Strawberry Letter

Dear Steve and Shirley, I am a 38 year old single mother of a nine year old son. I love my son with all of my heart and I’ve done the best I can to discipline him and instill great morals and values in him, but he is just terrible. His behavior is the worst of the worst and he may not make it through this quarantine with me. Since he started elementary school, his teachers have said he has a major...

Dear Steve and Shirley, I'm a 45 year old woman and I've finally met Mr. Right, or so I thought. He has a steady job, a nice home and treats me like a queen! We've been dating two years and he recently proposed to me, but there’s just one issue with him that needs to be fixed before I agree to marry him. It’s his language. Steve, I know you are proud of your cussing skills so I need your help. Whe...

Dear Steve and Shirley, I've been dating a man for almost 4 years and I’m trying to do the right thing by not living with him before we are married. I live alone and he shares a house with a guy that he has been friends with forever. My boyfriend has one child that he has joint custody of, but he doesn’t really get along with the child’s mother. I’ve had a few run-ins with his child’s mother, but...

Dear Steve and Shirley, I have dealt with an older guy off and on for about 7 years and he meets all of my physical needs and we enjoy spending time together. He is 60 years old and he’s never been married and he does not have any children. He told me that I’m the only woman he’s ever been with for this long, because he hates it when women get clingy. I think he is my soulmate, but I’m worried abo...

Dear Steve and Shirley, my fiancé and I have been together for 10 months and I just had a baby girl two months ago. My man’s phone is a constant source of arguments for us. He gets so many late-night calls and texts that I’ve started snooping. I never could see anything because he deletes all of his texts and that makes me think he has something to hide. One night recently, he got a text while he...

Dear Steve and Shirley, I am a 57 year old very attractive widow. I started back dating four years ago, after giving myself time to deal with the loss of my husband. Over a year ago, I met a really nice man at a bar and he told me I was gorgeous and he’d love to take me to dinner. We went on our first date and I was hooked! He told me he was looking for a deep sexual connection and whoever he was...

Dear Steve and Shirley, I am a 35-year-old lovely woman and my husband and I are having a dilemma. Four years ago, my husband of 10 years cheated on me with a woman he used to work with and he got her pregnant. He told me about the affair and I was livid, but after the baby was born, I was able to forgive him and move on. A year or so later, I had an affair with a guy that I met at the gym. He was...

Dear Steve and Shirley, I met a guy online 2 years ago and we hit it off pretty good and have great chemistry. We hang out a lot and I’m ready to take the relationship to the next level. I mean the next level, as in sex. We have never been intimate and it’s becoming a problem for me. Whenever we’re alone at my place or his, I have tried to rub up on him or touch him in a way to let him know I need...

Dear Steve and Shirley, I have a problem that I hope you can help me sort out, because I’m really confused. I have had a fiancé for 8 years. She and I have been together since college and we always planned to get married, but we can’t commit to setting a wedding date or planning the wedding. We have been living like a married couple for years. In December of last year, someone at my job got my att...

Dear Steve and Shirley, I’m a black man in my mid-thirties and I’m married to the woman of my dreams. We moved back to my home state a few years back and we joined a great new church. We are friends with several of the young married couples there, but we’re having a problem with one couple in particular. We used to hang out with them and we got really close and would double date with this couple a...

Dear Steve and Shirley, I am a divorced female and I am crushed and lonely without a man in my life. That’s why I’m writing you and that’s my only problem. I am one of those women that doesn’t like to be without a man and someone to lean on when I feel down or when I’m going through things. I was in a tumultuous marriage for about 10 years and I’ve been single for 3 years now. Even though my marri...

Dear Steve and Shirley, I have been married to my lovely wife for 8 years and we have three children. My wife is great and we have a normal marriage and enjoy each spending time with each other. When my wife and I started dating, my siblings loved her, but my mom tolerated her. When we decided to get married, my wife told me that she could tell my mom was not happy about it. I blew it off and thou...

Dear Steve and Shirley, I've been married for 24 years and my marriage started out great. My wife was beautiful and kept herself up and this was what attracted me to her. We started a business together after we got married and it was hugely successful mostly because of my wife’s sacrifices. She started putting the business in front of our family and she neglected a lot of her responsibilities to m...

Dear Steve and Shirley, I'm a 28 year old married man. I’ve been married for two years and it’s been a rocky two years so far. Right after I married my wife, she cheated on me with her ex-boyfriend. I suspected something was going on all along and she finally did admit it to me, but said she was drunk and it only happened once. I forgave her eventually and we’re still together. After it happened,...

Dear Steve and Shirley, I have been married twice and I believe my second husband was the man of my dreams, but I truly didn’t see it at the time. During my second marriage, I got bored with the relationship, even though he was a great man. He had a tendency to be jealous, so I stopped hanging out with my girlfriends to keep the peace at home. After about 3 years of staying home, I decided to star...

Dear Steve and Shirley, I have a problem and I really need advice from the guys on the show, but Ms. Shirley, you can take a stab at it too. I’ve been single for most of my life and I finally figured out why. I’m a 28 year old man, never married, no kids and I own my home. I make really good money and I have a leadership position at my job. My problem is that I’m starting to realize that I’m not t...

Dear Steve and Shirley, I'm a 30 year old married woman and my husband and I have been together for 6 years. We have a 3 year old son and since I had the baby, our intimacy has gotten a little stale. We tried role playing, watching videos and talking dirty to keep the magic going, but nothing helped. A friend suggested we put a full-length mirror next to our bed because it worked for her and her h...

Dear Steve and Shirley, My mother is 70 years old, but she is the new 70s woman. She’s a size 8 and her skin is as smooth as can be and she doesn't have one wrinkle or gray hair in sight. She's a well-known, respected member of our church and she’s active in church ministries. My mother and I have always had a great mom and daughter relationship, until recently. We have been having a lot of proble...

Dear Steve and Shirley, my wife and I have been married for 17 years and have always considered ourselves to be a politically conscious black couple. We are both grads of an HBCU and we have great jobs. Our marriage was always solid and we were die-hard Democrats. We worked hard to get Obama elected for his first and second terms. During President Obama’s second term in office, my wife lost her jo...

Dear Steve and Shirley, I have a real big problem. I'm a 32-year-old single father of two kids and I fell in love with my doctor who's 6 years older than me. We had a loving and caring friendship that grew into a romance. It lasted more than a year and a half. When I found out she was married, it crushed me, but she told me she was leaving her husband. It didn't happen. Eventually, I decided to tr...

Dear Steve and Shirley, my child’s father is a habitual liar. We’ve been dating for three years and he has lied to me about the most stupid stuff. We have almost been evicted because he lied about paying our rent. After I had our son, he told me he bought a ring and was going to propose, but he got in a financial bind and had to return the ring to pay off some debt. He has taken money out of our s...

Dear Steve and Shirley, my husband and I have been married for almost 30 years. We both have professional jobs and we make a good living. My husband is genuinely a good guy but he’s also a big time cheater. The first time he cheated on me, I was pregnant with our oldest child. I forgave him then because I was young and pregnant, but years later, I found out he was still cheating. I let it slide ag...

Dear Steve and Shirley, I'm a 31 year old married woman and I’ve been married for 8 years and we have four kids. In the beginning, our sex life was amazing and our intimate sessions would last for hours. But after four kids, it’s basically non-existent and when we do have sex, it’s terrible and boring. There is no spice in our love life because my husband is tired. It’s just sex and then he goes t...

Dear Steve and Shirley, I'm a 29-year-old black man and I'm sick to death of my racist family. No matter what I do, I am not "black" enough for them and I need your advice on how to handle it. As a youngster, I was interested in the arts, literature, and I preferred classical music and jazz. Their ignorant behinds always said I was “acting too white” and they forced me play sports and listen to hi...

Dear Steve and Shirley, I have an issue with my man and he told me to listen to Steve, so I’m writing for advice. The issue with my guy is that he’s very self-centered and loves himself to death. He is looking at his phone literally all day and he keeps it with him at all times… in the bathroom, while he’s cooking, and by his pillow every night. I’ve asked him several times to let me see his phone...