with your living situation.

And so you might love the apartment or the place or wherever it is, the house where you're living, but your life will be happier free of it if you're miserable there with the roommates that you're sharing the space with.

That's right.

Okay, let's hear from Jenny.

This is Jenny calling, wanting some help with raising daughters.

I have a son and I have three daughters

and they're all either young adults or teenagers.

What do you do when you think or maybe even know that at least one of your children is sexually active

but is doing so without any sort of concern about the repercussions?

A little background, I grew up in like an ultra conservative Catholic household.

I didn't have sex until I got married and I certainly didn't expect that from my kids, nor did my husband.

But what we did hope was that they would at least be in some sort of a relationship where there's some mutual trust and respect and caring involved.

But that doesn't seem to be the case.

And I'm just nervous for them.

And I'm wondering if I'm just way out of line here and I'm just not up with the times enough, or if you have any suggestions on how I can help my children navigate the world of sex when there seems to be no real interest in relationships along with the sex?

Oh dear.

This is a deep, big question, isn't it?

I'm dying to hear what

you all,

fellow

sister moms of teenagers have to say.

Jenny, I just want to say, first of all, like I

sympathize.

I feel your sense of,

I guess, fear about this, you know, to know that one of your children is sexually active and that that sexual activity is not connected to, I guess I would assume, what most of us think is the ideal situation where you, you know, love the person or care about the person.

But, you know, the fact is, there's you've already, you and your partner have already communicated your values to your kids around sex.

I'm sure that this child in question knows that the ideal

sexual scenario is to be in a relationship or to have those feelings of love and affection.

But for a lot of people, when they begin begin to sexually experiment, and I will say well into their sexual experimentation, sex can be also just an expression of pleasure or experimentation.

And I think that there's nothing probably that you can do that will step between your child and his or her exploration and experimentation.

But what you can do is continue to be the parent that you are, continue to be the mom you are, who is talking, I'm going to hope openly, about,

I I think you used the word, the consequences of

sex, talking to your child, to all your kids about that in a really open-hearted way.

I don't think that there's anything any of us can do once our teens become sexually active in terms of personal intervention, but I do think that you can continue to lead and parent and try to keep those lines of communication open and that you're probably doing more in doing that than you think you are.

Yeah, absolutely.

I also think think the word consequences is riddled with kind of judgment and kind of a negative tone where changing that word to like the reality of certain things that happen.

Well, she said repercussions.

She said repercussions.

So maybe for me, like pregnancy or

it seems to me, Jenny's concern is about sex outside of a committed relationship.

Right.

Yeah.

I mean, I just, first of all, God bless you, Jenny.

God bless you and keep you.

I,

Abby's laughing because I, you're now raising three teenagers and I don't know what the frick to say about anything ever.

What we're talking about when we're talking about sex with our kids is that we don't know what the hell we think about sex, right?

Like Jenny's even saying,

well, I come from an ultra conservative.

I think what Jenny's saying is, so I have my own stuff.

So what's our stuff?

What's their stuff?

Is even the, even the paradigm of sex should only be inside of a committed relationship.

Is that so?

Like the only way I know how to talk to my kids about sex is to actually be like, so here's where I'm coming from.

Who the hell knows if this is like right or wrong?

What do you think about this?

Right.

Like, because I feel like parents and kids can get in this tug of war where every conversation is, I think this.

So then the kid's job is to react and be like the opposite of that thing,

right?

What I have learned is when I come with a little bit more confusion, that is the reality of me and sex, like I'm not sure what is right and wrong.

Or when I come with a little more vulnerability, then they can share their vulnerability because they don't feel like they're defending a case

or a stance.

I think hats off to Jenny.

It sounds like she's come a long way and she's being very intentional.

You could easily be growing up ultra conservative Catholic and say, this is terrible.

This is shameful.

I can't believe they're doing this.

She's trying to open herself up to understanding this and trying to figure out how worried she should be about this.

So I think hats off to her in that.

I, I mean, I just come from the bare minimum perspective of they need actual information.

about birth control, especially in the world we're living in now.

Just, you know, making sure if I knew my daughters were having sex or my son was having sex, I would place contraceptives in their room.

Yeah, and I would tell them where they were.

And which means you should probably do it anyway before you know.

Yeah, yeah, that's what I mean.

It's that kind of line of communication that it sounds like I can't tell if Jenny has talked really openly about sex to her kids, but I'm with you, Amanda.

It sounds like she's come a whole long way from her own upbringing and certainly has raised her kids in a more sex-positive environment.

And I think that

so much of what I'm hearing from Jenny is fear.

like none of us want our

kids to get hurt right and our job as parents is to protect them but I think that part of what happens in adolescence and certainly when our teenagers do become sexually active is we are not part of that scenario right that we need to let them go

and as somebody who has had sex with people I didn't care about and who didn't care about me and I've had sex with people who I've cared an awful lot about and who've cared an awful lot about me, that all of those experiences are part of

what taught me and, you know, and what I needed to know about my body and about sex and helped me figure out relationships along the path.

And so, Jenny, I hope you'll take some comfort knowing that I think that you have already communicated to your kids that you think that the best case scenario is that they have sex within a committed and loving relationship.

And this child has maybe decided to have sex in this other way than you've ever had sex.

And that you can still be there, a nurturing and supportive and loving mom.

And that you can also step back and trust that your kids are going to find their way,

just like you did.

And, you know, that sometimes our kids find their way by walking down paths that we never walked.

And that's really scary.

Yes.

And it's really hard.

And I think even if they are uncomfortable conversations with you and with the way you were brought up, and even with what you hope for them, still having the ability to be uncomfortable in some of those conversations, just so that you're talking about it.

I grew up in a family that we just, we never talked about it.

And so I had to go out into the world and figure it out myself.

And I think that even if you don't have any answers for your kid, because they're different, they're going to have their own sex life, they're going to have their own take on it, they're going to have their own way.

Having those conversations, even if it feels a little uncomfortable, opens a doorway with curiosity instead of joy.

Yeah, I think of sex talks with kids as like faith talks with kids.

Nobody has any answers.

Like, if you're bringing answers to conversations with kids about faith or sex, like that's not even really a conversation.

Yeah, because it's so personal.

It's the only way to ensure that no one is listening.

Exactly.

Like, there are no answers.

But there's one last thing.

She starts by saying she is calling wanting some help with raising her daughters and then says, what do you do when one of your children is sexually active?

And I just point that out to say

we should all be striving to be raising our daughters and sons with the same level of concern and unbiased and

the same lack of shame on both and the same expectation of whatever sex is happening.

Oh, shit.

I'm calling wanting some help with raising daughters.

I have a son and I have three daughters and they're all all young adults or teenagers.

So why are we only talking about the girls?

Interesting.

Good catch, sister.

But there's more sleuthing because we're only, I think, talking about one daughter.

And she says, I think, or rather, I know, which to me

tells me that maybe

she knows.

by some kind of way she accidentally saw a text or she found out in some kind of sneaky way.

Because it's not like one of her daughters has come to her and said, I'm having sex.

I don't care about the person, person, but we're having a grand old time.

She's saying that she knows this and she's alarmed by

the fact that she's, that the daughter is not, you know, it's not in a relationship.

Yeah.

What I really want to say to Jenny, just because I'm thinking of Jenny as me, is I think sometimes the best thing we can do when we're worried about sex in our kids is to really worry about what we feel about sex.

I don't know if I'm saying that right, but like, I think it's really dangerous to come to kids with a bunch of fear and rules when the truth is we haven't really even

and worked it out for ourselves.

Like, I always think like, what do I do to help my hurting kid?

Like, go to therapy yourself.

Well, and also, I mean, Glennon, to tell stories about yourself.

What I've found with my kids, the time.

The times that they don't really listen to me is when I lecture them and tell them the way they should be.

But the times when they really listen to me and then actually even ask me questions is when I tell a story.

Like when I say

in passing, one time a year or two ago, I said, well, yeah, I

lost my virginity too young.

Now I can see I was too young to have sex.

And boy, do their ears perk up.

What do you mean?

When did you lose your virginity?

What happened?

Which is how I find myself then.

telling the story to my children of how I had sex with my first boyfriend when I was 14.

And

they listened.

And I think, I mean, this is what I do in my work as Deer Sugar all the time.

Very often I will tell a story about my life by way of giving advice that leads to the advice.

And it's because people, we learn.

from story, right?

And I think that maybe, Jenny, sharing a bit of yourself, instead of lecturing your kids about your fears, maybe talk about, talk about your own confusions around sex and sexuality, what it meant for you to

never have sex until you were married and why you're afraid of them having sex um outside of a relationship like that this is maybe your story as much as it is theirs good and they'll learn from it and if we're not ready to be vulnerable and tell the truth about our sex lives then we can't expect our kids to

it's good right i mean we're older

if we can't even do it so I guess if she can't do that, then there's more work to do

for her before she brings anything to the kiddos.

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We're going to end with Nina.

Can we hear from Nina?

This is Nina.

I have a slightly stay in relationships with my mother, or or rather I should say it's a little bit volatile and it takes up way too much of my mind space as a 30-something year-old.

The relationship had progressed, but a couple of things happened in the past visit back home that hurt my mom and she's just completely stopped talking to me, which feels very hurtful.

And I like almost get feelings of abandonment, which may be a little bit extreme.

But really struggling to reconcile and make this a sustainable, healthy relationship, because I definitely miss her and love her and want this to work for both of us.

Nina.

Oh, that's so hard.

Nina, I'm so sorry.

First of all, I just, it's painful to have anyone stop talking to you, but to have a parent.

stop talking to you is really

probably the most painful.

And I think that you said that you you use that word abandonment.

You say that maybe it's too much.

But I think, first of all, I want to say to you that you get to feel the way you feel.

When somebody stops talking to us, that's that is a kind of abandonment.

Because, of course, the only way we can get through these kinds of conflicts is through conversation.

If your mother was hurt by something that you did, it sounds like you don't even know what your mother's hurt about.

That withholding of

communication is a kind of abandonment.

It's a kind of abuse.

And there are two people in this relationship, and the work you can do is only on your end of it.

So what I heard you say is that you love your mother, that you respect her, that you want your relationship to be healthier, to be better.

And so

what you can do is express that, put that best foot forward, put that into words, whether you write to your mother or call your mother or go to see her and say those things.

Stand in that truth and express that truth to your mom and begin from there and we don't have enough information from your voicemail to know like what happens next

but

if what happens next is not what you hope for, that your mom doesn't engage with you in a healthy way, that you can step away from that for a while.

Like that is that your job isn't to do,

isn't to make it okay that your mom is withholding from you or not communicating with you.

Your job is to say what your truth is and see what happens next.

We started with motherhood.

Let's just go ahead and end with it.

Why are these relationships so fraught?

I know not a lot of people who are like, it's just right.

It's just, it's exactly the right amount.

Like, what, what do you think about that?

And is that because of your beautiful writing about your mom?

Do you see a lot of these letters about mother-kid relationships and how they affect our lives?

Yeah, I mean, they're so fraught because they matter so much.

The primal relationship we have with our parents,

whether they be mothers or fathers, is deep.

They go deep into the very beginning of us.

And of course, so much of what we learn about the world and who we are, it comes in relation to the things our parents did, the things they said to us, the way they loved us, the way they failed us, the way they succeeded.

And so those are, it's a big deal when your mother stops talking to you.

And of course, I have letters from people who have had to estrange themselves from their parents in order to protect themselves.

We don't have enough information from this phone call from Nina, but

I guess I do want to say, I think

there are some alarm bells going off in me.

It's one thing to have conflict, to be upset with your child, your adult child, and to be disappointed in them, to be angry with them.

It's another thing to

decide to withhold

communication and information.

That's a dysfunctional communication system.

Okay.

If I'm mad at somebody, if I'm mad at my son or my daughter, the first thing I'm going to do is talk to them about it.

I'm going to share my feelings so that

we can reconnect, that either we find forgiveness or they make amends or I apologize myself or whatever, whatever, whatever happens, we are going to communicate with each other.

That's a healthy relationship.

An unhealthy relationship is that somebody withholds their affection, their love, their attention, their communication as punishment for behavior.

And that's the place Nina's in.

And so I think that,

of course, this could go in any direction, but these relationships are fraught.

And yet what we always need to remember is that we're responsible for our own lives.

We're responsible for our own mental health and our own healthy communications.

And so Nina's not going to make her mom different,

but she can react differently to what might be a pretty familiar cycle.

Yeah.

Well, we have to end.

I want to say this.

I'm just thinking about this as you speak to Nina.

Didn't you say that part of dear sugar is your attempt to

build something beautiful in the obliterated place, in your obliterated place after your mom left.

And that,

and I don't know why I'm the last person to put this together, but like you're sitting here mothering all of these people.

Oh my gosh.

Don't we all, as our issues with our moms, we just want them all to be like, show me the way.

Just show me the way.

And our moms are like, sorry, I'm just the screwed up person too, and I'm just doing my best.

But you're channeling this mother, this wise, show us the way woman.

And what a freaking legacy of your love for your mother.

It's a big thing.

you so much.

I see very clearly the way that my mother loved me and the kind of guidance and illumination she offered in my life.

I do see my work as dish sugar as a way of carrying that on a bit.

So thank you.

Thank you for seeing that.

And what a what a pleasure it was to talk to the three of you and to get to hear these voices of people seeking advice.

Thank you for letting me do a little sugary stuff.

Thank you for coming on and doing it.

We really, really love you.

And the light that you keep spreading is true.

Yeah.

Well, you're all pretty good deer sugars, too.

I mean, one of the things I say in my work is that we are all sugar.

We all know the way.

And so thank you, Amanda, Abby, and Glennon for deer sugaring with me today.

We can be, we're like mini sugar packets, like just little versions.

I think I'm a little like spice.

You're sugar.

You're the spice, I was going to say.

All right,

thank you.

You're all wonderful.

Thank you so much.

And thank you for everyone who has questions.

Put yourself in the way of beauty today, love bugs.

Put yourself in the way of beauty.

And we will see you here next time.

We Can Do Hard Things.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

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