Divorce Happens

You did the hardest thing you've ever done — you left. And somehow, that's not where the guilt ends; for so many divorced moms, it's where a whole new kind of guilt begins. If you've ever lain awake wondering how you can call yourself a good mother when your kids are still living, at least part-time, inside the very dynamic you found the strength to walk away from, this episode of Divorce Happens...

A listener wrote to me this week with a confession she was mortified to even type out: her marriage is over, she's made her decision, she doesn't even like the man her husband has become — and she keeps having sex dreams about him that leave her waking up ashamed. In this solo episode of Divorce Happens, I tell her, and every one of you sitting with the same quiet secret, exactly what I wish someo...

You know the feeling before you’ve even read the words. The phone buzzes, you see who it’s from, and your whole body braces — shoulders up, stomach tight, heart already pounding. A text from your co-parent. An email from your attorney dropped into the middle of an ordinary Tuesday. And just like that, the day you were having is gone. In this episode of Divorce Happens , Olivia sits down with Fresh...

Most people think divorce begins with paperwork. Leslie Mathews will tell you it actually begins in your nervous system. In this candid, deeply practical episode of Divorce Happens, Olivia sits down with Leslie Mathews, JD, MSW, a former attorney turned therapist, mindfulness coach, and founder of The LooM Life and LooM Life Therapy . Leslie brings a rare combination of expertise to the conversati...

In this solo episode of Divorce Happens, Olivia reads a piece from her personal writing Substack, The Happenstance, called " The Hidden Cost of Having a Husband ." It's a reflection on domestic inequity — the invisible labor that piles up in a marriage even when a task only needs one person to do it. Olivia shares her own story, including the time she broke her foot and still had to keep the house...

What if the single biggest predictor of how your kids come through your divorce has almost nothing to do with the divorce itself? That's the question at the heart of this episode of Divorce Happens, where Olivia sits down with Maria Natapov, a BeH2O® Certified Co-Parenting Coach, Rapid Resolution Therapy® Facilitator, and founder of Synergistic Stepparenting . Maria has spent years helping divorci...

You survived the divorce. Then your kid turns thirteen, and a new bill you never quite planned for starts looming on the horizon: college . In this practical, reassuring episode of Divorce Happens, Olivia sits down with Vicki Vollweiler, MBA, CDC, the founder and CEO of College Financial Prep and author of College Planning for Divorced and Widowed Parents . Vicki built her practice specifically ar...

What if the way back to yourself started with getting your head under water? That's the question at the heart of this episode of Divorce Happens, where Olivia talks with Kate Washington — a Sacramento-based writer, former dining critic, and author of two deeply personal memoirs: Already Toast: Caregiving and Burnout in America, and her brand-new release, Midstream: A Life Remade in 50 Swims . Kate...

Somewhere in your divorce, a well-meaning friend has probably told you to "hire a shark." Lisa Lisser wants you to pause before you do. In this grounding, clarifying episode of Divorce Happens, Olivia welcomes back one of the show's most beloved recurring experts: Lisa Lisser, a Certified Divorce Coach®, BeH2O® Child-Centered Co-Parenting Coach, and founder of LZL Coaching . A retired attorney who...

Everybody talks about how to say the words. Almost nobody talks about the bathroom-floor hours right after. In the final episode of this Divorce Happens series, host Olivia Howell goes straight to the moment listeners rarely hear addressed anywhere else: you've just told your spouse you want a divorce, the words are out and can't be taken back, and instead of feeling free, you feel shaky, numb, an...

For so many people preparing to leave a marriage, saying the words was never the scariest part — it's everything that might happen the second after. In part three of this Divorce Happens series, host Olivia Howell goes straight at that fear: what if they rage? What if they cry and beg and I cave? What if they twist this until somehow I'm the villain? Olivia hands listeners the single reframe she w...

There's a particular kind of freeze that happens after someone finally decides to end their marriage — not doubt, just a total blank when they try to imagine the actual words. In part two of this Divorce Happens series, host Olivia Howell meets listeners exactly there, at the moment between the decision and the sentence. She opens with something disarmingly honest: there is no perfect sentence tha...

There is one conversation that so many people preparing to leave a marriage dread more than the lawyers, more than the logistics, more than dividing up a house: actually telling their spouse they want a divorce. In this episode of Divorce Happens, the first in a new four-part series, host Olivia Howell opens with a single reframe that changes the entire shape of that conversation — you are not ask...

There's a sentence I hear from listeners more than almost any other, and it usually starts the same way: “I don't know if this even counts as a big deal.” In this solo episode of Divorce Happens, I read one of those letters on air — from a listener whose ex spent years making jokes about her weight, her job, the way she loaded the dishwasher, then dismissed every objection with the same four words...

There's a version of divorce we talk about a lot — the heartbreak, the grief, the legal logistics — and then there's the version almost nobody prepares you for: the sheer, relentless awkwardness of it. In this solo episode of Divorce Happens, host Olivia Howell turns her attention to the strange, small, almost comedic moments that fill the space between the big milestones of divorce. The Target ru...

There's a specific kind of relief that comes from finally having a name for something you've lived inside for years without being able to explain it. In this solo episode of Divorce Happens, host Olivia Howell gives that name to a dynamic so many listeners will recognize instantly: weaponized incompetence . Not a partner who's simply bad at laundry or forgetful about pediatrician appointments — bu...

There's a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from living inside a marriage you've stopped questioning — not because it's fine, but because you've explained it to yourself so many times that the explanations have started to feel like truth. In this solo episode of Divorce Happens, Olivia Howell turns her attention to one of the quietest forces behind unhappy marriages and delayed divorces: no...

Most women don’t wake up one morning and announce a divorce. They spend months — often years — in the quiet space of knowing, where a gut feeling won’t go away but guilt over the kids and fear about money keep the words stuck in their throat. In this candid, galvanizing episode of Divorce Happens, Olivia Howell sits down with divorce coach and award-winning journalist Amy Polacko to talk about wha...

Nobody hands you a map for the in-between. You have decided to divorce — or you are circling the decision — and yet you are still sharing a kitchen, a hallway, maybe even a bedroom with the person you are in the biggest conflict of your life with. It is one of the most common and least talked-about chapters of the divorce journey, and in this grounding episode of Divorce Happens, host Olivia Howel...

You look up one day and realize you have no idea who you are anymore. Not because of one dramatic event. Not because of obvious abuse or a single catastrophic betrayal. Just because of time — accumulated compromise, the slow drift of putting someone else's needs, preferences, and comfort at the center of your life for so long that your own self quietly went missing. In this solo episode of Divorce...

Someone you love is going through a divorce, and you want to show up for them — you just have no idea how. This episode of Divorce Happens is for you: the friends, the sisters, the coworkers, and the neighbors who found out and froze, terrified of saying the wrong thing. Olivia Howell flips the usual script and talks not to the person in the divorce, but to the people who love them — and she opens...

Divorce grief might be the most misunderstood, most minimized, and most complicated grief there is — and the thing almost no one warns you about is that it doesn't follow the rules. In this solo episode of Divorce Happens, Olivia Howell takes on the quiet, disorienting experience of grieving a divorce: why it refuses to behave the way we expect grief to behave, and why that can make you feel like...

No one hands you a roadmap when your marriage ends. You're expected to make some of the biggest legal, financial, and emotional decisions of your life at the exact moment you have the least capacity to make them — and most of us walk in completely unprepared. That's the gap Ron Platt set out to close. In this practical, reassuring episode of Divorce Happens , we hear from Ron Platt , co-founder an...

You already know. You just aren't ready to say it out loud yet. If you're living in that quiet, heavy, terrifying place — the one where the knowledge sits in your chest and doesn't go away — this solo episode of Divorce Happens was made for you. Olivia Howell names one of the most common and least talked-about experiences in the entire divorce process: the in-between space before anything is offic...

There’s a strange, in-between place that almost no one warns you about when your marriage ends. You’re no longer who you were — but you’re not yet who you’re becoming. As one therapist put it to this week’s guest during her own divorce, you’re “somewhere in between.” In this episode of Divorce Happens , Olivia Howell sits down with Fresh Starts expert Bridget Borel, CFP®, CDFA® — a Certified Finan...