Divorce Happens

“I looked around at a dinner with 'my people' recently, the friend group I'd had for over a decade, and realized none of them were actually there for me during my divorce.” It’s a quiet, disorienting moment: sitting at a familiar table with people who have known you for years and realizing they weren’t the ones who carried you through the hardest season of your life. In this Hey Olivia episode of...

"Some of our mutual friends have clearly chosen his side since the divorce, still inviting him to game nights, tagging him in photos I wasn't asked to. I've caught myself scrolling old group texts, mentally tallying who reached out and who didn't." In this Hey Olivia listener letter episode, Olivia helps a listener let go of the compulsive habit of tallying who chose which side after a divorce. Ol...

"My sister has been showing up for me nonstop since my divorce, texting every morning and every night, asking if I'm okay a hundred times a week until the question itself starts to feel like pressure." In this Hey Olivia listener letter episode, Olivia helps a listener navigate the flip side of support: how to ask for space from someone whose love is real, without hurting them or feeling ungratefu...

"Every time someone checks in on me since my divorce, I feel guilty for needing it. I keep saying 'I'm fine' even when I'm sitting on my kitchen floor crying five minutes earlier." In this Hey Olivia listener letter episode, Olivia helps a listener navigate the disorienting role reversal of going from the one who always shows up for others to the one who needs support herself. Olivia covers: Why t...

"My best friend of 15 years went quiet on me the second she found out I was getting divorced. No fight, no falling out, she just stopped texting back." In this Hey Olivia listener letter episode, Olivia addresses a kind of loss that doesn't get nearly enough attention: losing a close friend right when you need one most. Olivia covers: Why losing a friend during divorce is its own real, distinct gr...

"Does it matter that I've been doing everything? Or am I going to sound like I'm just complaining?" That's the question at the heart of this week's Hey Olivia letter, and I know so many of you are going to feel it in your chest. It comes from a listener who works full-time and is also the one who cooks every meal, manages the school schedule, handles the doctor's appointments, does the laundry, he...

"I can't lose any more of her. What do we do, and who decides?" This week's Hey Olivia letter is a really tender one, and I read it slowly. It comes from a parent whose daughter was stillborn at nine months. She was perfect, and they still don't know what happened. Now the marriage is ending, and her nursery is exactly how they left it: the tiny clothes folded in the drawers, the blanket from the...

Your divorce decree is signed, and you assume the money part is done. Then the loose threads start showing up: the beneficiary you never changed, the deed still in both names, the retirement account that was awarded to you on paper but never actually divided. In this episode of Divorce Happens, Kristina Heckel, CDFA®, CFEI®, a Certified Divorce Financial Analyst, Fresh Starts expert, and the princ...

Monique Alexander has never believed we can exist in this world without community. Not the most famous people, not the most successful, and not anyone going through a divorce. "No one is meant to go through that or any type of life transition alone," she says. In this episode of Divorce Happens, Olivia Howell sits down with Monique, a longtime friend, Fresh Starts expert, mom, educator, and founde...

After more than 20 years as a divorce attorney, Amanda Mason calls herself a "recovering divorce attorney." She spent those years watching families get "absolutely tortured by the traditional processes," whether in a courtroom or in one attorney negotiating against another. Then she went through her own divorce trial over child custody. In this episode of Divorce Happens, Olivia Howell sits down w...

One parent wants to keep the Social Security cards at their house. The other says no. And suddenly a question that will matter a handful of times in a child's life is a legal fight. That, says family law attorney Christina White, is what a high conflict divorce looks like from the inside: "they make mountains out of molehills for every problem." In this episode of Divorce Happens, Olivia Howell si...

The papers are signed. The ink is dry. And somehow you still don't feel better. Olivia Howell remembers that moment exactly: standing in her marital house, thinking she had made it through the hardest part, and then realizing she had to live the rest of her life as a divorced person and had no idea what that looked like. In this episode of Divorce Happens, she sits down with Leah Marie Mazur, a di...

"I'm not strong enough to be a single mom." That was the story Olivia Howell told herself when her marriage was ending, and it felt like a fact. Most people going through divorce carry a version of it: I can't handle the finances. I'm going to ruin my kids. I'm less of a parent if I only see them half the time. In this episode of Divorce Happens, Olivia asks what happens when we stop treating thos...

There is a particular kind of grief that comes from sitting in a school auditorium, watching your child on stage, and realizing you are not really there. Your body is in the seat, but your mind is in the lawyer's office, in the bank account, in the question of what happens next. In this episode of Divorce Happens, host Olivia Howell opens up about the early days of her own divorce, when anger made...

This week's letter is a tender one. A listener wrote in after a pregnancy loss, holding the rainbow baby they prayed for and quietly planning to end their marriage. Everyone around them says how lucky they are. And they are grateful. They're also grieving the baby they lost and the marriage they're leaving, and feeling guilty about all of it. Their question was simple and enormous: "I don't know h...

There is a particular kind of grief that comes with realizing you are not going to be with your children every day anymore. For so many moms going through divorce, especially women who have spent years as the primary caregiver, co-parenting isn’t simply a new schedule—it can feel like an entirely new identity. In this episode of Divorce Happens , Olivia sits down with Kristina St. Cyr, certified d...

College can feel impossibly far away when your children are young and you’re in the middle of a divorce. And then, somehow, senior year arrives—and suddenly you’re staring at FAFSA forms, financial aid applications, college lists, divorce agreements, remarriages, and the terrifying realization that some schools now cost close to six figures a year. In this episode of Divorce Happens , Olivia sits...

It’s time to retire the phrase “failed marriage.” A marriage can last twenty years, contain children and homes and illnesses and inside jokes and terrible fights and beautiful vacations, and still come to an end. None of those years disappear simply because the relationship eventually becomes something that can no longer continue. In this solo episode of Divorce Happens , Olivia Howell challenges...

You do not have to know yet. You do not have to wake up tomorrow morning certain that you are getting divorced, certain that you are staying married, certain that the relationship can be fixed, or certain about what your life would look like on the other side. In this solo episode of Divorce Happens , Olivia Howell speaks directly to the person who has Googled some version of “How do I know if I s...

When you’re getting divorced with children, there are some decisions that look deceptively simple on paper: Where will the kids sleep? Who takes them to soccer? What happens on Thanksgiving? Who schedules the dentist? But those seemingly small questions are actually the architecture of your family’s next chapter. In this episode of Divorce Happens , Olivia sits down with David Fein , an attorney a...

"I started believing that the criticism, the feeling small, the walking on eggshells, was just what marriage was. I've caught myself telling friends 'it's not that bad' about things that, when I actually say them out loud, sound really bad." In this Hey Olivia listener letter episode, Olivia helps a listener recalibrate what she actually deserves after years of quietly minimizing a painful pattern...

Sometimes, when your life is falling apart, the thing that helps you hold yourself together is something as ordinary as getting dressed. Not because a great outfit can solve your problems, but because sometimes you need a physical reminder of the person you are beneath all the stress, grief, and uncertainty. In this episode of Divorce Happens, Olivia Howell sits down with Tracy D. Galloway, Esq.,...

One of the most heartbreaking parts of divorce can happen after the agreements are signed and the custody calendar becomes real: suddenly, you may no longer see your children every day. For parents adjusting to shared custody or a 50/50 parenting schedule, the empty bedrooms, missed bedtimes, and stretches of time apart can feel almost impossible to accept. In this episode of Divorce Happens , rel...

There is a very specific kind of fear that comes with thinking about divorce when you have no idea how your spouse is going to react. Maybe every difficult conversation somehow gets turned back on you. Maybe keeping the peace has become your full-time job. Maybe you’ve spent years being the reasonable one, the accommodating one, the person who gives a little more because it feels easier than deali...

Sometimes the hardest part of divorce isn’t only ending the marriage. It’s realizing how many beliefs you’ve inherited about what ending a marriage is supposed to say about you. Marriage is often presented as the goal. Divorce becomes the thing nobody wants to become. Being single is treated like an unfortunate waiting room before the next relationship begins. In this episode of Divorce Happens ,...