Struggle Session is a bonus column where I respond to comments from readers and listeners. I also share a question submitted to Savage Love and let my readers have the first crack at giving the advice.
Wanted to kick things off by highlighting this pearl of wisdom from NoCuteName…
There is no such thing as a moral high road when hashtags get involved.
You can find that pearl a wisdom in a longer comment about MOP, the aggrieved ex who posted a video to TikTok revealing/accusing/exposing his ex as a cheater. Go read the whole thing — it’s worth your time.
Says RedBlonde about the same question…
MOP, I feel for you for what you went through with your ex, but it’s the self-aggrandizement aspect of posting a video and triumphal tone that is off-putting and making people think you don’t need comforting. After all, your ex’s cheating brought you into your #WinningEra, as you say, so you must be doing fine.
I also feel for MOP, which is why pulled my punches. (My initial draft was a little more critical of his actions.) But I’m not so sure MOP is in his #WinningEra just yet. My read: #WinningEra was more aspirational than actual. Here’s hoping MOP is winning more and posting less this summer.
While most of the commenters on Savage.Love were critical of MOP, the comments on Instagram — where I don’t think people actually clicked through to read my response — were much kinder to MOP. Says Leila…
I still feel like my public revealing of my cheating (now ex-) husband was the right thing to do. In the aftermath I learned that MANY mutual friends knew what he was up to (but didn’t warn me), and MANY mutual friends had been as swayed as I was that he was solid gold.
…and Cali.Fornia.Roll was also #TeamMOP…
Your friends should care that your ex hurt you. Your mutual friends should especially care that one of their friends hurt another of their friends. People also deserve to know what kind of person your ex is. Some people just don’t want to hear the truth because it makes them feel guilty for maintaining a friendship with him. This mutual “friend” chose to push that guilt onto you instead of facing it themselves.
Alex’s comment about MOP brought up a personal memory…
I agree that it was a bad idea for LW1 to out their ex on social media, but, unless the ex was trying to run away very fast, fucking the shit out of everyone just after the breakup wasn’t very considerate. However, it’s possible he wanted to make sure LW1 got the message, in a very poor way.
My last big breakup took place shortly after my 30th birthday. I was devastated and convinced I would be alone for the rest of my life — and my ex, with whom I was still living, was also devastated. But while I barely left the apartment for the three months we had left on our lease, he left the apartment every night to hook up with other men. I got the message: he was reminding me that he could have anyone he wanted — and he could (he was gorgeous) — and that dumping him was a big mistake. But the only thing that annoyed me about him sucking a million dicks in the weeks after our breakup was his attempt to weaponize those dicks. I wasn’t upset that he was fucking other guys… I was upset that he was trying to upset me.
That said, we were both sad about the end of our relationship! In fact, he was just as devastated as I was — but he worked through his grief by making getting pounded out by every hot top in town (and making sure I knew about it) and I worked through my grief by refusing to leave the apartment we were still living in together.
Happy ending: the first night I went out after the breakup that convinced me I would be alone for the rest of my life — about a week after my ex moved out of our apartment and took most of the furniture with him (he had every right! it was all his!) — I met Terry. Which means I’ve been in one of those rebound relationships that never work out for 30+ years now.
Which means…
My #WinningEra began with my ex fucking around and making sure I knew about it — and, hey, maybe MOP’s #WinningEra is starting in the exact same way!
Oh, and about that parenthetical statement I made in my response to MOP…
(I’m friends with some of my cheating exes. I’m not friends with any of my crazy exes.)
Full disclosure: While I have remained friends with cheating exes… I am the cheating ex other guys have remained friends with. And while I don’t think I’m anyone’s crazy ex, I can’t rule it out. “My crazy ex” is a subjective judgment and not a clinical diagnoses. So, if there are guys out there who regard me as their crazy (or craziest) ex, then I am their crazy ex. And it should go without saying — and yet here I am saying it — that “cheating ex” and “crazy ex” are not mutually exclusive categories.
Shalma and Ruby and Michael all had great advice for the caller in Episode #1015 who was disappointed when her husband agreed — at her request — to open up their marriage.
According to Lee, a new commenter, young people say they’re “talking to” mean they’re “fucking around with.” Big if true — and would complicate my response to the caller who asked if she’s obligated to disclose that she’s “talking to” more than one guy to each and every guy she’s talking to.
RVApilot shares his story about his wife’s realization that she was asexual, how it impacted their marriage, and the accommodation — the obvious accommodation — that made it possible for them to stay married (to each other) and stay sane.
And BiDanFan has a request for the jilted unicorn at the top of this week’s show..
Clearly, the unicorn needs to make a revenge TikTok on some lush granite. 🙂
And send us the link! (I googled “lush granite” to see if anything came up. Turns out, MOP isn’t the first person to look at granite kitchen countertop and think “luuuuush.”)
K, via email, had some advice for the caller in Episode #1015 who warned us against taking trapeze lessons after a bad breakup…
I wanted to pass along some info for the woman that had a question on your podcast from April 21, 2026 with the tail bone injury. I recently started seeing a counterstrain physical therapist in Portland, OR, who did some work on my tail bone to release the nerves, which actually caused the muscles in my neck and shoulders to relax. It does feel like witchcraft a bit. Since they called from the PNW, I wanted to recommend it, as counterstrain PT is readily available with a lot of practitioners up here. I, personally, go to Core Physical Therapy and can’t recommend them enough.
Says Flo via BlueSky…
It is kinda wild to me that you talked about a bondage study at the top of today’s new episode when this piece was released recently too.
In your last After Action Report, Dan, you mentioned you interviewed Colby Cox. Were you referring to Kolby Falks? His real name was Anthony Cox and he passed away last year. I googled “Colby Cox porn star” and all I could find was references to Kolby Falks. I host a dating podcast and I had Kolby on in 2025, just a month before he passed. Just curious who the Colby Cox you were referring to might be?
I’m a Gen X woman, Dan. I have a really basic question for you that I have wondered about for my entire adult life: Why don’t people (mostly straight men) who say they can’t live without sex just masturbate? Why do they need to bring another person into it? I would get it if what they wanted was closeness and intimacy and a relationship with another person, if only for a little while — but it feels like a lot of men just want to stick their dicks in someone. Anyone. But if you’re not interested in women as human beings, you are not interested in being in relationship with them, and you maybe don’t even LIKE them — as is the case with a lot of men in my experience — what is the point of even bringing an actual woman into it? Why not just jerk off or fuck the couch or something instead?
Baffled In Boston
Got a theory you want to share with BIB? Drop it in the comments…