Nora Johnson had been making weekly visits to older man after he suffered a mild stroke. But he wasn’t just any older man. “We had the worst marriage in the history of human relations," Nora wrote in her 2014 Modern Love essay. “Dysfunctional doesn’t even begin to describe it.”

During her visits, the memories would coming pouring back: the fights, the vacations, the plunging bank account. But Nora’s ex-husband had forgotten all that. He’d even forgotten her. And this blank slate had presented an opportunity.

Today, we listen to Nora’s story about reconnecting with her ex in spite of their painful past. Then, we meet another couple, Margaret Eginton Carmichael and Greg Carmichael, who learned to date again in their sixties.

Only With Distance

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

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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.

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

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.

Esther Perel on What the Other Woman Knows

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.

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

Penn Badgley has made a career out of playing deeply troubled characters. From his role as Joe Goldberg on the Netflix series “You” to Dan Humphrey on “Gossip Girl,” Badgley has shown many times over how obsession and delusion can destroy love.

In his personal life, though, Badgley says he’s not doing too much brooding. He’s a father and a stepfather, and he opens up about the importance of being vulnerable with his kids. Badgley reads “Watching Them Watching Me” by Dean E. Murphy, an essay about a father who can no longer hide his emotions from his sons after they all experience a devastating loss.

How to Be Real With Your Kids

The chef Samin Nosrat lives by the idea that food is love. Her Netflix series, “Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat,” and the James Beard Award-winning cookbook that inspired it, were about using food to build community and forge connections. Since then, all of her creative projects and collaborations have focused on inspiring people to cook, and eat, with their friends and loved ones.

After the recent loss of her father, Samin has gained an even deeper understanding of what it means to savor a meal — or even an hour — with loved ones. This week, she reads an essay about exactly that: “You May Want to Marry My Husband” by Amy Krouse Rosenthal. It’s one of the most-read Modern Love essays ever.

Only With Distance

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