Divorce Happens

What happens when you get married at 22, divorced by 27, and have to figure out who you actually are for the very first time — as a fully formed adult? That’s the question at the heart of this week’s episode of Divorce Happens, and it’s one that Sarah Vacchiano has spent the last decade not just living, but writing. Sarah is a Los Angeles-based entertainment lawyer, a first-time author, and the mo...

Nobody warns you, when you're in the thick of a divorce, that the financial fallout doesn't end with the settlement. There are tuition bills on the horizon, FAFSA forms with your ex's name on them, and a whole new layer of negotiation you never saw coming. In this episode of Divorce Happens, host Olivia Howell sits down with Vicki Vollweiler — founder of College Financial Prep , divorced mom, and...

She was lying on the ground in Thailand, her husband having just shoved her in public, not knowing if her neck was broken, her arm was broken — knowing only that her heart was. In that moment, journalist, traveler, and diver Lisa Niver could not have imagined that the next chapter of her life would take her skydiving, mountain biking down a ski run in Lake Tahoe, and scuba diving with bull sharks...

There is a moment — quiet, uncomfortable, impossible to unhear — when you realize the marriage you’re in isn’t the marriage you thought you were building. For D’Ionna Washington , that moment came just one year into her first marriage. Instead of suppressing it, she eventually did what so few women feel permitted to do: she left. And then she wrote the book about it. In this candid, fire-lit conve...

What if the end of your marriage deserved a party? Not in spite of how hard it was — but because of it. In this joyful, irreverent, and unexpectedly moving solo episode of Divorce Happens, host Olivia Howell makes the full-throated, unapologetic case for divorce parties — and why throwing one might be one of the most psychologically meaningful things you can do for yourself after divorce. This is...

If you’ve ever sat with the thought of leaving an emotionally abusive relationship and felt, instead of relief, a wave of guilt — this episode is for you. Not the guilt of someone who is doing something wrong. The guilt of someone who has been so thoroughly conditioned to put themselves last that the simple act of imagining their own freedom feels like a betrayal. In this deeply compassionate and...

There is a particular kind of loneliness that lives inside a marriage that has gone quiet — where you’ve been having the conversation about separating entirely in your own head for weeks or months, but haven’t said a single word of it out loud. Not because you don’t know what you feel. But because you genuinely don’t know how to start — especially when real communication between you and your spous...

There is a question that lives in the bodies of thousands of people right now — not just in their minds, but in the tightness of their chests and the sleepless hours of 3 a.m. It’s not “should I get divorced.” It’s the harder, more specific thing: how do I actually say the words? In this intimate solo episode of Divorce Happens, host Olivia Howell steps into that question with the steady, grounded...

There’s a question that sits quietly in the minds of thousands of people every single day — and this week, one woman had the courage to send it to Olivia’s Instagram DMs: “How do I push past the fear and file against my narcissistic ex? We have a two-year-old.” In this intimate solo episode of Divorce Happens, host Olivia Howell speaks directly to that listener — and to every person navigating the...

What if divorce didn't have to destroy your family — what if it could actually make it better? That's the radical, deeply human premise at the heart of this week's episode of Divorce Happens, and it's brought to life by someone who's lived it, studied it, and built an entire career helping others do it well. Karen McNenny is a 15-year divorce survivor, certified divorce coach, co-parent specialist...

There's an emotion that lives in a quiet corner of a lot of divorced women — one they haven't said out loud to their therapist, their best friend, or maybe even themselves. And in this solo episode of Divorce Happens, Olivia is naming it directly: relief. Relief after divorce — or even during it — is one of the most common and least talked-about emotional experiences of divorce recovery. The exhal...

If you're a divorced mom, chances are you're carrying a fear that doesn't have a name but feels like this: Am I ruining my kids? In this solo episode of Divorce Happens, Olivia gets honest about one of the most universal — and most exhausting — emotional experiences of divorce recovery: mom guilt. Not the logistical kind, but the deep kind. The one that whispers at 2am that your kids are going to...

Most people walking into a divorce do the same thing: they call a lawyer. It feels like the obvious first move — the responsible one. But according to Jill Kaufman , a licensed therapist, certified divorce coach, certified mediator, and parent educator with decades of experience, hiring an attorney first is one of the most common — and costly — mistakes divorcing people make. Jill is also the foun...

If the first thing you did when your marriage started falling apart was Google the most aggressive divorce attorney in town, you are not alone — and you are not wrong for it. But what if there was a smarter, calmer, more strategic way to get through one of the hardest chapters of your life? In this episode of Divorce Happens, host Olivia Howell sits down with Melissa Murphy Pavone, a Certified Fin...

There is a quiet pressure that follows divorce like a shadow — the pressure to be fine. To be strong. To show everyone, and maybe especially yourself, that you are thriving and not broken and absolutely, definitely over it. In this intimate and deeply moving solo episode of Divorce Happens, host Olivia Howell sits with that pressure and names it for what it is: a lie that is costing women their he...

Nobody warns you about this part. The divorce attorneys explain the paperwork. The therapists help you process the grief of your marriage. Your family tells you it’s going to be okay. But almost no one prepares you for the moment you realize that some of the friendships you built your entire social world around — the dinner couples, the group text, the women who knew everything about your life — h...

There is a version of this story that gets told over and over again in our culture — the one where leaving a marriage is the failure, and staying is the strength. Where the person who files the papers is the one who gave up. Where divorce is a tragedy, and the one who initiates it is somehow the villain. In this deeply personal solo episode of Divorce Happens, host Olivia Howell takes that narrati...

Spring has a way of being quietly cruel when you're in the middle of a divorce. The world turns bright and blooming and annoyingly beautiful, and you're still just trying to get through the week — maybe the day, maybe the hour. The flowers don't know your timeline. The Instagram farmers market hauls don't know you're rebuilding from the ground up. And somewhere in that gap between what the season...

Nobody warns you that your first Mother's Day after divorce might be the hardest Sunday of your year. You might have your kids — and still feel completely alone. You might be kid-free for the holiday and have absolutely no idea what to do with yourself. You might scroll through social media, watch the flower deliveries and the brunches and the gratitude posts, and feel something you can't quite na...

Nobody tells you that divorce can feel like a second puberty. Suddenly, after years of being someone's partner — someone's spouse — you're standing in your own skin again, sometimes for the first time in decades, asking a question you were never really taught to answer: What actually brings me pleasure? In this illuminating, permission-giving episode of Divorce Happens, host Olivia Howell sits dow...

There is a dimension of divorce that nobody warned you about — one that has nothing to do with lawyers or custody schedules or dividing furniture. It goes much deeper than any of that. Divorce goes to the heart of your identity. And when the role you built your life around — wife, partner, the person in that marriage — is suddenly gone, the question that surfaces isn't just "what do I do now?" It'...

You've made the decision. Maybe it took months — maybe it took years. But you've finally arrived at it, and now your brain is telling you: move fast, do something, protect yourself. And that instinct, as understandable as it is, might be the very thing that costs you the most. In this indispensable episode of Divorce Happens, host Olivia Howell sits down with Lyerly Spongberg — certified ADR divor...

You were so close. The kids were finally sleeping through the night. You'd found a rhythm at work. You were starting to feel like yourself again — like balance was actually possible. And then divorce happened. And the scales didn't just tip — they crashed. If that sentence made you exhale, this episode is for you. In this conversation on Divorce Happens, host Olivia Howell sits down with Amy Pierr...

Nobody tells you that pregnancy can be the moment everything becomes clear. Not the nursery colors or the baby name — but something far bigger, far more quietly devastating: the realization that the relationship you're in is not the one you want to raise a child inside of. In this profound episode of Divorce Happens, host Olivia Howell sits down with Dr. Gertrude Lyons — author, life coach, podcas...

When you're going through a divorce, the world doesn't stop spinning — but it can feel like everyone else's resources did. Therapy is expensive. Childcare is exhausting and often unaffordable. And the practical realities of building a new life on one income, while co-parenting, grieving, and showing up for your kids, can feel completely overwhelming. In this episode of Divorce Happens, host Olivia...