Divorce Happens

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 familiar to anyone who has sat across a mediation table from someone who fights you more out of principle than out of any specific, negotiable position. Olivia's central reframe is the heart of this episode, and it's one that changes the entire way you walk into a high-conflict mediation: you're not there to persuade your ex of anything. You're there to build a proposal that looks obviously reasonable to a mediator, whether or not he ever agrees to it out loud. From there, she gets specific — teaching listeners to separate a person's stated position from the actual interest underneath it, whether that's money, control, or the fear of feeling like he “lost.” She also offers concrete mechanisms for the marital-home fight so many divorcing parents face, like a buyout tied to a refinance or a deferred sale linked to a school milestone, so a flat “I want to stay” becomes something a mediator can actually work with. What makes this episode land is how honestly Olivia prepares listeners for the emotional terrain of mediating with a provoking, oppositional ex — and gives them a way through it that doesn't require winning the argument in the room. She walks through knowing your floor before you ever sit down, looping your attorney into strategy (not just outcomes) so you understand your real leverage if mediation doesn't resolve things, and protecting your own nervous system with something as simple as permission to ask for five minutes when things get heated. It's an episode about divorce mediation preparation that's equal parts strategy and steadiness — and it leaves listeners with a genuinely usable plan for walking into a hard room and walking out with real terms. 🔗 Check out Fresh Starts Registry: The first & only divorce registry + support platform ➡ https://www.freshstartsregistry.com/ 📱 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/freshstartsregistry/ 📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FreshStartsRegistry 🎙 Podcast IG: https://www.instagram.com/divorcehappenspod/ 📬 Magazine: https://divorceguidemagazine.com/ 💛 The Divorce Happens Community: https://divorcehappens.substack.com/

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 for a stranger, from the next room. This episode is for anyone who has discovered that a legal or emotional decision to separate doesn't automatically shut off the nervous system's attachment to the person you're separating from — especially when you're still sharing a kitchen sink. Olivia doesn't just validate the listener's confusion — she names it precisely, calling it a breakup with no exit door. Unlike a typical split, cohabiting during a separation strips away the physical distance that usually gives a grieving nervous system room to catch up with a decision the mind has already made. Olivia walks through the biology of it: years of loving someone teaches your body to read their moods, their footsteps, the sound of their phone buzzing on the counter, so when that same person turns giddy over someone new, the jealousy that surfaces isn't weakness or regression — it's a nervous system still doing its old job, even after the heart has moved on. It's a reframe that listeners navigating in-house separation or divorce cohabitation rarely hear articulated this clearly, and it changes how the whole experience feels to sit inside. Where this episode really earns its keep is in the practical toolkit Olivia hands listeners by the end. She offers a script for setting boundaries with a cohabiting soon-to-be-ex around dating apps and phone calls in shared spaces, a pre-planned “exit move” for when the couch-giggling starts, and a short list of personal anchors — one person, one private ritual, one small rule — to hold onto when everything else feels blurry. It's an episode about dating after separation from the other side of the equation, about grief without closure, and about giving yourself permission to feel relief and heartbreak in the very same breath. Listeners walk away with both a concrete plan for surviving a shared roof and a gentler, more compassionate understanding of why this particular kind of hard is so disorienting — and so valid. 🔗 Check out Fresh Starts Registry: The first & only divorce registry + support platform ➡ https://www.freshstartsregistry.com/ 📱 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/freshstartsregistry/ 📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FreshStartsRegistry 🎙 Podcast IG: https://www.instagram.com/divorcehappenspod/ 📬 Magazine: https://divorceguidemagazine.com/ 💛 The Divorce Happens Community: https://divorcehappens.substack.com/

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 the series by answering the question that lingers once the session ends: now what? Allison starts with the scenario people fear most — not reaching an agreement — and immediately reframes it with real hope: mediation and litigation aren’t mutually exclusive, and stalling out in one session doesn’t mean the process failed. She lays out concrete next steps, from bringing in a divorce coach to strategize before the next session, to consulting an attorney about what’s realistic, to simply scheduling another round. But for the vast majority of people who do reach an agreement, Allison is clear that the hardest part is now behind them — though the paperwork isn’t finished. She walks through how a mediator typically drafts a memorandum of understanding, parenting plan, or settlement agreement, and why certain documents, like deeds or retirement orders, may still require an attorney’s involvement depending on the state. What makes this finale so valuable is the practical homework Allison hands listeners: don’t let your agreement collect dust in a drawer. She urges people to build a checklist and calendar every deadline — account closures, transfer dates, the annual date to pick summer parenting weeks — so the agreement actually gets lived out, not just signed. She also delivers a detail that surprises many listeners: reaching an agreement in mediation doesn’t finalize your divorce. You still have to file paperwork with the court, and Allison shares practical, money-saving options like self-help courthouse programs for anyone who wants to file without paying for a full attorney retainer. She closes the series with genuine reassurance — the vast majority of divorces are resolved by agreement, and no one goes through mediation alone. For anyone who has followed this series from the beginning, this episode is the reassuring, practical send-off that ties the whole journey together. 🔗 Check out Fresh Starts Registry: The first & only divorce registry + support platform ➡ https://www.freshstartsregistry.com/ 📱 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/freshstartsregistry/ 📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FreshStartsRegistry 🎙 Podcast IG: https://www.instagram.com/divorcehappenspod/ 📬 Magazine: https://divorceguidemagazine.com/ 💛 The Divorce Happens Community: https://divorcehappens.substack.com/

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 finally opens the door: what does it actually look and feel like to sit down and be in a mediation session, from the first minute to the last? Allison walks listeners through the anatomy of a real session with a level of detail that’s genuinely reassuring. It starts with the mediator setting the agenda — running through a checklist of common divorce and co-parenting topics to figure out what actually applies to this family, from the house to the parenting plan to retirement accounts. Nothing gets decided in stone that day; agreements reached in the room are tentative, notes are taken, and open items (like needing to pull retirement account statements) get flagged for next time. Allison also demystifies the physical logistics that surprise most first-timers: sessions can happen on Zoom or in person, and while she generally keeps both people in the same room — believing it builds the communication skills co-parents will keep needing — breakout rooms are always an option when things get heated or when someone wants to consult privately with an attorney or support person. What makes this episode land is its warmth and its permission-giving honesty. Allison answers one of the questions she says she gets constantly — what do I even wear to this? — with refreshing simplicity: be comfortable, there’s no dress code, and the mediator isn’t judging you for showing up in your work uniform after a long shift. She reassures listeners that most people show up on their best behavior, that agreements are never signed the same day so there’s time to review with an attorney, and that mediation sessions can even include moments of real levity — laughter, collaboration, and for some couples, a genuinely amicable way to close one chapter and start figuring out the next one, together. For anyone dreading the unknown of mediation, this episode replaces fear with a clear, human picture of what’s actually ahead. 🔗 Check out Fresh Starts Registry: The first & only divorce registry + support platform ➡ https://www.freshstartsregistry.com/ 📱 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/freshstartsregistry/ 📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FreshStartsRegistry 🎙 Podcast IG: https://www.instagram.com/divorcehappenspod/ 📬 Magazine: https://divorceguidemagazine.com/ 💛 The Divorce Happens Community: https://divorcehappens.substack.com/

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 almost nobody thinks to ask beforehand: how do you actually prepare to walk into the room? Because as Allison makes clear, preparation isn’t a formality — it’s one of the biggest predictors of whether mediation succeeds. Allison walks listeners through exactly what real preparation looks like, and it’s far more concrete and reassuring than most people expect. She encourages listeners to interview their mediator ahead of time — asking about their style (facilitative versus evaluative), how long sessions run, what topics will be covered, and how they handle high emotion in the room. She also normalizes a fear many listeners carry quietly: the worry of being talked over or steamrolled by a spouse during mediation. Allison’s answer is refreshingly practical — you’re allowed to bring support. A pre-mediation divorce coach, a consulting attorney, even a financial advisor can join the process, and she breaks down exactly how that works logistically, from private side-conversations in a Zoom breakout room to sitting at the table together. Olivia adds her own lived experience here, sharing that her mediation began over Zoom and evolved into each side bringing in their own attorney to help finalize things — without ever coming close to court. What makes this episode so actionable is how far it goes beyond generic advice. Allison gets specific about the documents that actually matter (account and mortgage statements and a school calendar, not birth or marriage certificates), the importance of walking in with a clear intention or “North Star” for why you’re there, and the value of preparing flexible proposals rather than a single non-negotiable demand. She closes with something rarely discussed in divorce circles: how to prepare mentally, naming that mediation can surface real emotional triggers and encouraging listeners to build a plan — through therapy, coaching, or somatic techniques — before those moments catch them off guard. Listeners walk away with a genuine sense of agency: mediation isn’t something that happens to you, it’s a process you can walk into prepared, supported, and clear-eyed. 🔗 Check out Fresh Starts Registry: The first & only divorce registry + support platform ➡ https://www.freshstartsregistry.com/ 📱 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/freshstartsregistry/ 📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FreshStartsRegistry 🎙 Podcast IG: https://www.instagram.com/divorcehappenspod/ 📬 Magazine: https://divorceguidemagazine.com/ 💛 The Divorce Happens Community: https://divorcehappens.substack.com/

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 people a private, collaborative, and far less combative path through one of life’s hardest transitions, and in this conversation she pulls back the curtain on a process that is often misunderstood, underexplained, and quietly one of the most empowering options available to divorcing couples. What makes this episode so valuable is how thoroughly Allison reframes what divorce mediation actually offers. She explains that mediation is a confidential, voluntary process guided by a neutral third party — not a judge, not a decision-maker, but a facilitator whose entire job is to help you and your co-parent or spouse reach an agreement that fits your family. That distinction matters enormously, because it means you retain control over nearly everything: who your mediator is, how quickly or slowly things move, and how creatively you solve the issues in front of you, from custody and parenting plans to the house, the finances, and everything in between. Allison contrasts this directly with divorce court, where a judge who has spent only a few hours with your case ultimately makes decisions for your family within the narrow limits of state law. She also gently dismantles one of the biggest myths clients bring into mediation: the fear that a mediator will simply tell them what to do. “The mediator is not there to make the decisions,” she reminds listeners — the mediator is there to help you and your co-parent find your own answer. Listeners walk away from this episode with real clarity and real hope, especially anyone who assumed mediation wasn’t an option because things with their spouse or co-parent feel too difficult. Allison walks through exactly what the process looks like in practice, from a free 20-minute consultation call to a prep checklist to a roughly two-hour mediation session that ends in a written agreement, and she makes the case that even high-conflict or emotionally complicated situations can still be strong candidates for mediation, because the process is built to be tailored to your family rather than forced into a courtroom template. This episode is the first in a four-part Divorce Happens series on mediation, so if you’re newly considering divorce, trying to avoid a costly and public court battle, or simply want to understand your options before you decide anything, this conversation is the essential, judgment-free place to start. 🔗 Check out Fresh Starts Registry: The first & only divorce registry + support platform ➡ https://www.freshstartsregistry.com/ 📱 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/freshstartsregistry/ 📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FreshStartsRegistry 🎙 Podcast IG: https://www.instagram.com/divorcehappenspod/ 📬 Magazine: https://divorceguidemagazine.com/ 💛 The Divorce Happens Community: https://divorcehappens.substack.com/

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 even when you were the one who filed — and Olivia meets it head-on with clarity, warmth, and zero judgment. Olivia’s core teaching reframes the entire experience: grief after a decision you made on purpose still counts as grief, full stop — it is not a scoreboard telling you whether you got it right or wrong. She walks through why the nervous system doesn’t distinguish between a sad ending and a wrong one; when a marriage ends, you’re not just losing a person, you’re losing an imagined future — the routines, the holidays, the version of “us” you’d built in your head. That’s why a dream of getting back together isn’t a gut-check reversing the divorce, and why missing the smell of a hoodie isn’t longing for him back — it’s a body flagging something familiar that’s disappearing. Olivia names this for what it actually is: withdrawal, not regret. The episode lands on two mindset shifts listeners can use immediately. First, a diagnostic question for the 3 a.m. spiral: do I miss him, or do I miss not being alone with all of this? One is about a person; the other is about fear — and you’re allowed to sit with both without acting on either today. Second, a somatic tool: hand on chest, out loud, “this is grief, not a mistake.” Olivia is clear that clarity isn’t the goal right now — care is, alongside a real runway of weeks or months before trusting any conclusion grief hands you in its loudest moments. It’s a compassionate, validating listen for anyone in the disorienting early weeks after filing, wondering if missing someone means they made the wrong call. They didn’t. Their body is just catching up. 🔗 Check out Fresh Starts Registry: The first & only divorce registry + support platform ➡ https://www.freshstartsregistry.com/ 📱 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/freshstartsregistry/ 📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FreshStartsRegistry 🎙 Podcast IG: https://www.instagram.com/divorcehappenspod/ 📬 Magazine: https://divorceguidemagazine.com/ 💛 The Divorce Happens Community: https://divorcehappens.substack.com/

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 share on social media during a divorce, and what could come back to haunt you in mediation, in court, or in your kids’ search results a decade from now. Olivia’s central teaching is a distinction she says has saved a lot of women real regret: the difference between processing and broadcasting. Processing — venting to a therapist, a trusted friend, a private community — is how a nervous system makes sense of chaos, and there’s nothing wrong with needing it. Broadcasting is public, permanent, and, once posted, entirely out of your hands. Olivia lays out a simple rule of thumb for anyone mid-divorce: assume anything posted publicly could end up printed out on a table in mediation or read aloud in a courtroom. She’s careful to note this isn’t legal advice — laws vary by state, and it’s worth a real conversation with a divorce attorney — but she’s equally clear that social media posts have been used as evidence in custody and divorce proceedings, and that the risk isn’t worth learning about the hard way. The episode closes with permission and with practical clarity, not just caution. Olivia distinguishes between sharing your own feelings and growth — generally safer territory — and posting specific incidents, identifying details, or anything written from the angriest, hottest part of you, which tends to resurface in ways you don’t want later. She reminds listeners that their kids will someday search their own names, their dad’s name, this exact chapter — and that today’s choices shape what’s waiting for them. For the full, unfiltered version of the story, Olivia points listeners toward the right room for it: a therapist, trusted friends, or a private community like Fresh Starts, where you can be completely honest without it becoming a permanent public record. It’s a compassionate, clarifying episode for anyone standing at the edge of hitting “post” mid-divorce — a reminder that you’re allowed to be fully heard without putting your case, or your kids, at risk. 🔗 Check out Fresh Starts Registry: The first & only divorce registry + support platform ➡ https://www.freshstartsregistry.com/ 📱 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/freshstartsregistry/ 📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FreshStartsRegistry 🎙 Podcast IG: https://www.instagram.com/divorcehappenspod/ 📬 Magazine: https://divorceguidemagazine.com/ 💛 The Divorce Happens Community: https://divorcehappens.substack.com/

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 unpack what actually happens when a state's divorce laws fail the women trying to leave. Bradley ran her 2024 campaign on family law reform and domestic violence protections, and in this conversation she explains exactly why that fight became personal. Bradley walks Olivia through the maze of North Carolina divorce law that most people never hear about until they're living it: a mandatory year-long separation before you can even file, a rule that resets the clock if you spend a single night under the same roof, and a system where post-separation abuse — financial, digital, emotional — often goes unrecognized by the judges and magistrates hearing these cases. She shares how she believed her joint accounts, retirement savings, and her children's college funds were legally frozen the moment she filed for separation, only to learn the hard way that they weren't, as her ex-husband drained them completely. She talks candidly about stepping away from her real estate career for a season because it wasn't safe, about rebuilding from a double-wide trailer in the country with her two young children, and about the moment the tide turned: when she stopped defending herself and started documenting everything. What makes this episode so powerful is where Bradley lands: not in bitterness, but in fierce, hard-won hope. She reminds listeners that divorce isn't the dirty word she was raised to believe it was — it can be the doorway to a freedom you didn't know was possible. Her advice for anyone in the thick of a divorce is refreshingly concrete: start a notebook and document everything, seek out legal aid and community resources built specifically for women navigating divorce, and find your "grizzly bear" — someone who will show up in the room and advocate for you when you can't advocate for yourself. Whether you're facing a contentious divorce, worried about financial abuse, or simply trying to understand your rights before you file, this conversation offers both a warning and a roadmap for divorce recovery and starting over after divorce, stronger than before. 🔗 Check out Fresh Starts Registry: The first & only divorce registry + support platform ➡ https://www.freshstartsregistry.com/ 📱 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/freshstartsregistry/ 📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FreshStartsRegistry 🎙 Podcast IG: https://www.instagram.com/divorcehappenspod/ 📬 Magazine: https://divorceguidemagazine.com/ 💛 The Divorce Happens Community: https://divorcehappens.substack.com/

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 experience became her calling. Today, Kristina works with career-driven, professional women navigating divorce, helping them do the one thing that sounds simple but rarely is: keep moving forward, one manageable step at a time. What makes this conversation so useful is how practical it gets, without ever losing sight of the emotional reality underneath. Kristina walks Olivia through five field-tested strategies for staying grounded when divorce feels like too much at once — starting with the idea that emotional processing and logistical tasks are two entirely different kinds of work, and trying to do them in the same breath is often what makes divorce feel paralyzing. She talks about the power of asking a smaller question — not “how will I get through this entire divorce,” but “what are the next three steps I can take this week” — and introduces the concept of a weekly “divorce CEO hour,” one contained block of time to handle correspondence, paperwork, and decisions so the rest of the week doesn't have to be spent in reactive mode. She also makes the case for gathering information before making big, permanent-feeling decisions, and for regulating your nervous system before you even open that email from your attorney. As Kristina puts it, divorce isn't just about leaving something behind — it's about learning how to move toward something else. For anyone in the thick of a divorce right now, wondering how they're supposed to hold down a job, parent their kids, and manage an attorney relationship without falling apart, this episode offers something rare: a clear, doable framework instead of vague reassurance. Kristina's background gives her a unique lens on this — someone who has led teams through crisis for a living, and who also knows what it feels like to be the one who needs steadying. Listeners will walk away with two immediate, actionable shifts: separate your emotional processing time from your logistical tasks, and stop trying to solve the whole divorce today — just find your next three steps. It's a conversation about permission as much as strategy: permission to slow down, to take this one piece at a time, and to trust that steady, small steps are still forward motion. 🔗 Check out Fresh Starts Registry: The first & only divorce registry + support platform ➡ https://www.freshstartsregistry.com/ 📱 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/freshstartsregistry/ 📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FreshStartsRegistry 🎙 Podcast IG: https://www.instagram.com/divorcehappenspod/ 📬 Magazine: https://divorceguidemagazine.com/ 💛 The Divorce Happens Community: https://divorcehappens.substack.com/

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 honest, nuanced conversation about one of the most under-discussed emotional realities of co-parenting after divorce: the guilt of getting out when your children didn't. Spongberg brings more than professional training to this conversation — she brings twenty-plus years of lived experience, having divorced in her thirties and later rebuilt a blended family of six children as a stepmother to four. That dual perspective, expert and survivor, shapes everything she offers here, starting with a distinction she says changes the way divorced parents talk to themselves: guilt is “I did something bad,” while shame is “I am bad.” Divorce guilt and co-parenting shame, she explains, are not the same weight to carry, and untangling them is often the first real step toward healing. From there, the conversation moves into concrete territory — how to steady yourself and your children during the disorienting transition between homes, why building a small ritual (even something as simple as always baking cookies when the kids come home) can anchor a child through change, and why resisting the urge to defend yourself against a co-parent's bad-mouthing is, paradoxically, one of the most powerful things you can do for your credibility in your children's eyes. What makes this episode so reassuring is its honesty about time. Olivia shares her own story — her children were three and five when she divorced, and it wasn't until they were thirteen and ten that she noticed she'd stopped bracing every time her ex reached out. Spongberg echoes that truth for listeners in the thick of it now: the triggering feeling does soften, high-conflict co-parenting doesn't stay high-conflict forever, and children are far more resilient — and far more attuned to who you really are — than guilt convinces you they are. Listeners walk away with two grounding takeaways: give yourself permission to protect your own peace during your parenting time off, because a regulated parent is a safer parent to come home to; and remember, in Spongberg's own closing words, that grief is not the same thing as failure. If you're carrying guilt about a decision you know, deep down, was the right one, this conversation offers both the clinical language and the human permission to finally put some of that guilt down. 🔗 Check out Fresh Starts Registry: The first & only divorce registry + support platform ➡ https://www.freshstartsregistry.com/ 📱 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/freshstartsregistry/ 📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FreshStartsRegistry 🎙 Podcast IG: https://www.instagram.com/divorcehappenspod/ 📬 Magazine: https://divorceguidemagazine.com/ 💛 The Divorce Happens Community: https://divorcehappens.substack.com/

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 mean your body got the memo on the same timeline as your mind. What follows is a close, compassionate look at why the nervous system doesn't operate on decisions — it operates on repetition. Years of a specific voice, a specific smell, the rhythm of someone next to you at night get wired in far below the part of the brain that files paperwork and calls it done. I share my own experience of feeling disgusted with myself for a night my body “missed” my ex, and how I eventually understood I wasn't grieving him, I was grieving familiarity — a distinction that changes everything about how you treat yourself during divorce recovery. This episode reframes a common but rarely discussed part of starting over after divorce: wanting a body you don't want a life with, and realizing that contradiction is human, not broken. This episode is ultimately about self-compassion and timeline. I offer two concrete tools: naming the feeling out loud as fact rather than confession (“my body remembers him, that doesn't mean I want him back”), and choosing real distance over white-knuckled discipline, since distance gives the nervous system room to actually recalibrate. For anyone deep in divorce recovery who feels ashamed of grieving someone they're relieved to be leaving, this episode offers both scientific clarity and real permission — and a reminder that healing after divorce was never going to move in a straight line. 🔗 Check out Fresh Starts Registry: The first & only divorce registry + support platform ➡ https://www.freshstartsregistry.com/ 📱 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/freshstartsregistry/ 📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FreshStartsRegistry 🎙 Podcast IG: https://www.instagram.com/divorcehappenspod/ 📬 Magazine: https://divorceguidemagazine.com/ 💛 The Divorce Happens Community: https://divorcehappens.substack.com/

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 Angeles courts, is trained in mindfulness and conflict resolution, and is the rare professional who is genuinely comfortable working at the edges of the hardest cases: high-conflict co-parenting, substance use, and past domestic violence. As Olivia puts it, divorce is “ninety-nine percent triggering conversations” — and this is the episode about how to actually survive them. What makes the conversation so disarming is that it is both deeply practical and rooted in real neuroscience. Laura walks through her “seventy-two-hour rule”: a single triggering message floods your system with cortisol, and it can take up to three days before your thinking brain comes fully back online. So why, she asks, would you fire off a reply when the logical part of your brain has literally left the building? Her permission-giving reframe lands like a key turning in a lock — you can respond, “I received your communication and will get back to you by this day, at this time,” fulfill the court order, and set the message down. From there she teaches the tools she gives her own clients for emotional regulation after divorce: siloing every divorce communication into one dedicated email or co-parenting app with notifications off, belly breathing you can practice at a red light, and the “name it to tame it” exercise that moves you from raw feeling (“I’m angry”) to real clarity (“I feel disempowered — so what do I actually need?”). She even shares Dan Siegel’s hand model of the brain, the unforgettable image of “flipping your lid” the moment conflict hijacks you. Underneath every tip is one quiet, powerful mindset shift: you are the one who chooses when to engage — it is not the other way around. That single reframe is what turns a triggering text from an ambush into something you can hold, name, and answer on your own terms. And the beauty of these tools is that they travel: they work with a high-conflict ex, a combative attorney, a difficult boss, anyone who knows how to push your buttons. For the days when the conflict feels too tangled to untangle alone, Laura also pulls back the curtain on what mediators and parenting coordinators actually do — how they step in when communication breaks down, when a parenting plan stops working, or when a case has simply become too high-conflict to move forward. Whether you are newly separated or years into co-parenting, this episode is a hug and a toolkit at once: real, grounded support for anyone learning to communicate calmly, protect their peace, and reclaim their power in life after divorce. 🔗 Check out Fresh Starts Registry: The first & only divorce registry + support platform ➡ https://www.freshstartsregistry.com/ 📱 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/freshstartsregistry/ 📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FreshStartsRegistry 🎙 Podcast IG: https://www.instagram.com/divorcehappenspod/ 📬 Magazine: https://divorceguidemagazine.com/ 💛 The Divorce Happens Community: https://divorcehappens.substack.com/

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 every program she offers women navigating separation and starting over after divorce. At the heart of Leslie's work is a truth most divorcing people never hear until it's too late: high-stakes conversations about money, custody, and separation can trigger the nervous system into freeze, and freeze can mean walking out of a meeting with no memory of what you just agreed to. Leslie has watched clients make life-altering decisions in a room full of people and retain nothing about it, and she now teaches nervous system regulation and dissociation awareness as the foundation of divorce preparation, before a single conversation about alimony or custody even happens. From there, the work moves into attachment styles and trauma bonds, naming the disorienting experience of craving a spouse you can't stand, and into grief work for the parts of life divorce quietly takes with it: the extended family, the favorite restaurants, the whole ecosystem you didn't realize you'd lose. She even makes space for reclaiming pleasure and libido post-divorce, treating self-connection as both healing and protective against reconnecting with an ex out of loneliness. What makes this episode so hopeful is Leslie's own hard-won clarity: divorce may be one of the worst things you go through, but she promises that life on the other side gets shockingly good, and that the self-awareness built during the process isn't wasted, it's the foundation for everything that comes next. Listeners walk away with two concrete takeaways: first, that preparing your nervous system before high-conflict meetings is just as important as preparing your case, and second, that noticing your reactions with curiosity, rather than shame, is what actually changes the outcome. Whether you're weighing whether to leave, mid-process, or newly divorced and trying to figure out who you are now, this conversation offers real tools for healing after divorce and rebuilding identity on the other side. 🔗 Check out Fresh Starts Registry: The first & only divorce registry + support platform ➡ https://www.freshstartsregistry.com/ 📱 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/freshstartsregistry/ 📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FreshStartsRegistry 🎙 Podcast IG: https://www.instagram.com/divorcehappenspod/ 📬 Magazine: https://divorceguidemagazine.com/ 💛 The Divorce Happens Community: https://divorcehappens.substack.com/

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 The Happenstance. Follow along at oliviahowell.substack.com for more essays like this one.

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 coach who has watched, up close, what actually determines whether kids come out of co-parenting resilient or overwhelmed. Maria's central insight reframes everything: it isn't separation itself that shapes a child's long-term wellbeing, it's their ongoing exposure to parental conflict — the frequency, duration, and intensity of it. Through her signature BeH2O® framework, Maria helps parents build an internal operating system for co-parenting after divorce, likening the process to building muscle at the gym rather than waiting for a court date or a milestone to magically deliver peace. She's also candid about the limits of simply "being nice." Many of the parents she works with are seasoned over-functioners running on an internal pressure cooker — anticipating everyone's needs, absorbing everyone's emotions, and quietly burning out, until the pressure finds its way out anyway, often at the expense of the very kids they're trying to protect. Where this episode offers real hope is in what Maria says comes next: parents who commit to the work report they stop replaying conversations late at night, stop feeling responsible for managing everyone else's emotions, and start setting boundaries without guilt — changes that ripple directly into how safe and steady their kids feel. Listeners walk away with two clear, actionable shifts: first, that co-parenting peace is built through consistent, repeatable patterns rather than a single finish line, and second, Maria's simple reframe for high-conflict moments — what kind of parent do you want your child to remember, and what would it take to be that person today? For anyone navigating co-parenting after divorce, blended family stress, or single parenting on the other side of separation, this conversation offers a genuinely usable place to start. 🔗 Check out Fresh Starts Registry: The first & only divorce registry + support platform ➡ https://www.freshstartsregistry.com/ 📱 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/freshstartsregistry/ 📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FreshStartsRegistry 🎙 Podcast IG: https://www.instagram.com/divorcehappenspod/ 📬 Magazine: https://divorceguidemagazine.com/ 💛 The Divorce Happens Community: https://divorcehappens.substack.com/

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? As a divorced mom herself, currently guiding her own daughter through the college search, Vicki brings both firsthand experience and deep technical expertise to a topic most divorced families don't realize they need to plan for years in advance. The heart of this episode is a financial aid distinction most parents have never heard of, and one that can cost or save a family tens of thousands of dollars: the difference between the FAFSA, which typically considers one household's finances, and the CSS Profile, used by many selective schools, which often wants information from both biological parents and their new spouses, meaning a blended family could suddenly be reporting four incomes instead of one. Vicki walks through the hidden costs that catch divorced families off guard, from test fees and application fees to campus visits and tutoring, and the fee waivers available to offset them. She's equally candid about the emotional layer underneath the spreadsheets: co-parents often carry different values and different definitions of "the best school for my child," and neither is wrong, but those differences need to be named and discussed long before decision letters arrive. What makes this episode so hopeful is Vicki's reminder that this process doesn't have to be adversarial or lonely. Listeners walk away with two clear, actionable takeaways: first, to check whether college is even addressed in their divorce agreement, and if it isn't, to start that conversation with their co-parent now, ideally years before senior year, since tax returns from tenth and eleventh grade can shape a family's first financial aid award; and second, to loop in the wider support system, whether that's grandparents, aunts, uncles, or family friends, to help make campus visits and the college search feel like a gift instead of a burden. For any divorced or divorcing parent staring down the cost of college, this conversation offers real clarity, real savings strategies, and genuine reassurance that this milestone can still be joyful. 🔗 Check out Fresh Starts Registry: The first & only divorce registry + support platform ➡ https://www.freshstartsregistry.com/ 📱 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/freshstartsregistry/ 📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FreshStartsRegistry 🎙 Podcast IG: https://www.instagram.com/divorcehappenspod/ 📬 Magazine: https://divorceguidemagazine.com/ 💛 The Divorce Happens Community: https://divorcehappens.substack.com/

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 fiftieth birthday — into the roadmap for finally leaving a twenty-three-year marriage that had quietly hollowed her out. Kate's story complicates the narrative around divorce and caregiving in exactly the way this show exists to do. For years, she was the primary caregiver not only for her two daughters but for her then-husband through a severe cancer diagnosis — carrying, as she puts it, the vast bulk of the mental load in a marriage that was quietly draining her. The 50 Dunks Project started as something playful, a way to reclaim the joy and childhood wonder she'd lost somewhere along the way. But immersing herself, literally, in rivers, hot springs, and the waters of southern France became something more: a practice of embodiment, presence, and boundary-setting in a life that had none. Kate shares the test that ultimately helped her decide to separate — asking herself whether she'd tell her own daughter to stay in a marriage like hers — and speaks candidly about the guilt of choosing divorce while her ex-husband was still chronically ill, and the very real grief her daughters carried alongside her. The episode closes on the note this show always returns to: divorce is not the crisis it's made out to be — it's often the exit from one. Kate's final swim, on her fiftieth birthday, with both daughters at her favorite spot on the South Yuba River, becomes a quiet, hard-won reconciliation after years of pain neither of them chose. Her message to anyone circling the decision to leave an unhappy marriage is direct: the freedom on the other side comes sooner than you'd think, and it is worth it. Listeners will walk away with two practical takeaways for starting over after divorce — a simple gut-check question for evaluating whether a marriage is serving you, and a reminder that reclaiming joy, in almost any small form, is never a frivolous first step toward midlife reinvention. 🔗 Check out Fresh Starts Registry: The first & only divorce registry + support platform ➡ https://www.freshstartsregistry.com/ 📱 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/freshstartsregistry/ 📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FreshStartsRegistry 🎙 Podcast IG: https://www.instagram.com/divorcehappenspod/ 📬 Magazine: https://divorceguidemagazine.com/ 💛 The Divorce Happens Community: https://divorcehappens.substack.com/

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 people never slow down long enough to find: clarity. Lisa's signature framework, divorce clarity, starts from a simple but radical idea: before you can make good decisions during divorce, you have to get honest about your values, and that requires pausing instead of reacting. She walks through what she calls "the pause for clarity," a moment to ask where am I right now, what am I feeling, and what's the fear underneath the fear, before the nervous system's fight, flight, freeze, or fawn response takes the wheel. From there, she introduces "strategic curiosity": the practice of asking the questions divorcing people are often too afraid or too overwhelmed to ask, whether that's what does hiring a shark attorney actually mean for my case, or who can answer my questions about qualifying for a mortgage on my own. Lisa is candid that she didn't ask enough questions during her own divorce, and that she now builds her entire coaching practice around helping clients avoid that same regret. What makes this episode so reassuring is Lisa's insistence that clarity is buildable, even for someone in the most heartbroken, spiraling phase of divorce, one pause, one breath, one question at a time. Listeners walk away with two clear, actionable tools: first, the pause for clarity itself, a simple nervous-system reset to use before any high-stakes conversation or decision; and second, a challenge to name their own top three to five values as a compass for who they want to be, both during the divorce process and in the life that comes after it. For anyone navigating divorce fog, decision paralysis, or the pressure to react fast instead of think clearly, this conversation offers a genuinely calming, practical place to start. 🔗 Check out Fresh Starts Registry: The first & only divorce registry + support platform ➡ https://www.freshstartsregistry.com/ 📱 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/freshstartsregistry/ 📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FreshStartsRegistry 🎙 Podcast IG: https://www.instagram.com/divorcehappenspod/ 📬 Magazine: https://divorceguidemagazine.com/ 💛 The Divorce Happens Community: https://divorcehappens.substack.com/