Dear Sugars

The Sugars take a question from a young man whose mother has metastatic breast cancer. He is spending a month back home in Kentucky over the summer, then returning to graduate school in the fall. He is wracked with guilt about not being with her, but also at the thought of her dying without knowing who he really is — a gay man in a family where homosexuality has always been condemned.

Love is complicated in the digital age. Many of us go online in search of connection, but those interactions often leave us feeling profoundly disconnected. The Sugars take on two questions that explore different ways in which we try to connect online - one from a married woman who finds herself caught up in an illicit relationship on Facebook, the other from a young woman who is obsessed with tracking her boyfriend's ex on Instagram.

The Sugars take a question from a young woman whose best friend since childhood is about to get married to a man she's known for only six months. The two friends are very different, and the letter writer worries that her impulsive, drama-prone friend is rushing into another bad situation. She wonders whether to confront her. The Sugars are joined by the author Ann Patchett

In this episode, the Sugars take a question from a young woman who came to the United States as an 11-year-old undocumented immigrant. After years of uncertainty and limbo, she is now poised to become a citizen, but wonders how she can ever make up for the time she lost. The Sugars are joined by the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Ruben Vives, who grew up under similar circumstances.

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.

The Sugars field questions from two letter writers in polyamorous relationships, facing two very different challenges. One woman is feeling guilty that she is taking more advantage of the arrangement than her husband; the other has fallen in love with her polyamorous boyfriend and now longs for monogamy.

The Sugars take a question from a woman whose brother has recently come out to the family. He and his boyfriend sit on each other's laps and kiss in front of the family - which bothers the letter writer's sister, who doesn't want to explain homosexuality to her two-year-old son.

Many of us spend huge amounts of our emotional resources hiding the things we feel guilty or ashamed about. In this episode, the Sugars field questions from two letter writers beginning to acknowledge some hidden shame - a woman who is obsessed with the time she spent caring for a sick friend and a woman who has spent 15 years uncertain if a sexual encounter was rape.

The Sugars take on the pain that comes with being judged for one's work, and the ways in which we can learn from even the most brutal of judgments. They're joined by the writer George Saunders, who helps field a question from an author feeling crushed by first reviews. Saunders recalls his own first experience of being publicly condemned, which sent him down to his basement for three days.

The Sugars field questions from a new mother who walked in on her alcoholic father relapsing in her home, and from a woman grappling with how to be childless in a society in which parenthood is so revered. They're joined by the writer Elizabeth Gilbert, who made the decision not to have children.

The Sugars celebrate Valentine's Day by fielding questions from a married woman whose long-dormant passions have been reignited by an old high-school boyfriend, and from a young woman struggling with whether to leave behind her cheating, closeted girlfriend.