Amy Bloom tells the story of her husband, Brian, getting Alzheimer's and wanting assisted suicide. Her search to find a way to do that led her to Dignitas, in Switzerland.

Mike McFarland tells Ira about trying to get a message to someone under the most critical deadline imaginable—emphasis on the “imagine.” (8  minutes)

Couples therapist Esther Perel talks to Ira about the very particular ways she’s seeing lockdown impact couples around the world.  Listen to season three of her podcast, “Where Should We Begin: Couples Under Lockdown.” (13 minutes)

Ira goes to a crowded singles bar where it wasn’t hard to find serial ghosters — people who kiss and disappear.  (8 minutes)

Heather and her girlfriend lived with a cat named Sid. The girlfriend showed all sorts of affection toward Sid that she never showed toward Heather.

We turn now to one of the loneliest experiences a person can have: marriage. Ira listens to two people trying to break through what’s going wrong in their marriage, an excerpt from a new podcast in which real couples have a real therapy session with a real therapist, Esther Perel.

Ira talks to producer Sean Cole about a video he found of the rap duo Run the Jewels—giving advice to teenage girls.

Host Ira Glass interviews author Alain de Botton about why so many of us choose the wrong spouses. Botton is the author of the new novel The Course of Love.

Lori Gottlieb's story from the prologue continues. One complication led to another and before long, the writer seemed to be lying to her.

Ira talks to Rachel Rosenthal, who spent years trying to figure out who had stolen her identity. She was closing bank account after bank account, getting more and more paranoid, until she realized she knew exactly who the thief was.

We have an update on a man in his 70s who planned to propose to a woman. We first spoke with him for time in our episode The Heart Wants What the Heart Wants.

Ira talks to a man in his 70s who’s about to travel across the country to tell a woman he loves how he really feels, despite some very real signs that doing so might be a bad idea.

Kurt Braunohler and his girlfriend had been together for thirteen years, and they were only 30. They wondered why they had never considered marriage, and realized that they needed to sleep with other people before they tied the knot.

Ira talks with Jessica Pressler, who writes the Daily Intel blog for NewYork Magazine, about a phenomenon she noticed in the wedding notices in The New York Times. Couples were cheerfully telling—as part of their "meet cute" stories—how their relationships began with one of them cheating on a spouse or long-time partner.

Joel and Kate were both working in a psychiatric hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts. They both like each other, and she tries to impress him by always wearing her favorite pair of jeans.

We meet Russell, 19, the best mobile phone salesman in the mall — and possibly anywhere. His talent for sales is matched only by those of his girlfriend, Chandler, 18, a waitress.

Musician David Berkeley has gotten a lot of requests in his life, but none quite like the offer his agent got last year. A fan wanted Berkeley to come to his house and help save his relationship by serenading the troubled couple with a personal concert.

Host Ira Glass talks with Lauren Waterman, who's in the middle of a break-up right now and grappling with totally contradictory feelings. (5 minutes)

Ira visits marital researcher John Gottman, who's part of a generation of researchers that have revolutionized the way we see marriage by observing successful and unsuccessful marriages and trying to figure out what the successful happy ones are doing that the ones who end up in divorce are not. Marriage research and links to marriage education programs for couples are online at www.smartmarriages.com.

When it comes to political fighting, there's no more intimate a space than a marriage, where you have to get along. Where you have to figure out how to move on and get over disagreement.

Heather and her girlfriend lived with a cat named Sid. The girlfriend showed all sorts of affection toward Sid that she never showed toward Heather.