Among the last taboos in American romance: past loves, and talking about them with current lovers, partners, husbands, wives.

The one who got away, with those gentle eyes and perfect lips? We don’t want to hear about it. That summer fling that changed you when you were seventeen? We’re still afraid to tell.

My guests today say we shouldn’t be. In an era of divorce, multiple marriages, long lives, lost partners and remarriage, we’ve all got romantic history, they say. Whole hearts, real intimacy, they say, require sharing.

Hmmm.

This hour, On Point: If only I could tell you. Old loves and new relationships.

You can join the conversation. Pandora’s box? Or the honest way to intimacy? Are humans built to handle this conversation? Share your thoughts.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from Montpelier, Vermont, are Kate Harper and Leon Marasco. They’ve been married for the past thirteen years, and they’re co-authors of the book “If Only I Could Tell You: Where Past Loves and Current Intimacy Meet.” Their website features an excerpt from the book.

And with us in our studio is Patricia Rogers, a psychotherapist in private practice. She’s counseled individuals, couples and families for over 20 years.

Anne Roiphe. Photo by Katie Roiphe

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Everything changed for author Anne Roiphe when she lost her husband of nearly forty years to a heart attack in 2005.

From cooking for one, to hailing cabs, to unlocking her own front door, she had to piece together the practical mechanics of a new life — all while struggling with a grief that seemed unbearable at times.

In her new memoir, “Epilogue,” Roiphe documents the day-to-day challenges of widowhood and her cautious quest for new love.

This hour, On Point: Anne Roiphe on love, loss, and a life remade.

Have you lost a spouse, a partner? What did you have to relearn? Share your thoughts, and join the conversation.

-Jane Clayson, guest host

Joining us from New York City is acclaimed author Anne Roiphe. Since her first book was published in 1967, she has written nine novels and three memoirs, as well as essays and reviews for The New York Times, Vogue, The Guardian, and many other publications. Her latest book is “Epilogue: A Memoir.”

Also joining us is Brian de Vries, professor of gerontology at San Francisco State University and an expert on grief, bereavement, and widowhood.

India is home to one of the world’s oldest societies, with thousands of years of religious and cultural traditions.

Journalist Anita Jain, born in India but raised in northern California, felt drawn back to her homeland to find a husband the old-fashioned way — by an arranged marriage.

At thirty-three, she was feeling pressure from her Indian family to marry. Her father placed ads in Indian papers and brokered online dates. Her mother cried. Fed up with the New York dating scene, Anita moved her search for a husband to Delhi.

What she found was not the India of her parents, or not exactly. Instead, she found a thriving Generation Y, partying in tight jeans and tank tops to Bhangra club beats, harvesting the fruits of the high-tech boom. A hybrid of old and new, where clubgoers encounter cows in the street.

This hour, On Point: Looking for love, marriage, and tradition, in modern India.

What do you know of that gear-grinding between generations? How do you reconcile the clash of the traditional and the new? Tell us your story. You can join the conversation right here on this page.

-Jane Clayson, guest host

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Guests:

Joining us from New York is Anita Jain. She’s a journalist born in New Delhi and raised in northern California. Her new book, out yesterday, is “Marrying Anita: A Quest for Love in the New India.” You can read an excerpt from the book.

And from Cambridge, England, we’re joined by Perveez Mody. She’s a lecturer in social anthropology at Cambridge University and author of “The Intimate State: Love-Marriage and the Law in Delhi.”

Maybe we don’t want everything to boil down to science, but scientists keep chipping away at the mystery of everything we see and do. Now, they’re burrowing in on love.

You may think it’s moonlight and roses. They see evolutionary biology and neurotransmitters. Ninety-seven percent of mammals don’t pair up to raise their young. We humans pair up — and break up — with a vengeance. Why?

“Oh that you and I escape from the rest, and go utterly off, free and lawless,” wrote Walt Whitman. What is that about, Valentine?

This hour, On Point: Science speaks. This is your brain on love.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Helen Fisher, biological anthropologist at Rutgers University.

Arthur Aron, social psychologist at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

Susan Hughes, professor of psychology at Albright College, conducted a survey on kissing.

They say love changes everything. But time changes love.

Just how much it can change became front page news last week, when the family of retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor revealed that her husband had fallen in love with a fellow Alzheimer’s patient.

And she was happy for him.

What happens to the part of ourselves that loves as the mind ages, and changes?

Our culture celebrates young love. But mature love is filled with passion too, even as our memories leave us. Seniors living for the moment – not the past.

This hour On Point: how we love when we grow old.

-Jacki Lyden

Guests:

Robin Dessel, director of special care services at the Hebrew Home at Riverdale in New York.

Dr. Gary Small, professor of psychiatry and behavorial sciences and director of the Center on Aging at UCLA.

Anne Basting, director of the Center on Age and Community at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.