This is an I-Heart podcast.

I'm Lori Gottlieb.

I'm the author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone,

and I write the Dear Therapist Advice column for The Atlantic.

And I'm Guy Winch.

I'm the author of Emotional First Aid,

and I write the Dear Guy advice column for Ted, and this is Dear

Therapists.

This week, we're going to check in on a guest from season two to hear how they're doing

a year later.

First a quick note, Dear Therapists is for informational purposes only.

It does not constitute medical or psychological advice and is not a substitute for professional

health care advice, diagnosis, or treatment. In the sessions you'll hear, all names have been

changed for the privacy of our guests. So today we're catching up with Jennifer, and Jennifer's

episode was called Jennifer's fiancé's Instagram flirtations. Jennifer had caught her fiancé messaging other women

inappropriately on Instagram, and she felt stuck about how to address this with him. She also had a

son from a previous marriage, and her fiance had kids as well, and they were trying to blend the

families, but she was in a financially insecure position, and she worried that she was dependent on her fiancé and therefore had little recourse.

And her narrative throughout was very passive. The way she told her story made it seem like

things just happened to her and that she had no agency in any of the things that were going

on in her life, and that made her feel helpless.

And so we helped her to see how her own narrative about her life was keeping her in the

...