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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. We'll end the show today with a conversation about regret, and inviting your phone calls. The premise; regret isn't always a bad thing. The question; how have you learned from regret and how have you let it inform your life? 212-433-WNYC.

Why do we ask? Well, a recent article on Vox explores these questions in a really interesting way. It takes insights from the story of a couple who divorced in their 20s and then reunited more than 30 years later, amid their regrets. "Forming a healthy relationship with regret means learning to look it in the face", the piece reads. Regret can "clarify a disconnect between who we are and who we want to be, and it can show us how to change."

The piece is called What You Can Learn From Regret, and its author, Charley Locke, joins me now. Charley Locke is a freelance writer who often focuses on youth, and also focuses on elders, whole lifespan. Charley, welcome back to WNYC.

Charley Locke: Hi, Brian. Thanks for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we invite you in. How have you learned from regret? Who has a story? How have you let it grow or mature in your relationships, your work life, or anywhere else in your life? 212-433-WNYC. Who has a story about learning from regret? 212-433-9692.

Charley, for most of our listeners who haven't seen your article, you take some lessons about regret from the 50-year story of this relationship. Shortly after Peter and Shauna Leighton got married, Peter picked his bags and moved out of their home in San Antonio, Texas, when they were in their 20s. How did their marriage fall apart? Maybe start there.

Charley Locke: Sure. Their marriage fell apart for reasons that I think are familiar to most people who've been in committed relationships. There were problems around money, around how they should spend their time. One of the big issues was they bought a car that turned out to be a dud, and they just didn't really know how to work through these issues and be honest and vulnerable with each other. They couldn't really be upfront with each other about what they were feeling and what was going on. It just fell apart from there.

Brian Lehrer: They were apart for more than 30 years. How did regret over the divorce from so long ago feature in their lives in this long period apart?

Charley Locke: Both of them talked really eloquently to me about how they felt a really enduring sense of regret through the time in between as they both got remarried to different people and had children and built lives apart, but really wondered "what if" and felt that each other had been the great loves of their life., and wondered really, "If I had been vulnerable, if I had tried to make it work, what would my life look like now?" That thought really stuck with each of them.

Brian Lehrer: We'll come back to Peter and Shauna Leighton in a little bit. What does their story reveal more generally about how people experience regret and what causes it?

Charley Locke: I think a huge issue for everyone is that there's such a taboo around owning up to regret and being honest about it, both with other people and also with ourselves. We really live in a culture where the tagline, "No regrets." A lot of people live with that. There's a real taboo around admitting that you wish you had done things differently, that you're imperfect and you've made mistakes you wish you hadn't. I think that having those regrets, but not being able to talk about it prevents people from acting on it. We can't change the past, but we can really use those regrets to change how we act in the present. Peter and Shauna really felt that, but felt like they couldn't be honest with each other about it, and then later were able to use that regret to shape what their lives look like now.

Brian Lehrer: I guess it's such a taboo or people so talk themselves out of having regrets that we haven't gotten any calls, which is like unbelievable because usually-

Charley Locke: Oh, interesting.

Brian Lehrer: -in this last segment of the show, we do something that's personal in this way on a lot of days, and our lines are always slammed and jammed and so far, no calls. We only have one text message. What does the text message say? "No regrets" with a wink emoji. [laughs]

Listeners, we will ask you again, and I'm just going to lay it out the same way I did at the top of the segment. The premise, regret isn't always a bad thing. The question, how have you learned from regret and how has it informed your life in a good way? Any aspect of your life, your love life, your work life, anything else.

212-433-WNYC, who has a story that you want to share and that maybe other listeners can learn from. 212-433-9692, call or text as we continue with Charley Locke, who has the piece on Vox called What You Can Learn From Regret. Here they come, five lines are lit, six lines are lit.

Charley Locke: [laughs] Good.

Brian Lehrer: We'll screen some calls and get them on. Meanwhile, here's a text that just came in as well. This says, "79 years old and can't seem to overcome so many regrets, especially because so many people have died." I guess so many people they knew and maybe had regrets concerning, I guess. It says they have moved beyond overcoming. There's the other side of this, maybe the more common side of having regrets.

Charley Locke: Yes. I think it's really hard to reckon with this and think about how it can fit into your life today. Especially when we can never change what we did, and it's especially hard to rectify what we did when people we feel those regrets about are no longer with us. I think that you can still think about those regrets and, as the texter seems to have done, reckon with it and use it to inform how you live now.

Brian Lehrer: Now all our lines are full. Let's take Beth from Brooklyn as our first caller. Sometimes people just need a little nudge. Beth, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Beth: Hi, Brian. Thanks for taking my call. I was laughing that no one wanted to talk about regret. I was in a eight-year relationship and couldn't say what I wanted, much like the relationship you were talking about earlier. I cheated to get out of it. My biggest takeaway from that was like, "God, I wish I didn't treat him that way." I felt horrible. I used it to inform my life literally forever. It changed me. I always think, how would I want to be treated?

I have a lot of respect for regret now. I don't have that regret. I understand why I do what I did now. I love the fuel that it became for me to be a better person. I'm not as afraid of regret because I see the benefit of the reckoning that you were just talking about.

Brian Lehrer: Nicely put. Did you say you cheated to get out of the relationship?

Beth: Yes. I was like, "I'll just burn it down. This seems like a good way to get out of this."

Brian Lehrer: You had an affair and you told them?

Beth: Yes, yes. It seemed like a viable option. I don't know how to talk about my feelings so I'll do this.

Brian Lehrer: Then you could say, "You broke up with me, I didn't break up with you." Thank you.

Beth: Yes. It was an option and I was like, "Ooh, that's not an option I want to participate in anymore. Ooh, that was a bad option. Ugh." Don't want to be that person.

Brian Lehrer: Beth, thank you very much. Even if we don't take another call, that was such a great story, Charley, right?

Charley Locke: Yes, absolutely. I think that Beth's story is a great example of example how you can really regret an action and in her case cheating, but you can also really learn from that and think about that as, "Wow, that relationship really wasn't working for me, but I felt afraid of taking on the responsibility of ending it. How can that shape relationships now and relationships going forward." What does that teach Beth about herself?

Brian Lehrer: Here's a caller who I think has a story similar to the one you reported on. Robert in Newark, you are on WNYC. Hi Robert. Hi Robert.

Robert: Hi there, Brian. How are you?

Brian Lehrer: Good.

Robert: Good. This story is so much my story. I met my wife in college and we fell in love and got married. Actually, we lived together for a while and got married. The subject of childbirth came up and I was just embarking on a career. As opposed to having that conversation with her, I took the coward's way out and just ghosted her, just left. I really felt bad, but not bad enough to do anything about it for maybe three or four years.

Then I got a moment of clarity and I went on this amazing apology tour to all the people and women, for the most part, that I wronged. I went to her and explained to her my situation, but she was pregnant with someone else's child, and eventually got married to this person, and I remarried. Then 35 years later, her husband passed away, and her friend said, you might want to give Jill a call. I gave her a call. We've been together now for the last five years.

Brian Lehrer: Wow. That was an amazing story.

Robert: Regret shaped my understanding about relationships. As a man, we usually don't want to confront our feelings, so we take the cowards way out, and we run. It really gave me clarity.

Brian Lehrer: Another beautiful call. How many people can say that in their lives, whether they should have or not, that they ever went on an apology tour the way that you put it, so Robert, thank you so much for sharing that. That was remarkable. Charley, in the story that you reported on for Vox, how did that couple Peter and Shauna get back together more than 30 years after their divorce?

Charley Locke: Yes, that's so wonderful to hear that story from Robert too. I'm curious how many experiences like that are out there. Peter and Shauna got back together in their 50s, so over 30 years later when Shauna just typed Peter's name into Google and found his photography website and reached out, and they got coffee. They were both living in Austin then and were honest with each other about talking about what had happened between them. Peter said to Shauna, "You were the great love of my life."

A few weeks after that, after reaching out of the blue, they were dating again, and they've now been married for something like 15 years again, happily together again. For them, a lot of it was being honest and vulnerable about mistakes with each other in a way that they hadn't been able to be honest and vulnerable about that in their 20s.

Brian Lehrer: Here's somebody who has a professional life regret that she learned from- Susan, in Oakland in California. You're on WNYC. Hi, Susan.

Susan: Hi. I'm 83. I began my career after graduating from college in 1962. This is about a career path that went from the '60s to the '90s. I don't know whether it was because I was a woman or it was a time, but whatever it was, I just felt that I was good, and they were going to come find me to promote me. That was that. That's the way I went my entire career, and I did not realize it, no, if you want something, you need to be aggressive about it and ask for it. I'll never regret that. I will regret it. Sorry. I will always regret

Brian Lehrer: Yes, you will regret that. Yes, and have you passed that on to women in younger generations or anything like that?

Susan: Yes, particularly my daughter.

Brian Lehrer: That's a good place to start.

Susan: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Susan.

Susan: No, I don't talk about it a lot, but I have talked to her about it.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you. Thank you very much for that. The research scientist you interviewed for your article, Charley, who studies regret, what were some of the most common types of regret that they talked about outside love relationships? There's Susan with a professional life example.

Charley Locke: Absolutely. One of the social scientists I talked to said that the most common types of regret are usually from career and from romance, and that as people get older into their 60s and 70s, often regrets come up around family and around health too. That career, and especially romantic regret, stay really at the top of the list throughout life.

Brian Lehrer: You write that- thinking about Robert, the previous caller from Newark- that the first step toward coming to terms with your regrets is owning up to them. Maybe that's the biggest takeaway from this whole conversation. If people want to be able to learn from their regrets in the future, to look them in the eye rather than bury them and then maybe something good can come of it?

Charley Locke: Yes, absolutely. You have to be honest. If you want to get better about something, you have to be honest about making mistakes now. That's the only way to change your outlook today and tomorrow.

Brian Lehrer: Here's a different kind of family regret, I think, from Joanne in Edison. Joanne, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in.

Joanne: Hi, Brian. Thank you. It's my birthday, so I feel even more special to be on the show.

Brian Lehrer: Happy birthday to you [singing].

Joanne: Yes. 63 [laughs]. Anyway-

Brian Lehrer: I wasn't going to ask.

Joanne: -my mom passed-- Well, I could be 36 if we reverse it. Anyway, so 12 years ago my mom passed, one of seven, you know what I mean? Kids. I am Irish Catholic. My older brother, oldest in the family, wanted a share and my sister was living there, and she couldn't afford to do it. My youngest brother, they're 15 years apart, decided I didn't want my share, Brian. I didn't want it. I didn't need it. My regret is that I took out my youngest brother who hasn't spoken to me in seven years and, said, "How dare you just put the house in her name, arbitrarily, illegally, unethically." Yet to this day, my oldest brother does not speak to me for three years because I took back those really unkind words to the youngest, even though Timothy has not spoken to me.

My regret, Brian, is why did I even get involved? I didn't want a share. I knew my mom wanted that house to stay with whoever needed to live there.

Brian Lehrer: Joanne, we're going to end the segment with one more piece of advice from Charley's article that might apply to you. That is, remember to give yourself grace. Remember to give yourself grace. Charley, maybe that's where we should leave it.

Charley Locke: Yes, absolutely.

Brian Lehrer: You can find Charley Locke's essay what you can learn from regret at fox.com. Thank you so much for joining us with it. Started some really good conversations.

Charley Locke: Thanks for having me.

Brian Lehrer: That's the Brian Lehrer show for today. Produced by MaryEileen Croke, Lisa Allison, Amina Srna, Carl Boisrond, and Esperanza Rosenbaum, Zach Gottehrer-Cohen edits our National Politics podcast. Our intern, this term, is Ethlyn Daniel-Scherz. Megan Ryan is the head of Live Radio, Juliana Fonda and Milton Ruiz at the audio controls. I'm Brian Lehrer. Stay tuned for Alison.

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