0:03

Based on my own experience

0:05

with kind of the small-scale regrets like I

0:07

was talking about of, you know, oh, I

0:09

wish I hadn't said that thing or hadn't

0:12

done this thing or had reached out to

0:14

this person or like those sorts of little

0:17

smaller decisions rather than those big life path

0:19

ones. But just looking at those, I

0:21

feel like, yeah, positive in the sense

0:23

of, gosh, I really regretted

0:26

that. I'm in that situation

0:28

or a similar situation. I'll remember

0:30

that I regretted that and

0:32

that'll help me to make a different decision in

0:34

a similar situation in the future. However,

0:37

I feel like the negative is when it

0:39

turns into ruminating on those things when I'm

0:42

not in those situations and not being able

0:44

to let go of that. So

0:46

in that case, it's like, yeah, it's

0:48

not like I want to say have

0:51

no regret, but I would like to

0:53

just have regret less constantly as background

0:55

noise all the time. Welcome

0:58

to the Multiamory podcast. I'm

1:01

Jace. I'm Emily. And

1:03

I'm Dedeker. We believe in looking to

1:05

the future of relationships, not

1:07

maintaining the status quo of the past.

1:10

Whether you're monogamous, polyamorous,

1:12

swinging, casually dating, or if

1:15

you just do relationships differently, we see

1:17

you and we're here for you. On

1:21

this episode of

1:23

the Multiamory podcast,

1:28

we're talking

1:30

about regret.

1:39

Regret often gets a bad

1:42

rap as this useless negative

1:44

emotion, but psychology research actually

1:46

shows regret can help us

1:48

gain insight, motivation, and direction.

1:51

So today we'll be diving into different

1:53

types of regret, how regret

1:56

influences our relationship choices, and

1:58

most importantly, how we can use our

2:01

regrets to make positive changes in our

2:03

lives. Yeah, so the

2:05

question that I wrote down for us to

2:07

start our discussion with was like, do y'all

2:09

fuck with regret? Like is

2:12

that like where does that where does regret

2:15

fall in your emotional inventory if

2:17

that question makes sense? Hmm,

2:21

so a few weeks ago when

2:23

Emily and I were doing our

2:25

interview with Avita Sawyer's

2:28

and at one point she said, yeah, like

2:30

something that I just don't really experience much

2:32

in my life is regret over

2:34

things. And we just kind of

2:36

went on and talked about other stuff but as soon as she

2:38

said it my immediate thought was, oh well

2:41

don't worry I've got that covered for

2:43

both of us. So

2:45

do I fuck with it? Yes, very much so.

2:48

Yeah. I don't think

2:50

I always fuck with it in the

2:52

most constructive helpful way. Sometimes

2:54

maybe and that's what we're going to be exploring

2:56

in this episode. But yeah,

2:58

definitely something I experience a lot of. I

3:01

think in the conventional sense

3:04

of regret where it's this

3:06

thing that haunts you over

3:08

and over again and

3:10

you keep coming back to what if I

3:12

just did that thing, I would

3:14

say that doesn't really come

3:17

into my life that often except

3:20

for kind of big

3:22

pivots or life changes

3:24

that my life trajectory could

3:27

have gone one way or the other. Sometimes it's

3:29

not so much regret as it is what if.

3:32

It's like just an exercise

3:34

in what a multiversal

3:37

me, there may be off doing

3:39

a different thing had I made

3:41

a different decision in that moment

3:43

or not. I think we'll

3:45

get into that a little bit more but that's kind

3:47

of where regret lies

3:49

in my life. Not necessarily

3:51

that I made the wrong choice but just

3:53

what would my life look like if

3:56

I had made this different choice. The big

3:59

one for me. is I

4:01

had this opportunity right after I

4:03

graduated college to either move

4:05

to New York or move to LA.

4:08

And I thought my whole life, not

4:10

my whole life, but for my

4:12

teens, my young adolescents through my

4:15

college career that I really, really, really thought

4:17

that I was going to move to New

4:19

York. And then I got an agent in

4:21

LA and I moved to LA. And

4:24

I would have never have met the two of

4:26

you. I would have

4:28

never embarked in multi-emory or all of

4:30

the amazing things that have come from

4:32

that in my life. But

4:35

I also am like, shit, what would I have done though in

4:37

New York? And that would have been

4:39

cool. I wish I could experience both,

4:43

both different diverging paths,

4:46

but I can't alas. Wow.

4:48

Yeah. That's funny because,

4:51

yeah, I don't always, I wouldn't

4:53

list this as like a major regret necessarily.

4:56

I have other regrets, but like, yeah,

4:58

the first year that I moved to

5:00

Los Angeles, I like really killed it

5:02

at a Disney audition and had the

5:04

opportunity potentially to go be a Disney princess

5:06

in Paris at Euro Disney. Oh shit. And

5:09

I turned it down. And I turned it

5:11

down for a really,

5:13

really inappropriate reason.

5:16

It was a stupid reason. It was a dumb reason.

5:18

Like, I should not have turned down that opportunity. Like,

5:21

I don't even want to talk about why. The important

5:23

part is that I turned it down. But

5:25

it's kind of the same thing where my brain goes

5:27

that like, okay, yeah, that could have really set

5:30

my life off in a very different trajectory, but

5:33

that maybe means I wouldn't have the life that

5:35

I have now and

5:37

the relationships that I have now. And

5:40

so, yeah, like the way that

5:42

Cheryl Strayed puts it, I think in one of her

5:45

columns, she said that we're

5:47

always going to have this ghost

5:49

ship of another life kind

5:52

of floating along beside us all the time.

5:54

We're always going to be aware of that,

5:56

of these different branching pathways. Now

5:59

because of that... I, for myself,

6:01

I'm someone who for a long time identified

6:03

as someone who didn't feel any regrets

6:05

whatsoever. Wow, really? Yeah.

6:08

I mean, sure, I can regret things that I

6:10

did that were wrong or mean or

6:12

stuff like that. But as far as

6:14

life choices, most of the time I

6:17

don't feel a ton of regret. And I think that really

6:19

directly has to do with the fact that I'm pretty happy

6:21

with the way that my life has turned out now. And

6:24

so I don't spend a lot of time wondering, why

6:27

didn't I do this? Why didn't I do that? I could have

6:29

made this choice. In

6:31

more recent years, as I've gotten older, I've

6:33

accumulated more regrets and I don't

6:36

know why that is

6:38

necessarily. Interesting. Yes. Yeah.

6:41

Interesting. Yeah. No,

6:43

I guess I'm thinking more of the ones that

6:45

I experience are more of those smaller scale regrets,

6:47

not about those big branching life

6:50

paths or whatever. Because

6:52

even at times when things haven't been going

6:54

well for me in my life or I've

6:56

been upset or whatever, just not

6:58

feeling good, I've still always

7:00

kind of had that sense of, well,

7:03

yeah, but also there are parts of

7:05

me that have gotten stronger

7:07

or learned things. And

7:09

I got those this way. And so I

7:12

haven't often had that regret of I could

7:14

have taken this totally other path. And I

7:16

think part of that is also holding on

7:18

to that idea that those doors

7:20

aren't closed closed. Like,

7:23

sure, maybe I couldn't do quite the same

7:25

thing that I could have if I pursued

7:28

something entirely different 20 years ago. But

7:31

it's not like, oh, I'm stuck in

7:33

this life where I feel like I

7:35

have no power to make any changes or do anything

7:38

different. And I think if I did feel more like

7:40

that, it would be much easier to

7:42

have those feelings of regret. Sure. Of

7:45

a big time life decision regret. That

7:47

makes sense. So we're

7:50

going to dive into these

7:52

different flavors of regret a little bit

7:55

more specifically. There's some really interesting research

7:57

that I think helps add some more

7:59

detail. and color and nuance into

8:01

this conversation. I started

8:03

writing this episode because I listened to a

8:05

TED Talk last year by author

8:07

Daniel Pink and we're going to

8:09

get more into his work a

8:12

little bit later in the episode but I really

8:14

like the way that he

8:17

describes and defines regret. So

8:20

I pulled this quote from an

8:22

interview that he did for behavioralscientist.org.

8:24

So Pink says regret is

8:26

an emotion. It's a negative

8:29

emotion in that it's an emotion that makes

8:31

us feel worse not better and

8:33

it's an emotion that's triggered when we think

8:35

of something from our past and wish we

8:37

had done something differently, done something

8:39

in a different way, not done

8:41

something, taken an action, not taken

8:43

an action. It's incredibly cognitively complex

8:46

because it requires mental time travel.

8:48

You have to get in a

8:50

time machine in your head and

8:52

travel back to the past. Then

8:54

you have to imagine the counterfactual to

8:57

what really happened and then get back

8:59

in your time machine, come back to

9:01

present day and see the present day

9:03

reconfigured because of the decision you made.

9:06

That sounds like a pretty big ask

9:08

and pretty impossible truly

9:10

until really be able to

9:13

comprehend maybe the enormity

9:15

of the change that may

9:17

or may not happen in

9:19

our lives because of one

9:21

single decision. Yeah, boy, I love

9:23

time travel stories though. So I do

9:26

kind of want to spend more time

9:28

on that but maybe we'll do a

9:30

future episode on time travel or something.

9:33

Yeah, I don't know. I like it. To me,

9:36

it makes me feel proud of us as

9:38

a species that our brains have evolved to this

9:40

level of complexity that we can do

9:42

this these weird twisty-turny time traveling modes

9:45

of thought even though it

9:47

seems like it bums us out more often and

9:49

makes us feel good. But I'm proud of us.

9:51

You know, I'm proud of our brains. Sure, sure.

9:55

Well, let's dive into some of

9:57

the research on regret and what

10:00

the science says. So first

10:02

we have a study called

10:04

Praise for Regret. People value

10:06

regret above other negative emotions

10:09

by Colleen Safry, Amy

10:11

Somerville, and Neil J. Roos. This

10:14

was published in 2008 in

10:16

the journal Motivation and Emotion.

10:19

The findings were from two

10:21

different self-reported surveys measuring people's

10:23

perceptions of emotions and they

10:25

found that people see regret

10:28

as more useful and favorable

10:30

than other negative emotions. And

10:32

regret is believed to help

10:35

with sense-making, motivating future behavior,

10:38

gaining self-insight and social

10:40

harmony better than other

10:42

negative emotions such as

10:44

anger, fear, guilt, jealousy,

10:46

sadness, etc. Interestingly, people

10:49

believe they experience more

10:51

regret than others showing

10:53

a self-serving bias. Can

10:55

you talk a little bit more about that, Dedeker? Well,

10:58

I just think it's interesting. Recently,

11:01

I've been thinking a lot about this

11:03

concept known as pluralistic ignorance. I would

11:05

love to somehow make an episode all

11:07

about that. I still got to think

11:09

about what the angle on it would be.

11:11

But pluralistic ignorance is

11:13

this idea that we

11:16

perceive that the people around us feel

11:18

a particular way and therefore

11:20

we think if we feel differently that we

11:23

must be the odd one out, there must

11:25

be something wrong with us or our opinion

11:27

or something like that.

11:29

And so that's how we end up going

11:32

along with things or maybe not speaking up

11:34

about things because we assume that

11:37

everyone else must be thinking the same way or

11:39

must be different from how I'm thinking. And

11:42

in many situations, the truth

11:44

is the opposite, that everyone

11:46

is suffering from that same bias of thinking,

11:48

for instance, that, oh, other people feel less

11:50

regret than I do, I'm the one who

11:52

feels the most regret or other

11:54

people really love this film and I hated

11:57

this film, but I guess I'm going to

11:59

keep going. quiet about it among my friends, even

12:01

though the reality may be that a lot of your friends

12:03

really didn't like it, but they assumed that everyone

12:05

else loved it, right? So

12:07

that's what I think is really interesting

12:09

about this is that it seems that we

12:11

tend to feel like I have

12:14

more regrets than everybody else does. I

12:17

guess because no one talks about them that much

12:19

or that secret. Perhaps. Perhaps.

12:22

Maybe that's a little, maybe, I mean, I

12:24

guess that that's pretty vulnerable stuff to share.

12:27

For sure. Additionally, the

12:29

findings show that people value

12:31

regret and see it as

12:34

psychologically beneficial despite assumptions that

12:36

regret is this undesirable emotion.

12:39

I kind of like that idea because

12:41

I think all of us

12:43

are told, you know, oh, you

12:46

should regret nothing or have no regrets. You

12:48

know, that's a thing a lot of people

12:50

are told. But if you can see it

12:52

as potentially beneficial in your life that, hey,

12:54

I'm going to do better next time or

12:56

I'm going to choose a better path

12:58

for myself or see it as motivational,

13:01

maybe that can be a good thing. Yeah.

13:04

Well, so I really wanted to dive into

13:06

this idea. It feels like one of

13:08

the main findings was that regret

13:10

is considered a negative emotion and yet people

13:13

find that it's useful or maybe

13:15

that it's productive. And

13:17

I wanted to get your take on that. Do we

13:19

think that regret can be productive or

13:21

useful? Do we think there's types of

13:23

regret that can be unproductive or less

13:25

useful? Based on my

13:28

own experience with kind of the small scale

13:30

regrets like I was talking about of, you

13:32

know, oh, I wish I hadn't said

13:34

that thing or hadn't done this thing or had

13:36

reached out to this person or like those sorts

13:38

of little smaller decisions rather than

13:41

those big life path ones. But just looking at

13:43

those, I feel like, yeah,

13:45

positive in the sense of, gosh,

13:48

I really regretted that. I'm

13:50

in that situation or a similar

13:52

situation. I'll remember that I regretted

13:54

that and that'll help me to

13:56

make a different decision in a similar situation in

13:58

the future. However, I feel

14:01

like the negative is when it turns into

14:03

ruminating on those things when I'm not in

14:05

those situations And not being able to let

14:07

go of that so in

14:10

that case. It's like yeah It's not

14:12

like I want to say have no regret, but

14:14

I would like to just have regret less Constantly

14:17

as background noise all the time Hmm.

14:20

I'm sorry, Joe. I know I'm

14:22

making it sound really serious. It's not like a horrible

14:25

debilitating Affliction that I have

14:27

with feeling regret all the time, but just

14:29

yeah in general can get caught in those

14:32

Cycles of thinking about how I could have

14:34

done a situation differently or off I wish

14:36

I'd said this thing or I wish

14:38

I had stood up to those bullies in Second

14:42

grade when my brother and I first moved

14:44

to a different city When they

14:46

were picking on him and I was too scared and didn't

14:48

do anything about it. It's like Stuff

14:50

like that that still haunts me to this day

14:52

Well, and I was nine or eight. I don't

14:54

know how old you are in second grade whatever

14:56

age Yeah,

14:58

I think regret is Unproductive

15:01

when there's really nothing

15:03

that can be done about it or

15:06

even in the moment. There's nothing that

15:08

could have Potentially been done about it

15:10

or it was just maybe a split-second

15:12

decision That at

15:14

the time you thought would have no

15:16

consequence and then ultimately ended up having

15:19

some sort of consequence But you know,

15:21

you couldn't have known that in the

15:23

moment I think all

15:25

of those things it is tough because

15:27

perhaps we could have done something different

15:30

but we didn't know that at the time and we

15:32

just sort of have to live with that and You

15:35

know life could have gone in this one way or

15:37

the other and that's just not

15:39

really Productive to dwell on

15:42

that perhaps it is productive when we

15:44

realize hey I hurt someone in this

15:46

moment and I regret doing that and

15:48

I'm going to endeavor to not do

15:50

that again in a similar Situation

15:52

like that I think can be really

15:54

productive when the way in which we

15:57

act and interact with others can be

15:59

changed basically on making a different

16:01

decision in the moment because

16:03

of knowledge that we had

16:05

when we did something that maybe

16:07

was less than ethical or less

16:10

than kind. Going along

16:12

with the ethics piece, something that I

16:15

don't know of any research about but

16:17

could be interesting is if regret

16:20

might have any piece in

16:23

actually kind of weakening some of

16:26

our dogmatic beliefs. Because

16:28

I feel like for a lot of people,

16:30

certain kind of key pivotal decisions in their

16:32

life, maybe they have some kind of moral

16:34

compass, whether that comes from a religion or

16:36

their upbringing

16:38

or something, whether that's

16:41

always put family first or

16:44

always tell the truth or always stand up

16:46

for the little guy or whatever it is,

16:48

some kind of axiom that we just go,

16:51

oh, always this, right? Or like

16:53

in non-monogamy, maybe it's

16:55

like always tell my

16:57

partner about everything that happens or

16:59

something like that. And maybe

17:01

most of the time, those work and

17:04

sometimes we can just plow ahead making

17:06

decisions based on those and going, oh,

17:08

well, I decided on this belief. So

17:10

anytime I do this belief, I'm doing

17:12

the right thing. And

17:15

I wonder if those situations that

17:17

sometimes come up where actually

17:19

I kind of ended up hurting someone more

17:21

by just sticking with this belief instead

17:23

of evaluating a situation or

17:25

really asking for what was the right thing

17:28

to do in that situation, that maybe that

17:30

regret might actually help

17:32

to weaken some of that dogma

17:35

that we could hold on to in those beliefs. That's

17:38

all speculation though, I don't know. This

17:40

whole conversation reminds me a lot of our

17:42

episodes that we did on shame, which was

17:44

way back in 281 and 282 because

17:47

I do think that there's an

17:50

argument to be made here that maybe

17:52

shame is a particular piece of regret and

17:54

shame in itself can be either productive or

17:56

unproductive in getting us to have a different

17:59

perspective on a situation. situation or changing our

18:01

beliefs about a situation or changing

18:03

the way that we want to

18:05

move forward. So

18:07

next up we have another study here that's called

18:10

Life Regrets and the Need to

18:12

Belong. This is by Morrison, Eppstude,

18:14

and Ross again, published in

18:16

2012 in the

18:19

Social Psychology and Personality Science

18:21

Journal. So this one was similar

18:23

to the last one, a combination of

18:25

a few different studies. This one was

18:27

actually five different studies with different methodologies

18:29

that they used to get this. But

18:32

some of the key things they found here was

18:35

that regrets involving primarily

18:37

social relationships, so like

18:39

romance, family, are

18:42

felt more intensely than less

18:44

socially based regrets, like

18:46

work and education, like I wish

18:48

I'd taken that job or something.

18:50

For example, regret over a lost

18:53

love or regret over a fight

18:55

with a family member is felt

18:57

a lot more heavily than a

18:59

lost job opportunity or not taking

19:01

a certain job, something like that.

19:04

Also the social impact of

19:06

regret corresponded to its intensity,

19:08

which makes sense. If there's

19:10

a larger social impact involved

19:12

in that decision that you

19:14

regret, that corresponds with a

19:16

lot more intensity of that

19:18

feeling of regret as well.

19:20

The need to belong is

19:22

a really core component of

19:24

regret and that threat to

19:26

belonging predicted regret intensity with

19:29

love and with work regrets.

19:31

So feeling like that cost you some

19:33

sort of belonging is going to make

19:35

that much more significant. And

19:38

individual differences in

19:40

that need to belong also had

19:42

a correlation with how

19:44

intensely they felt that regret. So for

19:46

example, some people might feel a more

19:49

acute need to belong than others, which

19:51

makes them more likely to feel intense

19:53

regret in a situation that had some

19:55

kind of social impacts or made them

19:57

feel like they didn't belong or

20:00

broke some sort of social cohesion there.

20:02

I think this study is interesting because

20:04

it's looking at it from sort of

20:06

a different angle than the last one.

20:08

And this one seems to imply that

20:10

regret may have been something

20:12

that we developed specifically to help us

20:14

have better social interactions, which

20:16

sounds useful. Yeah, this

20:19

confirms my hypothesis that shame might

20:21

be a component of regret

20:23

because shame is also a very socially

20:25

based emotion. It's all about what other

20:27

people think of us. Yeah. It

20:30

kind of could have evolved to make

20:32

it so that we're just like more conscious

20:34

of our social ties because that was very

20:36

directly tied to our survival. And

20:39

maybe the same with regret. It's really

20:41

interesting to me that regret over

20:43

a lost love or a fight

20:45

with a family member is felt

20:47

more heavily than a lost job

20:49

opportunity because one of those

20:51

things implies that more

20:53

than one person is affected rather

20:56

than like a lost job opportunity.

20:58

That kind of just affects me

21:00

personally. But if you get in

21:02

a fight with a family member or a friend

21:05

that maybe means that you aren't

21:07

going to be in relationship with one another

21:09

anymore, that can affect far more

21:11

people. And so that's felt more heavily. Yeah,

21:14

that makes sense. Yeah. When

21:16

we did that episode a while back

21:18

now about that really long running 80

21:20

year Harvard study

21:23

about happiness and wellbeing, that

21:25

was something that came up in that more

21:28

in terms of what people look back on

21:30

and being happy about is the good things

21:32

they did in their relationships more than the

21:34

good things they did in their

21:36

job or their career or with money. And

21:39

so it's interesting to see that this regret

21:41

piece matches that, that this regret might also

21:43

be pushing us to make more

21:46

pro-social decisions, which in the long run

21:48

will also benefit our wellbeing. So

21:50

that's cool, I guess. That's a positive way

21:53

to look at it. Let's talk

21:55

about what the science has to say also about

21:57

regret and how it specifically

21:59

affects relationships. So

22:02

I found this study called Sex

22:04

Differences in Regret, All for Love

22:06

or Some for Lust, which

22:08

is all the by... Jason,

22:15

I really jammed on that song during the pandemic,

22:18

I gotta say. It's good.

22:20

It's good. From the Three Musketeers

22:22

movie. Yes. So

22:24

this All for Love or

22:26

Some for Lust study was by Rose

22:28

Pennington Coleman, Janiki, Lee, and Kenric,

22:30

published in 2006 in

22:32

the journal Personality and Social

22:34

Psychology Bulletin. So they were

22:37

looking to find if there

22:39

are differences in what men and women

22:41

experience regret over. Bear

22:44

in mind, this study was all the way back in

22:46

ancient history, 2006. So they were only focusing

22:50

on cis people, no non-binary

22:52

people or trans people, or at least they

22:54

didn't disclose that if that was the case.

22:57

So that's why we're kind of operating

22:59

on a strict gender binary in this

23:01

particular study. But mainly they found that

23:04

the areas of romance and sex are

23:06

where men and women tend to differ

23:08

in their regrets, as opposed to, I

23:11

think they were asking people about family

23:13

regrets or job regrets or school performance

23:15

regrets. But people tended to be very

23:17

similar, but romance and sex is where

23:20

they diverged. So men are more

23:22

likely to have regrets of

23:25

inaction and women

23:27

are just as

23:29

likely to have regrets of both

23:31

action and inaction. To clarify this,

23:34

examples of action regrets include

23:36

things like, I should have broken

23:38

up with this person sooner, or

23:41

I shouldn't have had sex with this person.

23:44

And examples of inaction regrets

23:46

are things like, I

23:48

wish that I had dated more people,

23:51

or I should have tried harder to

23:53

sleep with this person, or I wish

23:55

that I'd tried harder to keep contact

23:57

with this particular friend. Men

24:00

are more likely to feel those inaction

24:02

regrets like, oh, I should have gone

24:04

for it. I should have shot my

24:06

shot. And

24:09

women will experience those type of regrets as

24:11

well, but they'll also experience more of the

24:13

action, like regrets over their own actions as

24:15

well when it comes to romance and sex.

24:18

Now, men regret nothing about the

24:21

actions that they take apparently. But

24:23

the actions that they performed are

24:25

all perfect. So

24:28

especially looking at these inaction regrets, it

24:30

made me think of this show, this

24:32

Japanese show. I've only watched

24:34

an episode or two of it, so I can't give you

24:36

a full review, but it's on Netflix. So the

24:39

Japanese title of the show is

24:41

Yaretakomo Iinkai. The very unwieldy

24:44

English translation they have given to the

24:46

show is the Could Have Gone All

24:48

The Way committee. So... Love that. Love

24:51

that. If it's still on Netflix, go check it

24:53

out. But the whole premise of the show, I

24:56

guess I would call it magical realism, the whole

24:58

premise of the show is that you go

25:01

before, like every episode, there's

25:03

a character who goes before a

25:05

panel of experts. Oh, wow. And

25:08

this person will describe a situation from

25:10

their past where when they look back

25:12

on it, they're like, maybe I

25:14

could have slept with this person. I don't know. I'm

25:16

not sure if I was reading the room right or... Is it all about

25:18

the situation? Is it all about the situation was right? What? It's...

25:22

Yeah, Yaretakomo is literally like you could

25:24

have done it. So yeah, it's like

25:26

it. Got it. Okay. I

25:29

didn't realize it was that kind of... That kind of yareu. Yes.

25:32

Okay. Yes. And

25:34

so it's like people present their case. This is the situation. This

25:36

is how old I was. This is what

25:38

the other person did or said. And then

25:41

the committee discusses it and then comes to

25:43

a conclusion about whether or not... Yeah,

25:45

you totally could have done it or no, you probably couldn't

25:47

have done it. And then what? Absolutely.

25:51

That's it. That's the show, right? And then

25:53

people get closure, I guess. People get closure, I suppose.

25:55

That seems to be... Like I said, I've only watched like

25:57

two episodes and it seems like it's maybe...

26:00

about the person who brought it before the panel. It's just

26:02

like, like, they just get to know, you know? Right?

26:04

They get a question answer. They get a mystery of

26:06

their life, maybe solve for them. Would you

26:09

be interested in that? I don't

26:11

think those people know the reality

26:13

of the situation definitively one way

26:16

or the other. It's not real.

26:18

Okay. Okay, fine. Fine. Yes. Okay.

26:22

Wait, there was not a real thing. It's

26:24

just no, no, no, no, no. It's, it's

26:26

a fictional show. No, people are

26:28

not going for a cool panel of

26:30

experts. Got it. Okay, so the committee

26:32

is, is somehow has this like omniscient,

26:34

you know, idea of the world and

26:36

I don't know. Sort of a magical

26:38

committee. Yes, they're like a magical committee. They're like, I know

26:40

all that has happened and yes, I

26:43

can literally say one way or another. Well, but they're not quite omniscient because

26:45

if they were omniscient, they would just be like,

26:47

they would just know. They had a perfect knowledge, right? Oh, God. You

26:49

could have or you couldn't. Like, they have to discuss it

26:54

and like analyze the situation and then they

26:56

come to a conclusion. Cool. Cool, cool, cool,

26:59

cool. Well, anyway, go watch the show,

27:01

I suppose, and then you can tell

27:03

us if you understand

27:06

how it works. Yeah. This

27:09

is interesting. I do wonder about this

27:11

study a little bit because again,

27:14

thinking back to that Harvard wellbeing

27:16

study and that

27:18

kind of the happiness that people

27:21

would think about later in life, like the things

27:23

they look back on and are happy about and

27:25

similarly the things they would look back on and

27:27

regret. I wonder if those would

27:29

be different than this study, which perhaps was

27:31

done on younger people. We're not quite sure.

27:33

I wonder if that gender

27:35

bias might shift over time as well. Well, I

27:37

have people I wish I could have slept with.

27:39

Oh, me too. But I didn't. And

27:42

the opposite. Oh, me

27:44

the opposite. Okay. Yes.

27:46

Okay. We have an

27:49

additional study that I love the

27:51

name of. It's called How Do

27:53

I Regret? Let Me Count My

27:56

Alternatives, colon, Regret in Decision Making

27:58

in Intimate Relationships. by Mattson,

28:00

Franco Watkins, and Cunningham. And this

28:03

was published in 2012 in the

28:05

Journal of Psychology.

28:07

Now, caveat right off the

28:09

bat, this was a study of

28:11

primarily young white female undergraduates. So

28:14

apparently other people can't have regrets

28:16

about intimate relationships. No, they can't.

28:18

It's just that this certain group

28:20

of people were just like very

28:22

easy to to

28:25

find and talk about their regrets. It

28:27

wasn't only women, they were men too,

28:29

but the percentage was heavily skewed in

28:32

favor of female undergrads. Got

28:34

it. They found that people

28:36

who were satisfied in their

28:38

relationship but had an attractive

28:40

new potential partner expressed more

28:42

regrets about their current partner.

28:44

This regret made them more

28:46

likely to say they would

28:48

hypothetically leave their current partner.

28:50

Yikes, okay. Also,

28:52

people who were less satisfied in

28:54

their relationship expressed regrets about their

28:57

current partner even if they didn't

28:59

have a new potential partner. This

29:01

regret also made them more likely to say

29:03

they would leave. They

29:06

also found that people who were satisfied in

29:08

their relationship and then didn't have a

29:11

new potential partner expressed the

29:13

least amount of regret about their current partner. They

29:16

were the least likely to say they would leave as

29:18

well and that the regret

29:20

people felt about their current partner predicted whether they

29:22

said they would leave even

29:24

after accounting for how satisfied they were

29:26

or whether they had new alternatives. So

29:29

in summary, the study found

29:32

that thinking you chose the

29:34

wrong person makes you more likely to say that

29:36

you would leave your relationship and

29:38

that this regret matters a

29:40

lot even if someone's pretty

29:42

happy or doesn't have a new person lined

29:45

up and that the more

29:47

people regretted their choice of partner,

29:49

the more they wanted to hypothetically

29:51

switch regardless of their actual satisfaction

29:53

level or available alternatives. Although those

29:55

things did influence it but that

29:57

I guess they found that the regret was kind

30:00

of the key piece more than

30:02

just the options or the satisfaction. Sounds

30:05

like they need some non-monogamy in their lives. Well,

30:07

okay, but that's what I wanted

30:10

to ask about is like, do you think

30:12

that a compulsory monogamy

30:14

culture encourages the

30:16

potential for those feelings of regret

30:18

around partner choice? Yeah,

30:22

I do. I think that

30:24

this idea that well, if

30:26

I have a scarcity mindset

30:28

of there's only one person

30:31

that I get to be with at a

30:33

time and if they are not everything that

30:35

I could possibly want and I see on

30:37

the horizon this other person that might be

30:39

more attractive to me in a variety of

30:41

ways, then I regret

30:44

being with this person that doesn't feel good to me

30:46

in this whatever way it may be

30:48

and I want to go

30:50

off to be with this other person who hypothetically

30:52

could be better for me. Yeah,

30:54

if that was out of the equation entirely, if

30:57

it's like, yeah, I'll be with both people, then

30:59

sure, I'm assuming that

31:01

regret would maybe be gone a little bit. Maybe

31:04

not entirely, but probably a little. Well, okay,

31:06

so the thing is now this is just

31:08

based on my own personal lived experience because

31:10

I've been non-monogamous

31:14

forever. Not

31:16

actually forever, but over a decade and

31:19

I have had some periods of time

31:21

where even though I have multiple partners,

31:24

I may feel regret about my investment in

31:26

a particular partner. I may still have this

31:28

feeling like, ooh, I think I chose the

31:31

wrong person in the sense

31:33

of I regret that

31:35

I'm spending my time in this relationship.

31:37

I regret that I'm spending my emotional

31:40

energy in this relationship. Even

31:42

if I'm non-monogamous, I'm sure I have the potential to date

31:44

whoever I want or whatever, but

31:47

that's not always the solution. If I'm

31:49

dissatisfied in a relationship, it's not always the solution to

31:51

be like, whatever, I'll go and find someone else who can meet

31:54

my need to have a good relationship or

31:57

whatever. Now, I do think it's a

31:59

different flavor. from what monogamous people

32:01

may experience because I think the stakes

32:03

are definitely higher in monogamy and there's

32:05

more of this sense of You

32:07

got to find the one and maybe you

32:09

picked the wrong one. Oh, what are you gonna do

32:11

about that? Yeah, I

32:14

think that the the compulsory

32:16

monogamy part of it sure like you

32:18

said the regret of oh I've invested

32:21

this time and effort into this relationship.

32:23

That's maybe not Giving back

32:25

to me or isn't isn't a good one to have

32:27

done that with but yeah I think those

32:29

stakes are a lot higher when in order

32:32

for me to invest in this relationship I

32:35

had to intentionally Divest from any

32:37

other relationship that I might have had going

32:39

on and that I couldn't have been spending

32:41

any time in those That's the whole narrative

32:43

about like I wasted X number

32:45

of years of my life where it's kind

32:47

of encompasses those entire

32:50

years Rather than maybe

32:52

just those hours or those weekends or whatever

32:55

that I spend with that particular partner So

32:57

I do think it amplifies it but

32:59

I think that There's also

33:01

just this just the whole

33:03

narrative of the one and kind of the magical

33:05

thinking about Relationships like

33:08

if you think about romantic

33:10

movies how Almost

33:13

always the story goes Someone's

33:16

with a person that's not good for them Yeah, they

33:18

stop being with that person to end up with a

33:20

person that's better for them. It's like this trading up

33:23

Mentality like when I think about movies

33:26

that don't follow that pattern They're

33:28

quite rare like actually the first one that comes to

33:30

mind is Sleepless in Seattle Where

33:32

in that one, you know, he's happily married

33:34

with not her him his wife dies Yeah,

33:37

and then he ends up having this, you

33:39

know meeting someone new and he thought that

33:41

he couldn't and it's like, okay It's not

33:43

about that and then on her side It's

33:46

not that that relationship's bad and they have

33:48

this amicable breakup But yeah, there is a

33:50

little bit of that trading up mentality. So

33:53

not perfect. She doesn't know who this guy is at all

33:55

about whatever A

33:59

whole other time I freaking love that film.

34:01

I know. Yes, it's great. And

34:04

with that, we're going to move on to the

34:06

second part of this episode where we get into

34:08

the World Regret Survey and how we can actually

34:11

take some steps to apply regret better in our

34:13

lives. But we're going to take a quick break

34:15

to talk about how you can support this show.

34:17

We love being able to put this

34:19

content out into the world every week that's

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And the way that we do that is through

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and free shipping. Just use code M-U-L-T-I-A-M-O-R-Y

42:18

at u-b-e-r-l-u-b-e.com.

42:23

And we are back and I want to introduce

42:25

to you the World Regret

42:27

Survey. So Daniel Pink,

42:30

who I mentioned at the top of the

42:32

episode, he created the World Regret

42:35

Survey, which enabled

42:37

him to create this huge

42:39

database of now it's up to more than

42:41

23,000 regrets from people

42:45

submitted by people in 109 countries. If

42:47

you go to worldregretsurvey.com, you can still

42:53

fill out the survey yourself. But

42:56

what I find most interesting to do on

42:58

the site is you can pull up a

43:00

world map and you can click on different

43:02

countries or even different states and it

43:05

will show you an anonymous regret

43:07

that somebody submitted. It

43:09

just gives their age, their gender, and of

43:12

course their location. And I

43:14

found that super fascinating just clicking through.

43:16

It was on the

43:18

one hand sad, like seeing all

43:21

these people, everything from people

43:23

expressing I stayed in this horrible marriage

43:25

for so long, I really regret that I

43:27

didn't get a divorce sooner or this

43:30

person expressing I wish

43:32

that I'd started doing something about climate change

43:34

earlier in my life or even one from

43:36

like a 15-year-old about like I got into

43:38

a fight at school last week and

43:40

I really wish I hadn't done that.

43:42

It's sad stuff. But I also found

43:44

it a little bit comforting.

43:46

I think because of that

43:49

whole pluralistic ignorance thing that I

43:51

can carry around this assumption that, oh,

43:53

I feel my regrets more deeply than anybody

43:55

else or I have more regrets or I've

43:58

done more bad things and maybe maybe the

44:00

average person has. And then to see other

44:02

people sharing their regrets actually felt a little

44:04

bit comforting. It was like there was

44:06

solidarity. It was like this sense of like, oh, wow,

44:09

we are all human after all. You're

44:11

not alone. Yeah, that you're not alone. So

44:14

if you're not already in too much of

44:16

a bummer mood, I'd highly recommend going to

44:18

worldregrettesurvey.com and you can fill it out if

44:20

you want or you can just kind of

44:22

click around and see what other people are

44:24

sharing. But anyway, Pink analyzed

44:26

all of this data that he got

44:28

and he found that

44:31

there were four recurring themes. He organized

44:33

all of these different regrets from people

44:35

around the world into four major categories.

44:38

And so just a really quick rundown

44:40

of those four categories and then we're going to

44:42

give examples and explain them. He found

44:45

that there were foundational regrets, opportunity

44:48

regrets, moral regrets, and

44:50

connective regrets. So

44:52

starting off with foundational regrets, these

44:55

are things like if only I

44:57

did the work, like not getting

44:59

a particular education or not starting

45:01

to learn a particular skill earlier

45:04

or not taking better care of my health or

45:07

not expressing myself better or expressing

45:10

my identity more authentically. Yeah,

45:13

that was something that came up in the examples when

45:15

I was clicking around is people sharing,

45:18

I was closeted until my 40s

45:20

and then I was finally able to come out as

45:23

being a bisexual man, for instance, and I really regret

45:25

I didn't do that sooner. I work with

45:27

a lot of clients who maybe come to

45:29

a different type of relationship, whether it's polyamory

45:32

or swinging or something like that. And same

45:34

thing, like I'm in my 50s, this wasn't

45:36

something that seemed like an

45:38

option to me when I was in my 20s and I

45:40

really wish that it had been because this feels like

45:42

my authentic self. So those are

45:45

like those foundational regrets that are not

45:47

just about wishing you'd put in

45:49

work earlier in your life, but also about these

45:52

core aspects of one's identity that

45:54

maybe got lost in the shuffle.

45:57

The next one is opportunity regrets.

46:00

things like if only I took the chance

46:02

and kind of what I was talking about right

46:04

off the top of the episode passing

46:07

up a chance to work or study

46:09

abroad or saying no to an exciting

46:11

but scary job opportunity like Dedeker talked

46:13

about or just moving

46:15

to one part of the country

46:17

rather than the other things

46:20

like that Opportunities that could have

46:22

happened and that you didn't take in the

46:24

moment I think one of those could

46:26

be related to relationships also, you know

46:29

I should have chatted that person up when

46:31

they were around I shouldn't have chickened out

46:33

and decided to not talk to them or

46:36

Maybe I should have said yes when that person

46:38

wanted to be in a relationship with me rather than

46:40

telling them no or that I couldn't Yeah,

46:44

next one is moral regrets, which is

46:46

if only I'd done the right thing

46:49

So this is something like lying to a

46:51

partner or not telling them the truth soon

46:53

enough Cheating in

46:55

the past. I'm assuming this means relationship cheating,

46:57

but I also imagine cheating on a test

46:59

Yeah something like that and then not standing

47:01

up for someone so like my story with

47:04

my little brother in second grade that Kind

47:06

of thing of I wish I'd done it differently Because

47:09

it would have been the right thing to do The

47:13

last one is connective regrets so things

47:16

like if I only reached out Losing

47:19

touch with friends or never Reconciling with

47:21

someone after a falling out or not

47:23

connecting with someone before they moved away

47:25

or passed away That's definitely

47:27

one for me a person I've

47:29

talked about before on this show

47:31

who died in my early adulthood.

47:34

I had the

47:36

opportunity to potentially reach out or to

47:38

see her a Month

47:40

before she died and I didn't take that

47:42

opportunity when I was in town briefly for

47:45

college and then you know She died

47:47

less than a month later and I definitely regret

47:49

that I don't know if it would have made

47:51

a difference but I do wish that I had

47:53

taken that opportunity instead of saying no Yeah,

47:57

yeah, I've found that in looking through the

47:59

world regrets, sir survey, there are a

48:01

fair number of those of some kind of

48:03

regret about not asking my

48:05

parent a particular question before they

48:07

passed away or not

48:10

reaching out to a sibling or a friend

48:12

or someone who we had a falling out

48:14

17 years ago or whatever

48:16

it was that I do see those come

48:18

up quite a bit when I'm just kind

48:20

of shuffling through random regrets. On

48:23

this last one, I really love

48:25

this particular line from an

48:27

interview with the author where

48:30

he said that as he

48:32

was analyzing this data and specifically looking at

48:35

these connective regrets that he was

48:37

reading all these people's stories and being

48:39

like, gosh, why don't they just reach out

48:41

to this person? Why don't they just repair

48:43

with this person? And then he realized, oh,

48:46

I mean, that's something that I'm bad at too. I

48:48

have actually a lot of people that I'm not

48:50

reaching out to or friends where I'm not repairing

48:52

the friendship or things like that. And he said

48:55

for him, after going through

48:57

this research, he said, quote, if

49:00

I'm at a juncture where I'm saying, should I

49:02

reach out or should I not reach out? I

49:04

know the answer, always reach out,

49:07

which I thought is really beautiful. And

49:09

I don't say that just to mean to pressure

49:11

somebody into reaching out to someone who's been horrible

49:14

to them. You don't have

49:16

to repair or make amends with someone

49:18

if it's not appropriate. However,

49:20

if that's not the case, it just,

49:23

I think this is a nice rubric that it's probably

49:25

better for you to reach out, reach out and

49:27

say, I'm sorry, reach out and say, hey, can

49:30

we revisit that thing that happened or

49:32

even reach out to say, actually, I still

49:34

want to have a connection with you in

49:36

some kind, like that probably it's going to

49:38

be better to reach out rather than to

49:40

not. Yeah,

49:42

I think that's worth clarifying. If

49:45

there's a question, if you're kind of on the fence

49:47

about it, then reach out. Something that you need to

49:49

say, I think. Yeah,

49:52

but I just mean, compared to that, I

49:54

have no interest in connecting with this person, yet

49:56

everyone tells me that I should and I'll regret

49:59

it if I don't. Yeah, I do think

50:01

you don't need to have that kind of pressure

50:03

either. But in this situation he's talking about, is

50:05

that like, oh, I kind of want to, but

50:07

I don't know, should I? I don't know. Then

50:10

it's that like, yes, just do it because you'll

50:12

be much less likely to regret doing it than

50:14

not doing it. So what

50:17

do we do about regret here? So

50:19

Pink developed a three-step process for what

50:22

he calls healthily investing

50:25

in regret. What kind of returns

50:27

on investment will he get? He

50:30

has this sort of funny metaphor that

50:32

he talks about like your emotional investment

50:34

portfolio and that you need to diversify

50:36

your emotional investment portfolio, that

50:38

it's okay. And I think

50:40

the whole point being that it's okay to

50:42

let yourself feel even negative emotions as

50:45

well in a healthy way, if you can.

50:48

Okay. So you just got to have

50:50

a nice proportion of stocks and also bonds. Exactly.

50:53

You have to diversify. Okay,

50:56

great. All right, so step

50:58

one is undo it. This

51:02

applies in situations where you've done something that

51:04

you later regretted. So you

51:06

can quote undo it by

51:08

reaching out, offering an apology to the

51:10

person that you've wronged or reaching out

51:12

to that person that you fell out

51:14

of contact with, like we were just

51:16

talking about. But this

51:19

isn't always easy to do. This

51:21

isn't always an option, which is how we'll get to

51:23

step two. So

51:25

just to kind of hang on this one for

51:27

just a second is kind of that idea

51:29

that I mentioned way back at the

51:31

beginning of this episode of how

51:33

regret can change our decisions and

51:35

that things aren't so permanent as

51:37

we sometimes think they are, right?

51:40

So not just with life choices

51:42

or things that we want to do, but also things

51:44

like this. If I did the wrong thing and I

51:46

regret that, you can't go back

51:48

in time and undo that as much as

51:50

we fantasize about it, but there's still something

51:52

that you might be able to do for

51:54

somebody. But if that isn't

51:56

possible, go on to step two. to

52:00

quote, at least it. Now,

52:03

this comes from this idea of you're

52:05

like, okay, yeah, this bad

52:08

thing happened, but at least yada,

52:10

yada, yada. So it's finding

52:12

a new purpose, finding meaning

52:14

or finding some kind of

52:16

silver lining within a

52:19

decision or an event that you regret.

52:21

So an example being, yeah, maybe

52:24

you have came to a point where

52:26

you regret that you went to medical school. Maybe it's

52:28

like, there's not something that I actually wanted to do

52:30

and now I'm in a career path that's not actually

52:32

making me happy and I regret making that choice. But

52:36

at least when I was at medical school, I

52:38

found the love of my life there that I'm

52:40

happily married to right now. And so I

52:42

can imagine that, I think kind of like

52:44

we were doing at the top of the

52:46

episode that, yeah, if I picked a different

52:48

life path, I wouldn't have, maybe I wouldn't

52:50

have had this amazing relationship. Maybe I wouldn't

52:52

have had all these positive experiences and all these

52:54

wonderful memories that I have with this person.

52:56

So the at-leasting

52:59

portion, again, it's like finding a

53:01

silver lining and also finding the places of

53:03

gratitude for the regretful

53:05

experience. Finally,

53:07

analyze and strategize. Ask

53:10

yourself what lessons can I learn from my

53:12

regret and what can I

53:14

do differently now that will prevent me

53:17

from having more regrets in the future?

53:19

I think that's the really positive part

53:22

of regret that we've been talking about

53:24

all throughout the episode is that if

53:26

you can take what you learned from

53:29

the regret and let it help you

53:31

moving forward, then you can turn that

53:33

into a positive experience. So

53:36

for example, if you regret not spending more

53:38

time connecting with a loved one before they

53:40

died, that can highlight a new action plan.

53:43

You can say, okay, I'm going to cherish

53:45

the time that I have with the people

53:47

around me and never take it for granted.

53:49

Or if you regret not opening up and

53:52

being more vulnerable with a partner, that can

53:54

clarify your values. You can realize, hey, moving

53:56

forward, I'm going to take emotional risks in

53:58

my relationships and open my heart sooner

54:00

rather than later. That is

54:02

the one strategy I've found has most effectively

54:04

helped me to get out of those rumination

54:07

cycles when I think back of, oh, I

54:09

wish I'd said that thing or I wish

54:11

I'd done this is if

54:13

I can express it in this way. So

54:15

that's interesting that this is part of his

54:17

strategy is like the times I've been able

54:20

to say, I've been able to kind of

54:22

let it rest at least a little bit

54:24

is by saying, okay, now I've learned this,

54:26

like kind of pinning down for myself what

54:29

the lesson was and even telling it

54:31

to someone else can help me to stop having to

54:33

relive it so many times in my head. Totally,

54:36

totally. So time

54:38

for some homework for everybody. Uh-oh.

54:41

Because this is our last episode of

54:43

the year. So it's time to go

54:45

out with New

54:47

Year's resolutions and in with your

54:49

old regrets. So this

54:51

exercise is to write

54:54

down your three biggest regrets

54:56

from the past year. Now

54:59

this has been the top of my mind. I've been like,

55:01

I asked Jace this question randomly at the kitchen counter the

55:03

other day. I asked some of my

55:05

clients this randomly and everyone's like a little put off

55:07

by it, but I'm like, no, really it's cool. Promise.

55:10

So you're going to write down your three biggest regrets

55:13

from the past year and then you can

55:15

take them through that three-step process. You

55:17

know, so again, number one

55:19

being undo it or

55:21

at least it or analyze and

55:24

strategize and then just see

55:26

what comes out the other side of that

55:28

process that like maybe this is going to

55:30

help you realize, oh, I

55:32

can take a different strategy with this coming year or

55:35

oh, I'm going to do some different actions this

55:38

year. I'm going to make a plan this

55:40

year or I'm going to set this intention for this coming

55:43

so that I don't repeat these regrets so

55:46

that I can glean the lesson from

55:48

these regrets and affect some

55:50

kind of positive change moving forward.

55:53

I also think that looking at our

55:55

regrets is a really wonderful window into

55:57

what our values are and what it's

56:00

actually important to us. Sometimes that can

56:02

be a little fuzzy and hard to

56:04

feel out. And sometimes looking at the

56:06

things that you regret can offer a

56:08

lot of clues as to what's actually important

56:10

to you, which I think is a really

56:12

important piece of self-knowledge that everyone should dive

56:14

into. All right, folks, we

56:16

made it to the end of the episode. I hope that

56:19

you don't regret. And if you do regret it, we

56:21

hope you learned something from that. Yeah,

56:24

yeah. So we want to hear

56:26

from you. What do you regret?

56:29

Can you undo it in

56:32

some way? Again, as a reminder,

56:34

this is going to be on our Instagram

56:36

stories. This is anonymous. So don't worry

56:38

about sharing something vulnerable. We're not going

56:40

to share what your personal information or

56:43

things like that. So go check out

56:45

our Instagram to respond to that. Also,

56:48

the best place to share your thoughts with other listeners

56:51

is in our episode discussion channel in our

56:53

Discord server, or you can post about it

56:55

in our private Facebook group. You

56:57

can get access to these groups and

56:59

join our exclusive community by going to

57:02

multiamory.com slash join. In

57:04

addition, you can share with us publicly

57:06

on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok. Multiamory

57:09

is created and produced by Jace

57:11

Lindgren, Emily Matlack, and me, Dedecker

57:14

Winston. Our production assistants are Rachel

57:16

Chenoweth and Carson Collins. Our

57:18

theme song is Forms I Know I Did

57:21

by Josh and Anand from the Fractal Cave

57:23

EP. The full transcript is available on this

57:25

episode's page on multiamory.com.