This hidden force trips up investors in retirement. Here’s how I recovered.

If you’ve ever sat around a dinner table with fellow retirees or what I call “honest friends,” you know how the stories go. Someone leans back and says, “I sold too early.” Another admits, “I never bought when I had the chance.” And pretty soon, you’re trading stock-market tales of near misses, missed opportunities and what might have been.

These stories aren’t really about money. They’re about regret. More specifically, what behavior experts call “regret aversion” — our tendency to avoid choices that might someday leave us second-guessing ourselves.