Divorce Happens

Why does your heart race, your hands shake, or your throat tighten the moment you finally say "I'm getting divorced" out loud? In this solo episode, Olivia breaks down the physical, nervous-system side of disclosing a divorce — the part almost nobody talks about. This isn't about the emotional grief of divorce; it's about what's actually happening in your body in that first raw moment of telling someone, and why that reaction is completely normal.

Olivia covers:

There's a piece of paper that ends your marriage and quietly runs your life for years afterward — and almost nobody reads the whole thing. In this episode of Divorce Happens, Olivia sits down with Molly Rosenblum, Esq., founding attorney of The Rosenblum Allen Law Firm and one of the most respected family law attorneys in Las Vegas, Nevada — the self-described “divorce capital of the world.” With more than two decades of experience trying family law cases to verdict and a career built almost entirely around helping people through divorce, Molly is exactly the guide listeners need for the deceptively simple q...

There's a particular kind of injustice that so many survivors know intimately: you're the one who finally said enough, and somehow you've become the villain of the story. In this week's Hey Olivia letter episode of Divorce Happens, host Olivia Howell answers a listener who is pushing for her own divorce after enduring abuse for years — abuse that is still ongoing, even now, in the middle of the process — while her husband performs the role of the blindsided, devastated spouse to his family and to anyone who will listen. She's holding a boundary, refusing to explain or justify herself to p...

Mediation is hard enough when both people are negotiating in good faith. It's a different animal entirely when you're walking into the room across from someone who seems to oppose almost everything on principle. In this week's Hey Olivia letter episode of Divorce Happens, host Olivia Howell answers a listener with mediation just weeks away — a mother who has held down the marital home with her kids under temporary orders for over a year, now facing an ex pushing to sell the house their children have called home since kindergarten. It's the kind of letter that will feel instantly fa...

There's a specific kind of heartbreak that doesn't have a name yet — the one where you're still doing his laundry in the same house while he giggles at his phone on the couch. In this week's Hey Olivia letter episode of Divorce Happens, host Olivia Howell reads a note from a listener who is separated from her husband but cohabiting with him for the summer while he searches for a new place — and who has just realized, with a gut-punch kind of clarity, that he's back on the dating apps. She's watching someone she built a life with light up f...

You don’t walk out of a mediation session into a blank space — and yet almost nobody talks about what actually comes next. That’s the gap this episode of the divorce mediation series closes, as host Olivia Howell wraps up her four-part mediation series with Allison McFadden, a Washington D.C.-Baltimore-area family law attorney, Certified Divorce Coach®, and court-appointed mediator who founded Divorce by Allison after more than a decade practicing family law. After walking listeners through what mediation is, how to prepare for it, and what it actually feels like to be in the room, Allison closes...

For most people, the inside of a mediation session is a total mystery — a closed door they’re about to walk through with no idea what’s on the other side. That’s exactly the gap this episode of Divorce Happens closes, as host Olivia Howell continues part three of her four-part series with Allison McFadden, a Washington D.C.-Baltimore-area family law attorney, Certified Divorce Coach®, and court-appointed mediator who founded Divorce by Allison after more than a decade practicing family law.

Having already covered what divorce mediation is and how to prepare for it, this episode f...

A mediator is not a magician. That single line, dropped early in this episode of Divorce Happens, sets the tone for one of the most genuinely useful conversations in the show’s mediation series so far. Host Olivia Howell continues part two of her four-part collaboration with Allison McFadden, a Washington D.C.-Baltimore-area family law attorney, Certified Divorce Coach®, and court-appointed mediator who founded Divorce by Allison after more than a decade practicing family law.

If the first episode in this series answered the question of what divorce mediation actually is, this one answers the question alm...

Most people going through a divorce have heard the word “mediation” — and almost none of them know what it actually means. That gap is exactly where this episode of Divorce Happens begins, with host Olivia Howell kicking off a brand-new four-part series on divorce mediation alongside Allison McFadden, a Washington D.C.-Baltimore-area family law attorney, Certified Divorce Coach®, and court-appointed mediator who has spent more than a decade helping families untangle divorce and co-parenting without setting foot in a courtroom.

After years as a litigation attorney, Allison made a deliberate pivot: she founded Divorce by Allison to give...

She planned it for months — saved up, found an apartment, rehearsed the speech. She was sure. And three weeks after filing, she’s crying in a Target parking lot, smelling her almost-ex-husband’s hoodie before she donates it, waking up sobbing from a dream where they were still together. In this Divorce Happens “Hey Olivia” episode, host Olivia Howell reads a listener letter word for word and answers the question underneath it: if leaving was the right call, why does it still hurt this much? It’s one of the most tender, disorienting parts of divorce recovery — the grief that shows up...

There’s a question sitting in almost every divorced person’s notes app at 1 a.m.: is it okay to post about this? For the listener who wrote in this week, the pull to share is especially strong — her marriage is ending amid infidelity and, in her words, “genuinely strange, shady stuff,” and she’s parenting three kids under ten who have no idea their world is about to be searchable. In this Divorce Happens “Hey Olivia” episode, Olivia reads the listener’s letter in full and answers the question so many divorced parents are quietly Googling: what’s actually safe to sha...

There's a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from fighting a legal system that was never built to protect you — and North Carolina State Senator Woodson Bradley knows that exhaustion intimately. Long before she was sworn into the state legislature, Bradley was a young mother in Mecklenburg County watching her marriage, her savings, and her sense of safety unravel inside a divorce process she didn't realize was stacked against her. In this raw, eye-opening episode of Divorce Happens, Olivia sits down with Senator Bradley — a domestic violence and assault survivor turned divorce real estate specialist turned freshman state senator — to unp...

Divorce doesn't arrive with a checklist — it arrives like an avalanche. Your finances, your custody schedule, your identity, your future, all crashing down at once, and somehow you're still expected to answer emails before dinner. In this episode of Divorce Happens, Olivia sits down with Kristina St. Cyr, a CDC® Certified Divorce Coach and Moving On Method® Certified Coach based in Massachusetts, who spent nearly a decade and a half leading teams through high-stakes public health crises before discovering that no amount of professional composure could prepare her for the emotional and logistical chaos of her own divorce. That expe...

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 is for you. Olivia sits down with Lyerly Spongberg, a Certified ADR Divorce Coach, Pre-Mediation Coach, and Co-Parenting Specialist and founder of Step Up With Lyerly, for an...

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 someone had told me: nothing is wrong with you. Attraction and respect run on two completely different systems, and being finished with a marriage doesn't me...

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 Starts expert Laura Lorber, J.D. — a family mediator and parenting coordinator who has built her entire practice around these exact moments. Laura mediates parenting plans for the Los...

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 conversation: a law degree, a master's in social work, and her own lived experience of divorce, which she says taught her exactly what was missing from her process, and exactly what she now builds into...

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 household running. It's honest, a little funny, and gets at something a lot of women feel but rarely say out loud.

This piece originally ran on...

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 divorcing and divorced parents move from reacting to responding, and she brings something rare to this conversation: the lived experience of a child of divorce and a stepparent, paired with the clinical grounding of a family systems co...

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 around separated, divorced, remarried, and widowed families after years of working as a certified divorce coach, when clients kept asking her the same question: how am I possibly going to afford college as a divorced parent...

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's byline has appeared in the New York Times, Time, and HuffPost, but this conversation isn't about her résumé. It's about the year she turned a personal challenge — swim in fifty different bodies of water before her fi...

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 built a career in litigation before becoming a divorce coach, Lisa brings a rare blend of legal fluency, lived experience of her own divorce, and spiritual grounding to a conversation about something most divorcing pe...

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, and quietly confused about why relief hasn't arrived. Olivia meets that exact feeling head-on, with a single, steadying message — you did the hard thing, and you just moved through one of the bi...

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 wants them to carry into that room — a spouse's reaction reveals how they feel, not what the listener is obligated to do. Those two things get blurred together afte...

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 that makes this stop hurting. What listeners are actually looking for isn't flawless, it's true — something they can get through without falling apart. From there, she hands over real, usable scripts for finally telling a sp...

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 asking for permission. If you've arrived at the decision to end your marriage, you get to name it as a decision, not a request you're hoping will be granted. This episode is...

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: “I'm just kidding, why are you so sensitive?” If you've heard that line aimed at you, or caught yourself saying it to someone else, this episode is...

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 run-in with someone who knew you as a wife. The invitation addressed to both of you by accident. The insurance card that still has his name on it. Olivia makes the case that naming how...

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 — but a pattern of consistent, strategic underperformance that trains the other partner to just take over, permanently, while the underperforming partner maintains complete deniability. Olivia makes the case that this isn't incompetence at all. It's a st...

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: normalization. Not the big, dramatic ruptures that make for tidy divorce stories, but the slow, invisible erosion of patterns so many people live inside for years without ever calling them what they are.

Olivia wa...

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 what to do in exactly that space: the quiet divorce plan every woman needs before she says a single word. Through the lens of Belle Burden’s viral memoir Strangers...

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 Howell sits down with divorce coach Lisa Lisser to name it out loud. Lisa is a retired attorney who practiced litigation in New York City, a CDC Certified Divo...

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 Happens, Olivia Howell names something that gets almost no airtime in the divorce conversation: the slow erosion of self that can happen inside a long-term marriage. If you've ever st...

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 with a relief so many supporters need to hear: the fact that you're even asking how to help already puts you ahead. The people who...

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 something is wrong with you when absolutely nothing is. We're all handed some version of the stages of grief — denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance — and we absorb the idea that g...

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 and CEO of NASDF — the National Association for Single and Divorced Families — for five fresh, foundational tips to help you prepare for divorce and walk out the other side standing on ste...

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 official, before anyone else knows, before you've even fully admitted it to yourself. It's Googling at midnight and clearing your history. It's crying in the car and then walking inside to make...

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 Financial Planner, Certified Divorce Financial Analyst, and founder of Clairwell Financial Planning — to talk about the identity shift at the heart of divorce, and how to rebuild not just your bank accou...

The divorce process is one of the most life-changing things a person can go through — and somehow it’s still one of the most chaotic, confusing, and expensive. That’s exactly the problem that pulled tech founder Ryan Carson off the sidelines. A serial entrepreneur with 25 years in the tech world and three companies behind him, Ryan watched two of his three sisters — the people he calls his best friends — walk into brutal, costly divorces with almost no guidance except an attorney and a stack of baffling forms. Having grown up a child of divorce himself, he found it shocking h...

If you’re standing at the edge of a divorce right now, convinced the life waiting on the other side looks bleak and empty — this is the episode that turns the lights back on. Olivia Howell welcomes back author Betsy Cornwell, a New York Times bestselling novelist, memoirist, and divorced single mom who left an abusive marriage and rebuilt her entire life on the wild western coast of Ireland. Betsy has written six novels and the luminous new memoir Ring of Salt, which traces her journey from fleeing home with her infant son to crowdfunding and restoring a derelict knit...