Modern Love

After tremendous loss and heartbreak, Jim Morrison didn’t feel he had anything left to lose. Then he went for a walk. Next, a hike. Soon, he was running. He found challenging himself in nature helped him work through his grief, and before long he was seeking out increasingly difficult feats.

In 2025 he became the first person to successfully climb up the North Face of Mount Everest and then ski down. A new documentary, “Everest: The Other Side,” chronicles Morrison’s journey to Everest and tells the story of his great loves and devastating tragedies.

On this episode of “Modern Love,” Morrison talks about how he survived the darkest times in his life and how coming right up to the edge of what’s humanly possible keeps him close to the people he’s lost.

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Janene Lin loathed the moment when the dinner bill would hit the table. When her date would pay, she felt like her love was for sale. Splitting the bill felt like no one had anything at stake. Most of the time, she would pay the bill herself, but that left her feeling uncared-for. So Janene prepared a pitch: On her next date, her third with a man named Aodhán, she would ask to open a joint bank account.

On this episode of Modern Love, Lin tells our host, Anna Martin, why this risky move felt like the best solution, how Aodhán reacted and what it taught her about what money means to her and her family.

This episode is adapted from Janene Lin’s essay The Woman Who Always Paid for Dinner.

Here’s how to submit a Modern Love Essay to The New York Times.

Here’s how to submit a Tiny Love Story.

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One thing that comforted Denise Ryan after her divorce was that she and her ex-husband still talked every day. Even though they lived apart, they were still co-parenting their son, Alexander, and they were constantly jumping on the phone to tell each other what he was up to at their respective homes.

The daily calls stopped, though, when Denise’s ex fell in love and started building a new family. Now Alexander had a second mother figure in his life, and he was adjusting remarkably well. Alexander seemed to enjoy the time he spent with his stepmom, and soon he became a big brother to her new baby.

Denise sincerely wanted the best for her son and her ex, but it didn’t feel great to be on the outside peering in at their new life. Then, Denise got an unexpected call for help, giving her a chance to rethink the role she was playing. She realized that the end of a marriage didn’t have to mean the end of a family.

The Modern Love essay that inspired this conversation is called “Please Love My Son as I Do.”

Here’s how to submit a Modern Love essay, and how to submit a Tiny Love Story.

Subscribe today at http://nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at https://nytimes.com/app.

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The actor Alan Cumming is not the man his father wanted him to be. Growing up, Cumming says, his father had specific ideas about how he should look and what he should do with his life, ideas he enforced with abusive violence. However, Cumming tried to stay true to himself: As a teenager, he hid clothes to change into after leaving the house, and he found joy in playing the piano and later at drama school.

As an adult, Cumming tried to forget the past. But after getting married, settling into a home and beginning to consider fatherhood for himself, he started to reckon with his childhood, and realized he needed to start over.

This week on the “Modern Love” podcast, Cumming shares about what happened when he finally broke free of his father. He talks about how his past caught up to his love life, why publicly identifying as bisexual is important to him, and what he hopes to pass down to a new generation of queer artists.

Here’s how to submit a Modern Love essay, and how to submit a Tiny Love Story.

Subscribe today at http://nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at https://nytimes.com/app.

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Explore the trials and tribulations of love in these deeply personal essays. A collaboration of The New York Times and WBUR in Boston, Modern Love: The Podcast features the popular New York Times column, with readings by notable personalities and updates from the essayists themselves. Join host Meghna Chakrabarti (WBUR) and Modern Love editor Daniel Jones (NYT) -- and fall in love at first listen.

Subscribe today at http://nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at https://nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.