Modern Love

The New York Times
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  • SOCIETY & CULTURE
  • UPDATED WEEKLY
Modern Love Podcast

For 20 years, the Modern Love column has given New York Times readers a glimpse into the complicated love lives of real people. Since its start, the column has evolved into a TV show, three books and a podcast. Each week, host Anna Martin brings you stories and conversations about love in all its glorious permutations, dumb pitfalls and life-changing moments. New episodes every Wednesday. Listen to this podcast in New York Times Audio, our new iOS app for news subscribers. Download now at nytimes.com/audioapp

  1. Peter Gallagher’s Marriage Advice? Don’t Get Divorced.

    MAY 22

    Peter Gallagher’s Marriage Advice? Don’t Get Divorced.

    Actor Peter Gallagher (Sex, Lies, & Videotape and The O.C.) met his wife, Paula Harwood, over forty years ago in college in a stairwell meet-cute. Since then, they’ve maintained a loving marriage and managed to raise a family while navigating the world of show business. We talked to Peter on his 41st wedding anniversary, and he read us the Modern Love essay “Failing in Marriage Does Not Mean Failing at Marriage” by Joe Blair. Despite the essayist being kicked out of the house by his wife five times, the couple managed to remain married and learn that a relationship can mean trying together and failing together. Reflecting on the essay, Peter gave us his advice for staying the course. Peter Gallagher will be performing on Broadway this fall in Delia Ephron’s play ‘Left on Tenth.’

    30 min
  2. Liza Colón-Zayas, of ‘The Bear,’ on Loving Someone Who’s in the Fight of Their Life

    MAY 15

    Liza Colón-Zayas, of ‘The Bear,’ on Loving Someone Who’s in the Fight of Their Life

    On the Emmy- and Peabody-winning series “The Bear,” Liza Colón-Zayas plays Tina Marrero, a cook at the Chicago restaurant at the center of the story. Tina and her fellow workers are in a constant struggle for the survival of their restaurant, and they fight just as fiercely with one another. Only at rare moments do we see them drop the tough exterior and show one another love or respect. Today, Colón-Zayas reads “A Web Between Her Body and Mine,” by Karen Paul. It’s a Modern Love essay about two friends who also met at work, but have a different kind of bond: Karen has no problem showing affection to her best friend, Miriam. But after Miriam has a terrible accident, Karen finds herself in uncharted territory, not certain when, or how, to support her. It’s a story Colón-Zayas says she relates to personally, and her reaction to it takes her by surprise.

    31 min
  3. ¡Hola Papi!, Does My Grandmother Need to Know I’m Gay?

    MAY 8

    ¡Hola Papi!, Does My Grandmother Need to Know I’m Gay?

    Ahead of Mother’s Day, the advice columnist John Paul Brammer (a.k.a. ¡Hola Papi!) has a reminder: Loving your abuela doesn’t have to mean telling her everything.

    26 min
  4. Emily Ratajkowski Can Take Care of Herself, but a Little Help Would Be Nice

    MAY 1

    Emily Ratajkowski Can Take Care of Herself, but a Little Help Would Be Nice

    Emily Ratajkowski is doing a balancing act many famously beautiful women have to perform. In her 2021 book “My Body,” she reflects on what it’s been like to build a career based on her public image, and her struggle to control that image in an industry largely run by men. Since getting divorced a few years ago, she’s been thinking a lot about gender dynamics and the type of agency she wants to have in dating, too. Today, Ratajkowski reads “Why I Fell for an ‘I’m the Man’ Man,” by Susan Forray. Forray is also a successful, self-sufficient woman, dating after divorce. She’s surprised to find herself falling for a man with old-fashioned ideas about who does what in a relationship. (He pays for dinner, handles the finances and initiates sex). As a single mom who handles everything, Ratajkowski says, she can relate to the desire to be cared for once in a while. And that doesn’t have to mean playing into a sexist stereotype.

    30 min
  5. Laufey, Gen Z’s Pop Jazz Icon, Sings for the Anxious Generation

    APR 24

    Laufey, Gen Z’s Pop Jazz Icon, Sings for the Anxious Generation

    Laufey, the 25-year-old singer-songwriter, has risen to prominence by taking the trials of today’s dating world — casual relationships, no labels and seemingly endless swiping on apps — and turning them into timeless love songs. Today, Laufey reads Coco Mellors’s essay, “An Anxious Person Tries to Be Chill,” which is about a woman trying to work through her deep-seated relationship anxieties and attachment issues in an on-again, off-again situationship. Laufey says she, too, has been an anxious partner. While she thinks a toxic relationship, like the one in the essay, can make for a great love song, she now knows secure relationships can make beautiful music, too.

    27 min
  6. Why John Magaro of ‘Past Lives’ Could Never Love a Picky Eater

    APR 17

    Why John Magaro of ‘Past Lives’ Could Never Love a Picky Eater

    The actor John Magaro is picky about whom he goes to dinner with. Magaro is an adventurous eater. So whether he’s buying offal from the butcher, making stews from the 1800s or falling in love over a plate of rabbit, he says it’s important to him that the people he shares a meal with are willing to be curious. For Magaro, it’s about more than personal preferences. Sharing a meal and connecting with other people, he says, is the bedrock of society. Magaro played Arthur in “Past Lives,” one of our favorite movies last year. His character is constantly working to understand his wife on a deeper level. And Magaro sees that quality in “My Dinners With Andrew,” by Sara Pepitone, a Modern Love essay about food as a love language, and a series of dinners that make, and break, two relationships.

    35 min
  7. Esther Perel on What the Other Woman Knows

    APR 10

    Esther Perel on What the Other Woman Knows

    Over the last two decades, Esther Perel has become a world-famous couples therapist by persistently advocating frank conversations about infidelity, sex and intimacy. Today, Perel reads one of the most provocative Modern Love essays ever published: “What Sleeping With Married Men Taught Me About Infidelity,” by Karin Jones. In her 2018 essay, Jones wrote about her experience seeking out no-strings-attached flings with married men after her divorce. What she found, to her surprise, was how much the men missed having sex with their own wives, and how afraid they were to tell them. Jones faced a heavy backlash after the essay was published. Perel reflects on why conversations around infidelity are still so difficult and why she thinks Jones deserves more credit. Esther Perel is on tour in the U.S. Her show is called “An Evening With Esther Perel: The Future of Relationships, Love & Desire.” Check her website for more details.

    28 min
  8. The Second Best Way to Get Divorced, According to Maya Hawke

    APR 3

    The Second Best Way to Get Divorced, According to Maya Hawke

    When Maya Hawke’s famous parents got divorced, she was just a little kid trying to navigate their newly separate worlds. Paparazzi aside, Maya’s experience of shuttling between two homes was still more common than the arrangement described in the essay Maya reads: “Our Kinder, Gentler, Nobody-Moves-Out Divorce,” by Jordana Jacobs. By staying under one roof, Jacobs and her ex-husband spared their young son the distress of having to go back and forth. But this “dad upstairs, mom downstairs” arrangement also meant that Jacobs had to overhear her ex falling in love with his new partner. Today, Hawke reflects on the bittersweet family portrait in Jacobs’s essay, and on divorce’s role in Hawke’s own upbringing. Maya’s latest album, “Chaos Angel,” drops May 31.

    26 min
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About

For 20 years, the Modern Love column has given New York Times readers a glimpse into the complicated love lives of real people. Since its start, the column has evolved into a TV show, three books and a podcast. Each week, host Anna Martin brings you stories and conversations about love in all its glorious permutations, dumb pitfalls and life-changing moments. New episodes every Wednesday. Listen to this podcast in New York Times Audio, our new iOS app for news subscribers. Download now at nytimes.com/audioapp

Information

  • Channel
    The New York Times
  • Creator
    The New York Times
  • Years Active
    2015 - 2024
  • Episodes
    359
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2020-2024 THE NEW YORK TIMES COMPANY; The New York Times encourages the use of RSS feeds for personal use in a news reader or as part of a non-commercial blog, subject to your agreement to our Terms of Service.
  • Show Website
    Modern Love

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