S2, Ep 5 Friendship Therapy: Friendship Heartbreak - the games we play in friendship

Friendship Therapy

Emma Reed Turrell

Society & Culture, Relationships, Mental Health, Health & Fitness

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 9 September 2024

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Welcome back to Friendship Therapy, the podcast in which we look at friendships through a therapeutic lens.

This week, Emma is joined by Holly to talk about friendship heartbreak and how it feels to be dumped by a friend.

When Holly’s two closest friends got engaged, she found herself waiting for an invitation to be a part of the bridal party that never came. What happened next was a slow and painful reevaluation of the terms of a friendship that had formed such a significant and meaningful part of her life for more than a decade.

In this conversation, Emma and Holly discover how a text message about wedding planning would unravel a whole decade's worth of friendship and, ultimately, reveal a much more conditional connection built on conflict avoidance and adaptation.

Through the Transactional Analysis theory of games, we look back to the beginning of Holly's friendship game to help her understand what went wrong and learn how to avoid the same heartbreak in future.

To learn more about transactional analysis and the games people play, visit: https://www.mindtools.com/ayjtd4p/transactional-analysis

If you’d like to apply to appear on the podcast, please click the link below to fill out the form:
https://forms.gle/9yZAVgF9BbyKhwsV7

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Friendship Therapy is hosted by Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Chris Sharp and Lauren Brook.

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Social media:

Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell
Friendship Therapy @friendshiptherapypod
Email: [email protected]

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to Friendship Therapy, the podcast in which we look at friendships through a therapeutic lens.
0:08.0	This week I'm joined by Holly to talk about Friendship Heartbreak and how it feels to be dumped by a friend.
0:17.0	In our conversation, we discover how a text message about wedding planning would unravel a whole decades worth of friendship and reveal
0:27.1	a much more conditional connection built on conflict avoidance and adaptation.
0:33.0	Through the theory of games,
0:35.0	we look back to the beginning of Holly's Friendship Game
0:38.0	to help her understand what went wrong
0:41.0	and learn how to avoid the same heartbreaking future.
0:50.0	Hi Holly, how can I help?
0:57.0	Hi Emma, thank you first off for having me on your podcast. It's a pleasure.
0:58.0	It's still a very raw situation that's currently unfolding and it first occurred last year. My friends who I've
1:07.9	been really good friends with for 11 years informed me that they were finally
1:11.6	engaged.
1:13.0	So I was delighted to hear the news because it had been much anticipated over the years.
1:19.0	And I'm very good friends with both of them because we all used to work at the theater together.
1:24.5	So I was just over the moon excited for them, took them to Harrods to celebrate their engagement,
1:30.3	just made a really big deal out of it. 10 years is a long time to be with someone before finally getting engaged and I know how much she had wanted him to ask her for such a long time.
1:42.0	So that happened just over a year ago and I was in America with my
1:47.9	partner and because of the time difference it happened in the middle of the night and I got a message from her.
1:56.3	So what's that message saying that she had chosen her vital party?
2:01.1	And I just remember sort of silently crying next to my sleeping boyfriend at the time just not understanding how she could so casually drop into a message that she had chosen her bridal party and knowing that I wasn't one of them.
2:15.7	Ah, so this wasn't that she had chosen her bridal party and she wanted you to be part of that.
	...

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