I was taken aback the other day by a list of things people regret as they near the end of their lives. The list came from Stephen and Ondrea Levine, who, for 30 years, have been counselling people in the US with terminal illnesses. They told the Buddhist magazine Tricycle that people have three main regrets: that they worked for money rather than the love of it, that they did not have enough fun and enjoyment – and that they didn’t get divorced earlier.

Well! I would have expected the first two but the third rocked me back on my heels. Since most divorces are initiated by women, it didn’t sound like good news for us men.

But hold on a second. There’s a problem with regrets – they can blind people to the reasons why they worked for money, didn’t have enough fun or stuck with their spouse for so long.

Many men spend years working at jobs they don’t like because they have a family to support. They might prefer to be busking in Manhattan or living in poverty on the Left Bank producing great art. Unfortunately, the family can’t always live on Daddy’s dreams. And many men, who might have such regrets today, reared their families at a time when mothers were expected – sometimes forced – to leave the workforce. So, the father who regrets working for money rather than for the love of it might need to give himself a big clap on the back for turning down the option of suiting himself and leaving his family high and dry. Many of us can think of people who did put their own happiness before the well-being of their families and we have seen the consequences.

Wishing you had got divorced earlier certainly tells a tale and not a very happy one. Why don’t people divorce sooner? In some cases, I think, it’s because of the fear of what’s involved in striking out on your own. In others, people may have a sense of failure about getting divorced and this puts them off. Some people may even wish to avoid inflicting pain on their partner.

Then there is staying together for the sake of the kids, which I suspect is the primary reason for postponing divorce. This attitude has got quite a bad press in recent decades. If the parents are unhappy in the marriage, the children will know and will be unhappy themselves. Therefore, the argument went, it is always best for the parents to split up and be happy.

I don’t believe that. The end of a marriage, in my view, often comes as a profound shock to the children, who never knew things between their parents were so bad. Parents who stay together spare their children that profound shock. There are, of course, exceptions to the rule, including marriages that are so bad the only decent thing to do is to end them. By and large, though, I admire people who do that unfashionable thing of staying together for the sake of the kids. By and large, too, I think the kids would thank them for it later on if they knew the sacrifice involved.

As for regrets at not having had more fun, I can only say that I think we all need to take that lesson to heart and it’s a topic I wrote about in a previous column . I can only say that, in my experience as a counsellor, it is the men in a relationship who most object to having fun, especially following retirement, and that this can be a source of great annoyance to women. So, guys, take heed – have fun now or you might regret it later. The good news is that the woman in your life just might be your biggest ally in the quest for fun. Who knows, maybe she won’t divorce you after all.