It’s OK to Want What You Want: Cheryl Strayed as Dear Sugar
August 4, 2022
Glennon Doyle:
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. She’s going to answer all of our questions. Her name is, of course, Cheryl Strayed.
Glennon Doyle:
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. Make sure you go back and listen and Cheryl, thanks for coming back.
Cheryl Strayed:
I am so thrilled to be here. I’m a big fan of y’all and I wanted to come back for part two. Hey, you know, any time.
Glennon Doyle:
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 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?
Cheryl Strayed:
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 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, whatever. They would say, “But 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’m not allowed to want that”, right?
Cheryl Strayed:
So much of I think my work as Dear Sugar is about being an illuminator. 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.
Cheryl Strayed:
I think in my work as Dear Sugar, it’s not so much about me saying absolutely you should do this or that, although, of course, sometimes 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.
Amanda Doyle:
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.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Why are we like that?
Cheryl Strayed:
That is such a huge one. I mean, because it doesn’t come from nowhere, right? Almost all of us are steeped in communities and cultures and families that say 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.
Cheryl Strayed:
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 illuminating it is to say, “No, that’s not true. I’m going to tell the truth about who I am” or the lie of an addiction, “This is what I need to live. This is the thing that makes me feel okay.”
Cheryl Strayed:
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.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. We’re always told that the lie will keep other people safe, 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.
Abby Wambach:
Mothers, specifically.
Glennon Doyle:
Right. 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, all these truths that would break everything, and I remember Liz saying to me, “Well, there’s no such thing as one way liberation. If you free yourself, eventually that will free Chase, Tish, Amma, Craig.” I was like, “Are you sure? Because I feel like they’re going to be pretty pissed off.”
Amanda Doyle:
Seems like a stretch, Gilbert.
Cheryl Strayed:
Well, the thing is maybe their first reaction will be. One of the most famous, popular Dear 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 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.
Cheryl Strayed:
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. Here’s all the reasons …” The letter was here are all the reasons I can’t do that, and very many of them were about not wanting to 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.
Cheryl Strayed:
But I didn’t want to be married to him anymore. 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. It was the truth.
Cheryl Strayed:
What I say in my letter to these people is it’s okay to want what you want, because in part, it’s exactly what Liz said, Glennon, in part, your partner also deserves to be free of you. You get to go but also you get to free your partner of somebody who doesn’t really want to be there.
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Cheryl Strayed:
Who wants to be in a relationship with somebody who kind of wants to leave?
Abby Wambach:
Nobody.
Cheryl Strayed:
You know?
Glennon Doyle:
Not Craig Melton. He is living his best life these days, Cheryl Strayed. I’ll tell you what.
Cheryl Strayed:
That’s right.
Glennon Doyle:
He’s like, “Hot damn.” Liberated.
Cheryl Strayed:
That’s right. That’s right. It’s like you set him free. That’s the thing too, maybe at the beginning, there was hurt, 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.
Glennon Doyle:
Is this the one where you said you have to be brave enough to break your own heart?
Cheryl Strayed:
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. What’s interesting to me about that, at the time that I wrote that column, The Truth That Lives There, about 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 have said, “That column changed my life. It is the thing that compelled me to leave my partner” and, at first, I was like, “Great. I am a homewrecker.”
Glennon Doyle:
I feel that too, Cheryl. I feel that too.
Cheryl Strayed:
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. I am saying you are allowed to know it. You are allowed to know the true thing about yourself, and you are allowed to act on it.
Cheryl Strayed:
It wasn’t me homewrecking at all. 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.”
Glennon Doyle:
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.
Abby Wambach:
And you’re pointing them back to themselves.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes, that’s right.
Abby Wambach:
Saying the truth lives within you.
Cheryl Strayed:
Yeah. I think too one of the things I realized early on is I really … So much of advice has been framed, especially through all time, and people recoil from it because it’s framed in judgment. 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.
Cheryl Strayed:
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 rooting for them, even if you have to say hard things, not just do hard things, say hard things to them.
Amanda Doyle:
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.”
Amanda Doyle:
By listening, you’re really just telling the people to listen to themselves, to listen to that scariest ghost and not be afraid.
Cheryl Strayed:
Yeah. That’s right. It is the scariest ghost of all.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, because if you know, then you might have to do.
Cheryl Strayed:
Of course. I mean, that’s it.
Glennon Doyle:
We always say the scariest part of life is the difference between knowing and doing.
Abby Wambach:
The space between …
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Yeah.
Amanda Doyle:
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.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s why Cheryl said you are allowed to know the truest thing about yourself, right?
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Beautiful.
Amanda Doyle:
I am a list-aholic.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh God.
Amanda Doyle:
You say that every problem you’ve ever had has been solved by a list.
Cheryl Strayed:
Okay here we go.
Amanda Doyle:
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.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. Going from the knowing to the doing I think requires some steps in this list idea.
Cheryl Strayed:
Lists are powerful tools. I believe in them entirely. I’ve made so many good decisions based on them. I think for me the trick is to really go outside the box in terms of the questions you answer on your list.
Cheryl Strayed:
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.
Cheryl Strayed:
I talk about this in one of my columns called The Ghost Ship That Didn’t Carry Us. A man wrote to me, he was 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.”
Cheryl Strayed:
I said, get out some big pieces of paper or 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 have kids and what won’t you be able to do if you do? And have the good things in your life happened because of ease or hardship? All of these ways to use lists, essentially, as prompts to get your unexpressed feelings out on the page, so you can look at them analytically.
Cheryl Strayed:
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. There was one thing on the reasons to have a child and there were like 300 things on the not, but that didn’t necessarily … What I want to say is, even though, we didn’t end up having a third child, that doesn’t necessarily mean like there’s 300 things on this list and one on the other. You also then look at what’s most important on your list.
Cheryl Strayed:
For example, these people who wrote to me in that letter, the Truth That Lives There, and the people who continue to write to me with the same questions, should I leave? I want to leave my partner who is 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.
Cheryl Strayed:
You make the list to generate your thoughts and ideas and then you rank the list, circle the truest things on those lists, and see where that puts you, see where that lands you.
Cheryl Strayed:
I think of them as self-therapy. Like you just draw out from deep within yourself everything that you can imagine that’s true. Then you get to look at it. You get to let it be a map of where to go next.
Glennon Doyle:
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 a list, because I always think of them as to-do lists, but I could do these lists.
Abby Wambach:
To-know lists.
Glennon Doyle:
To-know. That’s good.
Cheryl Strayed:
It’s a to-know list. Yeah. It isn’t a to-do list. It’s a to-know and what do I feel and what do I fear and what do I imagine? How do I visualize? If I walk down this path versus the other path.
Glennon Doyle:
I love it.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. Cheryl, we have about 400,000 people who want to ask you questions.
Cheryl Strayed:
Yay.
Glennon Doyle:
Our first friend is Maria. Can we hear from Maria?
Maria:
My name is Maria and I was calling because I do have a question about infidelity. I actually just found out that my husband is cheating on me, has been for about four months. I’m pregnant with our third child. My question to you, what are your thoughts on reaching out to the other woman?
Maria:
I don’t want to reach out in a hostile way. Obviously, she’s wrong too but my husband is more wrong. I just want to get some answers from her. Do you think that’s a good idea? Bad idea? Or should I not even stoop to her level and reach out? Anyways, thank you. I love you guys.
Cheryl Strayed:
This is a deep hard big one. We’re starting off really intense here.
Glennon Doyle:
Good luck, sugar.
Cheryl Strayed:
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.
Cheryl Strayed:
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 is having an affair with? What is it that you’re seeking? What questions do you have for her?
Cheryl Strayed:
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. I should have never had an affair with your husband and I’m so sorry that you’re in pain”, that you’re in some ways, seeking from the wrong party, the wrong source, somebody who is going to ask forgiveness and try to make amends and also somebody who will stop hurting you.
Cheryl Strayed:
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.
Cheryl Strayed:
You said at some point in your question that 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 used 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.
Cheryl Strayed:
I think that the problem 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?
Glennon Doyle:
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 am one of the people that …” Have I even told you this?
Amanda Doyle:
Nope.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Someone came up to me. I was at the table, and she said …
Amanda Doyle:
Oh my gosh.
Glennon Doyle:
“I am a woman that..”
Abby Wambach:
You were touring the book Love Warrior.
Glennon Doyle:
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 peace or closure in that moment. I think that whatever Maria is looking for, even right now, when it’s so fresh, I can only imagine it would be worse.
Glennon Doyle:
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. I think it’s sometimes easier to deal with the other person, because you can hate that person, then deal with your person and yourself.
Amanda Doyle:
Was that person, Glennon, asking … Was she apologizing?
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
Was she looking for … She was apologizing? Okay.
Glennon Doyle:
She was looking for absolution.
Abby Wambach:
Sister’s looking for a name to put …
Glennon Doyle:
No.
Cheryl Strayed:
Even that, it’s like … That’s why my first question to Maria was like what are you seeking? What is it that you want? I can almost promise you, Maria, that you’re not going to get it. Even if you do, it doesn’t feel good. What’s the woman going to say? “I’m so sorry that I slept with your husband.” Does that make you feel better? Not really. It will probably even enrage you more, right?
Cheryl Strayed:
I think there’s nothing this woman can give Maria.
Amanda Doyle:
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. Did they have sex here? Was I home? Was that night a night they were together? It’s just you’re desperate for anything that you can hold onto that’s real information.
Amanda Doyle:
I think you’re right. She’s never going to get it. I remember the woman reached out to me, in my situation. Nothing was good about it.
Glennon Doyle:
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 women who were involved in the infidelity.
Amanda Doyle:
… sleeping with your husband.
Amanda Doyle:
That goes on the list of people who aren’t helpful to your healthy development.
Glennon Doyle:
Right.
Cheryl Strayed:
Yeah. 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 treated on, it’s like the information is power, right? But if I know everything, if I know every detail of what they did and when and how, that somehow I’ll hurt less or it will make sense to me, and I think that that’s false, that more information only leads to more pain.
Cheryl Strayed:
You, Maria, have the information you need.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s right.
Cheryl Strayed:
Your husband lied to you, had or has a relationship with somebody else, and now what you have is information you need to make decisions for your own life. 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. What are you going to do as a person now? What are you going to do as a couple now?
Cheryl Strayed:
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.
Glennon Doyle:
I think we all vote that.
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. We’re with Sugar.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s actually in her quest to get more control, she’s actually ceding additional control because she is giving that person a voice and a role in where she is already over-extended herself, she is putting her more central than she’s already made herself. Maria, no thank you.
Glennon Doyle:
No thank you, Maria. Okay, we love you, Maria. You can do impossible things.
Cheryl Strayed:
Yeah. Good luck. I’m so sorry.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. Let’s hear from Kelly.
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 would have brought me to this point in my life, which is the most independent and awake I have 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.
Kelly:
When I send my son to my dad’s, he’s often with the girlfriend and she bathes him, she feeds him, she loves him. 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. 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, that 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.
Cheryl Strayed:
Sometimes in my work as Dear 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.
Cheryl Strayed:
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?
Cheryl Strayed:
I mean, very often, very, very often, the best things come from the worst things and you lived through that. 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’ve 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 used 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.
Cheryl Strayed:
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? What I think is maybe let go of this image of your self rising above, the image that came into my mind when I heard that phrase was this, float down the stream. You’ve 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 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.
Cheryl Strayed:
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 some day you’ll feel differently. Keep floating in the direction of your own life.
Abby Wambach:
I love that. 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.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s right.
Abby Wambach:
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.”
Glennon Doyle:
That’s right.
Abby Wambach:
Because he will understand all the complexities at some point.
Glennon Doyle:
They will know. They will know.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
I am just going to put in just a little bit of a petty … I’m a little pettier than Sugar. I 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 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 …
Abby Wambach:
She’s a little pettier than Dear Sugar.
Glennon Doyle:
In the guest room.
Cheryl Strayed:
Yeah. Maybe.
Glennon Doyle:
She’s beautiful. Kelly is a warrior.
Cheryl Strayed:
I want to say, trust me, just wait, time will heal and everything. Kelly, I want to say, yeah, I understand those feelings, 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.
Cheryl Strayed:
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 just keep going in that direction and you will do no wrong.
Amanda Doyle:
Yes, and don’t beat herself up.
Cheryl Strayed:
Exactly.
Amanda Doyle:
What I hear is that she’s saying I should be feeling more gracious towards this person, I should be but I am with you. I mean, Kelly, you are doing ridiculously amazing.
Cheryl Strayed:
Yeah. Beautiful.
Amanda Doyle:
There is no one to say that you should be planning tea parties with this lady. It’s fine. Give yourself time. As it develops, it develops but, certainly, don’t add to your list of things that you have 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.
Cheryl Strayed:
And this is very fresh. It’s been a few years but there’s a long way to go.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. Let’s hear from another Maria.
Maria:
Hello. My name is Maria. My question is how the heck do I go about a conversation with my roommate who has also been my best friend for eight years and whose boyfriend moved in with us to our apartment two months after they started dating, officially, six months, he was like, “Hey, this is my situation. I need to move in.”
Maria:
We had a conversation about it and I agreed to it, 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 am … 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. Please help me. Thanks. Bye.
Amanda Doyle:
Please help me. Please help me, Dear Sugar.
Cheryl Strayed:
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. 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?
Glennon Doyle:
Absolutely.
Cheryl Strayed:
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? You are going to have a conversation with your friend. 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 analytical and calm and collected as you present and speak the things that you want going forward, that you’d like to change.
Cheryl Strayed:
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. I know that’s going to be hard but, hey, we can do hard things.
Glennon Doyle:
You can 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.
Glennon Doyle:
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 they moved too fast.
Cheryl Strayed:
Right.
Glennon Doyle:
It sounds like there’s some other … Like, he moved in two months after they got together. 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.
Glennon Doyle:
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.
Amanda Doyle:
When I go into these conversations, sometimes I feel like I need to have all my ducks in a row, 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. Listen to what she said we should be doing. She’s so controlling” as opposed to she asked me what I think would be best. You know? That works better I think.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s good.
Abby Wambach:
I hear a little fear that she’s getting pushed outside. Right? I’m hearing a little fear in that. Maybe start considering the option of finding alternative place to live with maybe a different person, who you also regard as a friend, because sometimes these relationships, they move in that direction and maybe they would appreciate or want to live on their own. I don’t know.
Glennon Doyle:
Plan B.
Abby Wambach:
It feels a little bit like there’s a little jealousy, fear in there that maybe you’re getting sidelined.
Cheryl Strayed:
Yeah. I mean, honestly, my gut sense of this situation, Maria, is that you should find a new roommate.
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Cheryl Strayed:
That’s my real advice.
Abby Wambach:
Same.
Cheryl Strayed:
You don’t mention it as an option, so I think we’re all trying to address 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 will be the way it is?
Cheryl Strayed:
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.
Abby Wambach:
Dear Sugar is better at explaining things. Get out of Dodge, I’m saying.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s it, Maria. That’s it.
Abby Wambach:
Get out of there.
Cheryl Strayed:
We’ve all been there.
Glennon Doyle:
Totally.
Cheryl Strayed:
Maria, it’s terrible to not be happy with your living situation. 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.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. Let’s hear from Jenny.
Jenny:
This is Jenny calling, wanting some help with raising daughters. I have a son and I have three daughters. 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?
Jenny:
A little background, I grew up in an ultra conservative Catholic household. I didn’t have sex until I got married and I certainly didn’t expect that for 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. 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?
Cheryl Strayed:
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, I sympathize, I feel your sense of I guess fear about this, 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 love the person or care about the person.
Cheryl Strayed:
You know, the fact is 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 to sexually experiment, and I will say, well into their sexual experimentation, sex can be also just an expression of pleasure or experimentation.
Cheryl Strayed:
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 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.
Cheryl Strayed:
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.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Absolutely.
Abby Wambach:
I also think the word consequences is riddled with kind of judgment and kind of negative tone where changing that word to the reality of certain things that happen.
Glennon Doyle:
The reality, that’s good.
Amanda Doyle:
She said repercussions. She said repercussions.
Cheryl Strayed:
The repercussions.
Amanda Doyle:
Maybe she means like pregnancy or …
Cheryl Strayed:
It seems, to me, Jenny’s concern is about sex outside of a committed relationship, right?
Glennon Doyle:
Right. Yeah. I just, first of all, God bless you, Jenny. God bless you and keep you. Abby’s laughing because we’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?
Glennon Doyle:
Jenny’s even saying, “Well, I come from an ultra conservative …” I think what Jenny is saying. I have my own stuff, so what’s our stuff? What’s their stuff? Is even the paradigm of sex should only be inside of a committed relationship, is that so?
Glennon Doyle:
The only way I know how to talk to my kids about sex is to actually be like here’s where I’m coming from, who the hell knows if this is right or wrong? What do you think about this? Right?
Glennon Doyle:
Because I feel like parents and kids can get in this tug of war where every conversation is I think this, so then the kids’ job is to react and be like the opposite of that thing, right?
Glennon Doyle:
What I have learned is when I come with a little bit more confusion, that is the reality of me and sex, 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 the case or stance.
Amanda Doyle:
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.
Amanda Doyle:
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 making sure … If I knew my daughters were having sex or my son was having sex, I would place contraceptives in their room and I would tell them where they were.
Cheryl Strayed:
Yeah, which means you should probably do it before you know.
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Cheryl Strayed:
That’s what I mean, it’s that kind of line of communication that it sounds … 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. None of us want our kids to get hurt, right? Our job as parents is to protect them.
Cheryl Strayed:
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, that we need to let them go. 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 I’ve cared an awful lot about and who have cared an awful lot about me, that all of those experiences are part of what taught me and what I needed to know about my body and about sex and helped me figure out relationships along the path.
Cheryl Strayed:
Jenny, I hope you’ll take some comfort knowing that I think that you have already communicated to your kids that you think 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, 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.
Cheryl Strayed:
You know, that sometimes our kids find their way by walking down paths that we never walked and that’s really scary.
Abby Wambach:
Yes. It’s really hard. 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.
Abby Wambach:
I grew up in a family that we just we never talked about it. 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 the doorway with curiosity instead of judgment.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. I think of sex talks with kids as faith talks with kids. Nobody has any answers. If you’re bringing answers to conversations with kids about faith or sex, that’s not even really a conversation, right?
Abby Wambach:
Because it’s so personal.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s the only way to ensure that no one is listening to you.
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly. There are no answers.
Amanda Doyle:
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? 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 expectations of whatever sex is happening.
Abby Wambach:
Good catch.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, shit.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
I’m calling wanting some help with raising daughters, I have a son and I have three daughters and they’re all young adults or teenagers, so why are we only talking about the girls? Interesting. Good catch, sister.
Cheryl Strayed:
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 but we’re having a grand old time.”
Cheryl Strayed:
She’s saying that she knows this and she’s alarmed by the fact that the daughter is not in a relationship.
Glennon Doyle:
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 and our kids is to really worry about what we feel about sex. I don’t know if I’m saying that right but 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 talked about it.
Abby Wambach:
You don’t know what your own rules are.
Glennon Doyle:
And worked it out for ourselves. I always think what do I do to help my hurting kid? Go to therapy yourself.
Cheryl Strayed:
Also, I mean, Glennon, to tell stories about yourself, what I have found with my kids, 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, 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?
Cheryl Strayed:
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. They listened. I mean, this is what I do in my work as Dear 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 we learn from story, right?
Cheryl Strayed:
I think that maybe, Jenny, sharing a bit of yourself instead of lecturing your kids about your fears, maybe 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 outside of a relationship. This is maybe your story as much as it is theirs.
Abby Wambach:
That’s good.
Cheryl Strayed:
They’ll learn from it.
Glennon Doyle:
If we’re not ready to be vulnerable and tell the truth about our sex lives, then we can’t expect our kids to.
Cheryl Strayed:
That’s good. That’s good.
Glennon Doyle:
Right? We’re older. If we can’t even do it … I guess if she can’t do that, then there’s more work to do for her before she brings anything to the kiddos.
Glennon Doyle:
We’re going to end with Nina. Can we hear from Nina?
Nina:
This is Nina. I have a strained relationship with my mother or rather, I should say, it’s a little bit volatile. It takes up way too much of my mind space as a thirty something year old. The relationship has progressed but a couple of things happened in the past when I went back home that hurt my mom and she’s just completely stopped talking to me. This feels very hurtful and I 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.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, Nina.
Cheryl Strayed:
Oh, that’s so hard. Nina, I’m so sorry. First of all, 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. I think that you used that word abandonment, you say that maybe is 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 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 is hurt about, that withholding of communication is a kind of abandonment, it’s a kind of abuse.
Cheryl Strayed:
There are two people in this relationship and the work you can do is only on your end of it. 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.
Cheryl Strayed:
We don’t have enough information from your voicemail to know 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, that your job 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.
Glennon Doyle:
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 exactly the right amount.” What do you think about that? 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?
Cheryl Strayed:
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.
Cheryl Strayed:
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?
Cheryl Strayed:
If I’m mad at somebody, if I’m mad at my son or my daughter, the first thing I am 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 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. That’s the place Nina is in.
Cheryl Strayed:
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. Nina’s not going to make her mom different but she can react differently to what might be a pretty familiar cycle.
Glennon Doyle:
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?
Cheryl Strayed:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
I don’t know why … I’m the last person to put this together but you’re sitting here mothering all of these people.
Abby Wambach:
Oh my gosh.
Glennon Doyle:
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 this 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 beautiful thing.
Cheryl Strayed:
Thank 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 Dear Sugar as a way of carrying that on a bit.
Cheryl Strayed:
Thank you. Thank you for seeing that. 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 Sugar-y stuff.
Abby Wambach:
Thank you for coming on and doing it. We really, really love you and the light that you keep spreading is true.
Cheryl Strayed:
Well, you’re all pretty good Dear Sugars too. I mean, one of the things I say in my work is that we are all Sugar. We all know the way. Thank you, Amanda, Abby, and Glennon for Dear Sugar-ing with me today.
Glennon Doyle:
We’re like mini Sugar packets.
Amanda Doyle:
I think I’m a little spice.
Glennon Doyle:
All right, Cheryl Strayed. Thank you.
Cheryl Strayed:
You’re all wonderful. Thank you so much. Thank you for everyone who asked questions.
Glennon Doyle:
Put yourself in the way of beauty today, love bugs.
Cheryl Strayed:
Put yourself in the way of beauty.
Glennon Doyle:
And we will see you here next time. We can do hard things. Bye-bye.
Abby Wambach:
Amazing.
Cheryl Strayed:
Bye-bye.