Epitome Anatomy: Separation's Friendship Dilemma

Explore the complex theme of separation and its impact on friendships. As life unfolds, we often face the challenge of choosing sides in breakups and maintaining connections. Let's discuss the importance of empathy, loyalty, and being a supportive friend during these transitions. Discover how to navigate the delicate balance of relationships with grace and understanding. Tune in for a heartfelt conversation about the evolving nature of friendships and the roles we play in each other's lives.

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Transcript

Wish Ronquillo Peacocke (00:00.15)
At this point in my life in my 40s, I'm noticing a lot more themes that come up more regularly than ever before. Like that's of friends in grade school or high school, or my friends or acquaintances' parents or relatives, brothers, sisters, whom I grew up with, our friends getting illnesses, or people having grown up kids.

and these kids we've met when they were babies and now they're in college or they're already working etc. Another one that I unfortunately witnessed was a few separations or divorces. As a friend, this is always very sombre and painful. There is a parallel to this theme in relationship breakups. I like to talk about this

from a friendship perspective. Welcome to Human Thesaurus presents Epitome Anatomy. My name is Wish, a retired tech operator, indie author, cat mom, and a self-aware life explorer.

Epitome Anotomy is an opinion piece on the power of words and their ethos that I extracted from this life. Ready for the epitome of separation? Let's go!

Our keyword is separation. This one is a sweetened explanation from vocabulary.com. When two things that were together come apart, it's a separation. Whether they're two halves of your Oreo or a married couple splitting up. In this episode's direct meaning under the term in law, separation is the cessation of cohabitation of a man and wife.

Wish Ronquillo Peacocke (02:05.93)
either by mutual agreement or under a court order. Quite serious. The etymology of the word separation was first used in circa 1400s, which originates from the Old French separacion and I don't know if I'm saying it correctly. I should have researched this. And Latin separationem, which means a severing.

detaching or dividing, rooted in separare, meaning to pull apart. It combines se as in the se-, which means apart, and -parare means make ready or prepare. It denotes the action or state of being disconnected, detached, or divided.

Wish Ronquillo Peacocke (03:01.56)
For some reason, I have this instinct with my friends around me. No matter how connected we are, it's not practical for some people who are able to keep in touch with every single one or keep tabs with every single relative, family or friends that they have. And that's me. I may not be keeping tabs with

everyone all the time every day or once a week or something like that or not as frequently as I wanted to but when we get our time together I make sure that it's always quality. Quantity is there but I think the most crucial with relationship is the quality that you give to that relationship. Mostly this

I have this instinct. Sometimes someone comes up, it's like, I wonder, I wonder how my friend A is doing. And then it keeps on playing in my head for a few days. And you know, life happens, you're busy, you're doing a lot of things. And then you miss just sitting down and texting someone or calling someone to say, Hey, how are you? I haven't heard from you or just checking in. I tend to.

do that because when someone just enters my mind and I'm wondering how they are and then eventually I will message them how they are or checking in with them and then true enough there's always always a news whether it's good or bad it doesn't matter my gosh I was just thinking about two or something is going on with me I'm not okay today there's always something like that

There's this one of the news that ideally you don't wish to hear is, I'm getting a divorce or I just broke up with my boyfriend or my partner for a long time, of a long time. And, you know, you don't like hearing that because ultimately if you're a good friend, all you wanted, all you wished for

Wish Ronquillo Peacocke (05:25.908)
would be for your friends to be happy for the rest of their lives. But sometimes there are bumps in the road like this and they're able to express or even tell you comfortably what's going on with their lives. When it comes to separation, sometimes it's hard to say, right? Like have you seen it coming or not? And it's not a judgment. Sometimes it's just a feeling that something happened or you know that it's a slow

kind of it's a slow burn, it's a slow car crash for some reason. But you always set it aside because you don't want to wish that on anyone. You know, don't want to wish ill of your friends or of your loved ones. Sometimes it's so weird for me, but I accepted it that I have this instinct when someone crosses my mind, I needed to message them just to say hello.

not because I'm wishing them ill. It's really more of a feeling that I needed to be in touch with these people and then they always have something to share, whether it's good or bad. And I always wish it's good. It's like, hmm, going back to separation throughout life, we have to choose whether we like it or not. You know, which parties are we gonna side with? It's quite elementary. It's quite...

a grade school thing if you think about it, but it's not. It's deeper than that. There seems to be this upheaval of fracture that would happen in breakups of our friends' relationships. You wish for it to be amicable and sometimes it does. And what's sad is in this world is if it's amicable, other people are still pushing for something

this tasteful because not everybody can believe that breakups could be amicable really. There's always something that you need to scratch beneath the surface. But really sometimes it just works. It's the best solution for people to separate and demystify that dissolution of the relationship that it wasn't working anymore.

Wish Ronquillo Peacocke (07:49.922)
This separation thing, when it comes to the friendship dilemma, sometimes, even though it's not verbalised, but you need to pick a side. You need to pick where your loyalties are. And it's unfortunate. Sometimes you meet one and then you meet their partner. You know, it's so enmeshed. Your relationship with them are so enmeshed, not just with one, but together, that when something

like separation happens, you have to take a side because it's not, well, one of them is peer pressure. Number two is one of them probably you're closer with or who would need your support better or depending on the circumstance of or the reason of the breakup that you need to support whoever's in the right.

It's so complex, that's why I keep on saying or, or, While I'm chatting now, I'm also deciphering in my brain how complex this idea, this friendship dilemma is, this portion wherein when someone breaks up, where does your loyalty and support lie? It will all depend on the situation.

that's being presented or that you've observed, that you see. But ultimately, what's important when it comes to separation like this is you protect the people who are majorly on this because you should just be in the background. You cannot add to the drama or to the situation. If you can't offer anything, just stay the back out of it.

I think what I'm saying here is like the dilemma of choosing sides or reacting to these unfortunate breakups is be in the background for support. Don't give advice when they don't need it. Just be there and listen to the situation. And that's how you can help out. At least in my mind that that's all I could do. There are a few situations wherein

Wish Ronquillo Peacocke (10:13.664)
At first I have to ask, why do I have to take sides? Why can't I still be friends with both? I love these people and I'm not really involved with whatever went down with them. I chose to become friends with both and I was highly, extremely, extremely protective of the both of them because there are bad players around them while they are

having quite the most ideal breakup that you will ever hear that everything is amicable, everything is cooperative. They still love and support each other. It's just that they're in completely different pages and they cannot reconcile it anymore because they've grown apart. They've grown apart as people, as individuals, and it's not about the question of love for each other. So knowing these situations,

I hate the fact that I have to ask, do I have to choose a side? Because most of the time versus this one good example of, you know, I think that we would all prefer that most of these situations you do need to choose a side. It tends to really fracture a lot of relationship and sometimes it just fades away. It's not even dramatic or it's not even like highfalutin or it's not even loud.

you know, in this separation with what happens with friends. It just automatically falls in places. Who goes where? Who supports what? And sometimes with these separations of two people, if you're in the background, you just tend not talk to the other because you're more in alliance with whoever you're siding with.

And it's not about just siding with what's right or what's wrong. It's more of siding where your friendship is, where your access is, and where really a lot of loyalty is behind this. As a dilemma for friendships when this happens, when you choose, since you're in the background and you can't make it all about you, and you shouldn't.

Wish Ronquillo Peacocke (12:31.02)
We're living in a world now where everybody thinks they're the main character because, you know, this constant post of yourself means that you're the main character on social media. But that's not how humanity should work in real life. In real life, we tend to be mostly with all its humility to be in the background of all the people that we love so that when they fall, we catch them.

when they fall behind, where they're in the back to catch them. That's the important part. So regardless of what happens with the friendships, we just needed to accept, I think in general, not just with this situation is that really there are different phases in friendships. You cannot keep all of them. Some friendships are really just for a moment and some friendships are for a lifetime. And some friendships are for particular

bookmarks in our lives for a particular facet of where we are in the face of what we're going through at that time. So not all situations have to end up ugly in terms of being involved as a friend in the middle of someone else's separation or divorce or breakups. If you think about it,

We've been through a lot of this. At least I'm gonna just speak for myself. I've been through a lot of breakups of all of my friends for so long since teenage years or not even friends, even like relatives who break up and having volatile relationships. All I do in those situation is not necessarily choose. I just see if I'm needed there for support.

and do the right things and try to do the right things for them until they heal because that's the best I could do. You know these alliances can be for both. You don't need to do it in just one side. It's a roller coaster. Its relationship is really complex and beautiful and ugly and wonderful and taxing.

Wish Ronquillo Peacocke (15:01.39)
It's always a tricky one, isn't it? Separation of other people. But I do hope that when this happens, you try to put yourself in their shoes and you empathise. And if silence is golden, I think this is one of the best things that we could offer for them. Silence, yet listening.

How do you feel when your people around you break up? What's your main concern when this happens? What do you think and what do you feel about this episode? Please comment, I'd love to hear from you. Until next time, ciao.

Wish Ronquillo Peacocke (16:01.39)
Epitome Anatomy is produced by me and Jeremiah Ronquillo. Music by Ketsa UK. All rights reserved by Wishblizz Media. Comment, like, subscribe and share wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also visit humanthesaurus.co. Thank you and see you in the next episode!