Join Meredith and fellow advice columnist Stacia Brown as they talk breakups with Anita Rao, host of the podcast “Embodied.” Stacia and Meredith give some guidance on how to break up “well” and discuss going no-contact, navigating social media, and finding the right breakup anthem for the moment. Email us at [email protected]. You can also send relationship questions to Meredith and sign up for Love Letters updates by texting 617-744-7007. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.f...
Apr 23, 2024•36 min
As an animal researcher, Meghan Martin made groundbreaking discoveries about how giant female pandas choose their mates. She realized that they wouldn’t shack up with just any old male. They wanted a choice. The same held true, she would learn, with rabbits, birds, and other species. The question for Meghan was this: Could she apply those lessons to the human world—to her own world? Plus, we visit a Rhode Island animal shelter that raised money by letting people pay to have cats defecate on the ...
Apr 16, 2024•34 min•Season 9Ep. 9
Are more people considering polyamory these days? Has the pandemic permanently changed the ways we relate to each other? And can Esther Perel take some credit for Meredith's dating success? Meredith sits down with the psychotherapist, relationship expert, and all-around empathetic person to get into these questions and more. Email us at [email protected]. You can also send relationship questions to Meredith and sign up for Love Letters updates by texting 617-744-7007. Learn more about your ...
Apr 09, 2024•25 min•Season 9Ep. 8
In Part Two of our series on pro athletes and their spouses, we talk to Shannon Allen, the wife of former NBA superstar Ray Allen, about a bittersweet moment in their lives. Just as they were celebrating a historic NBA championship, they got some very scary medical news about their son. Where did Shannon turn for help? The answer may surprise you. Email us at [email protected]. You can also send relationship questions to Meredith and sign up for Love Letters updates by texting 617-744-7007....
Apr 02, 2024•37 min•Season 9Ep. 7
What does it feel like to be the partner of a pro athlete? Where do you find support to handle the public pressure, the instability, the constant threat of being traded? Today, we bring you a two-part series on elite athletes, their spouses, and the people who help them. In Part One, we talk to Jordan Whitlock, the wife of Red Sox pitcher Garrett Whitlock. Jordan, who has a PhD in genetics, had to learn how to balance her own career with her husband’s, and how to deal with the loneliness that se...
Apr 01, 2024•36 min•Season 9Ep. 6
Ever since Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey was a kid, music has played a major role in her life. “Eye of the Tiger” got her pumped for basketball games. She caught sets from Joan Baez and Melissa Etheridge working as a cocktail waitress. When she came out in her early 20s, she found solace in the Indigo Girls. These days, the governor uses music to center herself, especially at hard moments. She and her partner, Joanna Lydgate, sit down with Meredith to talk about how music helps them in their l...
Mar 19, 2024•34 min•Season 9Ep. 5
Meredith’s advice column turns 15 this year. 15! So she’s feeling a little nostalgic. In this episode, Meredith sits down with longtime Boston Globe sports columnist Dan Shaughnessy to trade notes on the thousands of columns each has written over the years. They also compare grief in love to grief in sports, reflect on why sports reporters have always been big fans of Love Letters, and discuss the couple of the moment: Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift. Email us at [email protected]. Learn more...
Mar 12, 2024•28 min
When it came time for Sophia to leave a difficult relationship, she knew she couldn’t do it alone. So she assembled a first-rate team, made up of friends, acquaintances, family members, and therapists. Having all of them behind her not only set Sophia free; it gave her back her future. Email us at [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Mar 05, 2024•40 min•Season 9Ep. 4
Michael and Alessandra were both single, bored, and lonely when they got together in mid-2020. It was the height of the pandemic; everyone craved companionship. But in time, Michael and Alessandra discovered that they were better as good friends. And what do good friends do? They help you find true love. Email us at [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Feb 20, 2024•31 min•Season 9Ep. 3
A bonus episode via the podcast Kelly Corrigan Wonders. Kelly sits down with Krista Tippett, the longtime host and spiritual guide of On Being, which began as a radio program and is now a podcast. At a moment when everything is broken open, when institutions are received with less reverence and more skepticism, Kelly and Krista consider: Where should we point our minds and hearts? What practices serve us best? Email us at [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone....
Feb 13, 2024•55 min
When Nimish left Nepal for college in the United States, he expected some serious challenges, like adjusting to a new culture and studying in a new language. Finding love was not top-of-mind. But as he got older and started to date more, Nimish’s romantic life became his biggest source of anxiety. Because with each budding relationship came an all-consuming question: How do I explain this to my parents? Email us at [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adch...
Feb 06, 2024•36 min•Season 9Ep. 2
A few years ago, while at summer camp in North Carolina, Ray was wrestling with some of life’s biggest questions. Identity, love, growing up, a first kiss — Ray had a lot on their mind, and no one to confide in. Until they met Maria, a counselor clad in sandals and tie-dye who would become Ray’s mentor, guide, life coach, and cheerleader, all wrapped into one. In this first episode of the new season, a portrait of two people and their lasting, beautiful bond. Email us at [email protected]. ...
Jan 23, 2024•40 min•Season 9Ep. 1
1989 Boston. The crack epidemic is raging, the murder rate soaring, and white flight has taken hold. Charles Stuart and his pregnant wife, Carol, are carjacked, drawn deep into a dangerous “inner city” neighborhood, and allegedly shot by a Black man. All of Boston – and the nation – is gripped by the hunt for the suspect. What follows will reveal truths about the city... and ourselves. Presented by The Boston Globe and HBO Documentary Films, Murder in Boston: The Untold Story of the Charles and ...
Jan 19, 2024•5 min
Almost every love story has a supporting cast — friends, relatives, therapists, and others who play a key role in what happens. In Season 9 of Love Letters, we pay tribute to those important figures in the background. You’ll hear all kinds of stories about help and guidance people received in their romantic lives, from an ex who became the perfect wingperson, to the communities that support the spouses of pro athletes, to the best queer mentor anyone could ask for. Season 9 launches Jan. 23. Ema...
Jan 09, 2024•3 min
It’s Meredith against the world in this bonus episode as she attempts to prove why a viral list of places women will supposedly never go on a first date is wrong, and why The Cheesecake Factory – that’s right, The Cheesecake Factory – is a totally acceptable date spot. To pull this off, she takes her producer, Jesse, to one of her most beloved spots for a platonic work-date. They discuss everything from Meredith’s devotion to the chain restaurant, to the horoscopian powers of The Cheesecake Fact...
Dec 19, 2023•24 min
Meredith sits down with her sister, Brette, to tackle two family-themed letters from the Love Letters column. First, a woman feels some tension with her future sister-in-law. Second, a writer discovers that her boyfriend and her mother had a one-night-stand in the past. Should the woman confront her mom? Does the mom even remember this guy? How are they going to make it through the holidays? Send your own letter to [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adch...
Nov 28, 2023•23 min
Meredith sits down with comedians Jake Johnson and Gareth Reynolds, co-hosts of the popular new podcast “We’re Here to Help.” Gareth and Jake — who played Nick Miller on the hit show "New Girl" — are longtime friends who bonded doing improv together. Their podcast is a lot like them: fun, silly, sometimes accidentally poignant. Meredith, Jake, and Gareth compare their approaches to advice-giving and dish on baldness, horses, and trashy TV. Warning: This episode is very fun. Email us at lovelette...
Nov 14, 2023•39 min
For the final episode in our series “We Found Love,” we explore the psychology behind prison relationships, a proposed law in Massachusetts that would eliminate life sentences without parole, and the story of an incarcerated man who’s wrestling with the pressures of a young relationship. Email us at [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Nov 07, 2023•37 min
Venus and Cornelius have been together for more than six years and engaged for five. They dream of seeing the world together, buying a house, and making their union official. But whether any of those things will ever happen is unclear, because Cornelius is serving a life sentence for murder without the possibility of parole. In Episode Two of the three-part series “We Found Love,” Boston Globe criminal justice reporter Ivy Scott brings us an intimate portrait of a committed, loving relationship ...
Oct 31, 2023•38 min
The first chapter of “We Found Love,” a three-part miniseries exploring how romantic love and partnership run up against – and sometimes transcend – the criminal justice system. Through the stories of three couples, at all different stages in their relationships, Boston Globe reporter Ivy Scott dives deep into what it takes to find love in a hopeless place. In today’s episode, she tells the story of Sharlene, a successful working mother with a secret, and Blake, a Southern gentleman serving time...
Oct 24, 2023•41 min
Meredith sits down with director Susanna Fogel to discuss Susanna’s new movie, "Cat Person," based on the buzzy 2017 short story by Kristen Roupenian in The New Yorker. They discuss Susanna’s decision to cast Nicholas Braun and Emilia Jones as romantic leads; the role that friends play in sussing out potential partners; and why "Cat Person," the story, stirred so much contentious debate — Susanna calls it a "weird Rorschach test for people's own [stuff]." Email us at [email protected]. Lear...
Sep 28, 2023•37 min
On the next season of Love Letters, we’ll be featuring stories about the important role help and guidance from others plays in our relationship choices and love lives, from therapy and professional interventions to advice and assistance from friends, family members, and confidantes. If you have a story about a time someone helped you in your romantic life — or maybe a story about how you gave assistance to someone else — we’d love to hear from you. Email us at [email protected]. Learn more ...
Sep 19, 2023•3 min
Shirley Leung, a business columnist who hosts Say More — a new podcast from Boston Globe Opinion — sits down with Meredith for a few final reflections on love and money, the theme of Season 8 of Love Letters. Also, listeners weigh in with their takes on the season. Email us at [email protected]. Find Say More wherever you listen to podcasts, or at globe.com/saymore. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Sep 12, 2023•22 min
Meredith makes a guest appearance on the podcast Meditative Story, a show that tells human stories but with meditation prompts. Vampires, naming squirrels, the death of her mother — it all comes out. Email us at [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Aug 29, 2023•40 min
Meredith visits her sister, Brette, on the West Coast, where Brette is recuperating from knee surgery. Together they tackle a letter from a writer who, after a series of serious relationships, wants a year of just being single. But what if that means missing out on a connection of a lifetime? Send your own letter to [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Aug 22, 2023•13 min
Erica Spates and Sam Littenberg-Weisberg have been professional television writing partners for 13 years. Together, they’ve co-written dozens of TV episodes, pitched and run their own Netflix series, and even won a couple Emmys. They are also married, which means they understand both the emotional highs of working with your partner and the financial lows – like the ongoing Hollywood writers' strike that's put both of their careers on ice. Email us at [email protected]. Learn more about your...
Aug 08, 2023•40 min•Season 8Ep. 8
Meredith talks to Jenée Desmond-Harris, Slate’s Dear Prudence advice columnist and podcast host, about weddings, commitment, and whether it’s kosher to grow an ugly mustache right before you get married. Email us at [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Aug 01, 2023•43 min
It’s easy to understand why prenuptial agreements get a bad rap. We think of that rich guy, selfishly protecting his assets just in case wife No. 3 doesn’t work out. But it turns out that’s a pretty narrow view. There are plenty of people whose marriages have been made stronger by prenups. For Anne and Nick, it wasn’t a hedge against their marriage falling apart. It was an important gesture of trust. Email us at [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoic...
Jul 25, 2023•32 min•Season 8Ep. 7
As a food and travel influencer, Anela Malik’s social media feeds used to be full of inviting dishes and beautiful vistas. Then, in the spring of 2023, her posts took a turn: Anela announced tearfully to her many followers that she was getting divorced. It was an emotional hit but also a financial one. Anela was suddenly forced to make a major investment in a whole new life. And yet … it wasn’t all bad. Email us at [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adch...
Jul 11, 2023•35 min•Season 8Ep. 6
Meredith is joined by two of her favorite Boston Globe colleagues, business reporters Diti Kohli and Dana Gerber, to chat about two things that have long bothered her: the way lease cycles influence relationships, and the financial gap between coupled people and single people. Plus, they discuss a pair of letters, including one from a single person who is worried their married friends are growing distant. Email your dating and relationship questions to [email protected]. Learn more about yo...
Jul 04, 2023•31 min
