Divorce Happens

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 founder of Monique Speaks, to talk about the part of divorce that so many of us try to carry by ourselves: asking for help, and letting it in.

Monique says the first step isn't reaching out to others. It's being honest with yourself about what divorce means for you, and recognizing that it is a state of grief. For some it's a heavy weight, for others there's relief, but everyone navigates some level of it. From there, she talks about the moment someone in her church small group asked why she wasn't letting them help carry the burden, and how needing support continually, not just once, "strips it in a whole different way." Having lived in four different states and rebuilt community each time, often far from family, she shares what it felt like when people she'd known only a few years showed up for her and her kids in ways she didn't know she needed, down to a homemade loaf of bread at a basketball game.

Then the conversation gets practical. Monique's keyword is intentionality: "Things don't just happen, right? You have to be intentional if you want certain results." She shares the four places she starts every time she builds community, why a walk or a meal or an invitation into your home matters, and why paying for community, from a coach to a gym to your kids' activities, still counts. And she offers a framework you'll want to hold onto: you can just get through divorce, alone with a compass in the dark woods, or you can go through it, surrounded by people, on the way to healing. "The core of it," she says, "is allowing others to bear your burden with you."

Connect with Monique Alexander of Monique Speaks:

🌐 Monique Speaks: https://www.moniquespeaks.org

📱 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/moniquespeaks_org/

💙 Fresh Starts expert profile: https://www.freshstartsregistry.com/resourceguide/monique-speaks

🔗 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/

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 with Amanda, a Fresh Starts expert and the founder of Solagree, to talk about what she built after asking a simple question: what can we do better?

Amanda's answer starts with a promise. Every alternative to court has good ideas, she says, but none of them closed the loop. With Solagree, a couple agrees from the very beginning that if they can't resolve something, they won't go to court. They'll go to private family law arbitration instead. From there, the process has three phases. First comes intake, education, and empowerment, the part Amanda says couples lack more than anything: time to understand their circumstances, exchange information, and learn that there are paths forward and they're going to be okay. Then comes mediation with experienced attorney mediators. Finally, a neutral attorney arbitrator turns the couple's agreements into a binding document and serves as a safety net for anything still unresolved. "You've designed your own outcome," Amanda says. "That's the goal."

Olivia and Amanda talk about why a virtual process matters, from being in your own safe space to not having to figure out where to park, what to wear, and who's watching the kids. Amanda explains how Solagree builds state-based panels of professionals, how you can start learning even before you've talked to your spouse, why you don't have to be fully amicable to use it, and why privacy and cost predictability can't be overstated. Her words for anyone considering divorce are simple: "the first step is the hardest. And then it gets better from there." You're going to be okay, and you're going to be supported.

Connect with Amanda Mason and Solagree:

🌐 Solagree: https://www.solagree.com/

📝 Take the Solagree quiz: https://www.solagree.com/quiz

📅 Book a Solagree consult: https://www.solagree.com/book-a-solagree-consult

📱 Solagree on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/solagree_divorce/

📱 Amanda on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amandamasonatty/

💙 Fresh Starts expert profile: https://freshstartsregistry.com/resourceguide/solagree

🔗 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/

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 sits down with Christina, a Fresh Starts expert who owns and operates Christina White Legal in the western suburbs of Chicago, to talk about a term we're all using a lot more and what it really means.

There's no legal definition of a high conflict divorce, Christina explains, but after more than 10 years in family law she knows it when she sees it. Both people need lawyers. Then a mediator. Then a guardian ad litem. Then trial dates. It can go on for months and months and cost tens of thousands of dollars. She shares where she thinks it comes from, a shift in the dynamic when one person finally pushes back against years of control, and she's clear that no one who was in a coercively controlling relationship should back down. They should know it's going to be an uphill battle.

Then Christina tells her own story. When she went through her own divorce, with two little kids and a full-time law practice, she made a decision that surprises people: "You can lower your expectations." She wanted the kids most of the time and she wanted the house they had just built. She let go of both, and she was divorced in six weeks. What she kept was everything she could control: her attitude, the time she has with her kids, the school they attend, holiday travel, and a home without grown-ups screaming at each other. For anyone in a high conflict divorce right now, she leaves two practical pieces of advice, "organize your mind and organize your paperwork," and one piece of perspective: "Life is short. An unhappy marriage is long and a high conflict divorce is way too long."

Connect with Christina White:

🌐 Christina White Legal: https://www.christinawhitelegal.com

📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/christinawhitelegal

💙 Fresh Starts expert profile: https://www.freshstartsregistry.com/resourceguide/christina-white-legal-llc

🔗 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/

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 divorce recovery coach, founder of Mindfully Ready, and Fresh Starts expert who has been through three divorces herself and has spent the last six and a half years coaching hundreds of women through theirs.

Leah explains what divorce recovery actually is and why it's different from the support you had during the legal process. Your attorney, your mediator, and your financial professionals get you through the divorce itself. Then, as Leah puts it, "the ink dries, and it's like, well, now what?" The guilt, the shame, the feelings of failure, and a nervous system that has been in survival mode for months don't end with a signature. The women who come to Leah say the same three things: I want peace, I want my confidence back, and I want to know who I am again. Her answer starts in a place most people don't expect. You can't wait for your ex to change before you feel calm, because "you always have the power to find peace within yourself."

From there, the conversation gets practical. Leah shares how to regulate your nervous system in small pockets of the day, why "the power is in the pause" when a co-parenting message lands, and how one minute of doing nothing can bring you back to yourself. She and Olivia talk about people-pleasing, letting go of what you can't control, and how the tools you learn in divorce recovery become tools your kids carry for life. If you just signed your divorce papers and don't know who you are anymore, Leah's advice is the heart of this episode: you don't have to figure out your whole life right now. You just have to take that one next step.

Connect with Leah Marie Mazur:

🌐 Website and free resources: https://www.mindfullyready.com/

🎥 Free training: https://www.mindfullyready.com/mr-free-traning

👥 Free private Facebook support group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/divorcedandempowered

📱 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mindfullyready/

🎵 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mindfullyready

💙 Fresh Starts expert profile: https://freshstartsregistry.com/resourceguide/mindfully-ready

🔗 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/

"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 those thoughts as the truth and start treating them as what they are: stories.

Her guest is Fresh Starts Expert Lyerly Spongberg, a certified ADR divorce coach, pre-mediation coach, and co-parenting specialist who has seen divorce from every side. Lyerly went through her own high-conflict divorce in her 30s and has since been remarried for nearly 20 years, with a blended family of six children. She remembers believing she was not strong enough to get through it, and believing that every battle and every angry message needed her full attention. What changed things was a pause, and a smaller question: "okay, what can I handle today?" Strength, she learned, was not fighting everything. It was knowing when to fight and when to drop the rope.

From there, Lyerly shares the practical framework she uses with clients to challenge limiting beliefs during divorce. Listen for the absolute words (never, always, can't). Notice when you are mind reading or predicting the worst. Then ask: what do I actually know is true, what am I guessing, and whose voice is this? Her favorite test is a simple one: "is it a roadblock or is it a doorway?" As she says, this is not about forced positivity. "It's strategy." Listeners will come away with a new way to think about co-parenting and shared custody (you are still 100% of a parent), a reminder to put their energy into what they can control, and one line worth keeping close: this is a really difficult chapter, and it doesn't define the whole book.

Learn more about Lyerly Spongberg: https://www.freshstartsregistry.com/resourceguide/step-up-with-lyerly

🔗 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 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 her feel robbed of time with her kids, and asks the question so many people going through divorce are afraid to say out loud: is it okay to feel joy while everything is falling apart?

To answer it, Olivia sits down with Fresh Starts Expert Lisa Lisser, a certified divorce coach and founder of LZL Coaching whose path runs from attorney to nonprofit leader to Jewish educator and spiritual counselor. Lisa brings all of it to this conversation, drawing on the holiday of Sukkot, when families build a temporary, fragile shelter with a roof open enough to see the stars, and are told to feel joy inside it. For Lisa, that is the emotional work of divorce in a single image: you are living in a temporary structure that feels like it will never end, and you are still allowed to eat, to learn, to invite people in, and to look up. As she puts it, "You can't command joy, but I could set myself up so that at least I have the opportunity to feel joy."

What follows is a gentle, practical conversation about finding joy during divorce without pretending the hard parts are gone. Lisa walks through how to be present for your kids for one 45-minute recorder concert, why rumination disconnects you from yourself, and how releasing guilt opens the door to small moments of light, whether that is a granddaughter's smile or a rerun of a show you forgot you loved. Listeners will leave with two mindset shifts for divorce recovery and co-parenting: you do not have to wait until the divorce is over to feel good again, and you do not have to go through this fragile season alone. If you have been telling yourself you are not ready for joy, this episode offers both permission and a place to start.

Learn more about Lisa Lisser: https://www.freshstartsregistry.com/resourceguide/lzl-coaching

🔗 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/

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 how to hold the joy and the grief at the same time. How do I hold both?"

Since October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month, it felt like the right time to answer it.

In this Hey Olivia episode of Divorce Happens, I start with what I most want anyone in this spot to hear: you don't have to pick one feeling to be the real one right now. Grateful and heartbroken can live in the same body on the same day. A rainbow baby doesn't erase a pregnancy loss, and the loss doesn't take anything away from the joy. We talk about why everything feels so loud with a newborn (the exhaustion, a body that's still healing, and a huge decision sitting in the middle of it all), why the guilt of being sad during "the happiest chapter" is a script you're allowed to set down, and why it's okay to grieve the marriage itself. Loss can pull two people closer or quietly pull them apart, and sometimes it does both along the way.

You'll leave with a few small, practical things to hold onto: a way to give the baby you lost a place that's just yours, one kind sentence for the "but you finally got your baby" comments, and a two-list exercise for the days when gratitude and grief show up together. I also talk about the support that can carry this with you, from a therapist who understands pregnancy loss and perinatal grief to a divorce coach who can take on the logistics. If you're navigating divorce after pregnancy loss, divorce with a newborn, or any season where joy and grief are sharing the same room, this one is for you. Nothing is wrong with you. Both belong.

🔗 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 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 divorce coach, divorced mom, and founder of Kristina St. Cyr Coaching, to talk honestly about the emotional whiplash of early co-parenting after divorce: letting go of control, learning to trust a new family structure, and figuring out how to protect your own peace while still putting your children first.

Kristina works primarily with women who have reached the threshold of divorce—they know something has to change, but they have no idea what comes next. She explains why the transition to shared parenting can feel especially destabilizing for moms who previously carried the mental load, managed the schedules, made the decisions, and built the infrastructure of family life. Together, Olivia and Kristina unpack practical co-parenting tips after divorce, including creating written communication systems, establishing specific parenting schedules and exchange times, and setting boundaries around each parent’s responsibilities. Sometimes saying, “I’m not available—that is your parenting time,” can feel uncomfortable. But Kristina reminds listeners that consistency and predictability aren't just boundaries for parents; they can also create security for children navigating divorce.

And perhaps the most reassuring message in this conversation is that you do not have to figure out your entire co-parenting future today. Kristina encourages overwhelmed moms to break divorce recovery into manageable pieces: choose one boundary, one conversation, or one decision you can handle today and allow that success to become evidence that you can handle the next thing, too. Co-parenting after divorce may never look like the family life you once imagined, but with clear expectations, thoughtful boundaries, and a child-centered approach, it can become something steadier, healthier, and more sustainable—for your kids and for you.

🔗 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/

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 down with Vicki Vollweiler, founder of College Financial Prep, to unpack what divorced and separated parents need to know about paying for college, applying for financial aid, and creating a college strategy long before acceptance letters start arriving.

Vicki breaks down FAFSA for divorced parents, the CSS Profile, need-based financial aid, merit scholarships, student loans, and one of the biggest sources of confusion for divorced families: whose financial information actually counts. FAFSA generally looks at the parent providing more financial support to the student, while some colleges using the CSS Profile may request financial information from both parents—and potentially stepparents, too. That means divorce agreements, remarriage, household finances, and co-parenting dynamics can all affect the college financial aid process. Just as importantly, Vicki explains why parents should talk openly about the college budget early, without necessarily sharing every detail of their income or assets, so a teenager doesn’t spend senior year falling in love with a school the family was never realistically prepared to afford.

But underneath all the forms and financial strategy is something much more emotional: this is your child’s future, and for divorced parents, college may be one of the first major milestones that forces old family dynamics back to the surface. Vicki shares how she sometimes acts as an intermediary for parents who cannot communicate directly and why planning as early as 10th or 11th grade can reduce conflict, guilt, resentment, and financial stress later. Her simplest first step for overwhelmed parents? Find the tax return you’ll need for FAFSA. You do not have to solve college today. You just need to start building a strategy—because after divorce, clarity around college costs can give both parents and their child more choices, not fewer.

🔗 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/

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 one of the most damaging cultural beliefs surrounding divorce: the idea that the end of a marriage is automatically proof that somebody failed.

Olivia explores how the fear of becoming “the divorced woman” can keep people trapped in marriages long after they have stopped asking whether the relationship itself is healthy. Instead, the questions become: Did I try hard enough? Did I choose the wrong person? Am I selfish? Did I fail my children? But a person is allowed to make decisions using the information they have now—even if the younger version of themselves made a different decision years ago. Divorce does not require rewriting the entire marriage as a mistake, either. You can have loved someone deeply and still know you cannot live with them anymore. You can remember beautiful years while acknowledging painful ones. You can feel relieved and devastated, miss your former spouse and never want the marriage back, or know divorce is right and still grieve what is ending.

Ultimately, this episode asks listeners to reconsider how we measure relationship success. Longevity alone cannot tell us whether a marriage was loving, healthy, safe, or fulfilling. Staying married is not automatically the same thing as succeeding at marriage—and ending one is not automatically failure. For anyone navigating divorce recovery, questioning an unhappy marriage, grieving the end of a relationship, or struggling with shame after divorce, Olivia offers a different framework: your marriage ending is a fact about your life, not a verdict on your life. There is no prize for suffering quietly forever. You get one life, and you are allowed to make decisions about how you want to live it.

🔗 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/