Madeline de Figueiredo lost her husband, Eli, just a year after they married. After his death, she tried everything she could to reconnect with him: cooking from his recipe book, dancing to playlists he made, watching videos of him and listening to voice mail messages he left her. But her grief persisted.

Then, on what was supposed to be Eli’s 27th birthday, Madeline realized she could use A.I. to recreate his voice and try to talk to him again. On this episode of the “Modern Love” podcast, Madeline tells us what it felt like to hear that recreation of Eli’s voice, and how it changed the way she reconnects with him.

This episode is adapted from Madeline’s Modern Love essay from 2024, “Our Last, Impossible Conversation.”

We want to hear from you! We’re looking for stories, thoughts and feelings about egg freezing. Are you planning to freeze your eggs? What are you considering? Have you frozen your eggs? What happened, and how do you feel about it now? Leave us a voice mail message on the Modern Love hotline at (212) 589-8962‬. Please include your name, hometown and a callback number.

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Whether it’s Cher or Paul Mescal, Amelia Dimoldenberg can turn her “dates” at a fast-food restaurant into chemistry-fueled, revealing interviews. The dates may be fake, but viewers are always left with the impression that the celebrity guest would probably be game for a second one.

Amelia reads a Modern Love essay from Rachel Fields, who is not sure how her last date has gone. After sending a risky text message, Rachel’s insecurities cloud her morning routine as she waits for a response. Amelia offers tips on how to soothe the anxieties that creep up in the early phases of dating, and how to feel confident throughout the process.

Her show, “Chicken Shop Date” is celebrating its 10th anniversary this month.

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In the new movie “We Live in Time,” the actor Andrew Garfield plays a newly divorced man named Tobias who falls in love with a chef named Almut, played by Florence Pugh. Their story feels epic and expansive, but still intimate. It focuses on the small, everyday moments that make up a love story: washing dishes together after a dinner party, sharing biscuits, smelling fruit at a farmers’ market. These are the moments that sustain them through Almut’s excruciatingly difficult medical crisis.

In this episode, Garfield reads the Modern Love essay “Learning to Measure Time in Love and Loss,” by Chris Huntington. His reading was unlike any other in the history of this show. Mr. Garfield was so moved by Mr. Huntington’s essay that he spoke in a surprisingly raw way with the host Anna Martin about the need for art to crack us all open, including himself.

We want to hear from you! This year is the 20th anniversary of the Modern Love column, and we want to know what impact reading the column has had on you. Has reading Modern Love made a difference in how you think about your own relationships? How? Tell us by leaving a voice mail message at (212) 589-8962‬. Please include your name, hometown and a callback number, and you might hear yourself on a future episode.

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Courtenay Hameister worked hard to stop feeling shame about her body size, but she also had a cruel inner monologue that just wouldn’t leave her alone. At times, her internalized fatphobia was so powerful, she couldn’t think about romance at all. But when Courtenay started dating Jason, everything felt different. He was fat, too, as well as smart, funny, and handsome.

When Courtenay realized she was starting to gain weight again, though, she became obsessed with the idea that other people were judging her and Jason, and she made a decision she would immediately regret.

This episode is adapted from her 2023 essay “Were We the ‘Fat Couple’?”

Leave a message on the Modern Love hotline! This year (2024) is the 20th anniversary of the Modern Love column, and we want to know what impact it has had on you. Has reading Modern Love made a difference in how you think about your own relationships? How? Tell us in a voice mail message at (212) 589-8962‬. Please include your name, location and callback number, and you might hear yourself on a future episode.

How to submit a Modern Love Essay to The New York Times

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On the HBO high finance drama “Industry,” basically everyone serves cruel insults. It’s part of the culture at their bank, Pierpoint. But Myha’la’s character, Harper Stern, goes after friends and enemies with deep, cutting verbal attacks.

Myha’la reads a Modern Love essay by a woman with the opposite problem: Laura Pritchett and her husband have avoided conflict for so long, she writes, that the fights they’re not having are tearing them apart. Myha’la also tells the host, Anna Martin, about the kind of communication style she strives to maintain, and what it’s like when she and her fiancé, Armando Rivera, find themselves in a fight.

The Season 3 finale of “Industry” drops Sunday night on HBO.

Laura Pritchett has written seven novels, including her latest, “Three Keys.”

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How to submit a Modern Love essay to The New York Times

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The actor Gillian Anderson (“The X-Files,” “The Fall,” “Sex Education”) has become an advocate for sexual openness, whether through her on-screen personas, launching a libido-boosting soda brand, attending the Golden Globes in a vulva-embroidered dress or through her new book, “Want: Sexual Fantasies by Anonymous,” which showcases the secret fantasies of anonymous women, curated by Ms. Anderson herself.

Today, Ms. Anderson reads and discusses the Modern Love essay “On Tinder, Off Sex,” which follows a woman who becomes unintentionally celibate after a painful breakup. The author fantasizes about past and potential loves but can’t seem to break out of what her doctor has called “secondary abstinence.” Ms. Anderson tells us about a time she felt similarly, and how a good yoga practice snapped her out of it.

We want to hear from you. Tell us how love is showing up in your own life. Call in at (212) 589-8962‬ with your name, location and story.

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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.’

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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.

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John Paul Brammer writes the “¡Hola Papi!” advice column for The Cut at New York magazine, answering questions like, “Why am I dreaming about sex with a man when I’m a lesbian?” Or, “What if my partner judges me for writing smut?” This candor has given John Paul an intimate connection with his readers. However, as today’s episode reveals, he doesn’t think we necessarily need that level of openness with all of our loved ones.

Ahead of Mother’s Day, Brammer reads an essay about a recent college graduate who sets out to spend the summer exploring his sexuality, but whose plans are derailed by his duty to his grandmother. It’s called “Young, Gay and Single Among the Nuns and Widows” by Kevin Hershey. Brammer says it’s “bizarre” how much this essay resonates with his own life.

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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.

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